Mushroom amigurumi

I have been crocheting with J.R. again. Our Friday night are so exciting nowadays. We have been drinking several cups of good tea and listened to several singer-songwriters. Here is our today's crocheting soundtrack:

Gavin Degraw - Chariot
John Mayer - Continuum
Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs
The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
Stephen Malkmus - Stephen Malkmus
Pete Yorn - musicforthemorningafter
Adam Green - Gemstones

I crocheted a mushroom amigurumi. The pattern is mostly by J.R. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome because it totally looks like a mushroom. I made his cheeks blush but my pictures are crappy that they aren't really showing. But hey, you can see J.R. crocheting again.


You should see how messy our table looks. And it's supposed to be a kitchen table.


I'm a happy happy happy mushroom.

By the way, Hannes said that if I I don't introduce J.R. properly on my blog, it's like programming with unknown values. He requested a full body shot too. Sometimes he's so demanding. And nerdy. But I guess I could write something about J.R. in the future. But I won't post any pictures of him. Though I do have plenty of good pictures of him...

Promoting teetotaler rights

I'm a teetotaler in a student community. I know, it doesn't sound right. So far I have heard the word "alcohol" like once in every hour I have spent in school. The tutors are promoting us all these cool parties they are arranging for us so we could like get to know each other and stuff. But what about us who don't want to drink? I know that teetotalism isn't a reason for not going, but my lack of interest is certainly one. I'm not into that kind of parties. I'm just not.

So there should be alternatives for non-drinkers. We do exists and we do want to have fun too. We, too, like to socialize and make new contacts. We are not teetotalers because we want to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. We, at least most of us, have just notice that it's possible to live without alcohol.

I would be more than happy to participate in any kind of free after school activity (as long as it doesn't include exercising) that has nothing to do with alcohol. But there aren't anyone organizing such events. And I have started to think that maybe I should be the one who makes the change.

Maybe.

New school, new studies

About eleven months and five days ago I was still studying to be a dental hygienist. Then I realized that there was something odd about the way I was spending my days. At school I was only thinking what I could code next. And after school I just code. So clearly my passion was not in dentistry. So I quit school.

I started in a new school on Monday. Now I study Business Information Technology in Laurea University of Applied Sciences. It's not exactly what I wanted but at least it has something to do with computers and stuff. And I can hang out with other nerds and become even more nerdy. Or not. Anyway. So far I have hang out with this one girl. She's really sweet and she's a teetotaler too.

And my boyfriend baked buns. In Finnish they are called "korvapuusti". I don't know why. Since if you translate it directly it means "slap on the ear".


On the other hand... they do look like smashed ears...

Last night J.R. and I talked about my blog. He said that it used to be a lot nicer when I wrote more and more often. And that now I'm only like posting pictures and babbling something to keep Hannes happy. He's definitely right and I should do something about it. I really should. But not just today.

Our new amigurumi friends

We spent the last night crocheting again. I could easily change my blog's name to "The Odd Crocheting Couple" or something. Anyway. I crocheted a cute snail. And it's actually cute this time:



This snail is not slimy so you can cuddle it as much as you please.

J.R. translated the pattern for me from For The Love Of Yarn. I suck with the patterns, no matter the language. I'm so glad that J.R. is so patient with me and that he tells me how to crochet each round. Without him my snail would have looked like poo or something.

Or course J.R. crocheted something too. First he finished his octopus. I don't know where the pattern is from but it turned out well.


How do you make an octopus to smile? This one is so grumpy.

Then he improvised and crocheted a lizard without any pattern.


This lizard has some kind of a platypus thing going on with his mouth.

At some point of our crocheting we got hungry. So we made some baguettes with sour cream and prawns. I'm mad at myself for not taking a picture of that. It would have made you drool. And this time we had a good crocheting soundtrack too. Here is all what we listened to:

Lou Reed - Transformer
Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams
Jack Johnson - On And On
Jack Johnson - Sleep Through The Static
David Gray - White Ladder
Matt Costa - Unfamiliar Faces

So no death metal this time.

Friday Theme Song by Amoena

I composed another theme song with my FL Studio 8 and it took more than 15 minutes this time. The ending sucks, I know, but I'm no effing Sibelius. OK?

