Year 2014 - spring!

Happy new year, guys!

... Okay, I admit that my plan was to do this post last month. But better late than never, eh?

I did a similar post last year and found it really therapeutic to say goodbye to the year 2013. So I think it's worth it to review what happened in my life in 2014 as well. Maybe it will remind me of my mistakes so that I can learn from then? And more importantly I can see what I've achieved last year so that I can be proud of it. And maybe after this it will be easier to focus on this year and the future.

This has potential to be a bit long, so I'm going to do this in two parts.

So what happened in spring 2014?

January

I welcomed the year 2014 in a small Finnish town with my friends. We stood on a muddy field with sparklers. I had bought myself a fancy new camera with objectives and everything for a Christmas present and had great intentions to learn to use it. 

We sailed to Stockholm with my friends and had a great day out in rainy and wintery Stockholm. When Reseda and Anna would sail back to Finland, Mayumi and I were supposed to catch an evening flight to London. But of course there were problems. We had locked our suitcases, passports and plane tickets into a locker at the ferry terminal. But we hadn't realised to check what time the ferry terminal would close and of course the place was empty and the doors were locked when we returned there to collect our luggage just before our train would leave to the airport. Fortunately, we managed to catch the security guard before he went home. It was his first day! Thankfully, he was lovely and helped us to get back into the building to get our stuff, and we made it back to UK in one piece.

Before travelling back up to Scotland I spent a couple of days in my favourite city, Oxford. I visited J.R.R. Tolkien's grave and just wandered around the familiar streets and felt nostalgic.

When we got back to Aberdeen, Mayumi and I decided to compare whether differently priced Jaffa cakes actually tasted any different. They did. The medium priced were the best ones.

February

In February the sun started shining and Aberdeen didn't seem quite as miserable anymore. I decided that I needed to do something with my life and to start living again. I started yoga. I applied for jobs. I got contact lenses. I travelled to a job interview in Glasgow — and for the first time in my life it was successful job interview! My favourite shop, Lush, was campaigning for equal love. We also had a lovely candlelit Valentine's double date night. Also, our flatmate's Japanese boyfriend was visiting and we organised a road trip to visit some Scottish castles.

March

In March, Satu and I visited Manchester, bought some Lush bath bombs and may have ended up having a bath wearing our party dresses after a wee exploration trip to Canal Street. 

I also went to another job interview, got offered another job and started working in Aberdeen. And that's how the era of riding buses began.

April

In April, I had a lot of early mornings which involved getting up at 3am and running out of the door to catch a my bus to work. Those mornings were made a lot better by our neighbourhood bunnies who ran down the street with me. I really loved living there! Working was exciting but commuting for 3 hours everyday was tiring and I started drinking a lot of coffee.

I had a wee holiday too! I travelled to London to go to #rosweglyn -event, to meet "role models for the next generation of gay girls", also known as, "One venue, a handful of YouTubers and 600 screaming lesbians". I was quite excited to go to this thing! I got to meet Kaelyn and Lucy, who I had been following for a long time! And it certainly didn't make it less exciting that two other lesbian youtuber couples: Wegan (Megan and Whitney) and The Roses (Rose and Rosie) were going to be there too. Because Youtube has become sort of like my best friend, I obviously have been watching their videos too. Unfortunately,  Rose ended up in hospital that morning and wasn't able to be there.

May

This was fairly work-orientated month. I took photos of animals I met on my way to work each morning. It was dark, so I'm sure you understand that my phone wasn't able to produce high-quality photos. But I was so happy about meeting these animals! In May, I also finally got paid and celebrated that by buying a new hand bag and eating some fancy Japanese-style food. I also moved to a new flat, and then back to the old flat because the new one sucked. I also got myself a pool and sauna membership to the new aquatics centre. It was so good for me to dip into a pool after a long day of work and then to relax in the sauna. It made such a difference! And afterwards I liked to go to the pub to get a glass of cheap champagne.

