Black Christmas

Since the NaNo ends tonight at midnight and I have no way of making it to the 50K words I've already given up. I did good though, in my own opinion. And now I am looking forward already. Tomorrow I'll start a new project. No, not writing!! I decided to make some sort of Christmas calendar to my project blog (The link is there on the right, the same skull and the hat that are there above). I make my best to send a picture to my project blog every day until it's Christmas. 24 pictures. The pictures I am going to send are giving a hint of those Christmas presents I've done myself. They won't show what the presents are but they give a hint of colours, subjects and maybe even who is going to get them. At the end of December, right after Christmas I'll change the pictures so that they will show what I've really done. I believe this is going to be interesting and I guess it is a way for me to get into the Christmas spirit as well.

So, make sure you remember to "open" this Christmas calendar every day. Hope you will have fun trying to figure out who gets what. And please, feel free to comment or send in your guess what are these presents. :)

Lost

Strange. I have thought all the time that I have booked my boat trip to a evening boat on the December 13th. Today I got e-mail from the company that the booking is for morning boat. Have I lost something here..? On the other hand it is better that the leaving is on Sunday morning, that way I will have one day more to spend in Sweden. And besides, if I will now go and change the booking I would have to pay almost 40 euros more because there is no more similar cabin available on the evening boat. But it is going to be a rough wake up on Sunday. The boat starts 8.45 am and I have that Sebastian "Skid Row" Bach concert the evening before. So thank god for the cabin!! I get to sleep all day if I want to. But I guess I won't.

I was thinking.. I've been writing my NaNo furiously these couple of days. It looks like I won't make the 50 000 words. But I've written more to this one project than to any other project ever before. Anyway, there has been a lot of eating in this novel of mine.. And I was thinking that I should eat something special on my boat trip.. Try something new. And when it comes to eating we were talking/writing with my sister that since my brother and his wife aren't going to stress and arrange anything big for this Christmas that maybe we should be thinking of something. My sister said that she would like to see our nephew's first Christmas party and she would like to make ginger bread cookies. :) When surfing the internet yesterday even I started to search for some recipes for different Christmas foods. Maybe we will arrange something slightly different.. Well, I guess we'll see that then. It will be fun anyway.

It is the first advent today. So I'll guess I will light one candle later tonight. Soon we are in December. Wish it would snow for Christmas.. I'm not feeling the Christmas yet..

A little Christmas wish list in pictures

Ps. I prefer my books in English, shoes in size 38 and shirts in size medium. ;)

Numb3rs

Sometimes number one is better than two. And sometimes number two is better than one. It is little over two weeks before my trip to my sister, to Sweden. In this case two is pretty bad. She's already waiting for me and I can barely wait to start the trip. I have almost already packed my bag.. Well, not really but I am wondering what I need to take with me, do I take my laptop, which bag... and so on, you get the picture. But now I am alone here. And my sister is alone there. And that's not so good either when we're both anxious to see each other. It is also little over two weeks before I get to go out with my friend and see Sebastian Bach from Skid Row playing live. That is a good number two. Not too early and suitably just a night before my trip to Sweden.

It is little over a week before I see my nephew again. That is quite good, I think that week will go fast. But I'll only have one night and two days with him. Not good. There is less than one week for me to finish my NaNo. I am way behind, so that is bad. But after one week it is all over, I don't have to stress about it in anyway, so that's a good thing after all. There is one week and I get to see two of my favourite bands performing live (Hardcore Superstar and Crashdïet). And little over a week and I get to see a friend of mine to play solo in a bar.

There is one month to Christmas. That is good, I still have time to make Christmas present. But that one month will probably go way too fast and I might end up noticing one night before Christmas that I haven't done all I planned. But then there is number three which is the number of already done presents. That number three is a good one. There is also number five that equals the ready ideas (some of them already started) for presents. But unfortunately there is also the number zero. That is the amount of those bought presents I have in storage.

