FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW - FROM SUNDAY EVENING TO NIGHT

Came home to the city; we spent the end of last week on the farm. But now that summer will one over the city flat will be our base camp again. (And now I intend to organise things and tidy up so it will be nice again; the past year it has been an awful chaos.)
This is what Tapiola is like; lots of midcentury- and sixties houses embedded in lots of green, following the landscape; building low where the landscape is low and high on the hills. Or, what old Tapiola is like, as they are building lots of new and high for the moment. Our balcony is the one with the colourful hanging lateens ont he top floor.

Most of my weekend however was spent at a fitness education course. I took as support for the dance classes and courses I hold. See  how my work out bag has a neatly sewn (put two fingers up in the air and do a little double bend on them as you say "neatly") IBTC patch on it (we still have a handful left).



On my way home I popped by Anttila in Sello which is closing down and being emptied out. It's rather empty by now but I came over a hundred euros worth of shoes for only twelve; these everyday wedge sandals I still intend on using for the last warm days and a pair of girlie/granny autumn walking shoes. I got Dag a moomin scarf for a few pennies as well.



And then the sun set and we had virigin mary's on the balcony.

PARK PICNIC

Yesterday we were supposed to go to a 1950's picnic organised by the city as part of a photo exhibition with motifs from that era but the constant rain ruined those plans. Well, at least we had just managed to have a little picnic of our own in the park outside our building before, so we were not left totally picnic-less.

Breakfast pink ith avocado sandwiches and some pancake with freshly made rhubarb jam. Panda-boy decided to eat both at once just in case I would end up having more than him; he always seems to be very concerned with that.

Park view. Tapiola; nowadays a constant mix of nature and construction sites.

Oh summer, how I have waited for this!

Sometimes happiness is a kid and a ball.

For a short while at least. Then he was very eager on me putting my shows on and us moving on. The playground calling!

A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF

What I did during the last seven days. No day is like the previous one to me .Which does not mean that my life is one big adventure or party, having no routine can also be rather exhausting. And every week is busy-week over here.

But anyway, here we go; this was my past week (mostly via instagram, haven't readlly had the chance to carry the camera around - my hands are full of other stuff, like babies for example, you know.)

Friday. last week's.

Drove some 300 kilometers up to Jyväskylä where we had a show with Sweet Jeena & Her Sweethearts as well as The Shrieks. Here we are posing all naturally backstage with our local sailor pick up girl.

Saturday.

Drove back and stopped at this very Kaurismäki-esque old gas station and bar. Which sadly was closed for the day.

Did a quick stop home and put the face on again and went for a show we did at a library. It was thunder and the lights went dark, but the music kept on playing!

Sunday.

Hanged with these two out on the farm. Did some graphic work while dag napped.

Monday.

Stayed at home and did lots of tidying up and cleaning! Woooh!

Tuesday.

Filmed a thing that will air in autumn and forgot to take any social media evidence of that...
Later I had a meeting after which we rehearsed something that included a helluvalotta gogo boots.

Wednesday.

Eddi had a day off and we were at the farm. Dag was all excited about the neigbor's cows walking pass the window and I picked some nettles.

Thursday.

Did a show at Radisson Plaza with these funny ladies.

Friday, this one.

Took a walk with Dag to Tapiola, our hoods while int the city, and bumped into this fella.

In the evening I had a burlesque workshop, as a student for a change; there's some outsiders in town giving us what they've got!  Here's a bunch of legs from that event

After which I drove out to the farm  with a  pastel May evening sky in front of me.

GREEN GRASS AND CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN THE WIND

Every time the first really warm days hits us it's like a huge weight falling from my heart; the recognition that this is what it can feel like outside! Soft and warm. (I decided it is not allowed to get under +20 before mid September, mmmkay?)

So we went on a sunny stroll with Dag, heading to one of the many big parks here in Tapiola.

We landed among lots and lots of green.
Hard to believe that it a little more than a month ago looked like this. (Spring is always the shortest season here...this year we barely had one .)


Dag is still a bit overwhelmed to be directly on the ground, carefully trying everything out. (And that 'everything' usually ends up in his mouth.) But he always sits the first minutes still just touching the grass.


We had a little picnic with cookies, baby crackers and cantaloupe.

Nom nom.

(Not as blissful and calm as I had imagined this though, I had cantaloupe goo all over my straw mat in an instance.)

Taking it easy.

Then we walked home beneath the cherry trees in bloom.