June

I enjoyed summer in my favourite neighbourhood and admired our local Pictish standing stones. Then I received some bad news from Finland and travelled to see my poorly cat. Jonna happened to be hosting a breastfeeding celebration party so I travelled to her village to spend time with her and my goddaughter and some friends. We also got a chance to explore my hometown's dangerous nightlife... The same night, there was someone trying to get into a nightclub with a scythe. I don't know why my mum thinks the rest of the world is dangerous, when this sort of thing happens when I visit home.

So that was the first half. Here's the second half.

Do you enjoy looking back to see what you have done last year? I think I've seen some apps on Facebook that do that for you without you needing to dig through your photo albums like I did for this post. Oh, and if you have written similar posts yourself, feel free to link them to me!

No one needs 25 plates

Hello!

Guess what? I finally was able to leave the house that was my home! I tried moving out earlier but then just couldn't do it. But now I've moved to a lovely flat in the city centre and I feel at home here. I can give you a house tour once I've finally organised this place. So maybe in June?

Nostalgic candlelit shower time at the old place.

Here most rented flats come fully furnished and equipped with crockery, cleaning tools and lots of random things ― some useful, some really not. I've lived in an unfurnished flat before and therefore already have quite a lot of useful things such as kitchenware. Which means that I tend to just move all the pots, pans, plates, bowls, mugs and blenders into the storage cupboard so that they are not in my way. Most of them look like they are the landlord's old things that they just don't like to use at home. They remind me of kitchenware that you would normally find at a Finnish summer cottage. But as nice as it would be for someone who doesn't own those things themselves, I prefer to eat out of my rainbow bowl. I also own too many mugs already and I really don't need any more kitchen stuff in the cupboard. Otherwise I probably would never do the washing up.

I do respect the size of those wine glasses we were supplied though!

But of course when I moved out I had to put the plates and bowls back into the kitchen cupboard, and because I'm nice and well-behaved citizen I also washed them before I did so. I felt that the washing up would never end ― there were always more plates. Twenty-five in total. Who need that many plates at their home? I mean, it's great to have that many if you want to host a wedding or feed a whole army or something, but I didn't even have large enough cooking facilities for such gatherings.

Approximately half of those plates.

This move really helped me to down-size a little bit. I would still like to have less stuff though, but I managed to throw a lot of things out and to take a couple of bags of clothes to a charity shop. I also think that maybe I should take some of my books somewhere as well. For instance, I probably don't need to hold onto a French grammar book that I own. I never read it.

But washing all of those plates made me really grateful that I don't own that many. Although I was a bit shocked when I realised that I still do own 8 plates and 8 bowls. That's more than I thought! But it's a good amount, there's never too much washing up to do. There's 4 big plates and 4 small plates, 4 matching bowls, 2 mismatching bowls and 2 fancy Finnish Iittala Teema "designer" bowls that I took with me when I first moved to Scotland. Bowls are good for serving things in, and it's normal to have 4 people eating if you have a small dinner party.

What's your idea of a good number of plates and bowls? Do you have many fancy sets to suit every occasion? Or just enough for yourself and prefer to ask your guests to bring their own bowls if they come over for food?

If life is a bar room

Oh hi. Long time, no see!

I've disappeared for a while because I haven't really wanted to talk about my life publicly. But maybe it's time to try again.

Here's a song for you that somehow describes how I feel at the moment.

I'm not sure if I understand what these pretty Irish girls are singing about, but it's just beautiful and I feel that I can relate. Isn't that what music is about? It sounds beautiful and you feel that you can relate although you have no idea what any of it is about — right?

I would quote this song, but I'm not sure how to. But I feel the waiting and the floating.

I have no idea where I'm going with my life but I want to float and I don't want to lose the grip. I fear for the winter and the future health issues. And I've started to burn candles again.

I'm also trying to reach out to new people. I am hoping to find someone who wants to come and sit with me in a coffee shop when it snows. Although the snow is not compulsory. Considering my location it will probably just rain a lot, and I'm ready to accept that.

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.

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?