Announcement
Hello, everyone! Due to bad health and a million other things, I’m taking a break from blogging. I plan to begin a new blog of the same title and content in early March.
Friday
Okay, guys. Remember this post, in which I moaned and groaned about my best friend no longer being my best friend? Well. In fact, she is still my best friend. But I got disturbing news about her not long ago, which caused my head to spin. V and I met this afternoon, and talked about a great many things, including the aforementioned ”disturbing news”. The news was that V has decided to move back to Saint-Petersburg, Russia, where she was born and lived almost all her life, to be closer to her son and friends she has there. I don’t blame her. Oh, God, I would give just about anything to move to Saint-Petersburg with her. I love V so much. She’s been exactly like a mother to me since I met her. She loves me. V is the first person in my life to show me what love is. I don’t want to lose her. I’m terrified of losing her. When she moves - and she doesn’t know when she’ll be moving yet - I probably won’t see her again for at least one or two years. Oh, God, I’m so sad about this. I can’t say any more about it tonight, only that it’s not enough for me to be able to communicate with V via e-mails and Skype. I want to be able to see her and hug her and tell her directly how much I love her and always miss her when we’re forced to go for almost one year sometimes without seeing one another because of our busy lives and what not.
I’m actually going to visit Saint-Petersburg in the middle of next month with another Russian friend. We’re going there on a ferry that leaves from Helsinki. I’ll only get to sight-see in Saint-Petersburg for one day, but part of me thinks that I’m perhaps meant to travel to the place V is moving back to now, so that I can take as much as I can of it in with the photographic memory I’m blessed with, so that parts of the enormous city will be less new to me the next time I’m able to go there to see V and get to know the city better. And who knows. Perhaps I’ll be able to move to Saint-Petersburg one day. Not just to be near V, but to be in a far more cultured place where my daughter will have less of a chance of growing up into a spoiled, snarky, selfish, self-centered teen who drinks and doesn’t take school or anything seriously, like about ninety-eight percent of young people in Finland. And Finnish people in general.
This is V, in one of the ways I always want to remember her. Okay, I’m going to bed now. Early as it is. I can’t help but cry myself to sleep.
Sunday
Short post this evening. I’m really sad right now, positively heartbroken. I came to the realisation today that my best friend is no longer my best friend. Or even just a friend. I don’t have the strength to write about it now. I’m doing all I can to get my mind off of V. Today I’ve played with my daughter a lot, washed a lot of dishes, dutifully taken the strong antibiotics perscribed to me after a minor operation I had to have on my lower back last week, thought about what kind of things I might like to do this summer, and browsed through a couple of online stores.
Look at this lovely pink silk blouse from H&M.
It comes in blue, too. I like the blue blouse slightly better than the pink one. I hope to grab one of the blue blouses as soon as they go one sale.
I wouldn’t mind having this yellow silk blouse as well. All three of these blouses would look great tucked into a grey pencil skirt. I had better go now. To anyone reading this post…please send some good thoughts my way. I could use them. I look forward to tomorrow simply because it seems logical that with each day that passes, I might feel a little less downhearted. Thank you.
Saturday
Good morning. As usual, I’ve been lazy with blogging. I was shocked when I realised that I haven’t posted anything in over a month. October came and went in a flash. I was accepted into that school I wanted to go to, and studying takes up a lot of my time. I had planned to put L into a creche in October, but never did. She stays at home with her dad on the days that I go to school. L’s dad is a comics artist, and works at home with his twin brother. L seems content to spend hours playing with Duplos and Kewpie dolls in her bedroom while the twins work. Sometimes she watches cartoons on YouTube. L gets breakfast almost as soon as she wakes up in the mornings, and bottles of milk or sugar-free soda or juice between meals. She shares the twins’ lunches with them, and then eats dinner with me when I get home from school. I really miss L when I’m at school. Maybe she’ll go to a creche next year, who knows. It all depends on what, and if, I’ll be studying something; or if the twins will still be drawing comics, or writing, or even teaching.
Whatever. I don’t want to think (read: stress) about putting L into a creche right now. I would like to say that I have an outfit to show my handful of readers today; but I don’t. I haven’t had the time or inclination to so much as take one or two quick pictures since summer. Here is a picture of a piece of sky outside my kitchen window, which I took last month. It was late afternoon, and the sky was a strange shade of blue-peach.
Here is a picture of some chrysanthemums that were sitting in a pot outside the florist shop near my apartment. I like chrysanthemums. This picture was taken on a rather dark and rainy day, but you would hardly know it from the brightness of the flower heads. It looks as though the sun were shining right on them when I took the picture.
