Raindeer Fodder!

Hello fawns,

I have good news! After my recent healthy food inspiration, I've finally activated my food blog. I love eating, and I want to remember all of my fantastic recipies, but this Raindeer Pants blog is not the right place for them.

This is where I collect my recipies, so that I won't lose them. It's not intended to be a serious food blog for those who are serious about cooking. I keep it mostly for myself. But because I apparently eat weird things, some people might find it interesting too.

So if you want to see kitchen disasters and some pretty strange ingredient mixing, Raindeer Fodder might provide you with some pathetic entertainment. And it might be a useful resource if you're a young person who only just recently left their nest and mummy doesn't cook for you any more. It will help you to get some variety in your diet when you get bored of pot noodles or frozen pizza!

Spring healthiness

The spring is here!

It's sunny outside! Unfortunately it doesn't mean that it's warm. Today it's been only 3 degrees and I had to wear my winter coat again.

But this spring I will try and start eating healthier food. More fruit and vegetables and less frozen pizza. Healthier food gives you more energy, right?

Maybe it's all the sunniness that's made me want to eat healthier. I've been living on hamburgers, cheesy pasta and frozen pizzas for way too long.

But I just went to a supermarket and bought loads of fruit and vegetables.

Vegetables!

I've been dreaming of healthier food. But over the past couple of weeks I just haven't had the energy or the time to try out new recipies. But now I finally have lots of healthy things I could eat! Laura is slightly suspicious whether I'm actually going to eat everything I bought. Now I have to prove her suspicions wrong.

I also read a very inspiring blog post in Peaches Blog (in Finnish) recently! The author, Vilma, is a vegetarian and has written a few posts about her diet. Recently she did a post about a smoothie she had for dinner/snack. It includes coconut milk, almond milk, fresh pineapple, kiwi fruit, nuts, maca and spirulina.

© Vilma.

It sounded awesome. And I wanted to try and make it too. Maybe the best thing about it was that instead of publishing a proper recipe Vilma just briefly explained what she did.

And I bought a blender last month. Because it sounded like a fabulous thing. But then I realised that I don't know what to do with it. So this smoothie is going to be the first thing I'll actually attempt to make with it!

If you know any other fantastic vegetable or fruit based meals, let me know  –  I need inspiration!

Singing happy Swedish songs

Fyra bugg och en Coca-Cola!

Vill du leva och vill du dansa?

Våga skratta och våga chansa?

Eh, I've been playing Singstar. I'm really bad at singing, but unfortunately I really like to sing. Don't worry, I won't upload any videos of me singing here. Instead I will tell you about a couple of amazing songs I've discovered while playing this popular PlayStation game. 

Recently we discovered that you can buy songs in Singstar and I wanted to buy this one so that I could practise Swedish:

Haha, this song is so much fun! Especially when you do the dance while you sing it. It's okay, I don't know what they sing about either... Something about four chewing gums and a Coca-Cola.

Do you want to live and do you want to dance?

Do you have the courage to laugh and to take a chance?

That's what life is all about right?

That song makes me so happy. We also bought another song which is not Sweden's Eurovision entry from 1987. But it is another awesome song from Sweden.

Amanda Jenssen via Singing Girls.

This is fantastic! Why did no one tell me about Amanda Jenssen before?

I don't know why I'm so excited, but maybe I just have a thing for really femme girls with a hint of masculinity? I'm glad that no one's tried to create statistics of how many times a day I look at a picture of Katy Perry. Eh, I'm only slightly obsessed.

People say that I drink too much

But I'm as happy as I can be

Hanging by my amarula tree

Amarula Tree is also a very happy song. Kind of hippieish. I haven't listened to Amanda Jenssen enough to say, if all of her songs are like that, but at the moment she reminds me a lot of Sandi Thom.

I love this song! I love everything about it. It was my favourite in 2008.

Okay, okay, Sandi Thom is not from Sweden, she's from Aberdeenshire. But in my last post I said that I need more reasons for being enthusiastic for living here. And this definitely is one.

I think the world would be a better place if everyone would listen to more happy songs. I mean seriously, why are most Finnish songs so depressing? Most folk songs are fairly depressing too, they just play them as if they were happy.

Sandi Thom via KidWhit.

What kind of music do you listen to? Any happy songs?

Decision made

Hey, want to hear what my plan is?

Okay, time's up.

