might as well be sewing

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-24T12:53:00.001+02:00

August

2009-09-03T14:31:00.001+03:00

I guess it's only fair if I try to type up my August as well. I don't have a lot of time to do this as you can probably guess from my latest posts. Yes, first of all, I am developing extra fingers which are not keyboard-compatible AND we will be going on our vacation the day after tomorrow. We will not be bringing a laptop on the flight because.. well, it's just a hassle. We might change our mind though. Yes, there's two of me's.

So what happened in August.. as far as I can remember, we were very excited over our trip. We got the tickets early August and the rest of the month has just been spent in anticipation. And work. It sucks because before vacation there is always so much to do. I had to type up tutorials for my colleagues so they would be able to perform the duties I usually do. Boring computer stuff.

Ok, so let's look at some of the pictures. We didn't take too many pictures this month.

On the first of August we went to a cafe! Yeay! It's called NOP and is situated in the nice park area of town called Kadriorg - The Valley of Kadri :) It's a cute little cafe/grocery store. One half of the place is the store, the other half is the cafe. I don't like to go to new cafe's very often as usually I feel like a stranger there and I felt like I've been a regular for years. This place was so great! And they didn't mind us bringing a little puppy with us. So if you are in Tallinn, go check it out! But you might want to go on a regular weekday and not during a very popular time because we are not the only ones who love the place!

Mummu felt very comfortable. He slept like that for a while

I've blogged about this before, but wherever I go - construction follows. Now, I thought that since we live so high up, nothing could bother me. Hah! WRONG! They decided to first repair the road going past our house. And since public transportation in the form of trolleys uses this road and setting up a detour for them is a lot of work (cables and all that), they decided that the road works will continue 24 hours for a couple of weekends so they could avoid the trolleys and work in peace. Awesome, huh? Yep. And when they were all nice and finished with that road, they decided to reconstruct the parking area around our building. Not only did I hear them loud and clear during the day when I'm working, I also FELT the vibration when they were leveling the gravel or whatever it is.. It was insane! Kind of scary. Not to mention going for a walk with the puppy. I felt like in the transformers movie. Going out the front door meant keeping an eye on the big machines and then skipping along dodging them.

It's coming for us! The darker gravel area is the entrance to the building.

What it looks like now. The grass hasn't fully grown back yet, but it's on its way!

Sometime in the beginning of August we went to Paide for a cute little Jazz concert held in the local church. It was great to see and hear some of my almost Swedish in-laws. We took the puppy with us and smuggled him inside (heh heh hee). He has been to a concert in a church now. And he behaved like any well-behaved puppy would - he slept in my lap during the whole thing. I guess he's not much of a music lover.. And this is the only decent photo I have of that day:

Here's Mummu with his new hoodie which I sewed out of my old hoodie. Oh how I love to reuse stuff. If only I did it more often...

You all have heard of Facebook and such as. Well, dogs have their own social network called Kutsu.ee or uniteddogs.com. I happened to stumble upon it one day and say Mummu's sisters on there. So I made Mummu a profile, too. One of Mummu's sisters invited us over for a play date. The dogs had a GREAT time! His sister is a lot smaller than him, like incredibly small and fragile looking, but she didn't let that come in the way of FUN!

For years now I have been wanting to go to an open-air festival called Leigo Järvemuusika. It's a beautiful event that takes place in Southern Estonia. The stage is in the middle of the lake and the public sits on a hillside. Well, ok so it's not really a hill, but whatever. It's Estonia, the land of flat. Anyways, besides enjoying beautiful music you can enjoy the wonderful background of the lake and hills and horses and bonfires.. We went there in the evening when it was almost dark, so we didn't see much of the rolling hills in the background, but we did see thousands of little candles on the lake, beautiful bonfires on the hillsides and what I called a primitive light show - they had some fancy stage lights too, but most of the work was done by live fire - huge bonfires, small bonfires, outdoor candles and even balloons with candles. That was AMAZING! I was so glad it had been raining the whole day as the fire hazard would be tremendous! Anyway, the reason we finally went was the tribute concert to Pink Floyd. Not that I had ever knowingly listened to that band...but top Estonian musicians played the songs of Pink Floyd and guess who played the keyboards! My father-in-law! How awesome is that! He used to be in a very popular band back in the day ;) And now he was invited to play for that concert. We took our wonderful friends and headed for a 4 hour drive Southwards..and then back. It was well worth it.

Stage on the right and thousands of candles on the lake. Some dude checking it out.. Oh, and bonfires on the right

Stage on the left and Primitive Light Show on the right.

You know, I haven't been swimming this year yet. The closest I came to swimming was walking into hip-deep water with the puppy in my arms. He doesn't like cold sea water that much. Probably because it's cold. Anyway, we did have a lot of fun on the beach though, and gloomy stormy days are a lot of fun too. I have so many cute doggy pictures but I don't know how many of them you can take! I'll post only a few of them here, more can be found in my picasa album. There's a little slideshow on the right panel which you can click and enlarge.

I don't know if you remember but a long time ago I tapped into my creative side and conjured up some tiny little cakelets to make into cute little jewelry. I've given them to people as presents and wear a pair myself but I have way too many of them. So I decided to put them up for sale. And that's just what I did. I uploaded photos of them to an Estonian equivalent of ebay, only on a way smaller scale. To my surprise, three pairs were sold! I got to send out my very first packages and even met one buyer. II really enjoyed making cute packaging, the kind that would make me smile when I'd get it in the mail. Now I have further plans with them but I'll probably get around to realizing them after I'm back from my vacation.

Little Cakelet Earrings. Sold :)

Earrings packaged in some cellophane with a cute bow

Finished product in a decorated envelope. Don't you like it how I scrambled the address ;)

I guess this is all the photos I have. And tomorrow we shall be going on vacation and hopefully a lot more photos follow! Must pack up the puppy now as we will be taking him the the kennel for some fun with his own kind. And then we have to pack and do billions of other things we have conveniently, yet unknowingly, left for the last minute. Ciao!

Finland FUN

2009-09-01T12:21:00.000+03:00

On Friday evening we will be taking the ferry to Helsinki. Then we are going to spend a wild night partying in the capital of Finland and theeen making our way to the Helsinki-Vaasa airport where our flight to Amsterdam will take off at.. very early. I do not know such small numbers. Something starting with a six. We will get to spend about 3 hours in the Amsterdam airport until our flight to San Francisco. That will be a fun 11 hours of.. well, fun! So yeah, hold your thumbs that our flights will be magical and good. Or just pray! We will be in the land of the Americans for 3 amazing weeks until we have to do the whole flying and partying thing again ;)

Watch out!

2009-09-01T00:20:00.001+03:00

We have been using this same brand of dish washing liquid for a long time. I am very sensitive to smells and once we had tried all of their different scented liquids, we decided to try another brand. And there it was, sitting by the kitchen sink, staring at me for a while until I decided to speak up. Now, look at this picture and tell me if you find anything wrong with it:

Ok, seems like a regular bottle of dish washing liquid, right? Right? Wrong! It claims to have somesort of care formula, but look closely! What is that in the lower right corner? Looks like hands, right? But when it is sitting by the kitchen sink staring you in the face every single time you wash the dishes... you begin to see the ugly truth! LOOK!

It's somekind of freaky deformed hand! Fingers coming out of the palm of the hand and no second thumb! It started to really bug me every time I saw it! Tell me you see it too! WHAT is it!?

The United States of America

2009-08-31T02:07:00.000+03:00

We shall be departing Friday evening to embark on our journey to California! Awesome! We shall be there for three weeks. Three weeks of awesom

July

2009-08-29T02:04:00.000+03:00

I just don't know why but someone is refusing to update this blog.. it might be me but I don't want to blow my own cover just yet..

So what oh what did we do this July... It was a month of summer, finally! Although it took half the month for the summer to get here. But finally it did, for a brief few weeks. We also had a week-long vacation, yeay! It wasn't filled with as much of fun and sun as I would have wanted, but it was fairly close.

July started off with the wonderful Song and Dance Festival. Every 5 years Estonians flock together to the capital Tallinn to take part in the biggest event of the summer. And just to clear things up, in a nut shell the Dance Festival is about folk dances, and Song Festival is about a huge choir singing traditional and contemporary pieces. This year, around 100 000 people managed to pack themselves to the song festival grounds. It was amazing. You can see more of my Dance Festival photos at my Facebook album here.

Dance Festival - Hugs all around!

Song Festival - The choirs and clouds gathering

Since we couldn't bring our dog to the Song and Dance Festivals, we took him for a long walk in the woods. It was his first time to run around without that pesky leash. He enjoyed it very much and didn't run away. Hahha Yeay! :) Later on we went to watch the sunset and these are the photos to represent the evening:

For our birthdays we got tickets to the Beer Summer to see Moby. Woot! Beer! Well, we didn't have any beer, but we did have some sashlõkk. Mmmm! Yum! Beer Summer is, well, an open air event of beer, grilled meat, and music! And Moby happened to be the opening act. So everyone flocked back to the Song Festival Grounds to this time listen to imported music. Except on a way smaller scale. I realized that I do not enjoy crowded events too much as I am so small and air is scarce when you are shorter than everyone else. And I also learned that some certain nationality is very flexible - one person leaves his seat and 2 people come to fill it. And they always fit! Amazing! Ok, moving on. This will not come as a surprise for you, since I have already covered the topic of Why I Shall Never Make it as a Concert Photographer, but the pictures didn't come out too great.

Feel free to click on the image to enlarge it. The glowing thing in the middle is Moby's head.

One weekend we went on an improvised road trip. It was a foggy lazy Saturday and instead of sitting at home, we packed the puppy and headed out. On the way we phoned my brother and so they ended up joining us for a random mini road trip to Kaberneeme. If you are ever thinking of where to go for a short summer trip, I suggest you go there. It has beautiful sandy beaches and cute little summer homes. Which are, of course, owned by other people but are still wonderful to look at. It's beautiful over there. Since it was such a gloomy day, the beaches were empty and our dogs could run amok. My brother hasn't shared with me any of the photos he took, so I will post one of the few photos I took with my camera. (He shared them not but for the sake of awesomeness, I will keep the picture I originally uploaded)

My Husband and my Brother - I do not know what they are doing.

And theeen... we finally got our one week vacation! Yeay! The funny thing was that the company I work for decided to have their Summer Days right in the middle of my week off. I had a choice of to either go there or not. But since that company consists of four people, one of whom is a relative, we decided to go. Everyone brought their families and we had a great 3 days in Hiiumaa (Hi, Brent, I pronounce it like you did).

Here we are in one of Hiiumaa's main tourist spots.

Ristna Beach.

My Husband and his Uncle enjoying the natural water park

Here I am resting my elbow on a small girl's head

On the ferry on our way back from Hiiumaa, this celebrity sat beside Husband and opposite of me. It took us forever to confirm his celebrity status but it was him alright. Here's a photo of his shoes. The opposite of his name would be Eha Viime. Can you guess who he is?

And a nice little family portrait. We look like crazy white people. But I guess we are.

Okay, off-topic! So right about now my laptop died. I had to take it to the computer doctor because trying to switch it on and off with or without all the cables didn't help. The doc gave it a very bad diagnosis: its motherboard had died. Look at me talking about my computer as if it were alive. Well. It was. And replacing the motherboard would have cost probably more than the computer was worth. So since it was my work computer, I got a new one! Yeay! Three days later and I was back at work. Installing everything again is such a pain. Seriously. Luckily all my data is saved and now I can continue with this blog as I have access to my photos again. I wish all the computers a very long healthy lives because three days of running around like a chicken without a head is not good.

Later on in the month we had an awesome family birthday celebration. Because my Husbands side of the family is a bit on the large side (no, not fat, just many of them), everyone agreed on having one big birthday bash for people born in the summer. Which includes both of us. Yeay.

Here are cousin It and Babyface with a boychild.

The month of July was also the month when our good friends got married. Yeay! I'm not going to post pictures of their bachelor/ette's nights but I can tell you that at least She looked adorable! I do have a bad picture of the ceremony and a photo of the card I made them using an vintage pin a friend of mine gave me. It was perfect as we wish the happy young couple nothing but lot's of children! (Sorry, I have absolutely no photo editing tools on my computer yet, so bear with me. Growl! Little teddy! Um.. yeah.) ANyway, the wedding was wonderful! We got soaking wet! Yeay! After the ceremony when people were taking photos in front of the church, rain came pouring down HARD! We could see a wall of water approach us but we couldn't run to our car like everyone else because we had to take all the flowers and other stuff with us. Thus we had to wait for the rain to stop to be able to access the car with those items. Raindrops were hitting the ground with such a force that they bounced up and soaked my legs from the knee down. My shoes had little fun pools in them. Not comfortable, but oh well! It was an experience. They managed to dry out enough to walk around in them and the wedding party was wonderful! I really enjoy weddings :) Many Children to you, my friends!

What else can I tell you.. oh, yeah. Giant grasshoppers on peonies in my aunts garden.. Keep in mind peony blooms are quite large. Disgusting.

That has pretty much been my month of July. Yep :)

June

2009-07-14T13:54:00.001+03:00

June went by so fast I hardly had time to notice it was June already! I'll note down a couple of things that happened during the great month of June:

The first weekend was a dream! Hot beach weather! Yeay! Enjoyable indeed.

Puppy in his beach shelter hugging his water bowl
And I managed to catch a cold and be sick for TWO whole weeks! I even had a fever for a few evening and I never get a fever!

Crazy Dog Lady
During those two weeks we kind of celebrated our birthdays. Since I was very sick, we didn't do much on our real days of birth. We did have a little pancake morning with my parents, an outdoor lunch with both of our families and a small party Burger dinner party with a few friends. You know, Hamburgers, like the Americans eat. Because we want to blend in when we visit in September. Mmmm.. delicious. I am making me hungGGrRRry! Anyway, those events weren't on the same day though.

I just love this photo of mom:)

We got these shirts for our last years b-days. We love 'em

I am trying to pose as the Statue of Liberty?
Our pretty families
As I was recovering from the flu, I had to whip up a dress for a friends graduation. Lets call her Magdalene. I offered to make her the simplest dress in the world if she didn't find anyone else to make anything else for her.. but she had to go ahead and trick me into agreeing to make her the dress anyway and even put ruffles on it. I worked on the dress for many evenings, finished it, and she graduated in it. I was proud. As a side note, I must mention that my sewing machine, which usually has a bad temper and messes up all the stitches, sewed the dress without ANY problems. Miracle indeed.
My brother and his fiancee had recently moved into a new apartment so they had a Salt-Bread Party aka Housewarming party. They have a pretty sweet apartment. We made loads of yummy sushi and ate it all. And they got a mean letter from a downstairs neighbor for letting the dog run loose in the apartment. Their doglet weighs about 3 kg (about 6 lbs) and our doglet about 4 kg (about 8 lbs). Imagine the huge ruckus they create :P Those little doglets..

Dogs playing. BFF
Dogs resting :) Mummu took the spot right next to the water bowl. Why bother standing?
The following weekend we went to Magdalene's graduation. But first we started the weekend by using my brothers help to saw off a tree branch at the summer house followed by some hot grilling action. MMmm.. burgers! After that event, we drove to western Estonia for Magdalene's dance performance to which we were 18 minutes late. The performance only lasted 20 minutes, so we didn't see any of it. Awesome, isn't it! Oh well, we did get to drive Magdalene from the western town of Haapsalu all the way to the south to Viljandi. Estonia is tiny, but when most of the roads are detours, it took as a good while to drive. It was beautiful though!

That's my brother up there, sawing the branch he is sitting on ;)
The next morning.. well, afternoon, we attended Magdalene's graduation and her garden party followed by a nice row boat trip on lake Viljandi with her family. We were the only non-related people there which made me feel oh-so-special :D They didn't allow dogs on the boats so Husband put Mummu in his hoodie and zipped it up. The boat keeper man guy was kind enough to let it slide. Slide with me! Magdalene's a dance teacher/choreographer now.

