FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW - MESSY, MAGAZINE AND MOROTSKAKA

Trying to figure out what to wear today.
Everything is a mess at home and it seems I have somehow managed to magically hide away all my autumn clothes. The agony of living at two addresses.

But there has been times that it was not messy at home. Proof of that in the latest issue of Glorian Koti for example, where there is a short feature on the farm house. The pictures were taken a year ago.

 Breakfast.

Includes this too.
Carrot-zuccini-date cake (=breakfast worthy.) Not sure if it's very good or just ok; the price you pay when you never measure and just randomly throw things in a pot and stir and bake. After a night in the fridge this could be quite chunky though.

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: THURSDAY EVENING

There's a 1930's postcard of me and Dag.
My mom sent me this.

 I harvested some of the spinach and mangold from my growing boxes. I put them in the freezer but a handfull got to join some pasta earlier tonight.

I've sewed and embellished a lot ot blingy skin-tight stuff.

(People have a custom here in the countryside to just walk trough the (front) door wihtout knocking when they come over, which can be a bit funny if you happen to be trying out the tiny showgirls pants you just sew in front of the mirror. Which is next to the front door.)

Been making lots of shimmering thingies as well.
(To see these in action head over to our Paris-themed club Pariisiklubi at Mascot this Saturday!)

LONDON

Here's a dress I wish I'd bought once it still was out there. Not that I thought it looked much on the site, but some time ago I saw a girl wearing this and it looked really good, cut, fabric and all. Damn! It's one of Cath Kidston's dresses in the London pattern, with red double deckers on a light blue background, that they no longer sell.

Well perhaps I'll eventually get over it.

At least now I get to spot some real double deckers, as I will be in London myself the following days!
Performing at Varie-Tease and Exotica Party as part of the London Burlesque Festival, come and say hi if you see me!

PUDDING

Chia chocolate pudding. The kind of dish (or even, perhaps, treat?) that I am not really sure if it's just kind of edible or actually good.

I've made a few sets of chia pudding, or porridge (or slime) and they have never been much to cheer about. Very 'meh'. So why would I still keep making it? A) Because I still have a lot of chia seeds left over to be used up and B) you know when you sort of get this feeling you should like something (happensa lot with so called "superfoods") because you would like to like it and everyone says it's really good and also good for you? I kind of got that going on with that pudding now.

God damn it a (very) long time ago I used to make a small cup of linseed slime that I tried to get down every morning because it's really good for the stomach. The first mornings it was rather OK but after a while it just got unbearable. I mixed it with porridge but I could still feel the slimyness trough. During the same time I was also drinking apple cider vinegar in the morning (yeah those were the gourmand-mornings of 2001); a couple of spoons in a big glass of water. Cleansing and good for metabolism and all that. So they say. But it was the same with the vinegar, after a while I had to start pinching my nose and thing happy thoughts to get it down. Yuck. But that was then and now is now -I eventually (quite fast actually) gave up on the linseed slime. And vinegar. So one'd think that I now at this age would just forget about any self torment when it comes to what I ingest and move on with my life without any more superfood slime or chia seeds.
But then we get back to point A and the fact that those small little f**ckers don't come cheap.

What I had been missing all the time was of course cocoa.  Because anything related to chocolate makes most things better. And  ta-da, that chia jar of mine is started emptying up and, like I said, it might even be that it does so in a very tasty way.

The chocolate chia pudding (< bolded for those who think there is way much text here by now and just want to know what's in the cup in the picture without having to read it all):
So my chocolate chia pudding consists of chia seeds (surprise!) and vegetable milk. I use almond, but hazel or maybe coconut milk (not the canned one but the runny milky one that for example Go Green sells) is next on the list to try.  Then in with some vanilla powder, cocoa powder (quite a lot) and coconut sugar. I make it semi firm, with the milk covering the seeds well before I leave it to set over night or at least for some hours. I have a jar of lingonberry powder that I also add a little bit of. That gives a some extra sting. You can also add a tiny little pinch of salt.

When the pudding is ready I whip it a bit and mix in black currants and sprinkle coconut flakes on top. This goes well with  banana too, and with some raisins or finely chopped dried apricots mixed in. I am thinking of perhaps running the pudding in the blender when done though, to get it smooth.

Also, I've noticed a lot of small things taste better when served out of a coffee up. How is that one may wonder? The reason is probably the same that makes any beverage taste better when had out of a mason jar (according to the young and hip at least).

Do you have any food or dishes that you can't really decide on, yuck or yum?

THE OWLS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM

One of my all time favorite TV series ever is without a doubt Twin Peaks.

There is just something about the dreamy world of Twin Peaks and it's characters. Not to mention all the small crazy details and jokes that the series were filled of. And, of course, the music of Angelo Badalamenti (a lot of the things
 that Lynch does).
I've watched the series several times over the years and also when it originally aired the first time in Finnish TV , although some of the irony I didn't catch until later; I was still rather young then.  I probably will watch it several times still. I thought Twin Peaks was something everyone had seen, but alas, I was wrong. Some of you will obviously need to correct this matter.

(source of above image: In Twin Peaks)

I had a total crush on Agent Cooper when younger. Well I wasn't alone.

And Bob is of course the scariest TV character ever! To be completely honest, I used to close my eyes in the Bob scenes. He was actually a character that was born by accident as he was a set designer who happened to be caught in a shot.

He totally manages to go all BOB in a  off scene shot too! (source: last day on the set ot Twin Peaks )
I'm sorry if I'm feeding anyones bob-phobia here with the images. I read the late Frank Silva was a very nice guy in person. IT IS JUST TV. Ok yes I still close my eyes in the Bob scenes.

