How Much Is That Puppy in the Window?

I'm more than happy to announce that we are getting a new family member on the 16th day. It means that we have only two and a half weeks to prepare our home for a little puppy. That's right: we are getting a dog!

We are both quite excited, though I think I'm even more excited than J.R. After all, getting a dog was my idea, as well as my dream. Anyway. I've been reading dog books like a crazy now. I just want to be prepared for everything since I'm not experienced with dogs. My family has had several dogs, so I'm very familiar with dogs. I just haven't raised a puppy before.



I'm reading so many different dog books, because I want to be able to compare different training methods and choose the right one for our puppy. I've been thinking about a clicker training, but I'm not sure if it's good for the absolute beginners. It sounds so tricky sometimes. And I read one horrible dog book which included instructions how to physically punish the dog correctly! I thought it was wrong and never touched that book again. Thereafter I've read only modern dog books (that book was from the late 80's), since they support only positive reinforcement.

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I have not yet said what kind of a dog we are getting, and I blank that out for a reason. All my friends know what kind of a dog we are getting, because I simply can't keep my mouth shut. But the rest of you... you just have to wait until we have brought the dog home and it's settled down. You can guess, though.

The Yarn-Loving Couple

In case you haven't noticed, our new blog is finally up and running. It's called "the Yarn-Loving Couple" because we are a couple and we love working with yarn. Quite obvious, right? And the blog design is completely made by us. It took a lot of time and effort because we wanted our blog to stand out, but it surely doesn't look like a standard Blogger blog now! It was all worth the trouble.

We try to write on the blog equally, though I think I'm going to blog more than J.R. because my projects are usually smaller and because I also have more free time on my hands. We have agreed that we both try to post at least once in a week. Anyway. Our blog is a great way to get to know J.R. (he's responsible for the very clever Ravelry-link button we use on our posts, go check it out).

That's all I'm going to say, rest you can see by yourself. So, please, visit the Yarn-Loving Couple. All comments are welcome, especially if you notice that something isn't working correctly. The blog should be looking nice on Firefox and IE7. (It will look awful on IE6 but we decided that it's not our fault if people still use outdated browsers.)

All eyes on the prize

J.R. won an orchid from a flower shop. He took part in some competition in which he had to guess the correct name of a certain orchid. Anyway. Now we have one too and J.R. said it should smell like chocolate. I didn't smell anything, though. I have always had a bad sense of smell. Anyway. I like the new orchid. We have so many plants already that it's really nice to see some flowers for a change.


You don't need timestamps when you photograph things with a clock.

The cake is not a lie when you're in Viiala.

I just had a wonderful weekend in Viiala! I'm so glad that J.R. likes to visit my parents too, so I don't have to go alone. It wouldn't be as nice. And I like the fact that J.R. gets along with my family very well. My mom seems to like J.R. a lot, and not only because he's a good guy and in love with her daughter, but because J.R. is interested in gardening and cooking. They have plenty of topics they can talk about.

We usually visit several flea markets with my mom, and this weekend was no exception. My mother is a collector and she's always searching for something. And what does she collect...


... she collects My Little Ponies...


... and glass birds...


... and Russian souvenir dolls...


.. and Matryoshka dolls (and other wooden stuff from Russia). Just to mention some of her collections.

She managed to find nine new My Little Ponies and one really pretty glass bird during the weekend, but we found something really nice too. We've been hunting for a silvery two story server (I don't know what they are called. Tell me if you know!) for months, but now we found something even better. It's not silvery, but white with golden linings. It will go well with our fine coffee set, it's white with golden linings too. I still want a traditional silver one too, though.


Just waiting for some chocolate muffins and cookies.

We also found a fourth Kosmos tea mug by Arabia. And it was cheap! I've seen these mugs with 25€ price tag, but this mug cost only 1.90€. Kosmos is usually pretty expensive, but some people don't know that they're valuable and give them a very low price. After all, it's just an "ugly" tea mug. Anyway. I think that four mugs are enough now. I don't even use them often, I just like the way they look. I wouldn't mind one big Kosmos plate, though. It would be nice to have a matching plate for the serving.