Beautiful Magdalene graduating
When driving home from Viljandi on Sunday night, we were almost ran over by a MOOSE! And when I say ran over, I literally mean it! Our car is tiny, we even call it the Nut and the moose was HUGE! I saw it first and yelled DEER! DEER! MOOSE! Husband saw it and hit the breaks. After I was done with the thoughts of death, I thought of taking photos. But couldn't because I was busy holding the sleeping puppy in my arms - he didn't seem to mind the whole danger part. Of course the car does not have ABS breaks, so it slides all over the road but fortunately there were no cars behind us or coming our way. We finally stopped and the moose was startled so it galopped the other way. We started driving again and as we were moving away I saw the moose cross the road safely. It was HUGE! One the way home we saw some deer too.
Next week presented us with two additional days off :) National holidays, baby! Victory day and Midsummer Day aka Jaanipäev. And the weather was splendid, so we got some tanning done, some bonfire done, some hanging out with family and friends done, some Munchkin done.

The "Boys" sleeping on Jaanipäev morning right before going to the beach again
Sometime during the month Husband shaved himself a beautiful handlebar mustache. Oh yeah, and he has a new passport to prove it! The lady at the passport place didn't want to give him the new document because he looked so suspicious. Hopefully this will not create us any problems when we travel.

The Handlebar.
As true Estonians we went to look at the new Victory monument in Old town.. a week or so after it was officially revealed. This monument has had a lot of press coverage because of it's design, the companies building it, the insane amount of money it cost and the mere necessity of it. My two cents: it is too big, too modern, too brightly lit, to be on the edge of Old Town. Did I mention huge? I did? Ok then. But the glass it is made out of is pretty nice. Did I mention it was of gargantuan proportions?

No, you can't really tell how huge it is from this picture..go look at it there ilm.ee/tallinn Notice how it is the same hight as the building next to it?

This has pretty much been our month of June. Some other events happened too, like visiting the cinema. Guess what we saw! If you guessed Terminator - Salvation and Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen, you were correct! In fact, Husband saw the last one twice! Once with me and once with his little brother. We're such geeks! We almost never go to the movies and then, when we finally happen to lift our little legs into the cinema, we pick either zombie movies or total geek pits. Oh well. I liked the first one because of Sam Worthington (mmm.. hawt! Don't worry, my Husband knows this) and the second one was... well, entertaining.

Ok, I think now I'm done.

Questions:

2009-06-03T17:38:00.000+03:00

First off, I am interested in more opinions what to do when you find a set of house keys in a park next to a pathway? I was walking the dog in the park and suddenly noticed the keys sitting there, in the grass, all alone, sad and scared. I picked them up to look for some sort of identification but all I saw was a bottle opener key chain. That's it. So I contemplated for a few minutes and then just gently placed them where I found them. But a bit more visibly, so if someone were to trace back their steps, they would easily locate them. What would you have done? I really wanted to help someone out by giving them their keys back...

Second question is why do I not have cookies. I REALLY want some right now. Big and fluffy with chocolate or peanut butter or nuts.. But I am way too ill to bake something and going to the store is out of the question to even retrieve the items needed for baking such wonderful morsels of instant gratification.

Third question I have is about poop. You see, I was cutting up some meat for the puppy, when I noticed some brown marks on the kitchen floor. Gross! WHY!? I did handle some chocolate in the same place a few moments ago. But still.. I went to look for the turd. Sure enough I found them. Great! Now, how do I know the thing in the kitchen was poop or chocolate? My nose is all blocked up and I cannot smell a thing! The dog has stepped in his own poop before and trotted around the apartment. I washed his little feet and they were surprisingly very clean. Then I picked up the real poop and lastly cleaned the kichen floor. I'm 99.9 percent sure it was chocolate.

Being ill kind of sucks. But at least it's cold and nasty outside. I am even not going to bother to at least try and find a picture to accompany this post. I just.. can not be bothered... need.. sleep! And.. cookies.

Happy..

2009-06-01T00:30:00.000+03:00

...FIRST OF JUNE!!

June is finally here! The month of the beginning of Summer! The month of our birthdays! The month of awesomeness!

And I was wearing gaucho pants all day yesterday! Whilst going to the beach and town and all over. Summer is awesomeness!

I'm so happy! The weekend had wwooonderful weather and today is going to be wonderful too until it's going to be rainy and cold for the rest of the week which will undoubtedly suck... Oh well. Live in the now and enjoy! After all, today is Child Protection Day and all families with kids must report to the zoo. No arguing that.

May Run

2009-05-29T18:41:00.000+03:00

Women gather every year to the Song Festival Grounds to take part of the annual May Run. It's a 7 kilometer run for all your happy outdoor sports needs. And it's for women.. and some men too? I don't know, I haven't taken part for a while. I wanted to tell you a story of when I was young and dashing and dancing. I know, boys are dashing, but it's a great word, no?

The dance group I was a part of was called Panda. As in the bear. We were cute little pandas. For a few years in a row, Pandas took part of the May Run and performed there before or after the run with our little dances. And of course we all got a chance to take part in the run itself. Sometimes we would walk the 7km lap, sometimes jog, whatever we felt like. In the end you got a goodie bag with a Finnish womens magazine, a cap, and some energy drinks. Great success for kids to get anything for free!

One year my dear friend who now resides in Viljandi, was unable to perform with us because she had a broken toe and thus a cast on her leg complete with crutches. But she refused to stay at home and came to the May Run to cheer us on when we performed. Maybe even get some free stuff. When the Run was about to start, she decided to take part too. We thought it was a great idea! She took her crutches and hobbled away! Myself and another friend followed. Since 7 km was obviously too much for her, we took a shortcut down a hill, through bushes and what not and waited for a bunch of people to return from their lap and pass us. The girl with crutches finishing first would raise some suspicion, so we had to wait. Slowpokes! When enough people had passed, we began making our way to the finish line. When we were close enough for the people at the finish line to make out that she had crutches, she made it seem like she had tried VERY hard to conquer those 7 km with her crutches. People were going crazy cheering her on to make it to the finish line! And then she made it! Our little hero! Loving jogging so much, she would even go jogging with her cast on! Awesome! She should have gotten a medal for it! I'm surprised she wasn't in any of the papers covering the event. Then again, she might have been, I have never thought about this before...

Anyway, here was your story for the day. Hope you enjoyed it and learned some valuable life lessons.

Speaking of Lunch..

2009-05-28T15:10:00.000+03:00

Guess what I had for lunch today? Huh? Huh? Guess!

Oh, an opportunity to pick the right "door!" Go ahead, pick a door and let me know in the comments what you guessed I had for lunch today!

Whilst you are working on that, I must admit, we have totally let our household go. Our fridge is almost empty and we have a massive amount of dirty dishes waiting to be washed but we have no dish washing liquid. And no dishwasher either. Kind of a lose-lose situation. We're actually also out of soap and anything to clean the floor with and because of that, the pup is hungry. He refuses to eat liver. I thought I'd be clever and disguise the little pieces of liver in some chicken, but the dude doesn't like chicken either? What? Since when? He's such a spoiled brat! He likes chicken only when it is attached to some chicken bones so he could rip the meat off and enjoy but no, I had to go ahead and ruin all his fun by cutting some of the meat off the bone. I cannot have him eat a bone on the kitchen floor as we have nothing to clean it up with. Mmm.. chicken on floor! I don't think I have ever cleaned as much as I have during the past few months. We wash the kitchen floor every day! Sometimes twice. Sigh. The joys of having a dog on raw food diet.

Ah! The sun just came out!

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

2009-05-26T18:30:00.000+03:00

I don't really eat dinner. I just have a little nibble because I'm not that hungry in the evenings. Except for Ice Cream and Cake. I am always craving some of those! And except when Husband takes me out or we are visiting. And now I would like to take this opportunity to say that the Cheesecake Esterriitos and Daniilium made was beyond awesome. Like seriously! SO GOOD! Mmm.. oh gosh, I want it NOW! Instead, all I have to indulge in is a hot cup of green jasmine tea. Sigh.

Guess what we did last Friday! We hosted a wedding! (A shout out for he young couple! Hi!) Seriously strange how that worked out. We got a weeks notice to do it and we said yes. Well, we said our Yes's 2 years ago, but you know what I mean. Heh heh hee.. Anyways, I think I am growing to love weddings more and more. It's just sad that I didn't have as much experience when we organized our own. I would have done so many things differently. Here's a tip for all of you youngsters planning weddings - delegate! Don't try to do it all on your own, I want to help! And actually, we got a chance to help out with another wedding by crafting little bits and bobs for the invitations. Weddings are great! Only 8 years to go until we get to throw another wedding to renew our vows or just for the sake of having another awesome party and wearing a dress I wore then 10 years ago. Hah! It WILL fit ;)

And swapping topics only to post relative photos:

Husband's family reunion took place on Sunday. We didn't hear of this until we were on our way there. Guess they forgot to tell us? Or they didn't want us there? I'm betting of forgetting. Anywhoo, we planned on going for a walk on the beach and woods and ended up at the reunion. Convenient. So, here is a photo of me and out vicious dog whom I had to fight to keep off the people -

Um.. not very convincing, is it? I guess you can keep to your opinion but I say I had to fight the dog and it radiates through this photo. Period. And here's a similar shot of my Husband when we had to pull over to take the dog for a potty brake. The pup was farting in the car and it became unbearable. Seriously! The dog has some vicious secret attack farts! You have been warned!

Walking the dog was a fail as the dog refused to go to the bathroom. But at least he had a chance to pass some wind in the open air.

Alrighty then! You are awesome and keep checking my blog! You'll never know when I decide to upload a video of Husband singing The Phantom of the Opera!

Tuesday

2009-05-19T15:22:00.001+03:00

Every post I want to write seems to be about the little mutt we have recently aqcuired. I will resist the urge to tell you that today we shall go to puppy school for the first time and instead, tell you about other stuff.

Like how last night sometime past midnight I was going to the bathroom (and when I say bathroom, I literaly mean the room of the bath. And the sink. And the washing machine.), just as I flipped the light switch the light went KABOOM and after a brief flash of brightness, darkness followed. Great. I killed the bulb. And half the apartment went dark. Great. It is times like these when it helps to actually remember what the apartment owner had told you about situations like these.. because it is way too past midnight to ask the neighbors. Um.. there's a switch somewhere in the hallway? Protected by a metal door which has a lock on it. Which can be opened by a key we do not possess? Having stared at the metal door for a while feeling like monkeys trying to retrieve a file from a computer (hinting at Zoolander, anyone?) Husband finally discovered the metal flap that just you know.. flapped up and down revealing the power switches. Yeay! No key required. Duh! There is light! And the dog didn't even use the moment of darkness to poop right in the middle of the hall! And there I go talking about the dog again..

How about a story how I saw a frikkin HUGE wasp on our balcony this morning? Kind of put me off of switching on the washing machine because that would mean I'd have to go to the balcony to hang the clothes to dry. And when I say wasp, I mean one of those 2 inch beasts. I could actually hear it through the closed window. I am glad it is rainy today. Sun would lure me out on the balcony to be eaten to death by the wasp. And that spider I saw the other day. I think the husband killed the spider as it was crawling on his neck - way to miscalculate your pray, mr Spider! It was ME you wanted, instead, you found your end!

And one more thing I wanted to add - to you, mr biker man, who passed us last night. Investing in a bike bell would be much more useful to the world than you screaming at everyone and waving your middle finger. Oh, and deflating your ego would work just as well, then you would realize that the road is actually wide enough.

Last but not least, I have been waking up with a headache for the third day in a row.

First Poop!

2009-05-13T20:08:00.000+03:00

Yep, Mummu pooped outside for the first time in history! It's a great day and a great joy to share it with all of you! He also peed in the middle of the pavement as we were unable to transport him to a suitable grassy area quickly enough. I am very pleased I get to share this with you!

Happy poop day!

Everyday Life

2009-05-12T21:15:00.000+03:00

Juss lives in our car. His spot is right in the middle of the dashboard by the hazard lights switch. Yesterday, whilst driving home, Juss wasn't at his normal hangout spot and thus we had this conversation:

Me - Because of YOU Juss has changed his location!
Husband - No, I didn't put him there, it was the wind! The wind blew him there!
Me - NO! It was you! You did it!
Husband - It was the wind!
Togehter - AAaaaaa aaaAAAAAA AAaaa aaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa aaaaaaa aaAAAAAAA ARRRRRRR RRRRRRGHhhhh hhhhhhh! (Yelling at the top of our lungs. And when I say yelling, we were just yelling. For about a minute. Just yelling. Like on a roller coaster. Or the American Mountains as we call them here in Estonia.)

This is what happens when you are married to someone who you never have fights with because there is no need to. You just make them up :D

Oh, and this is Juss --

He was given to Husband by my hairstylist.

No, we have never claimed to be of normal kind.

There is

2009-05-07T12:58:00.000+03:00

a spider somewhere on the balcony. I saw it before sitting on the ceiling staring at me. I contemplated getting the bug spray but I gave it a chance. A chance to escape? What was I thinking!? Now it is hiding someplace waiting to charge at me. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in my hair.

Yep, I guess it is safe to say I am feeling quite uneasy about this whole situation because the balcony is so nicely sunny and inviting with SUDDEN DEATH LURKING SOMEPLACE. Oh why am I afraid of them.

Our weekend

2009-05-04T17:53:00.001+03:00

We spent our long weekend hosting a youth event. Here is the undeniable proof:

Photos by J.Võsu

And those pants he's wearing I sewed up about a day before the event as he had to wear something, right?! What a good and caring wife I am.

I think we had one of the best weekends ever. I simply cannot put it in words as you had to be there to experience the greatness. The greatness of God. The whole thing just went so smoothly and all we could do was sit there and admire.

4th of May

2009-05-04T13:01:00.002+03:00

Oh wow! I've had this blog for 3 years already!

Happy Birtday, dear blog!

8:30ish

2009-04-28T13:31:00.002+03:00

Ok, why would someone ring my doorbell at 8:30ish in the morning? Twice. Don't they realize that I will not open the door and I will pretend not to be at home? Especially if I am not expecting you. Besides, the door doesn't have a peephole so I cannot satisfy my curiosity either. It's just plain rude! So please, stop. Um.. T, do you know who it might have been?

Comparison

2009-04-26T14:50:00.000+03:00

Now we live in a one of those higher-rise apartment buildings and I thought I'd compare the Cherry street apartment to this on. I think it's cute.yo

Cherry High-rise
Square Meters 45 70
Rooms 2 3
Doors 2 7
Floor 3 12
Light Bulbs 9 19

Good Bye Cherry Street

2009-04-24T14:12:00.001+03:00

Our old apartment was on Cherry street. There's something about the street name. Isn't it nice to live on Cherry street? I don't know if there were any cherry trees in that street, probably not. But the name was lovely.
We lived there for 2 years. Husband moved in a little before we got married and I joined him on our wedding day. Well, actually the day after that. It was a rental and we initially planned to live there for one year max. That turned into 1 year. Which became a year and a half... and finally 2 years.
The owner of the apartment turned out to be Husbands old friend. When we went to see the place, I immediately liked it. It wasn't too big, just 2 rooms, a half-open kitchen and a bathroom, around 45 m2. But it was nice and bright and sunny with a big balcony where I could suntan. It didn't have a lot of furniture but we had help from our made up German Grandmother who sent us these wonderful armchairs and the table that weighs about a ton and also some kitchen chairs and a few other things too. All of the items fit nicely into the apartment and blended in without sticking out too outdated-like. My mother gave us a nice bed as a wedding gift and my aunt gave us a cute little washing machine.

The neighborhood wasn't too bad either. Although I occasionally whined about middle aged gangs forming around the park area which we could see from our windows and people peeing allover the place, it wasn't too bad at all since they were the peaceful type of gangs. Seriously. Cherry street is about a 20 minute bus ride from the center of town, a mainly residential area, but it happened to have 4 different bigger and smaller grocery stores in walking distance which was quite convenient. Also a bank, post office, pharmacy, gas station, liquor store, second hand store, pub.. just about everything without being too busy a neighborhood. It was nice. And convenient.

We moved because we didn't want to pay such a high rent anymore. Our initial plan was to move to our own apartment, but we didn't find it and at the same time our friends presented us with this opportunity to live in their home for a while, we saw it as win-win. They have house-sitters and we have a chance to save up some money. We'll see what the future brings.