The Black Lodge with all doppelgangers running around also freaks me out.

So, I am of course, very much looking forward to the 25-years-later return of Twin Peaks (next year).
Next week however there is a three-day Twin Peaks spectacle at Gloria (something of a live interactive performance-concert thing), and I am weeping a little bit that I can't attend-  it sold out right away before I even had a chance to notice. Some of our students will be there as One Eye Jack's girls for the setup and I'd totally hop in myself but I have a rather heavy pilate education weekend from morning to night coming up anyway so I'll just have to let that one go (sniff) and stick to my DVD's of the series. And the interwebs.
And Julee Cruise.

KEEP YOUR MIND CLEAR AND YOUR SHIRT CLEAN

I have neither as I have some of Dag's dinner on my sleeve and red wine in my glass.



But what I do have is a terrible nostalgia for the harbour, summer nights in the city, beer and jukebox playlists, running along the shore in Merihaka (my old jogging route) to some Marko Haavisto, driving my old Taunus to the same playlist. (Which I  can't do because Eddi has lost he keys to the Taunus and it has now been parked for xx years under an apple tree at the farm. This summer it will happen though. Locksmith. Clean up. Roadtrip, if only just a small one around the corner.)

We have this this Finnish music- challenge going on on Facebook and listening trough my favourite Finnish songs (which all tend to lean to the rautalanka sound) I got an itch for all of the above and some more. I was sure I had posted this song by Marko Haavisto & Poutahaukat here before (as seen in The Man Without a Memory by Kaurismäki) but apparently I hadn't. Well, here you go - it does not get more Finnish than this.

Now I'll have another glass of wine and play some rautalanka and then watch some more Kaurismäki clips.

4 x RANDOMS

I had big hair.

These cherries defied winter and are still hanging in there.

Dag on one of the wood horses in Tapiola. I rode them too as a kid, but back when there were many of them in different colours. Many were also rather high. Not safe enough for today's standards I think.

And then I wore a little animal print.

THAT TIME OF THE YEAR

It's been that time of he year again.
Bokkeeping time.

Such a dreaded period - and I don't even do the business' books myself, just organise and gather it all for our accountant, but that itself is a challenge. (This here is halfway trough already, the starting point was much less pretty.) And it would of course be less of a challenge would I be nicer to myself during the year  and not leave it all for the future January-me to sort out ; I always plan an improvement for the year to come, to be more organised, and that plan is the same year in and year out, but there is still just a big messy pile of papers and a box stuffed with receipts (not to mention the print-list) waiting for me each and every new January. Are there really people out there who get this done nice and clean every month? (And yes yes I know there is, somewhere...) It always makes me strangely content to hear others who are not among those people complain about the same thing.

Well, I got it done now, and hopefully this was the last year I went trough this mess - because I can't change the world still can and now we got ourselves a phone app that will do a lot of the work for us! Yey for that!

WHAT IS NOW CALLED LAST YEAR

And so yet another year has gone by.

Altough, a year does go by every day and every second, and I am not one of those starting a new life each and every first of January (it’s going to be real crowded at the gym the following weeks, I know).  But as everything is always rounded up around the change of the calendar year, so do I. 

Many might have noticed I did been less blogging during the second half of the year;, I had a lot on my mind that took up time but mainly I was very caught up with work, which, as most of you know, takes time, especially when you do not do a nine-to-five but a wherever whenever combined with a small child. And over here, on the blog, I have tried to prefer quality over quantity which leaves some blanks every now and then.

Last year had lots of ups and downs,  more of the later, but I - apart from a few exceptions - seldom go into those here; this is mainly a space for the good stuff. So here's a little well-compressed lookback on 2014.

So - during 2014 I worked a lot. On stage and behind it, coaching students, making costumes, teaching dance clasees  and travelling back and forth performing trough the country.

There will be lots of work for next year too, and lots of new things! But we'll get back to those when the time comes, some sooner, some later.

Not the most fashion-orientated period of my life going on -I feel I never have anything suitable to wear for most of the time as I do so many different things during the day. But I did do many wearable diy’s and clothing projects.

Thought a lot about hair and then went for it; cut my bangs back last spring.

And -apparently - cooked mainly raw food. (Altough now after Christmas is certainly does not feel like that...)

  

And Dag grew bigger, like children tend to do. I think he looks all the same but then I look at photos of him from last winter and spring and see the change and how fast it in fact goes when they are small.

And the seasons keeps on changing and time flies. It will be warm and summer again in no time! 

Next year's New Years-post is just around the corner, believe me. But I'm not going to be all too 2016 yet, let's give 2015 a go first. And a great go it shall be!

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: CAKE AND MUSCLES AND LIVING ROOM DANCING

Sunday. Humid and misty outside, warm and cosy inside. Inspite of that I made it out for a late morning run. Brrr.

Then I cleaned up a long-coveted family item of mine, and old chess-table that now found it's way to the farmhouse. A closer look on it some other time.

Did some work on a set of pictures I took for a sports team's calendar that they are making to raise money. It was quite hilarious to do.

Took a break from the abs and baked a mud cake with lingonberries to take along when popping by for afternoon coffee at Eddi's brother's at the other house on the farm.

But first Dag wanted to do some dancing to whatever was on the radio, and so we did.

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.

RIGHT NOW...

The boys are watching the football final game.
I'm browsing manicures on pinterest.
And there should be a thunderstorm soon!

PAIRS IN COLOUR

 Green & orange.

 Purple & yellow.

Red & blue.