Where does all this lead us, you may ask.. Well, just to realizing that there isn't good or bad numbers.. at least I think that is what this is taking us to.. But what do I really know, my guess is probably as good as yours.. and it is only one of many in this world.. ;)

Ps. Number 12 is also pretty good. That many hours away is a coffee break I'm going to have with my dad. :)

This must be heaven..

Shock is finally delivering goods to Finland!!!

Suppose this is early christmas for me.

Happy happy joy joy!!

Money comes, money goes..

Yesterday was the first time in ages I went out for a walk. I walked an hour and felt pretty damn good when I got back home. So I decided to do it again today, now try a little jogging as well because it felt yesterday that I have more to give when it comes to speed and stamina. So the training continues. And so it happened that I made quite big online order.. It was dripping rain last night, so I came to conclusion that I need a decent jacket for my running hobby this fall/winter. And new sportpants, but only because they were on sale.. And since I' m going to look stunning after all this running, of course I ordered a couple of new shirts as well. They were also in sale. The thing is that actually I don't have the money for these clothes. But luckily the products I ordered weren't all available right away, so I decided to wait until they all are and get the package first then. So waiting for a week 50. And waiting for my tax refund. So it's all taken care of. :)

Today I went down town for a quick visit. I saw a commercial last night that there would be Christmas opening in the shopping centre.. So I thought there would actually be something to see.. Maybe it was just me who was impatient or there wasn't any proper program.. However, it was alright to get out from home and see some people. I even found new headphones for my iPod. Now I'm just wondering if I should reset my iPod because it isn't working as it should. It plays the music alright but the turning-on is a bit complicated.. I'd love to buy me a new iPod but THAT I can't afford. Anyway, when it comes to music, I was glad that I didn't hear one Christmas carol while at the shopping centre.

I've had the habit for the past few years, that I'll buy myself a Christmas present from my tax refund. This year I haven't come up with any idea what to buy. I don't have ideas even for what I wish for Christmas. Or what to buy for others. I've made some small presents but the idea was that those would only complete and personalize the actual presents. The problem with me isn't so much what to buy for me since I'm a sucker for music and books. The problem is that I'm pretty picky with what I read or listen. Like this one Christmas present I got... I also like to watch movies on my sparetime. And I do like Jack Black (among many others). But I don't like Nacho Libre, one of Jack Black's movies. I'm not a huge fan of stupid comedy movies. I basically hate every single one of Steve Martin characters. And don't even try to make me watch Mr. Bean.. When I mentioned that I like Jack Black I was referring to films like High Fidelity, School of Rock, KungFu Panda, Waterworld... I like the intelligent Jack Black, with the high class humour.. Not Jack Black in turquoise thights.

I am not only picky when it comes to movies, music or books. It is a problem when watching tv as well. Well, it's not a problem when I am alone at home 'cause then I can watch whatever I want. But for example, I don't follow (probably never really have..) any Finnish tv-series.. I can count those Finnish movies I like with one hand... I am a fan of action movies. I also like fantasy A LOT. And that goes with my books as well.. Maybe I should make a list of books, to my blog, that are missing from my shelf.. Just in case if someone wants to get me present that is truely appreciated... Hmm, I suppose that's not a bad idea..

Anyway, should maybe do something useful for a change.. L8r allig8r!

Weekend and wedding

I have been lazy and haven't updated my blog of the weekend. But I'll do it now. As I wrote before, I started my journey on Wednesday, went to my dad. I spent there few days, knitting and writing, mostly. On Saturday it was time for celebration. I was invited to a party by my cousin. Her little daughter was going to get name that day. What the invitation didn't tell was that there was going to be a wedding as well. I knew about it though and I suppose that it was no surprise to any of the guests. So my cousin got married and their little girl got a beautiful name, Emma Matilda.

My first plan was to get home on Saturday. Instead, I ended up to my brother's place. I spent one night there and came home on Sunday. So I got to see my nephew. He is growing so fast. And how he keep smiling. Probably the happiest child I have ever known. His mother said once again that we speak the same language which I think is funny. But I guess we kinda do. :)

Today I got a phone call from my brother. I get to be a babysitter for my nephew in the start of December. Wohooo!!!!