The Cherry street apartment was our first home as a family. We have some good memories there. It was a happy two years. I hope the apartment will find new wonderful tenants and will continue to be loved :)

might as well be changing

2009-04-22T21:20:00.000+03:00

Hi! You're in the right place! I just did a little bit of maintenance on my blog template. I do not even want to count how many times I have tried to change the template.. TOO MANY! And I've always run into complications with the templates whether they were in spanish or missing some parts or what have you. But tonight after work whilst playing couch for the puppy and waiting for the Husband to come home.. I finally decided to update this dusty old thing. And here you have it!

Alright, I admit, it's not the most awesomest thing you've ever seen, but it's cheerful and spring-like! Besides, I am armed with no particular tools and this is the best I could come up with. If any of you would like to craft up a beautiful banner then by all means, go ahead! I would forever more be grateful :)

Alrighty then, hope all is well with you and you are enjoying the spring sun just as much as I am!

(Just thought I'd add this in the end so you'd recognise the place ;)

An Update

2009-04-21T00:26:00.000+03:00

Finally, huh!?

Thank you for still visiting my site although I seem to refuse to update it. I apologize! But I have been über busy! If you have heard or read my hints here, we got our little tiny puppy and then a little over a week later we moved.

It all started about 3 weeks ago when we picked up our little Mummu*. The first week was spent getting to know the puppy and life with him, which at first was a huge challenge as it is quite a change in lifestyle as we are used to having just the two of us. Then a few days were spent packing up ALL of our stuff and then moving to our lovely friends' apartment who gracefully allowed us to house sit for them for about 6 months. But this means they had all of their own stuff in their apartment and now we brought our stuff here as well which means we have double the stuff = a lot of banana boxes everywhere :) Luckily they do have a kids room which is now mainly used for storage. Heh heh khm. We have been here for 2 weeks. The first week here flew by as we still had to spend a few evenings in the old apartment getting the last items and giving it a good scrub. The rest of the week was spent puppy proofing this place and setting up a few of our own things. Then the second week here was spent mostly doing some spring cleaning and setting up more of our things. We still have a lot of stuff boxed up but as long as we don't need those things, they can stay nicely boxed up :)

Oh, and we had to go to work every day too. I mean, he had to, I just commute from the bedroom to the living room and play couch for the dog whilst he sleeps in my lap and I work at my computer. And it's not like now that we're kind of settled in we have more time to blog. No-no no. My colleagues have left for a convention in the land of US of A and left me here all alone which means I have a bigger workload for a few weeks. Yeay! And Husband has a deadline coming up in the end of the month for a huge project they have been working on for a while, so he has a bigger workload too. Great. Everything always happens at the same time. And not to mention this youth event coming up the first weekend of May which we are the hosts of..

So, we have been busy and will be busy until we are not busy anymore. I will try to bring you more updates on um.. well things that have already happened. I am kind of forming a backlog already. I think I should use my lunch break for blogging instead of eating. Because who needs to eat anyway, right? I have love and oxygen! And banana boxes!

I'll leave you with some pretty Mummu pictures:

* Mummu in English is a Polka Dot. He's a boy but the name was before the dog so who are we to judge the name. His real name is Dragonhunter Riddle of Life, in case you didn't get that yet and he is an Italian Greyhound.

Secret Santa

2009-04-07T09:42:00.000+03:00

I'm not going to tell you who these people are, but one of them has a Birthday today so

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

The Riddle of Life is a Polka Dot

2009-04-05T23:19:00.000+03:00

Shhh! He's asleep :) First night in his new home.

Dragonhunter Riddle of Life

aka Mummu

in English - a Polka Dot ;)

Tomorrow

2009-03-26T13:45:00.000+02:00

Anticipation.

Earth Hour

2009-03-26T13:00:00.000+02:00

Vote for Earth by switching off your lights on Saturday March 28th from 8.30 pm for one hour, no matter your time zone.We're planning to take part by sitting at home with our new puppy and some candles :)

Go to EarthHour.org for more information.

Epic Movie Experience - Watchmen

2009-03-23T11:25:00.003+02:00

Husband and I went to see Watchmen on Friday night. If you don't know what that is, don't worry, I didn't either until not too long ago. It's a movie based on a ~~comic book~~ graphic novel. It features superheros who are actually masked real people with real people issues and tangled lives thus looking at superheros from a different angle. The story takes place sometime in the 80's in a different history when America and Soviet Union where on the brink of nuclear war.

When I first heard of it, I wasn't too sure I wanted to see it. First reason why I called this an epic movie experience in the title is that it is 3 hours long! But I guess it's more value for money as you get to be entertained for 3 hours instead of the regular hour and a half. What a bargain! But yeah, when I first heard of it, I wasn't sure I wanted to see it on a big screen as it is so long and supposedly very violent. But then I thought about it some more and remembered that for some odd reason I enjoy movies based on comic books. And then I wanted to see it! I had heard that it was supposed to have a lot of graphic violence in it and some more.. uhm.. graphicness.

Yes, it featured some violence and hawt ladies in skimpy "superhero outfits" but... like.. the thing everyone is talking about regarding this movie is obviously Dr Manhattan and his.. em.. you know.. the.. um.. member. He was nekkid! Like in most of the scenes he was in. Full frontal nudity. I'm sure that's going to attract more traffic to my blog. Anyway.. yea.. so there he was. I'm so glad I'm married and went to see it with my husband. Otherwise it would have been embarrassing to sit there and pretend not to see it. Because that would have been impossible. So if you are going to see the movie -- you have been warned. It's very um.. right in the middle of the screen and many times during the movie. But the guy is blue and glowing so I guess that makes it alright. Does it?

There. Turned a new page in my blog and talked about full frontal nudity. Awesome. I think I'm growing up.

And another thing was this other super hero called Silk Spectre II. She looked exactly like Xena the Warrior Princess, if any of you remember that show.. It bothered me through the whole movie. See the photo below:

But overall, I think the cast was very well chosen! I really liked the characters! I mean, I have never read/seen the graphic novel so I do not know what to compare them to, but really that does not matter as I am probably never going to read the novel anyway. I think I could go on and on about what I liked about them... but I'm not going to. You're welcome!

So in conclusion - this movie adaption of the graphic novel was very graphic indeed! In more ways than one! I really didn't need to see someones arm and leg get snapped into half blood and bone marrow spilling everywhere and I really didn't need to see *all* of dr Manhattan. Oh, and the Night Owl II's butt and the rest of that scene wasn't necessary either. But I liked the story and the movie was very well done. And entertaining. So there. I like comic book movies and that's just the way it is. Snort.

Lets us bathe in the toxic bubbles! No. Seriously!

2009-03-20T16:00:00.001+02:00

Alright, now, as promised on to the cosmetics.

Have you ever wondered what your shampoo, shower gel, deodorant, make up, body lotion are made of? Not a tough question, as the ingredients are listed on the back of the bottle. You probably knew this. But do you know what all of those chemicals are? I don't. So I decided to find out.

I was especially interested in my shampoo, as I am doing this other experiment relating to that, but more about that in a later post. I didn't have my Shampoo bottle available, so I took the next best thing, the corresponding Conditioner. The Conditioner, with its Powerful Nutrients and Shine encapsulated in the plastic tube, promise to make me a Goddess with certain hair color.

So, here's the list of the ingredients:

AQUA (WATER/EAU),CETEARYL ALCOHOL,GLYCERIN, STEARALKONIUM CHLORIDE, BEHENTRIMONIUM METHOSULFATE, PANTHENOL, DIMETHICONE, SIMMONDSIA CHINESIS (JOJOBA) SEED OIL, HYDROLYZED WHEAT PROTEIN, HYDROLYZED SOY PROTEIN, TOCOPHERYL ACETATE, RETINYL PALMITATE, ASCORBYL PALMITATE, PHOSPHOLIPIDS, SODIUM RIBOFLAVIN PHOSPHATE, AMODIMETHICONE, TRIMETHYLSILOXYAMODIMETHICONE, CETRIMONIUM CHLORIDE, SODIUM PCA, HYDROXYPROPYL GUAR, HYDROXYETHYLCELLULOSE, TRIDECETH-12, C11-15 PERETH-7, C12-16 PARETH-9, METHYLPARABEN, PROPYLPARABEN, ETHYLPARABEN, BUTYLPARABEN, ISOBUTYLPARABEN, PARFUM (FRAGRANCE), BENZYL BENZOATE, CITRIC ACID, DISODIUM EDTA, CARAMEL, CI 15510 (ORANGE 4)

Well, if you were able to read this and understand it, you can go and make yourself a cake as cake has no calories and I would like to congratulate you. But if you're regular folk, like me, you had a hard time reading this, let alone understand! So, I used my precious time to look into those chemicals and find out what they are. No doubt very important substances in order to make my hair silky smooth and healthy.

AQUA (WATER/EAU) - water
CETEARYL ALCOHOL - a thickener/emulsifier which supposedly helps to moisturize hair. It's a mixture of fatty alcohols consisting predominantly of cetyl and stearylalcohols ;)
GLYCERIN - A byproduct of soap manufacture (normally uses animal fat). It's fairly safe. It is used to help moisturize.
STEARALKONIUM CHLORIDE - Hm, a fun one. It causes allergic reactions. Stearalkonium chloride was developed by the fabric industry as a fabric softener, and is a lot cheaper and easier to use in hair conditioning formulas than proteins or herbals, which do help hair health. Simply put, it's toxic. But it has been deemed safe by Costmetic Review Expert Board.
BEHENTRIMONIUM METHOSULFATE - quaternary ammonium salt. Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel. It is used as an emulsifier and helps to de-tangle hair. It's supposedly the mildest form of de-tangler. Go figure.
PANTHENOL - provitamin B5. It supposedly heals, moisturizes and strenghtens your hair and gets rid of split ends. But it hasn't been proven. Read more here.
DIMETHICONE - It is a form of silicone ‘wax’ that apparently imparts "lubricity and softness to personal care formulations" and whilst it is described by the 'chemists' as "basically non-hazardous with a very low order of toxicity" - the advice that accompanies this observation includes the fact that: "contact with the skin or with the eyes may cause irritation"! Sources here and here.
SIMMONDSIA CHINENSIS (JOJOBA) SEED OIL - Jojoba (pronounced: ho-ho-ba ;) has a lot of functional uses in personal care. So I guess it is not so bad. Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel
HYDROLYZED WHEAT PROTEIN - is a moisturizing and conditioning protein derived from whole wheat. Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel
HYDROLYZED SOY PROTEIN - Couldn't find much information on it, except that is obtained from the soybean plant. Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel
TOCOPHERYL ACETATE - Vitamin E. But it is a known human skin toxicant. It can instigate immune system response that can include itching, burning, scaling, hives, and blistering of skin. But so can your cat.
RETINYL PALMITATE - Vitamin A. Use is restricted in Canadian cosmetics.
ASCORBYL PALMITATE - Made from Vitamin A.
PHOSPHOLIPIDS - are a class of lipids and are a major component of all cell membranes. Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel and I couldn't find what their purpose in conditioner is.
SODIUM RIBOFLAVIN PHOSPHATE - Couldn't really find what it is. Maybe has something to do with Vitamin B2. Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel.
AMODIMETHICONE - silicone based polymer. Not much information on it, but it seems to be water-soluble until you put it in your hair and it forms a water-insoluble film. Just what I want to put on my hair :)
TRIMETHYLSILOXYAMODIMETHICONE- Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel. Probably because of its long name and no one is able to pronounce that.
CETRIMONIUM CHLORIDE - is used as a hair conditioner, fabric softener, and anti-static agent for hair and fibers. And since it's anti-static, it must stay in your hair after rinsing in order to do its job. And it's a human skin toxicant. Can be lethal if eaten.
SODIUM PCA - Also a moisturizer as it attracts moisture from air and has some anti-static abilities. It is also manufactured by your own skin. Safe for use in cosmetics with some qualifications
HYDROXYPROPYL GUAR - Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel. BUT it is used as an ingredient in pesticide and a sizing agent in textile/paper. Also widely used in oil field drilling applications.
HYDROXYETHYLCELLULOSE - high doses linked to developmental/reproductive toxicitys. It is widely used in all kinds of products from paint thickeners to adhesives to mortar. It is water-insoluble and may be used to coat your hair with as it forms a film and it can actually be used for packaging?
TRIDECETH-12 - One or more animal studies show skin irritation at moderate doses. Lacking in specific info. It is used as an emulsifier.
C11-15 PARETH-7 - Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel. Used in fabric cleaners.
C12-16 PARETH-9 - Not assessed for safety in cosmetics by industry panel
PHENOXYETHANOL - On the nasty side. The use has been restricted in Japan and the EU. It has caused mutations and all kinds of diseases in all kinds of test animals. It is used in cosmetics to kill bacteria and stabilize the formulation. Read more here
METHYLPARABEN - This one and the next four ingredients are all parabens and they are seriously nasty! Nasty enough to avoid at all cost! First off, they are banned or found unsafe for use in cosmetics in the EU. (Um, I bought my shampoo and conditioner in the EU?) They are used in cosmetics as inhibitors of microbial growth and to extend shelf life of products. Doesn't sound so bad because who would want microbes in their cosmetics, right? But in reality, although they kill bacteria, they are no better for you! The disturbing part is that they are widely used even though they are known to be toxic. Parabens absorb through skin and then roam around your body causing mischief and even cancer. Read more here. The facts are not pretty and make me so mad at humanity for allowing this to happen and no one is telling us about this!
PROPYLPARABEN - paraben
ETHYLPARABEN - paraben
BUTYLPARABEN - paraben
ISOBUTYLPARABEN - paraben
PARFUM (FRAGRANCE) - Okay. Avoid! Although it might sound harmless enough and might make you smell pretty, the consistency of the "parfum" is pretty much unknown. Parfum is an unspecified mixture of chemicals that have been linked to potential for immune and nervous system toxicity. Nice. Fragrance on a label can indicate the presence of up to four thousand (that's 4000!) separate ingredients, many toxic or carcinogenic. Symptoms reported to the USA FDA include headaches, dizziness, allergic rashes, skin discoloration, violent coughing and vomiting, and skin irritation. Clinical observation proves fragrances can affect the central nervous system, causing depression, hyperactivity, and irritability. Yeah, so even if you buy some supposedly "organic" or "green" products, make sure they do not contain any Parfum or Fragrance unless they specify what it cosists of.
BENZYL BENZOATE - Possible human immune system toxicant in the EU, safe in the US. In cosmetics, it is widely used as a perfume fixative. It also has application as a solvent for artificial musks, and as a plasticizer for cellulose acetate, and nitro cellulose. Great, just what I needed in my morning shower
CITRIC ACID - Citric acid is used to adjust the pH down to 5.5 (ish). It is a fairly weak acid which makes the adjustment easier. It also has a small amount of presevative action. Citric acid as opposed to any other acid will prevent bacterial growth
DISODIUM EDTA - Penetration enhancer: alter(s) skin structure, allowing other chemicals to penetrate deeper into the skin, increasing the amounts of other chemicals that reach the bloodstream, like those parabens, perhaps?
CARAMEL - As in the candy. But it's apparently mutagenic. But since I'm willing to eat it, I don't mind it on my hair.
CI 15510 (ORANGE 4) - colorant. Probably not good for you.

Alright, that took me a few days to complete because I use my computer for other things too, like work, for instance.

Do we really need 36 different substances in a hair conditioner? What did our grandparents do when half of these weren't even discovered? They had hair! Some of them had lots of it!

Not all of those items are bad for you, some are even good and some do not have much of an effect because of their small quantities. But those really bad ones, like parabens, are a real concern as we use them every day! And they are known to be toxic to humans but still they are used in everyday products. And we are gently and thoroughly massaging them into our scalp and body during our daily clensing routines. So, if you had time to read all of this, you are now in the know. It is up to you what you do with this information. I will not completely stop using some of the products I already have but I am testing out a non-murder-kill-suicide version of hair washing, but more on that in another post. I do not know what I am going to do about moisturizers and body wash and toothpaste and deodorant on a daily basis. I am glad that I do not use an excess amount of those products, some of them daily but some of them only when needed. But I will surely try to use a smaller quantity and start looking for more natural alternatives with less crap in them. We shall see how it goes.

Most of the information was gathered from Skin Deep

Some more links:
Most of the toxic ingredients
Toxins to watch out for
Top 20 of harmful chemicals
Another list of top 10 toxic chemicals
And then there is Google, of course.

Happy...

2009-03-20T13:44:00.001+02:00

SPRING!!

It has officially come to Estonia!