Amoena - Friday Theme Song

And in case you wonder how my music looks like in FL Studio, here is a quick screen capture:


Umm... You can always click to enlarge.

On Wednesday we crocheted like till 2 AM and listened to death metal

My boyfriend is teaching me how to crochet. How backward is that? But it's no surprise that he already got better than me. I'm just too clumsy and impatient. And Elina, no, I'm not good with my hands. Definitely not. See, this is the second amigurumi I crocheted:


Not suitable for children under 3 years. Because this freaking thing will give them nightmares.

It is supposed to be a cute bird but instead it resembles some kind of a Jumbo Jet monster. J.R. crocheted a bird too. But his bird actually looks like a bird and it's cute too.


Adopt me?

Of course I don't give up so easily. J.R. started to crochet an octopus and I started to crochet a new bird. I still haven't finished it, I just don't dare to. I'm sure that when I sew the pieces together it will go awfully wrong.



Yep. That's J.R. crocheting behind the ball. Now you can see with your own eyes that he exists. He's not my imaginary boyfriend even though he sounds a bit unbelievable sometimes. Yes, he cooks, crochets, reads books about relationships. decorates the house and keeps it clean... But I have solid evidence that he's psychically attracted to me so he's not gay.

Crocheting

Yesterday I was bored at work so I started to google amigurumi pictures. Amigurumis are small crocheted or knitted softies. According to Wikipedia they are typically animals or like inanimate objects with anthropomorphic (that means human-like, duh) features. Either way, they're supposed to be seriously cute. And usually they are.

I have never liked crocheting or knitting. But seeing all those crocheted cuties seriously made me want to learn how to crochet more than just a chain. So I could like crochet amigurumis too. Before I would have just skipped the whole idea but lately I have been inspired by J.R. He just tries out things and doesn't seem to fear failing like I do. And he was interested in crocheting too. And since we are already like the sickest couple (according to Hannes this time, not to Wikipedia) in the universe I thought why not, crocheting can't be that difficult.

So we bought some yarn and crochet hooks. I started to crochet right away, just to get used to the hook and stuff. I know the basics of the basics but naturally J.R. is not as experienced as a crocheter. He started to read some crochet handbook he borrowed from the library. I glanced it through too but I found all the instructions too complicating. I don't think I can learn crocheting from the books.

And I crocheted my first amigurumi! Even though I wasn't really trying to. I just crocheted and soon I realized I was making some kind of a hat. And when the hat was finished I thought I could crochet a worm or something that could wear it. And here's the result:


It's a cactus with a tiny sombrero! I call him... Mr. Cactus!

I told Hannes about our new hobby. And the next moment we were talking about gay sex.

Happy birthday Hannes, this is for you

You probably wonder why I have not blogged like in two weeks. The reason is that I have done only uninteresting things. Uninteresting to you, very interesting to me. As I wrote earlier, my boyfriend moved in. I always thought that there wouldn't be a day when I feel like NOT opening my laptop. But there had been several days that I have not opened my laptop. And if I have, I have opened it only to listen to music or to watch movies with J.R. Yes. It's sick. And I love it.

But I guess you want to hear something. So... I have been working. I only have three days left and then I'm starting in a new school. Anyway. J.R. has been cooking for us. My boss said he's a treasure and I totally agree with her. And on the other hand my friends are trying to convince me that he's probably gay. But gay or not, his cookings are delicious so I have nothing to complain.

I realized that it's probably because of my lack of self-confidence why I can't cook. I just can't. I have never made a dinner. I have never cook anything. But I bake. And I bake well. For example today I baked my super yummy muffins because Hannes came by. And because today is his birthday. I used the same recipe as earlier but they turned out even better than before. I guess it was because this time I used also cocoa powder and some vanillin.



Bad picture. Yummy, yummy, yummy muffin.

And because today was Hannes' birthday I dared him to eat a whole green pepper. He nearly died. I didn't expect him to be so masochistic. They're like seriously HOT.


They look so small and innocent, don't they?

I have a really good feeling about everything. I guess I have fulfilled my new year's resolution now. And I try to blog more when all things have settled. Stay tuned by subscribing to my feed.

Swiss Roll Saturday

My mother, my sister and her husband visited me yesterday. The last time they visited me was three years ago so they don't come here often. Of course they didn't came only to see us. They wanted to go to Ikea too and they also needed to bring us some furniture from Viiala.