Looks like I'll be staying in Scotland. I've chosen the safe and boring option of staying here. Better salary, no moving and no long-distance relationship.

Phone captured this moment: relaxing after a successful interview.

I'm slightly sad about my choice. It would have been just my style to pack my life into a bag, throw it into a raffle and see where I end up. But while I'm still trying to pull my life together, it's probably better that I have someone there to support me every day. Loneliness is not my thing. And a more stable salary will probably allow me to live a more stress-free life.

But what? I'm not going anywhere?!

I feel like I've been here for forever. I need to reactivate my Scotland enthusiasm.

A friend invited Laura and I for dinner in Edinburgh ages ago. We should set a date for that.

Edinburgh castle!

And now when I'm not moving away, Tiia can come and celebrate her birthday with us! I've celebrated several of my birthdays with her, but she's never celebrated any of hers with me.

Cruise-ship partying.

And Laura and I just recently bought Historic Scotland memberships which give as free entries to several cool places. I want to go to Jarlshof and see Shetland. And we can get into that Edinburgh castle. We've already been to see Fyvie castle and Duff House!

Fyvie castle.

I should also start dancing more. I love the fact that Scottish dancing exists. Here's some footage from Scottish Universities Scottish Country Dance Festival, in case you want to see me dance. And, you know, to see what Scottish country dancing is like. Watch it in HD!

It's also starting to look like spring out there! I emptied the contents of my winter handbag into my summer handbag last weekend and am hoping that I can stuff my winter jacket into my wardrobe soon.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to wake up my inner Scotland-enthusiast?

Decision time

Well hello there. How are you?

Things have happened. I went to Manchester. It was great. Then today I got offered two jobs. They are very different and I have to make a decision. I'm now sitting on a train somewhere between Manchester and Edinburgh thinking about my options.

Job A sounds very exciting, but means that I would have to move away. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but doesn't have a very good salary.

Job B probably has better salary and I wouldn't have to move. I would also get experience in the field I needed.

But the job I needed the experience for is basically job A. So now I need to decide whether I want to jump straight into it or whether I postpone it and take the other job. That job is not bad either, I've applied for it several times before.

Jumps to unknown are easier to do when it doesn't mean a long-distance relationship.

Any advice or words of wisdom?

My Little Pony Outfit

OOTD everyone!

Do you know what that means? It's okay, I didn't know either, but apparently it's a really cool thing now. Bloggers and vloggers everywhere are posting "outfit of the day"-pictures and videos. I thought it time for me to join those cool people.

I have a feeling that no one would care what I wear everyday, which most days is either pyjamas or a pink leopard onesie. And after this post you'll understand why it's better that I don't try to be a fashion blogger. But because I started this new hobby I, recently went shopping for some yoga outfits. Now when I don't have the scary, sleazy teacher anymore, I thought it would be nice to have some better yoga outfits.

My yoga outfit.

And this is what I bought! 

I don't actually wear the socks in the class, but my toes are very private and I don't think it's suitable to show them to the whole world. Only people I'm married to are allowed to see them. And so far, no one is.

I could have shown you each piece of clothing individually, but I have a feeling that no one actually cares. Please let me know, if you happen to do.

But basically I bought a fake sports bra, which gives absolutely no support, but looks pretty and sporty. I wear it on top of my real sports bra, which is a lot less pretty. Is that how it's supposed to be worn, or does someone actually wear it as a bra?

Then I have a grey sports vest which is so low cut that you can see the fake sports bra. And because sometimes you get cold when you practise yoga in Scotland, I also have that baggy long sleeved thing. It's sides are made out of seethrough net, so that it looks cool.

These were all bought from Primark's Sports department. I went to Primark mostly because I'm afraid of real sports stores because I don't actually know anything about sports. They all seem to be branded and expensive. Even the Primark Sports section was too much for me when it was time to decide what I should wear for my bottom half. I moved to a safer department and bought My Little Pony pyjama bottoms. I think they go very nicely with the rest of the outfit.

What do you think of my yoga oufit? What would you wear for a yoga class?

I'm a traveller.

Hello!

Remember my "...andthatswhoiam" -posts? They can be found under the tag being myself. I used them as a method of therapy, because I struggled with situations when I had to introduce myself or tell someone about myself. It clearly helped because I actually went to a job interview last Friday!

But I haven't actually shown you all the pictures that I chose from that website last autumn! So now I'm going to tell you a little bit more about myself.