I don't know what you're talking aboot

2009-03-19T10:54:00.002+02:00

Before I post yet another concerning blog post, I'll substract your minds* with this little thing I found on the Interwebs.

It is no secret that English is not my first nor second language. But I speak it better than the supposed second language Russian, so I guess English is my real second language. And I have never been to the States, only to Scotland for about 6 weeks in total, which does not explain my American accent at all.

So I took the What American accent do you have? test and here are my results:

What American accent do you have?

Your Result: The Midland

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

What American accent do you have?

I was about to say I have a TV accent and I guess I do because that's where I learned my English from.

Go ahead, take the test too and let me know in the comments what American accent you have :) I know one of you says "leighs" instead of "legs" but I don't think that's in the test...

*to substract one's mind = meelt lahutama = to entertain :)

Fruit eats You

2009-03-18T16:54:00.002+02:00

Hi there!

Sooo.. what's up? You know, every week I read something that thoroughly shocks me. Now, I do not want to turn into some crazy green person, because I am too vain and too lazy to do so... yet. But some things really disturb me. For instance, have you ever thought about how humans are the only species who are willingly and knowingly poisoning their own food (In order to make money. Which they cannot eat. And we need to eat to survive)?

Great. Now, everyone knows that some of those meat-like products and ready cooked microwavable things and plastic cheese cannot be real food. But fruit! Have you every wondered what's on and in the apple peels to keep them nice and shiny whilst they make their way from hundreds and thousands of kilometers away through however many warehouses before they make it to your local supermarket? It's ridiculous! And have you thought about how many times a year the growers spray the crops with chemicals to make them grow faster and bigger and prettier and resistant/deadly to bugs? Do you know what those pesticides do to the plant? No, they don't just cover the fruit with stuff that bugs do not like the taste of. The chemicals penetrate the plant and alter it's consistency, making it toxic to bugs or making the bugs unable to reproduce which results in the bugs dying out like dinosaurs. Well, not really because there's a gazillion more of them. And some chemicals make the plant channel all it's goodness to the fruits neglecting the leaves and branches which cannot be a good thing to eat And all that junk ends up in the fruits and vegetables and then we gladly devour those chemicals. YUM!

It makes me sad to think that I cannot rely even on fruit which is supposed to be natural, great and healthy and filled with vitamins! Many of us need to buy our food from supermarkets because oranges do not grow on trees, you know. Not in Estonia, at least ;) Not all of us can move to the countryside and grow our own food. And not all of us can afford to buy natural organic, green, eco food on a daily basis. So basically, dear humans, we are gladly poisoning ourselves because it is cheaper. Sigh. Not to mention all those other chemicals we are so happily applying to our skin during our beauty routines (shower gel, shampoo, tooth paste, make up, hair products, lotions, etc). But that's a whole other blog post ;)

Ohkay. Done venting.

So please always try to choose produce grown in your own country, especially if you're Estonian, as our farmers cannot afford all of those expensive fancy chemicals (nor do their produce have to survive long trips from the other end of the world). Choosing local produce also helps out the local growers and produces less waste as they do not have to be shipped over from who-knows-where. I am not against exotic fruit, because our climate only has a limited amount of sunshine, but please put a little effort into washing your fruits and veggies and if possible peel them and cut off the part where the stem used to be. I am so sad about this whole thing because I love to use orange peels for baking and love the idea of eating a fruit as a healthy snack... But I'd rather know about this and make informed decisions about eating fruit peels ;)

Right. NOW I'm done venting!

And just so you wouldn't think I'm making this stuff up, I found a picture too. It is made in the US but the Estonian article, which I am failing to find, had similar test results right here in Estonia. So I guess it's a global problem for imported and exported produce:

By Environmental Working Group via Treehugger

If you're Estonian, check out Bioneer.ee for some green eco tips.
For you english speaking folk, you have a huge abundance of information just waiting for you on the internets. A good place to start is for instance treehugger.com.

Haha! YEAY! I am still a Teenager!

2009-03-12T14:33:00.001+02:00

Can you hear it?

They supposedly use this in some malls to keep teenagers from loitering and hanging out in inappropriate places, like, anywhere in the mall. And they supposedly have it here in Estonia as well.. or are in the process of getting it.. or something. I guess it's a good way to keep the kids from gathering, but in weather like this, where else are they supposed to loiter? So kids, turn to your iPods for the solution and turn the volume up! And since listening to loud music can damage your ears, you will soon enough not have to worry about the annoying mall noises - you will just not be able to hear them.

Puppy Love

2009-03-11T10:39:00.000+02:00

On Saturday we went to visit our little Puppy! He was 5 weeks and 2 days old :)

The kennel is a little less than an hours drive from the city. And since it was a beautiful sunny day I didn't get too many chances to get all nervous about the visit (as I was distracted by the beautiful countryside and sun and the first time wearing sunglasses this year). We had never been to a kennel before and although we had met the owner before, it still felt kind of like meeting the in-laws for the first time. We found the place with no trouble (haha, the instructions said "2nd or 3rd house from the left") and were immediately greeted by little Italian Greyhounds excitedly barking at us behind the fence :) That was tremendously cute! The owner guided us inside where we were thoroughly greeted by about 5 adult Iggys. They were jumping from one couch to the other, flying around and licking us in the process. Hahhaa! Awesome! And then we got to meet the little ones! There were 3 siblings, one boy and 2 girls. Our boy is the biggest of the bunch and I guess the most out-going :) I got to hold him and feed him and GAH! I am so in love! He is adorable! I cannot believe he is finally existing in this world! :) I have waited for so long! Husband had accepted and agreed to the plan to get a dog a long time ago but he didn't share my excitement until he met the other dogs and witnessed their unmistakable awesomeness! And now we just have to wait a little longer. It's funny but I used to be so impatient with the whole puppy thing, but now that he's only 2 weeks away, I feel like I can wait a little longer if it means I can offer the puppy a more peaceful home (since we're kind of moving). Bye yes, very Happy happy happy me! Yeay!

Oh, and I just have to tell you about their cat! As soon as the cat was let in the room, it walked up to me and sat in my lap. No introduction, no nothing! And there it sat, purring, stretching, changing poses, being all cat-like. Like, when has anyone ever seen a cat act like a lovely pet? The cat also lets the dogs carry it around and all! And as it was lying in my lap, it gently clawed the puppy play pen fence and its head was against the fence so the puppies licked its head and touched its paws. The cat seemed to enjoy that. I honestly could not believe a cat like that exists!

Oh and the kennel owner and her daughter were wonderful too! Made us feel very good to have one of their puppies as they will make perfect "grandparents" :) And even though we don't have a puppy yet, I already want two of them :P

Happy Month of March!

2009-03-09T11:48:00.001+02:00

I cannot believe it is March! The third month of this year ALREADY! These past few days have been so beautiful! The smell of spring was in the air, the sun was shining! It is fabulous to open your eyes in the morning and see the sun shining outside. Just Beautiful! I'm sure all of my house plants are enjoying it as much as I am! But like it is customary - today it is snowing again. Heavily. No sunshine. But that's okay. The first spring sensation we had gives us hope that it will come again. Soonish.

So - the month of March. It will be a busy one. Why? I'll tell you!

What we have planned during March (not including the non-ahead-planned-events, of course):

Brother-In-Law's birthday (he turned 13!)
His birthday party (on a different day)
Going to see our puppy for the first time(50km out of town)
The International Women's Day (bring on the flowers and candy!)
Finding a home (all-month activity)
Grandmother-In-Law's birthday
Her big birthday party (on a different day)
2-month birthday of our puppy
Bringing our puppy home (and henceforth having a puppy around)
-this also means finishing reading a puppy book, buying all the necessary equipment and puppy-proofing our home (either this one or the one we're moving into)
Start of Spring (Ooh! Looking forward to! I shall dance all day!)
Our 2-year Wedding Anniversary (What? Already??! :)
Hairstylist appointment (haha, well it is almost an all day activity! Especially since my hairstylist is an awesome person!)
Switching over to Summer time (very much looking forward to it! Oh, those endless evenings!)
Moving out and moving in (by April 1st, hopefully sooner)
Packing because of the move
And last but by all means not least - making decisions regarding the move

It's going to be a crazy month!

More Cowbell!

2009-03-04T17:45:00.001+02:00

Ok, so this post will have nothing to do with Cowbells. Sorry.

It is actually a little bit outdated because I shall be talking about the 24th of February - the Vastlapäev. It's an old holiday and it exists to celebrate the last day before the 7-week fast which preceeds Easter. So basically your last chance to stuff your face and have fun. And since it is tied to Easter it falls on a different day every year. Which means that normal mortals will never be able to calculate when exactly the Vastlapäev is, thank those people who thought of printing calendars with holidays marked in them. And the mass media. Although we no longer participate in the 7-week fast, we still celebrate the day and I'm sure many don't even know why. So, how do we celebrate? We go sledding and eat Vastla-buns with whipped cream and Pea Soup. Basically a great excuse to go out with the family and enjoy some winter activities. Everyone packs up and heads for the hills!

That's exactly what we did! We gathered up a crowd and headed to the Song Festival Grounds which is quite flat like the rest of this country. But it is on a nice hillside and we shall have to make due. Of course it was packed with people but what's 9 more, right? Instead of an actual sled we had a huge piece of plastic (like supersized extra thich plastic bag) which fitted our party nicely. So we all got on it and down we went! It was a BLAST! SO much FUN! WeeEeeeEE!! There was a part of the hill which was covered in ice, so it helped our huge un-egonomic thing slide down and even acieve some speed! Now imagine a caterpillar twirling down a hill - that's us. Due to uneven weight distribution the "sled" twirled so we were going sidewards and backwards and sideways and so on :P We got to slide down for many times until.... UNTIL!!!

Until we had an accident! There was another group of people with a similar contraption, except there were less of them and they had a better access to the slippery ice slope-hence better speed. They let us go first and told us they would wait. But what they did not count on was that our long line of people vesus their 4-pack, we had no chance! We got to the bottom of the hill and as we started to dismantle our line (we sat in a long line, legs on the lap of the person sitting in front of you for comfort and to secure the line and to keep the legs from flapping around and reducing speed). As we looked up we could see the 4-pack heading our way in light-speed. I paniced and started to roll out of the way but since someone else had my legs and winter clothes are not the most comfy to manouver in, I was left in the line of fire togheter with a few other people. And before I knew it, the 4-pack WOOSHED past us and someone hit me in the calf. It is the calf, right? The part of the leg which is below the knee on the back side. Nice and soft. Houses some muscles? Yes? Alright. It was so painful but nothing too serious as I was able to put pressure on the leg so no broken bones or anything. As I recovered, I told my Husband that he can climb the hill with the other guys and keep sledding, I'd wait. But he said that accidents like these are prone to happen again. So he thought it wise to keep away. And what happened when our gang came down the hill the next time? Yeah. You guessed it. They had an even bigger collision. Several people were hurt including one possible rib fracture.

And kids, what have we learned of all this?

We shall do it all again next year, when the wounds have healed and the memory faded....

And maybe find a less crowded hill?

Oh, and I didn't even get a huge bruise although I bruise fairly easily. I still have some weird pain in there somewhere when I stretch my leg. I'll wait another week before seeing a doctor.

Have something to cry about?

2009-02-28T22:58:00.001+02:00

If you do, then you do not have to do it alone. People on this planet are not normal. Which is great! Some of them started a website called Crying, while eating. And that's pretty much self explanatory. So grab something to eat and join in on the um.. experience. On a side note, food does taste so much different when you are crying.

(www.cryingwhileeating.com)

Oh, and you can even send in your own cry and/or vote on others. Awesome! I wonder if they take tears of joy as well?

Dedicated to...

2009-02-26T13:35:00.000+02:00

...a friend of mine. You know who you are :)

Another link I came across in the vast spaces of the Internets. This one is intended for all dogless people who would want to own a dog but cannot due to lack of time, room, allergies, etc (can you tell I am a bit obsessed.. khm.. about a month or so to go!!) or for people who are tired of trying to tech their uncooperative dog to obey.

Just type in a command and have your new best friend perform tricks. Such cuteness! Try things like 'sit', 'fetch', 'roll over', 'wave', 'dance', etc. For girls I suggest 'lick' and the mandatory -- 'kiss'

(www.idodogtricks.com)

HAPPY...

2009-02-24T12:00:00.002+02:00

SELF-STANDING DAY!*

23-MONTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!

VASTLADAY!**

* It's actually Independence Day, but Self-Standing is the literal translation and AWESOME!

** It's actually Vastlapäev. The day of Vastlakukkel (the picture) and sledding.

Heart Heart

2009-02-22T16:34:00.001+02:00

Well, since it was Valentine's day last week and today is our puppy's 1 month birthday and also our 40 month dating anniversary, I thought I'd post this picture for all of you to enjoy :) I took it from our window one night a while ago..

Loft update

2009-02-21T16:02:00.000+02:00

Ifigeneia asked me what happened with the Loft I coveted so much. Well - nothing. I was sad, but I got over it. We went to see it again during daylight and it was nice and bright.. but it seemed a whole lot smaller than before. Also, there was no elevator in the building but the apartment was on the 6th floor. Although I avoid the elevator whenever possible, I understand it is a good thing to have around when, say, hauling up a washing machine, or a baby in ones belly! Thinking of the future, you know ;) And the apartment itself had a lot of flaws which had to be dealt with, like the floor - although hardwood - it wasn't properly finished, I would need more skylights, there was no ventilation because whoever renovated the place, forgot them and other things. Also, since it was located quite close to the center, there was a lot of traffic and in order to reach a park for the dog or kids to play, you'd had to walk some distance dodging the traffic and the masses of parked cars.

In conclusion, it would make a fabulous bachelor pad but not so much a family home. And even though we don't have a big family yet, we don't really want to buy a place knowing that in some years we will have to sell it and get another one. Sigh.

How Hue are You

2009-02-18T17:54:00.001+02:00

I came across this funny little website which lets you test your ability to distinguish between color hues. So, go right ahead, click on the picture below and enjoy :)

Leave your score in the comments.

:Rolling my Eyes:

2009-02-16T10:26:00.000+02:00

I never do this, but I was vegging in front of the TV this past Saturday morning. I was ill and for some odd reason I got up way too early for an ill person. Like 9:30ish. That's just not normal. As I was flicking through the channels I stumbled across this one show about unusual stuff from around the world. Like some tribes hunting down Soldier Ants and eating them. Actually I don't really remember what I saw there.. except for THIS:

Behold: The JewelEye! I realise the show I watched was a bit out dated so the information I found about this was from 2004. But STILL! Some clinic in the Netherlands figured out a way how to implant tiny titanium jewelry inside of your EYEBALL!

Quotes from their website?

It is of all times for people to wear jewelry. Earrings, make-up and more recently tattoos and piercings are accepted forms of body cosmetics. Surprisingly, no jewelry is available for the organ that is most important in social interactions, the eye.

In 2002 the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery developed a cosmetic extraocular implant (CEI) that can be implanted within the superficial, interpalpebral conjunctiva. The implant does not interfere with the ocular functions, ie the visual performance and motility. The CEI is made of a specially designed material that can be molded in all kinds of desired shapes and sizes.

You have the choice between a Heart, Star, the Euro sign (??), Four-Leaved Clover, Music Note or request one of your own (ooh! how about a puppy?!).

Here's another nice photo...

Does anyone else think this is absolutely revolting? Especially the little blood vessels on top of the jewel!? *Shrugs* *Shrugs many times over* Gross!

Tiramisu Charlotte

2009-02-14T00:20:00.003+02:00

Hm, so after I had finished my work day, I had the choice to either go to sleep, stare at the TV, or do something productive. But since I'm sick and cleaning the house is out of the question (too strenious, I'd probably get tired half way through and that would bother me immensly because I wuldn't find the same enthusiasm to finish up and we all know where that leads..). ANywhoo... So, since tomorrow is Valentines day and I'm all alone... Haaha.. bet you thought this was going to be a sad sob story how my honey bunney darling husband is not here with me.. Awww.. Well, no. We don't celebrate Valentines day. But Valentines day is also Friend day here in Estonia, and we're going over to my parents house tomorrow evening for my Brothers birthday (it's actually on Sunday but he's working then)and my family will surely point out it's also Friend day and exchange somesort of gifts or cards or something. I always forget to get something for my Family for Friend day because I'm so not celebrating Valentines day and the Friend part kind of slips my mind. So I decided I will make them a cake. And that's what I did! I made them a small Tiramisu Charlotte. A small one because my Bother will most likely have a Birthday Cake too (I didn't check because I like to leave room for backing out in case the cake turns out to be a disaster :)

Oh, and I promise I didn't sneeze into it or leave any of my little Mr. Fluettes roaming around in the cake :)

Last time we made it together with the Husband and it looked like in the photo below -- Perfect. This time I made it all by myself and there will probably be something wrong with it. Oh well, we all live and learn. I'll try to take a better picture this time.

