I take pictures

Pictures from Sweden Rock Festival 2014 (Thursday) can be found here: SRF2014

Get out more

Had one week of summer vacation last week and went to Sweden. There I visited my sister in Stockholm and Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg. My main goal there was to see Alter Bridge perform live and I did. So that's one thing marked as 'done' on my bucketlist. The festival itself was awesome, I can't even speak of Finnish festivals on the same day.

The only thing causing problems was the train strike in Sweden at the time. First of all, 9 hours of waiting all together on 3 different train stations wasn't fun. Especially during the night time and alone. And approximately 6 of those hours there was no possibility to get inside anywhere. Secondly, there was some sort of national day going on so one of the trains was replaced with a bus. Which was fine but it would've been nice to be informed about this before hand. And then there's this strange thing in Sweden that there's no customer service personnel on train stations (at least there wasn't any on stations I had to wait on). During the night time I had this thought of the possibility to change my train ticket to earlier train. But no. I possibly could have changed the ticket in internet IF I would've had access to internet.

But as said, that was a minor setback. I will gladly visit the festival again but probably not with public transportation and maybe with staying overnight possibility at some b&b or motel or something. And what comes to photos from the festival: I'll try to get them out this weekend.

Other than that, I started a new 30 days challenge during that week of summer vacation. The title says it all, get out more. Doesn't matter to me whether I sit on our balcony or walk a bit of extra to a bus stop that isn't the closest one. The idea is just to be outside and get some fresh air.

Whooops.. Sweden Rock Festival, here I come

And so it happened..
Just couldn't resist it anymore.
I just had to buy me a ticket to Sweden Rock Festival.
For one reason and one reason only.
Alter Bridge is playing there.
And since Finland isn't on their tour list Sweden Rock is the next best thing.
And I get to mark one thing on my bucketlist as done! :)

All Those Wasted Years

Reading challenge last month led me finally to read the Hanoi Rocks bio All Those Wasted Years. Interesting book in all but I felt it was a small disappointment after all. I must admit I'm not a huge fan of HR and I was mostly interested of their version of the famous Razzle story. And unlike Nikki's books (Heroin Diaries & This Is Gonna Hurt) the book didn't leave me feeling positive or inspired afterwards. I rather felt empty or nothing at all. I can't really say the reason for this. Started another book right after the HR book, Tony Iommi - Iron Man and it is way more interesting and inspiring already and I've barely read 50 pages so far. I wouldn't want to say it is a question of language: I usually read my music bios in English and Hanoi was written in Finnish. But I do have to say that English is somehow more descriptive and flexible as a language. For example I have hard times to imagine the fight scenes in R.A. Salvatore books of Drizzt Do'Urden if I read in Finnish, it sort of falls short.

But nevertheless the lacks in the HR book, reading felt good. I definitely need to do it more often. :) And since the challenge for this month is writing.. reading is said to increase your vocabulary.. ;)

Rise above this

Last months challenge went overall quite well. Only few days when I didn't read at all. And some days when I didn't touch a book but read newspapers or something else. Then again, some days I spent an entire hour reading. Now it's once again time for a new monthly challenge.

This month I chose writing. I came across this site. And so my writing yesterday was a postcard. I decided not to put any time limits on myself since I have trouble holding on any schedules in my personal life, mainly because I don't want to. At the moment it's more than enough to me that work restricts my time use and schedules. So, the challenge is more in the writing DAILY something and not on how much time I use to it or how many words I write.

Looking forward to this challenge. And I'll continue with the reading as well. Many books on my shelf that need to be read. :)

Aprils challenge

Decided that the challenge in April is to read a book for 15 minutes daily. Started the challenge already yesterday, but forgot write about it. Last months challenge (stretching and knitting) went quite alright. Mostly did the stretching and knitting in front of TV during the evenings, sat on the floor watching my favorite programs while doing on or the other (or both). My photo-a-day hasn't gone as well as I planned, I've wanted/tried to take photos daily but taking them weekly seems to be more accurate. But I'm not stressing about it, inspiration is probably just around the corner, hiding together with the sun and warm weather.

Double-trouble challenge for March

So.. February is done. Photo-a-Day challenge was really it: challenging. But mostly because of the targets I decided before-hand. I haven't loaded all the pictures yet, but I think I will continue the challenge but without pre-decided subjects.

But since it's March it is time for a new challenge. And I've decided to take on two challenges at once. Both challenges include minimum 15 minutes per day of doing the thing. So, 15 minutes per day of stretching my body and 15 minutes doing some sort of handicraft, knitting, sewing and so on. The stretching comes in handy because I've kinda lazy with everything that hints of sports and moving. And since doing working indoors, sitting by a computer the whole workday my body is a bit stiff. And besides, stretching is so easy to do in the evenings in front of TV. And the same goes mostly with handicraft as well, I'm used to knit in front of TV anyway, so this shouldn't be any problem. If I want, I could do handicraft while stretching as well. :)

I also believe these are habits I will continue with after the month.