Another picture of flowers, taken on a bright and sunny day before my birthday.
This picture was taken in a graveyard near where I live. I guess I should mention that my mother-in-law suddenly passed away in mid-October. We’re all very sad that she died. She was only fifty-four; her fifty-fourth birthday would have been later that month.
I had no time at all to celebrate Halloween, my absolute favourite holiday, this year. I didn’t even get a chance to carve a jack o’ lantern, host the small Halloween party that L’s dad and I had been planning, or bake a pumpkin pie! Here is a picture of the small jack o’ lantern I hastily carved for Halloween in 2011. L was small then, and had few teeth. If you look closely, you can see that the jack o’ lantern has a couple little teeth in its mouth. Its round eyes and grin remind me of how L looked when she was a baby.
L is going to be two years old on the 27th! I don’t know how we’re going to celebrate her birthday yet. We might combine her birthday celebration with Thanksgiving. But whatever we do, I’ll be sure to post about it! I can’t write any more today, but I’ll be back to post soon. And I truly mean that. Bye for now.
More Clothes from H&M
Today is my twenty-fourth birthday. I had a piece of cold baked salmon with tea for breakfast, which was very good; and this evening I’ll get cake and coffee at my brother-in-law’s house. I look forward to it.
I saw this rose-coloured cardigan at H&M the other day, and thought it was very pretty. I like that shade of pink; it reminds me of my paternal grandmother, the one who died when I was four. Rose-pink might have been her favourite colour. The cardigan looked nice and warm. Too bad it was so expensive. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find this same cardigan in my size when it goes on sale in a few months.
This dress is nice. I love the cut. It reminds me of the cut of some dresses from the 1980s. I wish that this dress didn’t come in only wine-red or black, though. It would be cool if the dress came in rust, brown, dark green, cream, or apricot as well. But it doesn’t matter; I like the wine-red dress better than the black one, especially if I think of the colour as ”cherry”, rather than wine-red.
Finally, there’s this dress, black with flecks of pastel colours, and perfect to wear on a chilly autumn evening with black tights (maybe even patterned) and a white trench coat or light-coloured faux fur coat. I guess this dress is meant to be worn at a party, hence the way it glitters, but I think it could easily be dressed down and worn in the daytime.
Okay, I’ll stop writing now, and have a little rest. I can’t wait until Friday. On Friday, I have to pay a visit to the school I want to attend for the rest of this year and be interviewed by one of the teachers I’ll have if I’m accepted into the langauge program. Oh, I hope I get accepted into that school! If I get accepted, it’ll make my life easier in many ways. I’ll keep you updated on what happens.
A Brown Lace Blouse, and Other Things
Hello. It’s 09.05 on a bright, cold morning. I’ve been awake for a while, and now, while L is sitting in front of the other computer, enjoying a Christmas-themed episode of Teletubbies, I’ll try to squeeze in a short post concerning some appealing items from H&M’s autumn collection.
I noticed this blouse on H&M’s online store this week. I like it a lot. That particular shade of brown makes me think of black tea. I bet this blouse would look great with a pair of black jeans, tucked into the front just a little, and a grey blazer; or even with bright magenta or lavender pants. I like to wear brown with magenta, neon colours, and shades of purple. Those are really my favourite colours to pair with anything brown. I’ve always associated the combination of brown and purple with autumn. Think of lovely, heavy clusters of purple grapes with a good bloom on them, hanging from dry autumn vines, the leaves of which have turned rust and brown. Ready to be picked.
Yeah. I also like this dress. The colour is a bit odd (it was described as ”dark turquoise” on http://www.hm.com/fi/), but not bad. That dark turquoise (I’d describe the colour as ”lichen”) might prove difficult to pair with other colours, but it might look nice with black tights and black heels. Or even very dark green tights and brown ankle boots. What do you guys think? The dress might also look well with pale yellow, such as a pale yellow scarf, an amber necklace, or a long yellow cardigan. Speaking of yellow, I tried on a dress similar to this one when I was shopping for L in H&M yesterday. It was a bright, pale yellow that reminded me of forsythia blossoms. Or evening primroses. It was so pretty. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a picture of that dress online.
I would like a leather pencil-skirt this exact shade of brown, with undertones of red. Again, a brown reminiscent of black tea. I’d wear this skirt with a cream-coloured silk blouse, and nude pumps, or nude stockings and brown knee-high boots for colder weather. With a grey blazer or coat or long cardigan. (Again with the long cardigans, I know.) Since this skirt evidently costs ninety-nine euros at H&M, I guess that it might be made of real leather. I’d gladly settle for a faux-leather skirt that looks like this, only a faux-leather skirt might start to crack after a year or two of wearing it. I’ve hardly ever owned anything made of real leather, so I don’t know if it cracks after a while like faux-leather does. Does it?
