Christmas wishes?

December is a fabulous month of gift giving because almost everyone I know has a birthday then. At least that's how it feels like at the moment. That includes me as well. And then there's of course Christmas. So everyone needs to come up with a wishlist or otherwise they will get ugly and bulky things they don't need as presents.

My parents have been asking me what I would like for Christmas. I assume birthday wishes are supposed to be included in the same list, because December is joulukuu in Finnish - "Christmas Moon". The time it takes the moon - kuu - to go round the Earth is approximately a month. And once this "Death Month" - marraskuu - is over it will be time for Christmas - joulu !

So I've tried really hard to think of things I would like to receive this December. Unfortunately, I've developed a bad habit of buying all the things I would like myself. I mean, I already bought candles and a Pikachu costume, what else would I want?!

Perfect for any occasion.

I'm not really a difficult person to buy presents to. I like many things! Presents make me really happy, especially if they are useful. Things that I don't like are toffee, stupid decorative things with no real purpose apart from being in the way, and mugs. For some reason mugs are everyone's favourite thing to give. I understand this, I've given several mugs as a present, too! But I just moved to a new house and there's a shelf full of my mugs. There's 13 mugs! One of them is Laura's but all the remaining 12 are mine. And I've only bought one of them myself, the rest have been presents. If I had known this, I maybe could have left that one mug in the shop. But it came with a coaster, and I only own 3 of them. I like square ones that are not slidy and pile up nicely. So please, no more mugs, I don't have enough coasters for all of them. I also have many candles, but only one tiny plate to burn them on!

But because I felt I needed to come up with that wish list for my family, I tried to think of things that I need. It was so much easier when I was five and I was just given a toy catalogue to circle things in. 

Anyway, these are the things that would make my life nicer and easier:

Swimming costume that fits. I went swimming today and it was a real struggle to get my swimming costume on. I may have got bigger. Or maybe my current one shrank. In either case, I think I need a new swimming costume that fits. And because I like to be difficult I would like it to be a swimsuit, because I feel funny wearing a bikini at the swimming pool. Bikinis are for pool parties and the beach. Neither of which I very rarely go to. And to make this issue even more difficult I would like it to come with an integral bra support system. In my size. They are rare and expensive finds.

(Photo from Freyalingerie.com)

A pleasant alarm clock. It's one of the most difficult things to wake me up. I can sleep through fire alarms. And without setting an alarm, I might never wake up. I have several alarm clocks, but all of them are mean. I would like a pleasant, happy one. One that would tell me that there's a nice world out there and that if I woke up, I would get to be a part of it. 

(Photo from Suurikellokauppa.fi)

Compact system camera. I love taking pictures of nice things in my life. So that I can look at them in the future and remember what my friends used to look like and where I used to live and what places I've seen. My current camera is a 6 years old digital camera, and the picture quality is not quite as high as I would like it to be. It's impossible to take nice pictures with it inside, and I really would like a better one. 

(Photo from Verkkokauppa.com)

Chopsticks. I would like to learn to eat faster and more sophisticatedly with chopsticks. It could be made possible by having something to practise with. 

(Photo from Keittiovaline.fi)

Medicine organiser. As I mentioned earlier this month, I take a lot of dietary supplements these days and would really like something to put them in when I go travelling. I hopefully will also get some medication that works if NHS figures out what's wrong with me. That's my hope for the next year. 

(Photo from Hauskakauppa.fi)

These five things are something that I really wish I would get.

This Christmas wishlist thing is something that is going around in many blogs, so I did it too, in case it would help me think of something I would like to get so that I would stop getting asked about it.

But it's done now, so can I now tell you how I feel about Christmas gift giving?

Mostly I find gift giving as a stressful obligation. You do it to show people that you wish to keep them in your life. Because in the future they are supposed to return a gift to you. I feel that Christmas is too materialistic with the whole compulsory gift giving. It's not the thing I care about in Christmas. At Christmas I would like time to sit in peace with people I love and have some time to think about how wonderful life is while holding a warm cup of mulled wine. That's really all I want for Christmas. This moment would also be made even more wonderful with snow, fire, Christmas music, church, candles and joulutortut.

Have you written your Christmas wishlist yet?

It's snow time!

Dear blog,

I think the winter has arrived. It snowed last week!

View from our home street!

I am quite amused by the fact that we had our first snow before my family in Finland did! It's all gone now but the winter atmosphere is still here. I've been burning so many candles (that my girlfriend is worried that soon I will have no money left)! But I feel that the candles are making me feel less stressed out about this whole Christmas thing. Especially Christmas shopping, because surely I can just give candles to everyone. Candles are lovely.

