Survival

I've survived the Christmas. Got some presents, best of them was definitely a gift card to a record store. (Thanks hun' for that.) Christmas was mostly over eating and spending time with my family and loved ones. Presents I got them.. eh, Santa got them, were appreciated as well.

I've also survived quite well the December without stress, as planned. Some was still unavoidable though. Got some last minute stress from travelling and time schedules. It seems to be every year a problem since everybody's got plans when and where to meet and you try to fit things to your own schedule. Luckily I got to take the passenger seat and just follow others.

Had splendid time with my nephew baking ginger bread cookies, playing memory cards and building Lego robot. We got a white Christmas after all the doubts and the winter weather still goes on, at least for now. Met my sister's family on Christmas eve. Unfortunately my niece had a little cold but she was still so into her presents that she barely had time to say hi. :)

Some planning to do for 2015, probably including a trip to London in April. One thing off of my bucketlist. And in a couple of months we'll see if one project gets a kick-start or not.. But before any of those I still have a few workdays this year. Also a few days left to look back at this year, all that's happened.

Can't wait for the new adventures!

Season's greetings

I'm spending the week mostly at my brother's family and visiting my parents.
My sister is spending Christmas in Finland with her family so I'll see them as well.

Just wanted to wish you all a merry Christmas.

Activity tracker

I bought a little while ago to myself Garmin vivofit activity tracker and heart rate monitor. I have been using the tracker couple weeks now, day and night. I've also tried the heart rate monitor but since I haven't been actively training it's been waiting on my desk for my next run.

I have sort of mixed feelings about the tracker. I don't trust the step count very much because you can fool it by shaking you're hand. The activity bar isn't that trustworthy either. Yesterday I was in yoga for 1.5 hours and the activity bar came visible. Yes, I can admit that yoga isn't that active sport but I wasn't sitting still either. So, that was a bit disappointing. But at the same time the activity bar have challenged me to get up from my chair, especially at work. The activity bar comes on after one hour of being inactive and increases after every 15 minutes. In that way it is good because it reminds me not to sit too long.

The synchronizing of the tracker with computer proved to be really easy. I've done it once but I'm really waiting to see the sleeping information from a longer time period. I know I sleep way too little ad probably my sleep isn't that deep and relaxing either. Maybe I can find some ways to improve my sleep with the help of this tracker.

I haven't taken part to any challenges yet, but I think I might consider those after Christmas.

The caloric tracker doesn't interest me at all since it doesn't count automatically also the calories I take. ;) I'm really not interested of counting every bite I take.

Anyway, small steps.. I guess, anything that takes me towards healthier life is good..

Oh, the joy of buying things

Yesterday I went for a little Christmas shopping. Mostly I've done my shopping in the internet but yesterday there was a glimpse of sun outside (and a spouse with hangover inside) so I thought that a little walk would be nice. So now I've bought presents to my nephew and niece. And one extra present that is going to a 3 year old boy whose family I found through Jouluapua. Jouluapua is a way to find families asking help for Christmas and you can pick one close to you or further away. Via the service I found/chose one single mom with a little boy and a baby on the way. The mom was asking for presents to her son and some baby clothes. Nothing too big in my opinion. But there are also big families with five kids for example and they need help to provide them Christmas food or clothes, the parents may be unemployed etc.

Now the thing is that usually when giving something to charity it goes through some organisation and you have no certainty if the help goes to where it is supposed to. I've given money to WWF, I think they are doing very important job by helping animals who can't speak for themselves. But this time I thought I could help someone personally and Jouluapua provided a good channel to that help. I could easily deliver the package myself and give it face to face but I think I'd rather send it although the family lives by my way to work.

Anyway, the presents are wrapped in Christmas paper and I can't wait to see the faces of the loved one receiving them. ;) (Especially waiting to see my what my sister and my nephew think of their presents. My nephew, almost six years old, is at the moment for some reason absolutely loving My Little Pony and his favorite is Rainbow Dash. So I got him a soft toy for sleeping pal just as he wished for from Santa.)

December challenge

Since Christmas is often said to cause stress I decided that my December challenge should be RELAXING. I'm still doing Christmas preparations, mostly buying and doing presents but the idea is to do something relaxing, something I enjoy of on a daily basis. It might be as simple as taking a nap or taking photos, drawing or for example taking a walk.

On the coming Saturday I've planning to go to movies. Last time I did that was when the previous Hobbit-movie came out. Now I haven't yet decided whether I'll go see Interstellar (Matthew McConaughey) or Fury (Brad Pitt). Of course I'll have to watch the new Hobbit as well at some point of this month. :D

I received some clothes this week that I ordered from the internet. I would love to promote the clothing brand to you or one the website I ordered from but I don't want to ruin my source of good(-looking), quality clothes. This due to the fact that basically everybody is already ordering clothes from EMP and since Turku is after all quite a small city (and my circles are even smaller) I'm hoping to keep my style as my own instead of seeing people wearing the same clothes I have in my closet. Blackgroup has been mentioned in many of the blogs I read so that one I can give. They rarely have clothes I like in my size or they are way too expensive to my taste but now I ordered a hoodie from them. I tried to find a picture of it which I could share from their site but I guess they ran out of it since I didn't find it anymore. So sorry, no picture. ;)

But now with these words I am wishing you all a relaxing month!
And don't stress over Christmas, it's just not worth it!

Living is hard..

.. but kissing, hugging and saying "I love you" is not.
And it doesn't cost a thing.
So do it. And don't always expect others to do it for you.