I went to Ikea with them and I had Hannes with me. They drove here with a car that only had seats for three people. So I asked if Hannes would like to go to Ikea too and if we could like take his car. I also invited him to come over later because I wanted my mother to meet my best friend too.

My mother bought me two new plants from Ikea. They look like grass to me but hey, they were cheap and they're green. And I'll probably get them killed anyway.


Little decoration wouldn't harm. Maybe some tiny birds again.

So they brought us some furniture. I wanted to get rid of our old dinner table and the chairs because they were hideous and J.R. totally agreed with me. My mother bought us this old fashioned dining set from a friend of hers:



I really like to have benches instead of chairs. You can fit only one person per chair but you can easily fit more than two persons in one bench. And since our sofa is next to the table you can easily take one bench and use it as a sofa table when you want to eat and watch TV at the same time.



We also exchanged beds: They brought us a notably smaller bed from Viiala and took our gigantic double bed back with them. Our bedroom is a lot roomier now. I didn't even knew it could be so capacious!

And little by little our place is starting to look like ours. This has been my home for I don't know how many years now. But I want to reorganize and redecorate this together with J.R. so we could both feel that this is ours. Not mine. Ours.

My mother also brought us these nice teacups:







And because she knows that I am a bit of a tea enthusiast she also gave me these fridge magnets:


The missing line of the fridge poem is "Kylmä talvi ja valkoinen sade"


I guess it's Hannes who's responsible for those questionable word combinations. It could be Ossi too though. He likes to play with them too.

Yesterday I also baked a gluten-free Swiss roll before I went to Ikea. It was especially for my mom who's coeliac. I told her twice that I baked a gluten-free Swiss roll. But while I was eating my own piece of Swiss roll I suddenly saw her taking a chocolate chip cookie. She had already put it in her mouth but she hadn't bite it yet. So I start yelling "don't eat it, don't eat it" to her. I was just in time. I don't know what she was thinking. But I'm glad that I saw her taking the cookie. You can't eat even a teeny tiny piece of regular cookie if you're coeliac. It's a definite no-no.

Anyway. It was nice that they visited me. I don't spend much time with my family and it bothers me sometimes. They're really cool and I feel comfortable with them. They know me. And it was nice to have this place full of people. Since it was not just my mother and my sister and her husband but J.R. and Hannes too. There were lot's of talking and laughing and bustling and that's what I love most.

***

And today I composed a theme song for this Sunday. I did it with FL Studio and it took like 15 minutes. You can download it legally and I guess it's so awful that I should pay you for listening to it. And yeah, you're right. It's just the same thing repeated like four times. And oh, it has no ending or whatever, I hope you don't mind.

Amoena - Taking Back Sunday (mp3)

Amoena @ Assembly 08

I just got home from Assembly. It's a computer festival, it says so in the ticket. My mother called me while I was there. I tried to explain her where I was but I'm pretty sure she didn't understand. It's hard to explain, therefore I'm quoting their website:

ASSEMBLY is a four day computer festival, in which thousands of people and their computers spend the long weekend by meeting friends, playing games, surfing on the net, talking on IRC and enjoying the great productions from the demoscene. The idea is to be there with or without your computer and enjoy the great atmosphere of being with likeminded people.

I wasn't really participating though. J.R. works there as an organizator (which in my opinion is pretty cool) and he asked if I wanted to pay a visit. So I went to see him. And of course I wanted to see what it was all about since I've had heard so much about it. I know that I only got to scratch the surface, but to a girl nerd like me it was definitely enough.

But it was pretty indeed. The screens in the dark, I mean. I tried to take a picture, but you know my sucky camera phone. It's impossible to take a decent photo when there's no light. Here is the best picture I got:


This simply doesn't do the justice.

There weren't many girls, by the way. I read from a newspaper that there are more and more girls every year. I saw like five. I know that there got to be more of them because the very same newspaper also said that there are at least 500 girls this year. But I guess 500 girls doesn't really stand out when there are like thousands of boys. When I went to women's bathroom it was like dead empty. Girls should totally take over the computers and gain some serious respect as nerds. Girls can code too, you know.


When you know the right person, you get to places. For free.