A little Laura-elf hiding behind the tree.

We also erected our Christmas tree! It's new, cute and we bought it at 2am in our local supermarket. It's plastic and lacks that sensational pine tree scent, but I've solved the problem by buying pine tree scented candles. It's like having a real tree.

And since, I've now told you about the snow we had, it's a good time to tell you that Katja from Little Snow-blog gave me 11 questions challenge. I've done this challenge once before and told 11 facts about me, and answered Jonna's questions in this post, but now I'm going to answer Katja's 11 questions.

Family, friends and future

It's crazy o'clock and I'm drinking lumpy chocolate milk and burning a Yankee candle while I'm writing this. I just had a candlelit shower. It was awesome. I'm kind of glad this no-light-in-the-bathroom incident happened. Otherwise I would have never bothered lighting candles in the bathroom just so that I could have a shower. I feel clean and happy now.

I think this is a fantastic moment to tell you something about me. This time I'm going to tell you about my background. Me, my family, friends and my future wishes relating to family and friends. And I'm going to be using "...and that's who I am" pictures again.

Ready to find out more about me?

Back to the Middle Ages

Hello lovely people!

I thought I'd update you on what's going on in my life. For most people, this probably wouldn't be anything big, but for me it's pretty much everything that's going on at the moment. I've bought new things, got some health news and also ended up in dark.

First, I'm going to show you my new bag and shoes! Because the weather has got colder, I needed new shoes for the Scottish winter. They are the first wedge heel shoes that I've bought. What do you think? The bag is also new, I thought I needed something to brighten up my life!

Health-wise, I'm happy to announce that something is finally happening. I got a phone call from my GP yesterday saying there was something abnormal found in the blood tests that were taken on Wednesday. Originally I was told that there was no need to test my hormone levels and that there can't be anything wrong with them if I'm still getting my period. But because I knew that most of my health problems started or got worse when I started the Pill, I knew that it most likely was hormone-related. The GP claimed that the Pill does not affect hormone levels. I knew that she was either lying or really stupid. I kept on insisting that I my hormone levels really needed to get tested without threatening that I would grow a moustache if she didn't agree - because that probably wouldn't have helped. Eventually she gave me a referral, but said that next time I would have to go and get tested privately.

Yesterday, when she phoned she sounded fairly alarmed though. I was right, there was something wrong with my hormones! I'm very glad that I was stubborn enough to get it all tested this time. Before they've tested my blood for some other things and only noticed that my iron stores are low, but that clearly wasn't all that was wrong. I've been very tired for two years now and had some sort of headaches everyday and at least one migraine every week for a year. The doctors have been saying that being tired is normal and there's nothing that can be done about sleeping 18 hours a night. I've been told that I should just take more painkillers.

But now I'm finally getting to go and see an endochrinologist! Hopefully they will be able to figure out what's wrong with me, and hopefully one day I will be able to wake up without taking painkillers and stay awake longer than the time I spend sleeping. My symptoms match the symptoms of pituitary gland tumour. The tumour pushing my brain and my eyes would explain why I have a headache all the time and why my eyes hurt, and why I felt that my eyesight was getting worse. The patient.co.uk website also kindly warns me that "there may be a leakage of the fluid that surrounds the brain and pituitary gland, felt as watery fluid leaking through the nose" and that those symptoms need urgent treatment. And it's November in Scotland, so of course my nose is occasionally leaking. So great, now I have to be worried that my brain is leaking out through my nose every time that happens. They still need to MRI scan my head to confirm whether I have a tumour or not, but at least now there's something happening about it. That makes me feel happier and kind of relieved.

In other news, my flatmate left to Africa on the same day as the light bulb in our bathroom died. It would be okay, if we would understand how to change it, but it's weird and we don't understand how to do it. We have changed light bulbs before, but for some reason we can't figure out how to change this one. Is this a same-sex couple problem?

Fortunately we have candles and have survived under these circumstances. At least it's been athmospheric to use the bathroom. It hasn't been too awful, but hopefully we get the electric lighting back before Kata returns from Africa.

I'm going to take this opportunity to show you what our bathroom looks like in the dark.

Our tiny sink without a mixer tap looks quite cute in candle light. My Bioré face scrub is for those days when my skin feels like it needs a wee salicylic acid treatment. The Alighiero Campostrini hand soap is the least drying one I've found so far. I have dry hands but I like to wash them often.

I'm sorry the candle is closer to the rubber duck than my Lush soap bar. I'll try to think about the spacing more in the future. They are on top of the toilet, in case you were wondering. The duck glows in dark, so that helps a little bit too.