So, what are you doing (did you do) on Saturday?

All Alone

2009-02-13T17:52:00.001+02:00

So I'm home alone for the entire weekend and 2 more weekends after that!! AHHH!! NooOoOoo!!!

Ok, maybe I'm overreacting.

I'm just alone today and half of tomorrow but it wouldn't be so bad if I weren't sick :( Namely, a flu-like creature has captured me! I feel fine but my voice is slowly making a break for it and I have this funny feeling in my chest -- in the lungs. Like a cough is formulating. I'm constantly trying to wash it down with some herbal tea, regular tea, anti-flu tea, medicinal tea, oranges, pomelos, and fresh strawberry jam. For some reason it's not really taking the hint. And the sad thing about this whole situation is that although I feel fine most of the day, I tend to get a bit more weary during the evening. It happened last night and I was so glad Hubby was still here to take care of me and make pancakes :) But today he is gone. Off to bring down the trees in the forest of far-away land. See, he's lending a helping hand to his father and together they are clearing a forest someplace to gather material for my in-laws house building. Don't worry, what they are doing is totally legal. Except I don't think it is legal to leave ones wife all alone when she is sick.

So I feel sad for myself for being sick. I had such wonderful plans of visiting a dog show tomorrow or Sunday and saying hello to our puppy's mother and perhaps send a gift.. gah.. but here I am.. stuckted. Yes, stuckted. AAAAND I have the car too so I could go wherever I wanted. Such bad timing, Mr. Flu! Or, I guess, from your point of view it's perfect timing.

* OOh! Husband just called! The lumberjacking went well! And now he's um.. shopping? ANyway, yeay! Mood better! :) And I got to practice my almost non-existent voice! Woot!

I shall go now and um.. maybe drink something warm.

Wordle

2009-02-11T16:36:00.010+02:00

This a fabulous little useless gadget on the web called Wordle. You insert some text or a link and it creates a little cloud of most used words. Lovely. Here's one I made using my blog as the text reference :)

Source: Wordle

Dairy

2009-02-11T10:28:00.000+02:00

I think I should point out that I have grown up a little more during this 25th year of existence. I mean, it's about time, isn't it!? Um.. no. It's not. I sometimes still feel like a kid and sometimes also feel like an adult. It's a strange time in life, I guess? But the reason I'm typing this up, is to say that I used to despise plain yogurt. I know, the sign of aging is determined by the level of despising dairy products. Anyway, yogurt, you know the unflavored yogurt. The one that tastes like cow? Yuck! I couldn't imagine how people actually use that stuff for cooking let alone eating plain! It always tasted cow-y to me. But the other day, I was making some sort of savory muffins and the recipe called for some plain yogurt. So I got some and used it and some of it was left over. For some odd reason I tasted it and.. and.. it was fine! I mean, it's not the best thing on it's own but I didn't spit it out. Hah! So I guess I don't hate plain yogurt any more! Growing up.

The other dairy product which I used to despise was.. was..cottage cheese! Or farmer cheese, as some people call it. I've also heard the term pot cheese. I don't know if that version has something to do with pot.. Anyway, here in Estonia we call it home cheese :) It was disgusting! With its disgusting texture! I used to be so grossed out by it. Until one day... I actually craved it! So Husband bought some and I had a wee taste and... and.. loved it?!? I am definitely growing up!

I wonder what's next? Eating liver?

What Does a Pencil Sound Like?

2009-02-08T22:54:00.079+02:00

The answer - my Husband!

My Husbands uncle M (well, all of his uncles names start with an M, but we're just talking about one of them today) asked us to help him with a kids play. A huge conference/crusade/festival is coming to town in the end of May. There will be special events for kids too, and one of those is a play called Puzzle. And for some odd reason this particular play has to have the soundtrack pre-recorder. And when I say soundtrack, I mean the whole thing! The actors will just be lip syncing when performing the play. Hahha, suckas! I mean.. em.. never mind. And guess who was kind enough to lend a voice... Yep, my Husbands sister L and her hubby J. Yeay! And, of course, yours truly (um..me) and the Husband. We had an awesome fun time on a Saturday at uncle M's studio recording the whole play!

The night before the recording Hubby and I watched a video of the original play in its native tongue English being performed in a very American hyper fashion. We had to do it in Estonian, of course! I had to play a car. Which included saying BEEP BEEP all the time. No, not explicit content, just car beeping noises. I was SO embarrassed when we watched the video! I hadn't done anything like this for a while and being in the studio with a professional like uncle M made me very nervous! And the play has songs in it too, and me singing... well, let's just say I prefer not. Although I guess I can sing, I just don't! (I actually have had the experience of singing back up vocals on a released CD) The morning came and we went to the studio and magic happened! Well, ok, maybe not magic, but we did get the bulk of it recorded and went in later on to record some lines which we had overlooked. Lucky for me, we did not have to do any of the songs which rolled a huge boulder off of my back, because making annoying beeping and wrrrroooming noises was embarrassing enough for a beginner like me :) Maybe next time ;)

And now, if you ever want someone to utter an authentic voice of a Pencil, please, do not hesitate to contact mu Husband! And if you want to save time and money, call me! I'll save you 12 seconds of precious recording time! Awesome, advertisement done, now look at picture proof:

Awesomeness!

Puppy Madness!

2009-02-03T11:38:00.013+02:00

I just got the first puppy pictures of our Italian Greyhound puppy! SO. CUTE! Like a wrinkly little rat :D

(Kennel: Dragonhunter)

Loft Loft Loft

2009-01-29T22:32:00.031+02:00

Gah!

We went apartment shopping today (and yesterday and will go tomorrow and the day after) and we visitied this most amazing loft/apartment ever! Or was it a penthouse? It was on the last floor, right under the slanted roof, without any walls, except for the outer walls, of course, and the bathroom walls..Well, considering that right now our apartment only has a bathroom door and some walls, it isn't that big of a setback. But the loft was amazing! It wasn't very fancy in terms of interior decor, but it was just perfect to live in and then slowly start doing our own decoration and maybe some room separation ;) without having to tear down much because it is quite basic at the moment. White walls, wooden beams and pillars, hardwood floor.. It's not too big but it's not small either. It's just not at all what we are looking for, but this is the first apartment that we are this crazy about! And we have seen a fair amount of different apartments already! And we expected to fall for one that does not match our criteria, but that's just the kind of people we are! So please, if you can spare a minute of your day and say a prayer about this whole deal, it would mean a lot to us. At the moment it's a bit too expencive for us so we hope they will bring the price down a little.. as the apartment does have its faults and all.. We really like it! We are emailing the realtor as we speak.. or as I type.. and setting a date to go see it in daylight. Gah.. Holding thumbs! (Crossing fingers in your language).

I would also add a photo.. but photos do not do it justice!

Oh, and it has the same apartment number as our current home...

Global Warming and the like..

2009-01-29T11:10:00.022+02:00

So, Australia is experiencing an unusual heat wave. 47 something degrees Celsius. Whoa! That's like half way to boiling point! Some people say Global Warming is a real threat (Polar Ice Caps melting and all that) and some people say it is a load of grumblecakes. Anyway, so I was wondering -- humans build factories and all sorts of contraptions that produce heat and waste and gases and stuff -- so my question is: is the World built to withstand all that crap or was it made to carry around only animals and non-hyper-developing humans? Grazing animals can produce a whole lot of gases as well but in a alternate universe, could there have been big enough herds of grazing animals to produce as much gas as us humans are producing industrially?

Questions, questions..

Suspicious

2009-01-25T18:20:00.000+02:00

The other day I called my Mom and we had a long conversation. I like to stare out the window while I'm on the phone, so I did just that. I had recently had a shower and whilst I was using one hand to hold the phone securely to my ear, I used my free roaming hand to fiddle with my hair in hopes to aid it to dry. It was already dark outside so the hallway light was on but the kitchen light was switched off, there's no door to separate the two so I had a dimly lit background. So there I was, talking to my mom and fiddling with my hair staring out the window. And then I noticed there was a man in the parking lot, next to a car, smoking a cigarette. And then he waved.

Presumably at me.

Not throwing his hands up in the air and all over the place, it was more of a subtle, low, elbow to the waist type of wave. When you don't want others to notice that you are waving. He was facing my building and waving. AT ME? It took me a moment to let it all sink in, he had been standing there for a little while with his cigarette and facing my way. I guess when I was fiddling with my hair it might have seemed like I was craving for his attention? Or perhaps waving at him? I freaked and left the window. Then, with my mother still on the phone, I crept back to the window to see if he's still there. He entered his car. I thought it wise to stay away from the window for the rest of my conversation.

I finished the phone call and went back to the window. You know, curiosity! The car was still there. And then he flicked his lights. I panicked again. And now I am happily suspicious of the parking lot and the cars parking there :D

Today is a Fabulous Day!

2009-01-23T13:59:00.002+02:00

It is the day when our little Italian Greyhound was born! I am so excited! It will be another 2 months until we will receive our new member to the family, but we already have a name. Infact, we have had the name for a while. Waiting for him. Anticipating. We will become crazy dog lady and man! Are you all happy for us? You better be!!! Gah! I've been waiting for SO LONG!!!

Here are the proud parents:

Kennel Dragonhunter

Take a guess who our little puppy will take after the most :)

Advertisement for a Job in Paradise

2009-01-17T15:00:00.000+02:00

If I were a more adventurous type of person, not afraid of the great wilderness and good with the conversation skills and solitude, I would totally get a new job! People, if you are reading this and fall under the aforementioned categories, please, feel free to consider this one of a kind, once in a lifetime opportunity working as a caretaker on an island on the Great Barrier Reef. Your duties besides accepting a paycheck ever 2 weeks and working 12 hours a month for six months would be carrying out such duties as feeding turtles, watching whales and picking up the island’s post, engaging in all sorts of water sports and activities, and occasionally blogging about it all. Check out more information on the Tourism Queensland's website: www.islandreefjob.com Probably the best job in the world! Here are some photos of the place:

7 years

2009-01-08T14:55:00.005+02:00

I was inspecting the contents of my wallet and noticed that I got my drivers licence 7 years ago. 7 YEARS! It's like.. I'm OLD! I think it's only fair to show you the one and only photo I have of my first and thus far last car:

Don't you just love the color of it! Can you tell It hasn't been washed? Ever. Well, not since I got my hands on it. You see, back then the only available options for car wash were:

a) The automatic places with the huge scary brushes - definately scared of them!
b) Expensive hand wash places - definately too expensive.
c) or the inexpensive hand wash places which were located behind Viktor's garage next to Anatoli's pigeon shack - definately too hidden, too male, and too Russian for me.

So I waited. Until spring came and the car became unbearably dirty and my father couldn't bare the sight of it when it was parked in front of our apartment building, even a neigbor made a comment about it when he saw me park it, so the time had come to force my brother to take our car to the car wash. I went along to get the experience so next time I'd be brave enough to go on my own. We went for option A. And the car came out.. well, cleaner, not clean. I think it could have used another wash but instead we used paper towels from the gas station to wipe off some of the dirtiest parts. Oh well. Next time I washed it myself, by hand. In the summer. What'd you expect! I was a poor university student and although gas was almost half the price it is now, you can't expect a Mercedes as old I was to have good mileage.. ehm.. kilometrage? Hence no spare money to get it washed every week during the non-summer months. I also had to check the oil and change tyres more often than normal so the car received a fair amount of tender loving care in other areas.

The reason I typed this up was that I found that old picture of me and Rudy somewhere in the endless supply of picture files I have on my old Craptop. Hooray for history!

Point Lost

2009-01-06T15:33:00.003+02:00

I am sitting here and staring at the sunset. It hurts my eyes and I cannot see my computer screen any more since the setting sun has temporarily blinded me. It's all coming back to me now. Ok, I can see again. I love how the sun is shinging in my window all day long and at night I can witness the sunset. Except in the summer, because then the Sun is setting more to the right and I have to lean out the balcony to see it. Anyway, as you all have read, we want/need to move. I'm not going to talk about how the global financial situation is influencing the move. Because it is. In many ways. Even positive. It's just the fact that our home hasn't found us yet. Or, we haven't found it, as I'm sure we are more mobile than our future home. Or we could become one of those traveling families with a huge mobile home, you know, like them (The Kelly Family). Or not. But the point is that we haven't found our home yet and we have been looking for a very long time already! I think our home is not ready for us yet because we cannot be THAT picky. Or maybe we are. I don't know. I would love to move out of Tallinn to another city but I like the size of Tallinn. The population of Tallinn is around 400 000, which is not a lot but it is 300 000 people more than the next biggest city we have and that is clearly a lot smaller than our capital and not to mention that I do not particularly like it. So I'm stuck here, which is good since our families and friends live here (or near here).

Oh, and just to clear things up, the last time I wrote about this was when we thought we had to move. Well, we don't have to-have to move because our landlord is not selling the apartment quite yet but we really want to have our own place we could remodel and where we could drill holes into walls and hang huge pictures of whales and tomatos. And where I could have my little home office/craft corner and bake muffins to my new neigbors.

I forgot why I really started typing up this post.The sunset distracted me. Um.. it had something to do with the fact that Estonian cities are so small except for the slightly bigger capital which leaves no choice to move to a different same-sized city. And it also had something to do with the movie 10 Things I Hate About You which was on TV last night.I never noticed how beautiful the scenery was in that movie. It was shot in Tacoma and Seattle, WA but I don't think I would ever move there. Why? Because I don't think any celebrities live there and that just will not do.

Why I Want to Visit the USA

2009-01-04T23:58:00.000+02:00

When I don't fall asleep at night, I get all chatty. I think about stuff and before I get a chance to really think about those stuffs, I already speak my mind. My poor husband is trying to fall asleep whilst I discuss the matters of the world and expect him to respond. So a few nights ago I told him why I wanted to go to the glorious US of A. Yes, that's not really a matter of the world. On that night my very valid reason for going was to see the Celebrities. But you see, celebrities are so hard to come by, even if you see one they are so darn inaccessible. You cannot just yell "HEY BRUCE WILLIS!" or "HI, PARIS HILTON!" or "ARNOLD! I'M FROM ESTONIA, CAN I TAKE A PICTURE!?" or whichever celebrity you come across. They will most likely just set their bodyguards on you or something. So the only way to actually talk to one would be... maybe standing next to someone in a coffee shop and asking them to pass you the sugar or something similar. And then noticing that they look very much like some famous person. And then you get all hyper about it and ruin the perfect moment of actually casually talking to a famous person. Or! Or you just won't recognize them and go about your business like usually. Ask them to pass you the sugar and then pass them the cinnamon in return or something. And so you start casually chatting and end up being invited to a private party and the secret code to get past the security is "Banana Pancakes". And then comes the awkward moment when they introduce themselves by their first name and you reply: "I'm from Estonia! Can I take your picture!" Unless you don't say that and never even know they were famous and never go to that party and never get that photo. The mind is a strange place. I don't even have a strange infatuation towards celebrities..

Where Is My Flying Car?

2009-01-02T23:56:00.000+02:00

I don't get it! It's already 2009 and my flying car is nowhere to be found.

It's Snowing!

2008-12-23T11:19:00.000+02:00

Hello my dear readers!

Christmas is just around the corner and in order to celebrate this joyous time, people all over the world organize Christmas events. We went to one last night. It was my Husbands work Christmas party in the form of a dinner with wine tasting. No, it wasn't about drinking as much wine as you can and calling it "tasting". We just had 3 types of wine and each of them accompanied by a dish. Let's just put it this way, wine tasting is not for regular people. You have to sample wines every day for 3 months in order to separate the smells so to a regular person it just smells like wine. And perhaps you can try to distinguish some of the scents if you know what to smell for.

