Walk With Me

The inside of my home has flashed on the blog for several times already, but not the outside. I took the camera with me for a small stroll with my dog U, so you could get an insight of the area.

I was just thinking how much I like living in here! I had almost forgotten how relaxing it is, just to be able to step out of your home, almost right in the middle of nature. The forest is just around the corner and you can hear the birds sing. Of course living here means I have to commute to work a little bit longer (one thing I swore I would never want to do again once I moved out of my parent’s house… seems like opinions change. :)) and that the nearest grocery store isn’t exactly near. But right now, I’m willing to sacrifise those for the peaceful feeling I get here.  So surprisingly, I’m really not missing the concrete bunkers or life down town at all.

These pictures are from one of mine and U’s usual walking path at the moment. Right now I don’t take U that much deep into the forest because I heard there’s a lot of snakes (we already saw one too!). So this route goes through residential areas, but it’s pretty verdant too…

Last one: home.

Garden Stuff

Because my mom is a bit of a “garden freak”, in honor of Mother’s Day, I’ve decided to share some pictures of what has happened in my garden this far. It’s not much though. We are still waiting for the constructor to finnish the yards, so until that happens, the focus in only on the terrace…

These plants will probably find their final spots after grass is on the ground and we have managed to get the outdoor furniture as well… That means, hopefully sometime this summer. 😀

No need for an own flag pole as the neighbour’s works just fine. 😉

My little helper, if helping means stealing the gardening gloves as soon as you take them out of your hands…

Happy Mother’s Day! ❤

Flower Talk

Now that we have a yard of our own (very very small, but still a yard) I’ve noticed a whole new enthusiasm in me towards plants and flowers.

My mom usually spends the entire summertime outside in her garden, and when she isn’t there, she is most likely reading one of her gardening books. I’ve always wondered what’s the catch?

But now that the snow has almost melted, small green signs of spring appear here and there, and the sun rays start to be warm, I catch myself thinking about flowers, plants and gardening… What’s happening in here? 😀

More and more often, I find myself at the gardening section at stores, looking at flowerpots and seeds. I google for advice on internet about how to keep my plants alive. I’ve even thought about getting a small flower table inside, so I could have more flowers here (because I have now idea when the constructor will finnish our backyard, so I could actually start doing something gardening-related outside…).

The funniest part is, this all could be such a huge waste of time and money because I seriously don’t have a clue, am I able to keep any plant alive for long. When I was studying, life was so irregular, that it was best to go with plastic or cut flowers. Well, I had one orchid experiment, but that didn’t exactly encourage me in these gardening and growing plants -endeavors…  (Btw, despite everything that orchid is still alive and well and often blooming, because it has been in my mom‘s care for years already).

We’ll see if this craze settles down, when the reality kicks in.

P.S. I’ve managed to keep those white saint paulias in the pictures alive for over two months already. That has got to be a good sign, right?

Let’s Stay Home

Travel fever starts to burn again in the back of my head. It’s been almost three months from Berlin, and I still got no idea where I would go next and when. I mean it’s weird that I don’t even have a clear idea about where I would want to go next… This year I’m mostly stuck at work anyways, so short holidays limit get-aways a lot too. And lately my travel budget has been splurged on moving and decorating the new house…

I don’t know if it has something to do with having no travel plans, but I also woke up to the fact that for the first time when I’m living “on my own” (away from my parents house), I have a home where nothing annoys me.

I’ve had nice apartments, but the first one had way too small bathroom, I could hardly sit on the toilet seat without my knees touching the wall opposite to it. The next one had big toilet, but dust kept building up in piles everywhere at megalomaniac speed. And that student apartment had too sensitive fire alarm system  too. (Waking up to an alarm sound sometimes twice a week get’s old after a while…). Then the last apartment at Tampere was nice too, but some little things were broken here and there, and we didn’t have quite enough room for all my clothes the stuff. And I don’t even wanna start with all the summer apartments I’ve had. Living in the middle of strange peoples stuff or without no furniture at all isn’t too cozy.

With the new place, I can’t come up with any big reasons to complain about. Everything works fine and  the floor-plan is good. Well, location could always be closer to downtown Helsinki, but it isn’t the apartments fault is it? 🙂 

“Try to be like the turtle — at ease in your own shell”

I’ve posted pictures of my dog a thousand times, but my family has also other pets that are easily left out of the limelight — turtles.

I saw a post on facebook today from an animal welfare group in Helsinki, and it told that two red ear turtles were looking for a new home. It’s a familiar story. Turtles end up being abandoned way too often. Maybe because they are misunderstood, people don’t know what they are getting themselves into when they get a turtle as a pet. Turtles are good pets, but only for the right owners. 

Turtles are not as social as dogs, they can’t be pet like a cat, but still they need to be taken care of. Feeding them a couple of times a week doesn’t sound too bad but cleaning the aquarium is a different story. But they are fun to watch, interesting and cute in their own way.

My family took turtles when I was about 5 years old. I wanted a dog and my parents tried to take the easy way out. Now the turtles (that are living at my parents house), Emma and Vippis, are already over twenty years old and will probably live at least another twenty. They don’t get as much as attention as my chihuahua and they aren’t warm and fuzzy. But still, I’m always happy they are there. I hope other turtle owners would be too, so less pet turtles would end up in the nature on their own, where they barely have any chances (at least in this cold Finland)…

I took these picture last summer when Emma and Vippis were outing.