I bought this sweater, along with a pair of matching striped leggings, for L yesterday. The colours of the sweater are brighter in real life than in the picture. Such nice, bright colours, they remind me of the lantanas my grandmother used to grow!
Grief
I’m not getting any sleep tonight, because I can’t stop thinking about my little boy. Losing a child is something you never get over. I’m definitely never going to get over this.
Unusual Breakfast to Celebrate the Last Day of Summer
I fried some bacon in a pan, poured enough pancake batter over it to make a large pancake, and served it to the husband with orange marmalade and a cup of instant coffee for breakfast. I felt like making the husband something unusual for breakfast today, since it’s the last day of summer. I’m happy to report that he really enjoyed his pancake. But L wouldn’t eat any. I later made another, smaller pancake for myself, with less bacon in it. The pancakes might have tasted even better with maple syrup instead of orange marmalade. Next month I might make the husband a similar pancake with chopped green onions and bacon or sausage and semetana.
Transparent Pumps by Marc Jacobs
I happened across this meme a while back, and thought it was funny as hell. I subsequently had a dream about a pair of glass slippers, and woke up thinking about how cool it would be if wearable glass slippers actually existed. It turns out that they do exist; Marc Jacobs designed glass slippers, made out of PVC material, that look just like the ones in that old Disney film.
What cool shoes. I read that a pair of them costs nearly six hundred dollars, and that it’s reccomended to wear them with black socks, I guess because not everyone has beautiful feet, and even the most beautiful of feet would likely appear badly distorted in transparent heels. With the way toes are pressed together even in high heels that fit well, the feet of a person wearing these lovely things would likely resemble a pickled pig’s trotter! Oh, the horror! While the prospect of wearing heels like these with black socks doesn’t exactly appeal to me, I imagine that these ”glass” slippers would look great with black tights. Or tights of other colours. Opaque tights might look best. I’d like to take a walk in heels made of PVC material, to see how comfortable they are.
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Green Floral Scarf
Hi, everyone! July was a stressful and busy month for me, and August has been even more so. Hence no blogging. Earlier this month, I received a letter from the police station telling me that my permanent residence permit was waiting for me with the police, and that I should come and pick it up as soon as possible…So, I went to the police station, and now am in possession of the permanent residence permit I’d been waiting so many months to receive. I was surprised that the residence permit is being distributed in card form now; just last year, the permit was nothing more than a nondescript note with your face on it pasted inside your passport. Now, I’ll always have to carry that card with me when I travel anywhere in the future, along with my passport. Not that I mind carrying a card with my passport, but…Well, they told me at the police office that I’ll be eligible to apply for Finnish citizenship this time next year. And I intend to do just that. If only I could pass the citizenship exam on my first try. It costs almost five hundred euros to apply for citizenship in Finland, but I’m willing to pay the price. I want an EU passport so badly.
Now, I’m waiting for yet another letter to come. I applied to study Finnish again this autumn, and I’m waiting to hear if I’ll be able to. I have no idea of when that letter will arrive; it could come tomorrow, or at the end of September. I honestly have no idea of what I’ll do until next spring, if I’m not accepted into that school I want to study Finnish in; I guess I’ll continue to stay at home with L. There won’t be any reason for her to attend a daycare if I’m not studying.
Anyway, onto the subject of this post. I had plans to go salsa-dancing with a friend yesterday evening, but instead, I met her at her house, had a few glasses of good red wine, had dinner, and then watched one of the silliest ”horror” films that I’ve ever seen. The film was called Dead Silence. My God, it was so awful. It reminded me of some Italian horror films from the 1980s that have an odd, disjointed (if that’s the right word), nightmarish quality about them, bad acting, and unrealistic dialogue. Watching those films is like watching a train wreck. Time slows down, so that the film seems to last forever, and when the end credits start rolling, you feel traumatised not because of the scariness of the film, but because you’ve just wasted about two hours of your life by watching a crap film you never wanted to see in the first place.
This was the look I settled on for yesterday evening:
Green floral scarf: H&M / Oversized colour-block blazer: H&M / Bag: Aleksi 13 / Ethnic-print dress: Thrifted / Green heels: Skopunkten
I know it’s not such a good picture. My camera sucks, I’m not photogenic at all, I’m too shy to strike a real pose or even hardly smile, and the person who took the picture for me doesn’t have much experience with taking pictures. But that’s the new look I’d promised. More, and hopefully better, looks to come!
