Calendar for social life losers

I was really excited when school started this Fall. Fall means new calendars, and I absolutely love calendars. They make me feel oh so important. I just have one teeny tiny problem... I barely have life beyond school, and school projects don't really fill the calendar. Empty days, weeks and months make me feel depressed and like a social outcast. And besides, I couldn't justify buying a new fancy calendar just to write down one or two exam dates.

So I came up with somethind different. I call it a "calendar for social life losers".

It's just a thin notebook which I have covered with violet paper. The stickers on the cover say "Calendar etc 2010" in Finnish. Not very fancy or original, but in the same time it suits my style. Every spread in the notebook represents one week; I have handwritten the number of the week and the names of the months including the specific dates.

The basis of the calendar is really simple, but it works for me. I just write down the day and what is going to happen, and I can use pretty much as much space as I want to, because there's no fear that I'll manage to use the whole spread... J.R. complained that my calendar is hard to understand because the days don't follow any logic. It doesn't bother me. I think it's easy to scan because I only have 1-4 events marked for each week. And hey, there's still room for occasional to-do lists!

When I go through my calendar now, I don't feel depressed. My calendar covers all my needs and makes me feel like I have a life, because there's no empty days. Yay!

Autumn leaves and my little Autumn ladies

There have been some signs that the winter is just around the corner. Days have became colder and it has also snowed a little. It still looks like autumn outside, though. There are even some leaves on the trees. Papu is prepared for the winter. She has her coat and her little tube hat. Niila, on the other hand, is not prepared at all. She doesn't even know what winter is. And she doesn't have a winter coat yet. I've been looking for a human coat that I could turn into doggie coat, but I haven't found anything suitable. The time is seriously running out, so I hope I find something before it gets seriously cold.

The girls have been enjoying the autumn too. Last weekend we visited my parents because of my dad's birthday party. We let them run loose in the backyard and they seemed really happy. Viiala is like a paradise for our pups. There's plenty of room to run, indoors and outdoors, and there's lots of play mates too. My mother's dachshund is now also Niila's good friend and she also made friends with my sisters' Labrador retriever, Dachshund and Golden retriever. The Golder retriever is a new acquaintance for Papu too. My sister's family just got her and she was actually younger than Niila.

They also tried out their new sweaters against the chilly autumn weather. The blue sweater that Papu is wearing is knitted by me, and J.R. has knitted the greenish sweater Niila is swearing. 

The ladies don't always manage to look so smart.

Papu is actually shivering from cold in this picture.

Niila is one serious super model.

Sniffing, sniffing.

There is also one new video of Niila on Youtube. They were playing just the other day with a stuffed mouse. Niila got it and she didn't want to give it back to Papu. It seems that our little one knows how to benefit from her smaller size...

I don't mind so much about getting older because I got so many awesome birthday presents

My birthday was on Friday, but for some reason my parents and sisters forgot it. I expected to get birthday wishes early on the morning, but I actually received the first one late at night and got more only after I complained that everybody has forgotten me... I don't know what could be more important than my birthday?

J.R. of course remembered my birthday, and he was excited to give me my birthday present. He had gotten it weeks earlier and he was eager to know if I liked it. We didn't do anything special for the rest of the day though. We were too busy baking cakes. J.R. baked a double chocolate cake and I made an easy cheese cake. J.R. ran into some troubles with his cake though and we had to use all of our imagination to make it work. It was worth all the trouble because it turned out fabulous.

My birthday party was on Saturday. All my friends came and we served tea, cake and other treats. Ossi entertained us by trying to play my wooden flute. You have to make a special trick to get a sound of it, and it's not exactly easy to figure out how to do that. Anyway. I forgot to take pictures of the cakes, so I have to show you a picture of my birthday presents instead:

Click to enlarge...

OK. All of my birthday presents are in this pictures, except the chocolate I already ate on Friday. The purple Vans t-shirt is from J.R. I had told him that I would like a Vans t-shirt because I really love shoes by Vans and that it would symbolize my fandom for the shoes. People wear band t-shirt because they like the bands, so I can now wear my Vans t-shirt because I love the shoes. At least it makes sense to me. The pom pom maker is also a present from J.R. I already tested it and it's super easy to make pom poms with it!

The purple scarf is from my most awesome friend Ossi. I got a scarf from him last year as well, so I think he's now my number one source of cool scarves. And since I'm the "girl who always wears a scarf", you can never go wrong with scarves with me. The shiny white cardigan is from Tien whose my friend from school. I guess she has noticed my lack of long sleeves shirts. I really needed one!

I also got a great deal of tea this year. The "Karibian aurinko" tea is from Elina and her boyfriend, as well as the shower gel next to the tea packages. I think Elina is psychic, because I have just ran out of shower gel and she saved me from a shopping trip. The two green tea packages are from Hannes. He got them from Poland and J.R. googled that they are some tangerine and cactus black teas. They sound so exotic that I can't wait to sample them tonight!

I also can't wait to try out the sandwich grill. It's from Hannes too. We already had a sandwich grill, but it was old and the shell was broken and glued back together. I always felt slightly unsafe when using it, but now I can grill sandwiches without worrying about getting an electric shock or something. I gave the old one to Hannes though, because I knew he wanted a sandwich grill too. And he's an electrician. Electricians are allowed to use unsafe devices, right?

The Body Shop gift card and sweets are from M.B. He complained earlier something about his present being too impersonal. I don't mind impersonality when it comes to body shop gift cards. I have TBS gift cards permanently in my wish list! I'm too poor nowadays to pamper myself with TBS products, but now I have no other choice than to get something nice just for myself. I'm already thinking about night cream or new shades of shimmering eye shadows... Something I want, but not necessarily need.

And lastly, two new KoKo mugs. We actually got four new KoKo mugs by Arabia, two yellow and two light green, but I don't know yet how many of them are my birthday presents. I invited more people to come to my birthday party than we had mugs, so I asked my mother if I could buy new mugs and they would just give me some money later. We decided that we needed three mugs to be safe, but we ended up buying four to get two of both colors... My mom can give me one of them or all four if she wants to.

Yes. I'm into birthday presents. Into all kinds of gifts really. I like to get them and I like to give them. And I like to write megaposts about them...