On Saturday we celebrated my older big sister's birthday. I didn't know it was her birthday until we were in Viiala, so I had to improvise a little bit with her birthday gift. I crocheted an apple cozy for her and I also bought her a set of Aino Aalto drinking glasses by Iittala. My mother told me that she collects them and my sister seemed pleased. But I should totally update my calendar so I wouldn't miss all these birthdays! I also played with my niece and nephew. I like kids for being so easily amused. I did nothing but threw balloons to the air, but they seemed to have lots of fun.

My mom also cut my hair on Saturday. It's short-ish and weird now, but I like it. She's definitely not a professional hair cutter, but on the other hand her services are free of charge. I rather choose her than costly barbers or hairdressers.

It was very nice to see my family again. I usually only visit my parents, but my sisters keep visiting them too because they live so near. So I always meet my sisters too when I visit my parents. Though I wish I didn't have to meet my younger big sister so often. She's mean and bad-behaving, and she has zero respect toward others. I'm tired of hearing her nasty comments every time I see her. I can't understand why she's so awful when the rest of the family, including me, is completely normal.

Nothing ever happens to me

It's hard to blog when nothing ever happens to you. Last Saturday we went to movies. The movie was Watchmen and we liked it a lot. It was long but not boring. And on Tuesday Ossi came by because he wanted our old teamaker (he read from my blog that I was willing to give it away). That's all beside school. And school sucks. And I guess I shouldn't be saying that on my blog anymore, because just today I linked my blog to a school project. I had to write a wikipage about myself, and as you know, there is not much to say about me. So I just write down my contact information and my blog address below it.

But something is happening to J.R. He's applying for schools. And one school he is applying to is in Tampere. It's definitely not his first choice, but it's an option for us. I've been living in the metropolitan area since I was fifteen and I love Espoo. But to be honest, I have no reason to live here. I have no hobbies here, my family doesn't live here and I feel that I'm not so important to my friends either. They wouldn't really miss me. Of course I'm currently studying here, but I can always request for a transfer. They have the same study program in Tampere and according to J.J. (he's studying there) it's very well organized compared to my current school.

Even though it's just an idea, I like to think how my life would be in Tampere. First of all, my family would be closer. I could visit them more often and they could visit me too. I would feel like an outsider anymore since I could participate more. I wouldn't miss birthdays anymore. And I have friends at Tampere as well and they're different than my friends here. I'm not sure how long Elina is going to stay at Tampere after graduating, but at least J.J. doesn't have such plans. He likes to live in Tampere and it would be amazing to be able to see him as often as I want instead of like once or twice in a year. He's still one of my greatest friends, especially because he really wants to hang out with me, unlike my friends here (OK, Ossi is an exception. He's awesome). They just make me feel incredibly lonely, but J.J. makes me feel quite the opposite.

My life would be, out of doubt, better in Tampere, but I still hope that I don't have to move. I definitely could and I wouldn't be miserable at all. But I rather keep on trying. I can see no reason why my life couldn't be here. It just haven't started yet. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow.

Magic Tea by Tefal

We decided for like ages ago that we need a new teamaker. Our old one was working perfectly fine but it had started to look disgusting. You had to wash it very thoroughly after every use, and still it was somewhat gross. But when we decided to get one, we simply couldn't find one. We searched through all the local shops (don't get fooled, we live right next to a very big shopping mall) but there was no sign of a tea maker. Only tea maker we could find was from a Finnish online store, but they had some serious delivery problems and the waiting time would have been insane.

Yesterday I was out of work while J.R. was cooking a dinner for us. Usually I wash the dishes while he cooks or question him about a book he needs to study for entrance examination. But yesterday I didn't had any dishes to wash and I only had few questions to ask, so I was quickly out of work. I took a random advert that was nearby and started to read it. And there it was. Our new tea maker. Whatever problem they had, it's solved. The "Magic Tea" tea maker by Tefal is available again!


Tea time every day.

It's even better than our old tea maker. This one is cordless and it has on/off buttons. It doesn't keep the tea warm forever like our old one did, but I guess you have give up something to get something better. And I bet most of the people don't forget that they've made tea... Anyway. If you like tea, like seriously, go get your own. It's a "must have". We bought ours from Anttila, but you can try other retailers too, such as KodinYkkönen, Citymarket, Sokos and ONOFF. (And no, I was not paid to write that.) If you're cheap, though, you can visit us and take our old tea maker. You can have it for free.