THE FIRST PROPER WALK

We're back in the city and I'm able to walk normally again (well, almost) and took Dag out for a walk to the park in his new pram. I wanted to take a photo from the same spot that mom has a first-walk photo with me of, but that whole lawn is dug up and full of pipes and tubes and building barracks due to some, uh,  pipe-thing.

(And yey! I'm wearing my new dress which almost fits me - it gaps a bit in the waist but give it a few more weeks and many walks I'm thinking I'll be wearing lots of my other dresses too. Fingers crossed... This two-piece dress is Bettie Page clothing from Miss Bamboo in case you were wondering.)

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW : FINALLY!

Hello form the sunshine! Today I've been hanging out in the meadow outside our building. Because it is finally warm, you know, as in not just a little warm but warm as in for real this time.

I had Spanish cheesecake or -curd or what you would call it, with fresh blueberries and some cherry jam.

And read old magazines and did my nails. In coral.

And took out my sandals!  I figured my Hasbeens'd be steady and good pregnancy shoes, although they are the "sky high"-ones. So far so good.

It struck me that it was pretty much exactly two years ago that I was sitting here on the meadow on a similar warm day like this, enjoying the sun before going to renovate our flat-to-be. Time flies!

(Although, you know when something feels like just yesterday and in the same time like an eternity ago? That time is a bit like that.)

I remember being in the same meadow with my grandparents; my grandfather took us swimming from the rocks a little further away. He'd just sit and wait, he never went in the water. And in some winters someone used to make these big snow sculptures of animals in the meadow; whales and octopuses and icebears that they'd spray with water to turn icy and hard. We'd go there with my grandmother. And you could go inside them and play and they had slides to go down along, along their tentacles and tails and so on. And I remember they used to paint part of the snow too, like the eyes and faces of the animals. But that was really a very very long time ago.

THE NICER WAY TO THE BUS STOP

Yesterday was such great weather so on our way into town for a birthday dinner (not mine this time :) we decided to walk trough the park to another bus stop further away. I wanted to take my camera with me to go on a proper walk at the same time and take some photos but because that would have meant we should've left in proper time too (which of course is near to impossible) I had to leave the nature photography behind and satisfy with some quicker shots with the phone.

Today however it is so stormy the windows are shaking! And, I can tell you, it really sucks that I have to be at work in an hour. Which is, you know, outside, by the sea.

ABOUT THIRTY YEARS AGO

Mom and I on our first walk togehter.


And here's that little baby girl thirty years later!
Thirty years old today.

ABOUT SOME STUFF

(Yes, I know, I am among the more creative out there when it comes to headlines.)


We actually have two more rooms in our flat; the study and the kids' room, but they were not tidy enough to snap pics of.
(They are to the right in the pic, before our bedroom. The birdie-bathroom is to the left.)

Anyway, I intended to write about the armchairs and the wallpaper and other things quite many of you have asked about in the previous post about home already , but wasn't up to it then. So here goes now instead:

The wall paper is called Ken Kiuruista Kaunein ("Who is the Fairest of the Larks") and was designed by Birger Kaipiainen in the 1950's. It comes in a four colour variations and has a sister design in Kiurujen Yö ("Night of the Nightingales"). You can get it at Tapettitalo. They have an English translation of the site, and maybe, maybe, it could be possible to order abroad also.


My make up table cost me 20 euros from the finnish auction site Huuto.net, along with the stool. I also got our living room table trough that site. The stool was just a frame to which I build a seat of some left over wood from the renovation and a piece of foam, some fabric and ribbon. The lace is cut from a waxed cloth. The string shelves in the living room I spent a small fortune on, but the one here in the bedroom and the one in the study I got from my grandparents (they left one here in the flat for me) and from my mom and dad's garage.


I have the same waxed lace cloth on the shelves in the wardrobe too. I have received a lot of request to show pictures of my wardrobe during the years. Here's just a tiny sneak peek; I keep my clothes in here but also on a rack and then in the mini walk in closet in the study (among with lots of burlesque outfits and props, winter clothes and summer sandals, tools and other more undefined items…). The bedroom closets are original; I repainted them white on the outside and painted them soft pink on the inside and changed the old not-so-functional shelves into an Elfa drawer system.


(Bonus cat and cabinet radio-pic.)


A lot in our livingroom happens to be old and vintage, but the arm chairs are in fact not. They are a classic model from Finnish furniture comapy Asko that has been produced since way back. I am not sure if it has been in production constantly, but anyway, it is at least now. The chair is called Helena. It comes in a wide range of fabrics; I originally wanted a pair in a soft woven gray fabric, but one such would've cost more than the two deep red together so red it was. And better that way actually. There is also a similar chair called Richard in a classic fifties design with more patterned fabrics.