I'm actually typing this up because of the menu.

First we had white wine which was accompanied by Jerusalem Artichoke Crème with Duck Liver Ravioli and Asparagus.

The main course was Beef Wellington with Cep Sause and Truffle Oil Spiced Potato Puree with red wine.

And for dessert we had Warm Chocolate Fondant with Raspberry Sherbet with some dessert wine.

I do not know the names of he wines but hey, who cares! The food was more than fabulous! I do not eat mushrooms and Cep is a mushroom and it was delicious! The only thing I didn't like was the duck liver but the rest of it was.. my gosh! SO GOOD! I absolutely wouldn't mind eating like that regularly. Minus the duck liver.

So, happy Christmas dinners to you all!

Peppercakes!

2008-12-11T16:19:00.003+02:00

Last weekend we went to visit my In-laws and together we made about 9 kg of Peppercake dough! Well, Gingerbread dough, if you prefer that term. But to be honest, the end result is cookies not bread. Not at all. Nor are they cakes. I am glad I wasn't born as a Gingerbread, my life would be so confusing. Not to mention the gruesome end..

ANywhoo, so we made the dough and then some cookies. I just want to show you a few and there is more to come:

Lady With a Chicken on Her Head

Pig With Baby Mushrooms

Heart Shaped People

Star People

Mouse-Man

The Queen Bee aka Similar Woman but Different

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the Flying Sausage Dogs, Running Birds, The Shooting Moon and Shooting Cloud. Yes, we are strange. Thank you for your attention.

PS. I realize they are not decorated but decorated Gingerbread cookies are exclusively for actual Christmas.

*edit: And yes, it is ok, you can marvel at my Dior-inspired half-moon reverse-french manicure :)

Kalev VS Laima

2008-12-04T17:00:00.001+02:00

If you are from Estonia, have been to Estonia, or are currently living in Estonia you have most likely learned about our much loved Kalev Chocolate Factory. Estonians are usually very proud of their chocolate. Whenever some foreigner visits, Estonians make sure they get to sample some of our great Estonian chocolate. Well chocolate, kohuke, and kama but that's a whole other story.
So here I am going to destroy your dreams by telling you that Kalev let me down. No, it's not because they killed off the traditional candy wrappers which you pull from both ends and exchanged them with never-opening wrappers which you have to use scissors to open. We whined about those but I guess we managed. After all, those text message typing thumbs and email typing fingers need different excerise too. And changing the recipe of their milk coffee flavored chocolate didn't push us over the edge either. I mean, many people still love Kalev, but let me tell you why they let me down.

A few days ago I was visited by my Elf who brought me a little candy bar because I had been a good girl. The next he visited again and I got the same chocolate bar. Yeay! Yesterday he came again and brought me a similar chocolate bar. It was the same size, the same traditional shape but by a different company. As I was sinking my teeth into the first piece... I was SHOCKED! It tasted like a candle! Like wax! My saliva had to work it to get it to melt in my mouth! The texture and the taste was so noticeably different even though 24 hours had passed! And it was by KALEV! The previous bars had been made by Laima, who is a similar chocolate factory, excep Latvian. And Estonian stuff has to be better than Latvian stuff, that's just the way the world works! I mean, seriously, the world must be coming to an end! First the boy dancers, now the horrible Kalev chocolate! I am so insulted. I feel like everything I know is LIES!

Now, here are the two wrappers, the chocolates are the same size and shape. Tell me which one looks better-tasting:

ELVES!

2008-12-03T15:25:00.001+02:00

It's no secret that on the first 24 days of December kids in Estonia are visited by little tiny Elves. They peek behind the windows and through the cracks in the door to see if kids are behaving themselves. And they are taking notes and then telling Santa. But that's not all. If you have been good the whole day, you can find a treat in your slipper the next morning! Kids leave a slipper on the window sill each night expecting a treat. Maybe it's a good practice to ensure clean feet? I mean no one wants to have a candy from a smelly slipper. So keep feet/socks clean and slippers don't smell? Anyway, back in the day when I was kid, I used to share a room with my brother. I cannot imagine it now, but back in the day we got along pretty well. Except for that one time when he got up very early me and took one of the treats from my slipper put it in his own. So when we woke in the morning, he had 3 things in his slipper and I had one. Since I was 3 years younger than him, my world crashed. There was NO WAY he had been a better kid the day before than I! It was a pretty rough day and in the evening when our parents were back from work we had a family meeting. Our parents tried to figure out what had happened and if indeed my brother had stolen an item from my slipper. As we were carrying out our investigation, my grandfather wandered to the window and noticed a tiny note on the outside of the window. It was all nice and snowy that day, so the card was stuck against the window by the help of a pile of snow on the outside window sill. He opened the window and took the note and it read: YOUR BROTHER STOLE THE STINKIN TREAT! Well, not using those words, but you get the idea.

Our Elf was named Robi (or was it Robin... can't remember) and he used to communicate with us by leaving tiny notes. All the other kids had anonymous Elves. But we had a friend. He would explain how they got to our windows with a little helicopter and stuff like that. It was awesome! He would tell us stories of his home and life and etc. The notes were typed on a little brownish piece of paper. And because the paper was so tiny, it always seemed to me that the typewriter they used must have been Elf sized! How retro - a typewriter! So yeah, there's my story of the elves. Oh, once they brought us a framed photo of a horse to hang in our room, since I loved horses and my brother didn't mind. It was a pretty awesome horse photo.

And I bet our elf looked almost exactly like Will Ferrell, except dressed in red.

Baffled!

2008-12-01T15:22:00.000+02:00

Sorry that it has been quiet here for a while again. I wrote up a huge post about the weather but blogger decided to delete it. I don't know, maybe restarting my computer had something to do with it, but that's highly unlikely..

Yesterday we met my Husbands old friend in a cafe at a mall. They hadn't seen each other for 10 years, the last time they met was in Sweden where his friend lives and my Husband went there to buy baggy rapper clothes. Nice. Stylin. Awesome. Not. That's not what I wanted to talk about. In the mall, in a desolate location where not so many people pass by (entrance to the higher level parking) were kids dancing. To specify - younger and older teenage BOYS with heaphones on dancing. In the middle of the day, in a mall, Estonian boys dancing?!!? The wold is surely going to end soon because Estonian boys are beginning to express themselves through dance. In public. Amongs their peers. It's just not the way Estonian kids work. Or worked. It's all wrong. Tell me if you agree!!

Skittles

2008-11-16T18:20:00.000+02:00

I seriously encourage you to check out some of the very random Skittles commercials online. Here are a few YouTube links. When I say few I mean many because there are so many more of them and it is difficult to choose just a few :D

Boring Class

Russian Bear

Elephant Tiger

Bike

Sheep Boys

Leak

Singing Rabbit

Stable

Cherubs

Just a Quick Update

2008-11-14T17:19:00.000+02:00

Hi!

So, some of you who are also brave enough to comment might have noticed that I have changed the way the commenting system works back and forth a few times. The reason for this is that I really like the new embedded comments so muchos better but it had a few problems so I needed to switch back to the pop-up version. But since I like the pop-up version anymore not (hah ha h ha), I changed it back to the embedded one. Accept my apologies for this ludicrous act.

In other news, on the sidebard you can now see the last five comments people have made. I'm just trying that out and we shall see how it shall work for us.

More news! I have added some clickable thingies to the bottom of every post. The options right now are making very much sense so use them accordingly!

And why stop here! I still crave a nice tasty real hamburger (none of that fast food stuff)!

I think there was something else, but I cannot remember what it might have been.. Round olives. Oh well! Have a good weekend!

The Winner of the SOMETHING SPECIAL Competition is:

2008-11-13T16:25:00.001+02:00

No one!!

(Look at this post if you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about)

None of you got it correct! The correct answer was:

2. The rubber band designed to be used for bundling up the power brick and cord of his laptop charger

I cannot believe none of you got it correct! All 5379 voters and not a single one? He seriously used the strap of the laptop charger! It comes off of the power brick thingie and it's made of some kind of rubber so it fit nicely and tightly around his ankle. I looked at him like he had fallen from the Moon (a nice expression in Estonian. I like to soak you in my culture as often as I can). He was super happy about it and skipped into the shower. Every day for about a week. What a geek! And every day for that purpose only he dragged his laptop home from work. Instead of just taking the strap. Strange things called Men.

So, exhibit A - what it was meant for:

Exhibit B - what it was used for:

The Other Day

2008-11-07T17:18:00.002+02:00

Husband came home from work and pulled this out of his pocket:

Apparently he's in the burger business now because he claims he got it from work?

Something Special

2008-11-05T16:43:00.001+02:00

I just have to show you this -- my Hubands shower gear:

Wonderful, isn't it! (Just in case you misseed it - he had an accident with a bread knife which cut his foot a little bit and he was not allowed to get the wound wet) He's wearing a white sock, a thin plastic bag (or two) and I just need to tell you what the rubber band thingie is holding it all tightly around his ankle. Drummroll please:

I have a better idea! You can guess! Submit your answer in the comments area! Available choices are:

An extra large water proof watch he got when he was going through his baggy clothes phase
The rubber band designed to be used for bundling up the power brick and cord of his laptop charger
The ankle strap from one of MY shoes
A Dog collar we were planning to give to Betty (my Moms dog) for Christmas

So let me know what you think by posting the number of your choice in the comments!

PS! So sorry my dearies! I just noticed the commenting system wasn't working so I reverted back to the good old pop-up version! I have no idea how long it hadn't been functioning...

Traumapoint

2008-10-27T18:37:00.001+02:00

Hi kids! Tonight I am going to take you to a little adventure! Well, not quite. You're probably staying right where you are and only move your eyeballs or maybe the finger on the scroll button on your mouse. So ignore that adventure part. I'll just describe what happened today at lunch time when Husband came home for a nice bowl of soup and I curled up to him and made him brush against the kitchen counter so that a HUGE bread knife fell off. We recently bought a fancy set of knives because we had been surviving without a bread knife for a year and seven months. Cutting freshly baked bread with a cheese knife can be a task worth mentioning but I won't mention it. This brand new bread knife was so sharp that when I first used it on a freshly baked loaf I thought the bread was still mushy in the middle because the knife just melted through it. It was fabulous! Until the same knife fell on my husbands foot. Now the knife is not that fabulous anymore. Husband started acting like a baby with his cut and so did I. I hate blood and generally faint at the sight of it. So I didn't look. Until I did and it wasn't pleasant. We quickly realized our home was not cut proof as we only had some small band aids and nothing to tame a slightly more aggressive wound. As I was fixing to go to the near-by pharmacy we got a better idea. Husband called his doctor to ask if he should go to the Emergency ward at the hospital (aptly named Traumapoint in Estonian) to have it looked at in case something important was cut. You know, besides the skin. His doctors nurse thought it was a good idea to get it checked so instead of walking to the pharmacy I drove him to the emergency ward. Or whatever it is called.

Awesome! I love hospitals! I must say I managed to execute a perfect parallel parking job, we were both proud of me! Considering the last time I parallel parked was at least 2 years ago if not more. ANywhoo, we walked into the hospital and asked where the emergency ward is. A lady said we could either go back out and around the corner or walk through the hospital. Right. We went through the hospital and I was so happy to see all those places I didn't want to see.

An hour and 50 EEK ($5) later the husbands cut was stitched up and ready to go, they also threw in a bonus tetanus shot. An extra 40 EEK ($4) bought us some home supplies to take care of the wound for the next week and for any future accidents we hope we never encounter.

Don't worry, he's ok, the cut was only about a cm long (less than half an inch) but we didn't know how deep it was. He wasn't in any pain until they stitched it up. Now he has to try and lay down for the next couple of days and take it easy. Also, he's not allowed to wash the cut, so it will be fun for him to shower one foot out of the shower...

So yes, health care is quite ok here in Estonia. While Husband was with the doctor, I got to enjoy some quality day time TV (South-American soap opera) in the waiting area. There were even coffee and snack machines. But I did not like all the people on hospital beds being rolled past me. I also did not like the slight smell of urine, but hey, the halls were clean and the personnel looked nice and professional.

Oh and a funny thing was the old school elevator complete with an elevator operator lady who usually sat beside the elevator and watched TV with me. When the buzzer rang, she jumped in the elevator and took off.

Awesome.

I hope I never have to go back.

Why I Shall Never Make it as a Nature Photographer Part II

2008-10-26T19:36:00.000+02:00

Part I can be witnessed here.

A few days ago we celebrated our 3 year anniversary. I will not talk about that today, because I have powers like that. Instead, I shall once again show off my magically great photo taking skills. A very dear friend of mine (who will surely identify herself in the comment section if she wishes to) invited me to attend a photography course with her but because I possess these super amazing skills I did not want to go and show them off. You know, in order not to make other people feel too bad about themselves. So here are some fine examples of my work.
Before I let you marvel at these masterpieces I will give you a little of the background information. As I already mentioned, we celebrated our anniversary. Husband gave me many gifts and took me back to the place where he proposed (just to be clear again -- this was our dating anniversary, not wedding anniversary, but also our second engagement anniversary). There he gave me more gifts and we enjoyed some cake. Three pieces of cake, to be exact, one for each year :) As we were enjoying the starry night in the parking lot near the waterfall (it was way too dark to actually go to the water fall, the parking lot was nicely lit), we noticed a big beautiful fluffy fox wandering around the parking lot. At first we thought it didn't notice us. So I quietly pulled out my camera, rolled down the car window and snapped this:

Right. As soon as I rolled down the window and pointed my camera at Mr. Fox, another car pulled in to the parking lot and startled the fox so it took off and I got a picture of him running away. Then he stopped and I quickly tried to get another shot and it turned out significally better, see:

Yes, that was talented of me. And then it happened -- I managed to capture my masterpiece which will make me world famous (pronounce it by profusely rolling the r):

It is by far the most wonderful photo in the world. In case you didn't quite get it, here's a close up:

Yes, that is the .. um.. rare.. ee.. laser-fox. Khm.. Yes. Bye now.

Pine Cones and Tea

2008-10-21T21:56:00.004+03:00

Hola!

Some time has passed since I last told you about the whereabouts of my brain. I mean.. I am so uninspired right now. Usually I feel like doing some sort of craft, or write for your enjoyment, or read a book. Right now I do not feel like doing any of those things. I have a bunch of crafts that are awaiting for my gentle touch to transform them into useful items. But no. My crafty hands decide to stay put. I must say the dark-dark evenings do not help at all. And they are only getting darker.

And thus I shall bother you no more with my uninspiredness and will leave you with a nice picture of a heart of cheese over a drop of egg. I never ate runny eggs until I married the man who does. I have a general fear of raw egg and I always wash my hands after touching even the tiniest speck of egg-rawness. So when we occasionally have fried eggs for breakfast, Husband always makes runny ones for himself and a nice stay-put one for me. Until I changed my mind and wanted to be more like him. Now I demand a runny one, just like the ones he makes for himself. I am still afraid of raw eggs, though. Oh, and it's our 3 year anniversary tomorrow. Not to be confused with our wedding anniversary. We have been DATING for 3 years. Heh He h heh. And no, dating didn't stop when we got married, so yes, we still celebrate both dating and wedding anniversaries.

Brent please come back!

2008-10-10T11:30:00.003+03:00

Because people are afraid of the married folks again! I just don't get it! It hurts me mildly and makes me kind of not want to talk to my friends ever again but what would that gain me? Nothing at all. So I cannot even get angry at anyone or insulted because they probably wouldn't understand me in the first place. And I guess I don't have to be invited everywhere.. gah, oh well. .

Yesterday we went to see The Dark Knight. I really liked the movie. Oh how I love movies which surprise me with their plots. Makes me automatically like them. Too bad the Batman spoke like he was suffering from a bad throat infection and I honestly did not like him being referred to as THE Batman. Just plain ol' Batman sounds so much better. The Batman sounds like a.. a fridge magnet.

So yesterday we had another set of home buyers look at our apartment. They looked like two young little puppies. They had no questions, no interest, no nothing. I guess they didn't like it. Or they were just quiet. The previous person who came here was a loud lady with lots of character, so much of it that it was spilling everywhere and having her here for 10 minutes made me glad I did not know her personally.
Now, don't worry, we don't have to move yet. Our landlord is a friend and he will give us time to get our things sorted and he probably doesn't want to sell the apartment anyway. He just put up the ad to see if there is any interest at all. And I'm not worried anymore about having to move out. What I am worried about, however, is the fact that finding an apartment is such a difficult task! If only we had a bigger budget! But we don't. If only we had little gnomes dancing around at dinner time. But we don't.