There are 3 different tubes of toothpaste in our bathroom because we all want different things. Laura wants hers to be whitening, I want mine without fluor and Kata wants hers to be non-whitening with fluor.

Do you like candles? Or do you happen to know how to change light bulbs?

Who even am I?

I find it very stressful to introduce myself. Especially when I have to tell people more than just my name. Should I tell them things that I don't even identify with? Not lies, but just things about me that I don't feel that really describe me very well. It would help to keep the distance and stop them from knowing the real me. I am afraid to tell people anything that would let them close to knowing the “real me”. What if they don't like me?

Am I cool enough to pull off these shoes?

Lately, I've started thinking about this problem more. I'm not sure why I feel that way. But then again, I'm not even sure how I would describe myself. What could I tell people? I'm not even sure if I am enough anything to present myself as something.

Then, I stumbled across a tumblr page called "...and that's who I am". There were many pictures with little sentences all ending with “and that's who I am”. I scrolled down the page and saved all the pictures I felt I identified with on my computer. It actually felt really therapeutic. I feel that seeing things that I identify with written on the computer screen made me feel that it was more justified to see those things as something that I am. It kind of felt like I was given a permission to be me. I looked at those pictures again today and I think I might be ready to be brave enough to share those pictures that represent me with the blogger world. It's scary, to show people who I really am, but I think I might be ready to do it. The blogger world is probably tired of “and that's who I am” related blog posts, but this is my first attempt, so I'm going to do it anyway.

I am going to use these pictures as a tool to show my readers who I am. I have saved so many pictures that I will have to do this over several posts. To make it even more personal, I'm going to say something about each picture. Although I will be using pictures I saved directly from the tumblr page, showing these things makes me feel very naked.

This first post will be the deepest and the darkest one.

Are you ready?

Maybe I'll grow a moustache this November

November is here!

It's been exactly a year since I first realised I suffer from migraines. Last November, I had the worst migraine of my life. It lasted for 2 weeks. I occasionally felt slightly better and occasionally just wanted to lie in a pitch black room and die. I had had headaches before but never for that long and I used to just take ibuprofen for them.

A year ago also stopped taking the contraceptive pill. 10 months earlier a doctor had given it to me, because I told her about periods that I had gotten every two weeks. To me, it didn't make sense to start the pill because of it. But I also hoped it would improve my acne so I tried it.

Photo from Mirror.

I wouldn't recommend the Pill to anyone who doesn't need it for something hormonal. I think it's too easy to start. Many young girls start taking it because they think it makes them feel more "mature". It's good to use contraception, but it's definitely not the only method of contraception there is. Bayer has been advertising the Pill as a "miracle drug" for all women's problems: it would provide contraception, lets you decide when you want to have your period (you can even stop having them completely!), it will cure your acne, help you control your weight, relieve PMS, etc. I think medicines should not be advertised like that, especially since it's misleading and has so many side effects. They are selling something as a product that makes women believe that their bodies' natural cycles are bad and that they should control them with chemicals that will mess up their whole natural cycle and hormones. 

I might write a blog post about my thoughts on contraception at some point. But really, my headaches and migraines got a lot worse while I was on the Pill. Those were not the only side effects I experienced. In the end I stopped taking it mid-sheet because even the thought of swallowing one made me feel ill.

But even after I stopped taking the Pill, I've been getting migraines every week. I've tried a lot of medication for migraines, but everything seems to give me side-effects I'm not ready to live with. Triptans for instance did not keep the migraine away for more than a few days, and they made me really thirsty. When I say really thirsty, I mean really very thirsty! I went out to eat in a restaurant, and I had to drink three jugs of water during the meal. And I obviously had to leave the table several times to go to the toilet too. It wasn't normal, or safe either because being so thirsty probably meant that there was something even more wrong in my body. Recently I've been taking beta-blockers for the second time. They keep the migraine away, but they also keep me asleep. I haven't been able to stay awake for more than a few hours recently, which has made it pretty much impossible to function as a normal person who lives a normal life full of everyday things. 

I went to Holland & Barrett's to get some proper multivitamins because I really had serious problems with lack of energy (which may have been just due to all the medication I was on). They advised me to get some multivitamins and B vitamin that could boost my energy levels.

It didn't help me stay awake though and I ended up talking to Kata about it.  We were wondering what I could do, because I really had to stop my preventive migraine medication. Then, Kata made me realise that my migraines might be hormone-related. Maybe there still is some bad oestrogen in my body from taking the Pill? I think I need to get my blood checked out for all the hormone levels to find out why I cannot stay awake and why my head hurts all the time anyway.