I love travelling. I want to see everything. I feel like the best thing to spend your money on is to travel and see all the different places and meet people who come from different backgrounds than you do. It will widen your views and help you grow as a person. You will get memories that you'll never forget. It will help you become less materialistic and you'll start to appreciate your experiences more.

Travelling has probably always been my favourite thing to do. I'm from a small town, but it does have a travel agency. I used to go there and carry a copy of all of their brochures home. I loved looking at all the pictures and dreaming of all the places I could go to.  Unfortunately, my mum's idea of travelling was to catch a ferry to Sweden, and to stay on it and head back home straight away, without even setting a foot on the ground. Once I was old enough to travel, I cached one of those ferries and went to see what Sweden really looked like.

I'm the exploring kind of traveller. I find it hard to just do what the tourist guide book tells me. I want to find out things myself. I might go to the tourist information to get a map, in case I get lost (which unsurprisingly happens quite a lot), but my favourite activity is to just wander around aimlessly in a new city. I've never been on a beach holiday, because I think I'd find it difficult to just lie there getting burned, when I could be exploring all the suspicious side alleys and getting to know some interesting local people.

Did I ever mention that I'm a big Doctor Who fan? How many TARDIS-themed things have you noticed on my blog? The whole concepts of being able to travel through space and time really fascinates me. There must be more out there. And there is a reason why I ended up with a degree in Archaeology. But I'm stuck in this time and our planet. Which really isn't that bad after all. Exciting things are happening in our time, with all the digitalisation and equality movements. Scary and awful things are happening too, and there are many places I don't even want to travel to at the moment thanks to their political situation. But there's still at least half a planet left which I could and would like to explore.

I strongly believe that understanding the language of the place you travel to helps you get more out of the trip. The more you understand the language the more you understand the culture. And vice versa. Travelling is also the key to learning languages. When you need to find a Burger King in Spain, you suddenly can understand those instructions in Spanish. Or at least I found my way to the Burger King. I also learned to pronounce it the Spanish way.

I've never been to Asia, but I've got really interested in Japanese, Korean and Chinese cultures recently. I thought that Japanese might be the easiest Asian language for me to learn first, so now I've started planning a trip to Japan. It will happen once I feel that I've learned enough Japanese to get the most out of that trip!

I have a funny feeling that the only reason why I've watched all of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit films is the fact that they are shot in New Zealand. That's one place I would really love to travel to. Originally, I wanted to spend an exchange year there, but it never happened. It's the furthest place on Earth I could travel to, which probably makes it even more exciting.

I have lived in a couple of different countries. I've lived in England and Germany for a month, and in Finland and Scotland for years. All of those countries have a place that feels like a home to me. Sometimes I meet people in Scotland who hear that I'm a foreigner and ask me "so where's home?" They think it's a cunning way to phrase the question: "where are you from?", but I always find it a little bit insulting. Do they mean I'm not welcome here, and want me to go back where I came from? I don't want to go back. I want to find a place I belong. The question is also difficult, because I find Scotland to be my home just as much as Finland is. I'm from Finland but I live here now. And I'm not sure where I want to move next. 

But okay, my home is in Europe. For now at least.

Finnish people don't make friends easily, which is kind of a problem. I have, however, met amazing people from all over the world. I wish I'd find it more natural to open up to people and actually make life-long friends and to stay in touch more.

I've always thought that the best cure for depression is to go travelling. I've never felt sad or depressed while travelling. Everything in this world is just too amazing, to feel depressed. Depression is like being stuck. If you don't realise that you're free to go and do anything, you will feel depressed. If you ever feel suicidal, just sell everything you own and use that money to go travelling. As far as possible, and you might find the reason to live again.

I love learning to get to know this planet. I want to explore my options before I decide where I want to settle down to. I feel that there's no point feeling miserable with my life, if I don't want to go and see how people live elsewhere. Maybe there's a place that is more suitable for me than the place where I'm now? And if not, there's nothing better than that feeling of coming back home.

P.S. Here's a map of the places I've conquered so far.

It's fairly Western Europe centred so far, but I'm working on it.

I pinned these places on the TripAdvisor app on Facebook. And then I mangled it a little bit on Paint, because I hate the way Google Maps stretch the North. Unfortunately this app doesn't have all the places I've been to. I'm especially sad that North Rona is missing. But according to this app, I've visited 17 countries, which is 13% of the world. That sounds like a good start!

I honestly, don't know where I'm going next. But I like to keep my options open.