Ok, let me crawl back into my cave now and continue to work.

Weekendin'

2008-10-06T17:37:00.003+03:00

On Saturday I had the pleasure of accompanying my Husband to his class reunion. It was actually the school reunion, but never mind. The last event of the day was held in a night club, that is where we went. The night club, named Amigo, is a place of happy memories for me! The last time I went there I was mistaken for a person who "shows around town" for money. A drunk Finnish man almost sat in my lap and offered me money to give him a tour. Well, you know.. a "tour". Great. I guess that is the kind of person I seem to be to some people.

I got to meet some people who Husband went to school with. He was surrounded by a bunch of decent people! I was happy to see that. Have you ever noticed how people change a little when they are in different surroundings? It was funny to watch Husband speak with his classmates and hear some of the stories they told about him. I was glad I got to be a part of that moment. I didn't know my Husband back in the day when he was a teen and went to high school, and I never will know what he was like back then, but getting a little picture of that every now and then is very exciting.

In related news, there was a woman at the reunion who had black hair and was dressed in black. I noticed her walking towards me and stopping near where we were sitting to interact with her former classmates. I guess she came from the ladies room because she had a piece of toilet paper stuck to her heel. I noticed because she was dressed in black and the carpet was dark. She didn't notice it and I didn't want to tell her because I did not want to embarrass her. I expected her to lose it in a matter of moments. But she didn't lose it, she kept on hanging out with her high school friends and talking and shifting herself from one leg to the other and she didn't notice paper nor lose it. Time passed and I forgot about it. Then I suddenly glanced her way again and she had managed to somehow stick the paper onto the other heel instead. It bothered me. I was somewhat preoccupied with staring at her feet. So here, you had a lovely chance to read about it. Thank me later!

Let us all hope we shall never encounter the sticky revenge of a piece of TP!

In other news, I forgot what I wanted to add to the other news. So instead, I shall leave you with these wonderful photographs:

Running Just As Fast As We Can

2008-10-01T16:44:00.000+03:00

..is the lyrics of a song in the radio at the moment. So I have been busy for a while! I have kind of tried to keep away from the internets after work hours and work has been busy! I've been otherwise a little bit busy as well. Well, I took my time recovering from the cold. Then we had my mothers birthday for which I baked a lovely cheese bread and everyone loved me so much they even throned me! I think my brother has a picture someplace, so I might show it to you later. And since I've been sick at home and slobbering around, eating lots of yummy birthday food at my mothers did not do my figure and favors. Now I eat carrots, no more bread. Ever. Maybe just a little.. And I've been sewing a little. Woot! Finally in keeping with the theme of the blog!

Randomness aside, we need to move! Like, move out of our apartment we are renting! We are looking for a new place anyway, but the idea of the apartment being sold is not so much fun. The owner is a wonderful guy, so he's not going to sell it tomorrow, but someone IS going to come look at it tomorrow. And if they express a desire to buy it we will have at least 2 months to get outta here. Which is good but where are we to go? The carrot I'm eating tastes moldy. So the pressure is on, we now NEED to find someplace. And no one knows where the economy will end up and taking on a huge loan might turn out to be very much not fun. But, oh, how I would love to have my own place where I can paint all the walls in different shades of pink *Sigh*

In other news, I'm loving the autumn. At least it's real season.

No picture today, because I cannot get it out of the camera.

Irony

2008-09-24T13:47:00.002+03:00

Why do you think the word for irony is "irony"? As if it is made of iron? Or is it shiny? Never mind. You know what the irony in my tiny little world for this week is? Sunny warm weather. Yep. I'm stuck at home trying to overcome the nice influenza. The common flu. I think my nose wants to build its own empire and has started with it's elaborate extension work. But I guess it is wonderful that the sun is shining in my windows all the time as I am still engaging in my work assignments, the option of just calling in sick would result in a devastating emptiness in my bank account. So we shall just leave it at that.

So yesterday was our 18 month anniversary. This meaning that we have been married for a year and a half. We celebrated it with a little candle light dinner at home. As we were lovingly gazing into each others eye and cutting up our little bruchettas, I noticed something strange in the way my husband cuts his food. I've noticed it before but yesterday I commented on it again. So let me explain: when I cut a piece of food I stick my fork in the part of the food I will be sticking into my mouth. Holding the fork in that part I use the knife to separate it from the rest of the food. Then I just pick up the piece attached to the fork and lift it into my mouth. Then I chew and swallow. My husband, on the other hand, uses his fork to hold down the bigger piece of food and to aid with cutting off the smaller piece. Once he has separated the smaller piece of food, he uses his knife to help him unleash the fork from the bigger piece and then sticks it into the smaller piece to lift it into his eye. I mean mouth. By all means, my version of food cutting is way more practical and his is more theatrical. I guess I have to have a faster means of eating because I usually eat slowly and everyone has to wait after me. And he can have more time for cutting up pieces because he usually eats faster than me but he wants to finish at the same time as me so I wouldn't have to feel like everyone's waiting after me. But really, he probably has never even thought of eating in a more practical way. But I think it's cute. Just like his cute little button nose! Oh wait, he does not have a button nose. Never mind.

Here's a nice picture of us that was taken a few weeks ago:

Development

2008-09-20T22:51:00.003+03:00

About a few months ago I started experiencing the craving to read a book. Any book. During the quarter of a century of my existence on this planet, I have managed to dodge all the mandatory reading lists in school, with a few exceptions. I must have had some skills. But I have always admired my grandfather who had a room full of books. Which became my room full of books and I have never read any of them. I had to leave my books behind when I moved out because our apartment has no book shelves nor room for them. So, basically, what I'm trying to say is that I grabbed some random book at started reading. Hooray for me! We'll see how that goes. Hopefully well.

In other news, TV totally sucks.

In other other news, I really want to eat something, but I don't know what so I shall not eat until I figure it out. Hopefully I fall asleep before that happens.

Hmm, let me see if I can post some pictures for you... oh, here you go!

If you look close enough you can see a man in a barrel going down the waterfall. Also, this is the place where he proposed on October 22th 2006. It was much darker, a tad colder and with less water back then. My goodness, times sure does fly..

By the way, one of the books I read in school was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and I cried my eyes out, oh the good times of mandatory reading!

September came with cold

2008-09-18T15:02:00.006+03:00

No, I did not catch a cold or anything. September is just... cold. Brrr! Like, November cold!

Hi!

I wonder if anyone even comes to my blog anymore. I have so rudely ditched you. I don't even know why, but I am suffering a severe case of unispiredness. It has been raining and gray and cold ever since our Foreign guest left this country. And I don't even remember seeing the Sun since September started. It has been rude and cold. Even now, it's only 9 degrees out! And it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon!

Shame on the weather.

I do write a lot about the weather.

It is clear that I am dependent on it in many ways. I think it is a clear sign that I have to move someplace less depressing. Too bad it is not that simple and that my Husband thinks more clearly than I and does not rely on moods as much as me. And we are also looking for an apartment to buy but buying an apartment does diminish my chances of moving to a different country. Well, I guess diminish is too strong of a word to use.

YEAY! A load of laundry is done and I get to go and hang it to dry! WHOO HOO! Because drying is fun and good for you!

Did you know that the washing machine eats socks? I didn't. At least mine doesn't. My sock drawer, on the other hand, eats them with ease. But I do believe the washing machine is excellent at stain removal.

Yesterday we had a photo shoot with an actual real photographer! It was marvellous! The reason for it was my husbands mothers birthday. Her kids (including me.. heh heh hee) gave her family photos for her birthday and well, since family photos do not just appear out of the lamp, we had to all gather around, set a date, have the photographer come over, and voila! Yesterday was the day! I'm fully comfindent I will look like a misplaced alien with a fear of raindeer in all of them because I couldn't stop laughing. It was so much fun! But oh well.

Something like this:

Yes. Good. All is well now.

Oh and I love how multiple people have stumbled upon my blog by searching for things like "choosing a gaming nickname", "a website that lets me create my own nickname", "nickname choosing", "how to levitate dog". I mean kids these days, can't even figure out that they do not need a website to create a nickname for themselves! Sheesh! Take ThunderSpace for instance? Or PorridgeMan, or Slither, or ViloTheVillain, WooshW.. come on! Just leave me a comment and I'll help you out!

Mysticness
FreezerOven
ShootingStilts
Facios
Milbert
Fierceigator
CalmSoup
Hämähäkki
Joot

Just exchange a letter of your choice with a number and BOOm! You're done!

Happy pies to everyone!

Never thought...

2008-08-07T21:40:00.005+03:00

... that the um.. ceiling of ones mouth aka the palate could be itching. It is itching right now. Um, uncomfortable.

So we now returned from our 3 hour shopping trip. We gotta get our exercise done somehow! And that's what we do for sports!

Grazing giraffes.

To continue with yesterdays theme of bread, I wanted to reveal some of my oddities to you. Yesterday I was telling my husband how I do not get people who throw a loaf bread into the bread basket/cupboard/fridge. Wherever it is they keep it. We keep ours in the fridge since there is no room for either a basket or a cupboard, and it gets sunny and warm in the kitchen. MmmM, mold, anyone? Anywhoo, he looked at me strange much like you might be doing at the moment. Throwing bread? Yes. You know how you take a loaf of bread and it's usually in a nice plastic or paper bag, you grab yourself a slice or two, put the bread back in the bag and then... just throw it to wherever it is you keep it. I find it strange. My husband did not get it so I had to dig deeper into my mind to find the reason for such ideas and thus I discovered I was raised in a funny way.

In our house one could never disrespectfully throw bread. That rule included both white and black bread. Bread was valued as one of the main food items. I think it was mainly my grandfather who enforced the rules, I guess he was just an old fashioned guy? When a piece of bread fell on the floor, you would gently pick it up and not even think about not eating it. I think you even had to kiss it. Also, one would always place the bread in the bread cupboard (yes, we had a cupboard for it, well, half of it) right side up. That meant that the bread could never be placed on its sides or upside down. Funny, isn't it! And now, I always place the bread on it's flat side, like nature intended. I could place it any other way if I wanted, but I don't want to. Why would I? I've been successfully brainwashed!

Alrighty then, I shall leave you with a picture* of a different kind of bread I baked one day. It was made with whole grain wheat flour thus it is a tad darker. But it was awesomely great nonetheless! The recipe for this one is not online but if anyone wants it I'm more than happy share.

*Yes, I know the picture is blurry. But it's as good as it got, I was too excited to sink my teeth into a piece and couldn't be bothered with more photos.

Back to the Brownies

2008-08-06T19:24:00.003+03:00

Oh how I love making up random titles which have nothing to do with the topic itself..

So I am back at work after 3 weeks of vacationing. The first week had lovely rainy weather. Every day. Seriously. I was about to ascend to the black pits of depression because it's supposed to be summer AND vacation. Exacly 7 days later, on Sunday, the sun came out and graced the land of Estonia together with 1/3 of my readers! Brentalones Clive Maude Alexander Afterpants arrived from the land of America! And what followed was exactly 2 weeks of perfect beach weather until Clive left. Then it started raining again. Thanks, Clive! We told you not to leave!

We had a fun 2 weeks of traveling all over Estonia, Helsinki, and Riga. Woot! But yesterday I made a loaf of bread:

Cheese Bread!

Because this computer of mine has no photo adjusting/enhancing capabilities and I cannot be bothered to use the other one, I'll just upload them as they are. If any of you wants to beautify them, by all means - go ahead!

I am so proud of myself! The bread was soooo yum yum yum!

And it was soooo easy to make!

Ahh, salivation! If anyone wants to make this bread themselves, I highly recommend it! The recipe can be found here: Cast Sugar: Cheese Bread. Since we do not have the fancy cheese here in Estoniatown (well, not that Cheddar is really fancy, but anyeay), I used some flavored cheese snack cheese and added a little bit more of spicy spices to it because they refused to sell me jalapenos. And if you don't like spicy, just use regular cheese! It will be delicious in any case and you will love yourself!

Yep, it was pretty yum.

I Am On Vacation!

2008-07-18T16:19:00.001+03:00

Must be the Estonian?

2008-07-08T22:41:00.003+03:00

I'm sure you've noticed that I have an incredibly large non-fitting counter on my right sidebar. Yes. It is there for a reason. A reason all single ladies in Estonia have been awaiting! The arrival of the Breantalones! So now you can all count along!

But now, I shall have to do what no man has done before.. Wait.. They have. So have women -- I will write the rest of this post in Estonian, because sometimes in life one will encounter happenings which can only be passed on in one's native tongue. My tongue of the native just happens to be Estonian. And I shall hereby transcribe a happening in a mall.

Tere!

Vaadake, ma ikkagi oskan Eesti keelt ka! Pole just väga tihti siin seda harrastanud, kuid kommentaarides vahest ikka trehvab :)

Niisiis, järgnev lugu on väljavõte meie suht lühikesest laupäevasest Ülemiste keskuse külastusest.

Jalutasime abikaasaga läbi ühest pesupoest kus sattus olema ka üks mees oma kahe poisiklutiga. Nad olid ikka suhteliselt pisikesed, koolis vist veel ei käi. Teate poes neid stangesid mis on sellised ringi kujulised ja seal ripuvad riidepuudel igasugused hilbud ning seda stanget saab ta keerutada. Hm, igatahes, üks nendest poisikestest jalutas ümber selle stange ning kuna tegemist oli pesupoega, rippusid seal miskid eripakkumises olevad aluspesuesemed. Poisike siis jalutas ning nii muuseas katsus erinevaid hilpe oma kätuga ning pomises omaette:

"Rinnahoidjad, püksikud. Rinnahoidjad, püksikud" jne.

Väljusime poest paar sammukest hiljem kui too isa oma poistega ning nemad võtsid ette vastassuunalise liikumise, ehk siis meist eemale. Kuid suurem poisike laulis oma laulukest edasi, mida oli vabalt meieni kuulda. "Rinnahoidjad, püksikud; rinnahoidjad, püksikud..." Isa, ilmselgelt häbist maa alla vajumas, haaras siis temast kinni ning lausus: "Kui sa kohe järgi ei jäta, viin su VANAEMA juurde!!" Poiss muidugi taipas, et leidis mingi mõnusa lauluviisi ning kindlasti salvestas selle omale kusagile varasalve, et hiljem näiteks tolle sama vanaema juubelil kõlavalt ette kanda...

Ja nüüd kõik koos: "Rinnahoidjad, püksikud; rinnahoidjad, püksikud; rinnahoidjad, püksikud; rinnahoidjad, püksikud; rinnahoidjad, püksikud...."

Will This Ever End??

2008-07-03T15:25:00.005+03:00

The "W" key popped off my keyboard the other day. That's the second escaping letter already! The first one was "E" and typing without an "E" was considerably more difficult. Besides, the "W" is almost nonexistent in Estonian. I still need to ask my Husband to fix the "W" as well because for some odd reason it seems to be a needed letter in the language of the English. Or I could just use VV instead...

I just wanted to say that the other day I was all compassionate about Teele's trouble with nearby construction and the wonderful sounds it emits.. now that all the annoying construction has ended around here I can finally enjoy construction free calm noises of traffic and occasional playing children, thus I can feel bad for others. But no, shall my blessed state of calmness continue? But of course not! A small flock of Crows has moved in the few remaining apple and pear trees right beside our building. And guess what crows do! They sing like the sparrows.. NOT! Oh I just had to sneak a "...NOT" joke somewhere. The crows have been driving me crazy these past few days. Yesterday my mom told me she saw a documentary about crows and how smart they really are (fascinating, seriously! A bit scary even) so I tried to send them messages by thinking really hard and concentrating. If they are so darn smart, why cant they read my mind and LOWER THEIR VOICES, SHUT UP, or MOVE!

Of course they left when I wanted to snap a photo... I guess I should be happy.

Carrot Cake Hates Me

2008-06-30T00:19:00.007+03:00

Our Stove is right next to our cupboard where we keep all of our flours and sugars and rices and macaronis. Stove with a capital S.