Busy as a.. bulldog?!

Haven't been writing to my blog for a while. Been struggling with my NaNo and been busy other wise as well. I'm a bit behind with my writings but it's coming all together. Besides I've already written more to one project than ever before, so I feel like a winner already. But I'm not done yet with the novel, I've got still some ideas left so it might well end up reaching the final goal of NaNo, 50 000 words.

Writing isn't all I've done lately. I've started to create some christmas presents already. Nothing big. More like something small and personal to add to go with the actual christmas presents that I'll buy. Too bad that I can't reveal them in my project blog just yet. I like surprises and I like to offer them to others as well. I've had so many christmas in my past that I've already known most of what I'll get from Santa so at least I'm trying to keep the secret when it comes to presents I'm going to give. I am usually the one who is wrapping the presents to christmas paper but I think it's pretty lame that I've wrapped presents that were coming to me.

Yesterday they started to renovate the elevator in our house. It's was pure hell to sit home the whole day. It appears to be that our house is full of elephants. The whole eight storeys. And not just that people walk heavily. Now they seem to get to the corridor in packs and they talk loudly all the way to the eight floor. It is nice that neighbours are friendly but I don't necessarily want to hear them in my own appartment.. And the renovating team. Don't get me started here. I'm unemployed. I don't have to wake up before noon if I don't feel like it. But guess what. These guys start their work at seven and the noise starts half past seven at the latest. So today I went out, shopping. So I wouldn't have to listen to it. What a bliss!! Not did I only avoid the noise but I bought myself a new bag and pj's for my nephew. I like the pj's I bought for him, there's a feisty bulldog on the shirt. And I absolutely LOVE my new bag. It is spacious yet it doesn't seem big. It is simple but there still is a catch. It is useful, fits my style and wasn't too expensive. Win-win for me, I would say!! :D

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Kemiö once again. Going to visit my dad because Sunday was father's day. I'll stay there until Saturday and then I'll go to Salo to visit my cousin with my mum. My cousin's daughter is getting her name on Saturday so I will be seeing other relatives as well. I heard a rumour that there would be also an other reason for celebration but before that is confirmed I won't write about it. Maybe I'll tell you all on Sunday when I'm back home again.

Microwave sushi..?!

The first day of NaNo is soon over. I´ve done pretty well. I´m over the daily minimum, 1667 words and I am planning to keep writing still a couple of hours.. I haven´t been writing all day long but instead I´ve watched TV every now and then and done much of other things as well. At first it felt like it isn´t coming out of my head. I felt I really struggled at 300 words.. but then suddenly I wrote sentence or two and the story started to develop as I expected. And suddenly I had written 1000 words. I´m trusting to my strategy. Many have said that the second week is hardest. Well, I hope that it won´t be that for me. I´ll take it slowly, making my daily goals instead of pouring everything out in the couple of first days. That way the story has time to develop, the plot doesn´t run away from my hands and I should find the right way to put things and not just write total crap. First day I´ve written 1720 words. Not bad I think.

But I don´t have only NaNo news to tell. I visited a friend of mine yesterday. She invited me to eat. I felt a bit sick in the morning but after some pain killers and food I felt much better. Took a little nap and started to wait for the midnight. Watched a Bruce Willis movie "Hudson Hawk" from TV and realized I´ve seen it before. As well as the Willis-movie tonight, "Hostage". Stayed up and followed the forums and groups around NaNo. Decided not to start writing in the middle of the night. Instead I went to bed and woke up pretty early. At least early for me. Watched TV, every-Sunday-Futurama-cannot-miss.. :D But after Futurama I started writing. Went to local store.. took my laptop to bed. Writing a little, some TV and knitting, writing more, food, movie. And now writing my blog. Nothing special.

Oh yeah.. caught my ear yesterday when watching "Hudson Hawk".. they mentioned microwave sushi.. wonder what that´s like.. Yes, sushi is supposed to be raw fish.. but does something special happen to it if you put it in to a microwave..?! Does it explode? :D If someone has tried this or is curious enough to try it after reading this, please tell me the result.. pretty please..