Me: I love how our cupboard is all pink.
Husband: How do you mean pink??
Me: Pink. I mean, warm.
Husband: ??

This conversation took place after I had a carrot cake baking in the oven for about 2 hours. I finally took it out but it still wasn't done. I don't know, no luck for me with carrot cakes.

And apparently pink is the synonymous with warm...

The following photo has nothing to do with the above mentioned hateful carrot cake. But it is a little taste of what is to come..

Day of Jaan

2008-06-26T14:15:00.003+03:00

In Estonia we have this wonderful celebration called the day of Jaan, or.. well John's Day, or Midsummer Day, Victory Day, the Longest Day of the Year ..Day. I guess it has many names. Especially in English. Basically since it is the longest day of the year... meaning that the sun hangs around for the longest time, it rises at 4.02am and sets at 10:42pm, people stay up most of the night and light bonfires all over the country. It is recommended that it rains during this holiday as I would hate to see Estonia burnt down to a crisp because people drink too much and do not take responsibility for their actions. It did rain that day. Heavily. But I had made a deal that the rain would stop at 6pm, and surely, it did. The sun came out around 8, percisely at the right time -- when our guests arrived. We had organised a Jaanipäev and Birthday Combo celebration at Husbands family's summerhome. I love this time of the year since it never gets dark and it is wonderful!! I do feel sorry for people who cannot sleep.. but there are inventions like curtains and blinds and sleeping masks or whatever those are called.

Ok, back to the party! What can I say, it was a success. We had set the table inside, in case the rain decided to brake its deal and not stop raining. But since it held to the agreement, we had a table outside and some make shift garbage bag covered benches and voila! Let the tasting of my debut sandwich cakes begin! Yes! You read correctly! Savory Sandwhich cakes, probably an Estonian thing? Mmmm, the sole goodness of them was overtaking my ego, since I do not normally cook. Not to mention cook for events involving guests. My sister in law helped me make them. And yes, I am still proud of myself. Even if I never cook again, I can proudly claim to have made 4 huge sandwich cakes. Alright alright, enough already! I also made a huge strawberry-whipped cream layered cake.

To show off, here are some pictures:

Sandwich Cake number one. Please, do marvel at my decorating skills!

Mmm, peach and chicken Sandwich Cake!

And another one!

Did I mention we had a lot of food left over? We did. The last two we ate the following day. This one was decorated by my sister in law. I only managed to grab a photo of it when some of it was already devoured.

And this is my hypnotic strawberry cake. It didn't come out as well, but h well. It has lots of strawberries!

Hope you are hungry now! I sure am! This might be a perfect time for a lunch break! If you want to see some more pictures of the event, here's a link to Kuuno's photos.

And I shall leave you with this little video which took me countless hours to upload.

Walking in the Rain...

2008-06-21T23:30:00.002+03:00

Yesterday the Husband was bugging me to get up and go for a walk with him. I do not like cloudy days. They make me gloomy, sad, quiet, and dizzy. I didn't feel like going for a walk in such weather. Granted, it wasn't that cold, but it was doomed to rain. And since gray days make me resilient to any activities outside, I tried to whine my way out of it. He did not let up and so I ended up dressing in some random clothes to go for a walk. But since I had been whining for so long, it started to rain! For a second I thought I was saved from the walk, but then we quickly added rain proof jackets and I wore wellies and off we went. We ended up having a splendid romantic walk in the park whilst it was pouring rain -- like out of a bean stalk (an Estonian saying)! It really was nice to walk in a huge park where I had not been before, and it was empty of people, just us and some athletes (?). They do not count as people. When we came back from our walk, we were thoroughly soaked! Wet like little kittens (another Estonian saying) but very happy. So I encourage you all to take a stroll in the rain. And you can also sing whilst doing that, if you want to be fancy and all.

Driving Home Last Night..

2008-06-15T10:44:00.001+03:00

...we saw a man hug a lamp post.

This Time..

2008-06-11T11:10:00.002+03:00

Happy Birthday TO ME!

Yes, that is the shadow of my foot, in case you were wondering.

I am officially quarter of a century old. If I were to be painfully accurate, the correct time of aging is at 5 minutes before midnight. I was almost born on the 12th. I'm so glad I decided to make a break for it those 5 minutes early, because I really dislike the number 12. It is very difficult for me to pronounce "12th". On the 12th of June. It's sheer discomfort. But 11 is lovely. Happy birthday to all whose birthdays are on the 11th of June!

Sadly I'm at work today. Oh well! I had ice cream!

Happy Birthday to

2008-06-05T18:04:00.000+03:00

HUSBAND!!

YES! Cheesy picutres of him posing for me! YEAY! It is his day of birth celebration! He is now officially 27 years old. I think he's 27... yeah, pretty sure he is. 3 years until he turns 30... ANyway, this is a happy birthday wish from me and my 3 readers! Happy Birthday!

And another pose, thank you!

I'm anticipating his return to home after a day at work. I am so excited, I made him a little cake, and some coffee on a stick. I probably made them too strong, but you cannot blame me, since I hardly ever use the coffee press and I even used less coffee than the recipe called for. ANywhoo, and I also made him a hot air balloon gift. It's a gift wrapped as a hot air balloon. I'm going to have to postpone this blog entry in the case of a thin chance he will um.. visit my blog during his business meeting... Alright, I need to go now and um.. shiver. I actually am that excited it's making me shiver. Yeay! Ah, I love my husband and his birthday! :D

Why I Shall Never Make it as a Nature Photographer

2008-06-02T22:57:00.003+03:00

As we were taking a few photos today, the camera declared its memory card to be full. When glancing through some of the older photos on the card I saw some pictures that I had forgotten I had taken! And I immediately thought of this blog post I'm writing right now. But now going through the pictures on my computer I am a little bit disappointed. I had deleted most of the evidence which would thoroughly prove the topic of this post to be accurate. But I shall tell you the story anyway.

It was still April when I took the photos, the sun was as bright as ever. Blinding my winter-adjusted eyes! We were at the Husbands parents summerhouse and there were thousands of ladybugs crawling around on the grass! I wanted to take a photo of the pretty spotty little bugs and snapped a whole bunch. Unfortunately I saved only three of them. Most of the pictures were like this one:

Out of focus, of course! And if it wasn't out of focus, it had no ladybugs in it! I only took two pictures with the ladybug in focus, one of them was this one:
but as you can see, the composition is not the best, there's ugly grass and the pretty ladybug is, of course, turning its back at me. The third picture I saved, seemed to be the best. It was the last photo I took, because I had had enough and was quite pleased to finally capture a cute ladybug photo:
It wasn't until later that day when I was flicking through the photos when I embarrassingly noticed what was actually going on in the photo. Yeah, so I really shouldn't be a nature photographer either, because capturing moments like these.. it's not what I aim for.

Choosing your own nickname...

2008-05-29T21:49:00.003+03:00

...is never a good idea. Or maybe it is for some people. I don't know. I've never had a proper nickname. A girl from high school called me Ants. Which is kind of funny both in Estonian and English. In Estonian it's a common boys name and in English it is an umbrella. I didn't mind though. She was a friend so it was all good. But let me tell you about that time in middle school when we decided to call ourselves SlimeRoll, Mosquito-Slime, and Snail. Actually there's nothing more to tell. That's pretty much it. Can you guess which one I was? I'll leave you this picture as a clue.

Another Random Entry

2008-05-28T16:22:00.004+03:00

As I went to pour my 3rd cup of tea today, I glanced out the window as I usually do expecting to see gangs of middle-aged people. But instead, I saw a gang of... trees. Going somewhere. Along the little path across the lawn.. Here's a picture!
It looks like they are asking the little Pine for directions.

A pretty weird sighting I might add.

Oh, and the middle aged people gangs are not some fiction of my imagination! They are REAL! I'm so tempted to photograph them but I'm afraid that suspecting strangers in even stranger activities and taking photos of them doing those might deem me as a crazy cat lady who feeds pigeons from her window and all the downstairs neighbors will be complaining because they have pigeon poop all over their windows! So I shall not take pictures of said middle aged people gangs and I shall not ponder about their daily activities and the meaning of those activities because I don't like complaining neighbors. And I don't like to eat liver.

Thought I'd Let You Know...

2008-05-27T17:42:00.001+03:00

that I'm on a train right now.

Choo-choo!

mMMmMMmmMMonday

2008-05-26T10:29:00.003+03:00

Hey there. I am glad to inform you that I have broken my personal best at writing entries to my blog! This is my 11th entry this month thus swiftly breaking my own record of 9 posts in a month in September 2006. Flowers and cakes are due!

I would also like to point out my blog has recently celebrated its 2nd Birthday! Yeay! Applause! Candies and cookies and more cake! Because Cake has no calories!

And I would also like to take this chance to tell you my absolutely favorite post thus far has been the The 6th Sense. It is a true story and I always laugh at myself. Ha aHa. Oh I'm so funny! At least I think so!

And another thing, I've started my Would you rather... polls. The rules are that you have to pick one of the choices. But you know since it is the anonymous internet and I cannot make you do anything, I can only suggest you choose one, otherwise your identity will be made known to me and I will know it was you who reads my blog! HA hA HAA! And next time I see you I can loudly proclaim you read my blog and everyone will look at you with dismay! Yeah, that's a bad thing so you better choose one of the answers to remain anonymous!

***

During the weekend we dropped by Husbands parents for some fresh air and chit-chat. I participatted as a listener in a conversation about what to do in the woods when encountering a wild animal. I came to the conclusion that I would just faint and get it over with. Who am I to fight a Grizzly! Seriously! I'm glad I live in Estonia. The most dangerous creatures in Estonia are noddy non grizzly bears and wolves and, well, moose and wild boars. Saaremaa (the biggest island in Estonia) is quite poor when it comes to the beasts of the forest. They have no bears, a couple of wolves and some of the other animals. And they have the deer...

The Deer- the creature of FEAR!

***

So enjoy your week!

I Just Wanted to Say

2008-05-24T12:58:00.004+03:00

That the ice cream depicted below is, at the moment, the best tasting thing in the world! And I could eat it so much that it would start oozing out of my ears! And the Premia Ice Cream Factory would hire me to be their tour guide/elf with ice cream coming out of her ears. As an employee, my benefits would include eating ice cream as much as I'd like (to ensure there's plenty of the stuff coming out of my ears) and building an ice cream igloo where I can abide together with my husband, if he chooses to join me, and a company vehicle - a dairy cow.
In conclusion I would like to say that I more than love the ice cream pictured below. I adore that ice cream. Yum. Yum Yum. Must send husband to the store! Thank you Premia for making my dream a reality!

Too bad I have the flu and a sore throat that I cannot actually eat it enough to make it ooze out of my ears, so my Ice Cream Factory career is pretty much over before it even began.

Random fact.

2008-05-22T10:10:00.002+03:00

On Tuesday night, or was it early Wednesday morning, 8 horses escaped from the local hippodrome (oh I love to use the dictionary!). And galloped around town.

8 horses.

Around town.

The "hippodrome" is a 10 minute walk away from where I live, would have loved to see horses gallop past my windows....

Alright, this has been a random fact.

Why I Shall Never Make it as a Concert Photographer

2008-05-20T00:13:00.018+03:00

I went to THE Backstreet Boys concert!

It had been a life long dream of mine and of many other girls who spent their teen years around the same time as I. And now, now the Backstreet Boys made it here! Finally, after 15 years of existing as the BSB, they finally came to this part of the world. They promised to come back even! I could tell they liked it here! How? They told us! But seriously, have you ever been to a concert where the band told you they didn't like your country.

I was ill during the time the concert took place, I had a seriously badly hurting throat and felt weak and sickly overall. But I still went. And I HAD to take pictures in order to post them on my blog. I was very ashamed to yank out my camera and reach my hands way up to grab a shot or two. I'm short, you know. And here are the reasons why I shall never make it as a concert photographer. With comments. (You can click on the image to view large quality photographs in another window.) (Adding photos and comments is a tricky job!)

I wasn't standing very close, but nevertheless, see this wonderful cloud performing on stage! Nice job on the sharpening of the image!

Okay, we might even have something here! Ok, maybe not. Better luck next time!

Um, why is the stage on fire?

It is a normal occurrence: The bass player's head is multiplying.

OH YEAY! Lookie! A sharp image! Of.. AJ's.. head.. from the back.. right.

This one's pretty sharp! You can actually see there's a band and some guys dressed in leather. Too bad their FACES are but white round empty canvases. Faces are overrated anyway.

That's a pretty nice shot of stage lighting. Who cares about the artists themselves! It's the light show that draws the crowds! It's the light that sings and attracts young teenage girls!

And back to the drawing board we go.

Trashy Saturday

2008-05-19T23:47:00.004+03:00

Saturday morning we woke up, got dressed immediately after getting out of bed, and drove to McDonald's for breakfast. You American type of people might not understand this, but WE FELT SO MISCHIEVOUS and breaking all the rule'ish! Yeah! AWESOME! McD's straight from bed! Their chicken tortilla really sucked! We were late for the breakfast menu. Well, I think the breakfast menu consists only of a free coffee with a pie. Nevertheless. Here is picture proof:

Woot!

..alright.

2008-05-15T09:56:00.000+03:00

Are you already wondering?

Um, so.. head on over to www.ManBabies.com and sumbit your own.

Seriously, who comes up with these ideas :P

Perpetual

2008-05-14T12:03:00.004+03:00

It is no secret that I am cursed by perpetual construction work around me. For the whole time we have lived here (a little more than a year) there has been construction going on. And a building right next to my work office was being renovated as well. So there was no escaping the noise!

One small building has been finished already, some of the road work as well. Now they are finishing up on the big building (at least I hope the nosiest of jobs have been finished) and there is still some construction work being done on the main road.

We have a beautiful huge large vast lawn right behind our building where our windows are facing. It is unusual for such vast empty spaces in between big apartment buildings. But nevertheless it is here and it is wonderful. But despite the vastness of greenery, there is a busy road near the building as well. It's a few hundred meters away, a gas station and a small parking lot neatly occupy the space in between our building and the road. And the road is experiencing, of course, roadwork!

If you know me a little better, you know that I hate any continuous noises. This is why I hate construction work of all sorts -- they usually have trucks and what not machines making beeping sounds! And this morning I woke up to the glorious music of a traffic police whistle!
Sweet! He has been tooting along the whole day so far! Well, it's only half past 12, but still! All my windows are closed but I can hear him blowing that whistle! Blowing his little heart out! Bless him. But why on MY STREET??? I mean, I seriously am suffering here! No one cares about my mental health!

I took a picture of him, just to prove to myself I'm not imagining the sounds. So here, find the guy dressed in bright yellow! ..or is it green...

*sigh*

Oh well, carry on, my dear, carry on!

And in other news, I have learned to thoroughly ignore people whilst watching tv.

Excel Still Loves Me!

2008-05-10T12:08:00.000+03:00

A while back, I posted this post about how much Excel loves me. But fear not! The love is still as much as aflame as it ever was! This time my darling Excel wanted to test my eyesight.

I was copying and pasting data as usual (no, this is not ALL I do at work!) and then, lookie! I saw this:

You might want to click on the image to open it in a new window. Notice how small the cells are! Hahha, unnoticeably small! Usually on the left side you would have the line count, but in this case, the numbers are so tiny! They don't even exist anymore! Hahaha! Oh well.

As much as I would love to, I unfortunately cannot give all the credit to Excel. It was cooperating with my mouse. Here's a picture of my mouse. See the scroll button in the middle of the left and right button?That's a special scroll button. It has extra functions. So besides scrolling you can also click it, tilt left, and tilt right and set your own tasks to them. So for me clicking it performs fun things in Firefox, like closing tabs and opening links in new tabs; tilting it to the right performs copying duties and tilting to the left pastes. But the mouse is clever and wants me to know he loves me more than my Excel and invented tilting diagonally as well! Tilting the scroll button diagonally left (like North-West) decreases the page and tilting it diagonally to the right (South-East) increases. Everything would be fine and dandy, but it is almost impossible to get the button to bend that way without it scrolling or tilting to the left or right! And there is no option to remove the functions or replace with something else! So I'm stuck with the accidental decreasing and sometimes increasing. What a wonderful life!

	Cherry	High-rise
Square Meters	45	70
Rooms	2	3
Doors	2	7
Floor	3	12
Light Bulbs	9	19