Maaliskuu!

47 minutes Finnish time, plus 10 hours for you Amy, and it will be March! We have almost survived another winter. Time to plant seeds, get freckles, knit outside!

One-eighty

That's how many kilometers I just traveled, though you won't see pictures of that trip here!  But it is fun to see that we were vacationing at the same time!  My trip was to stay in a yurt at the beach with some friends, but rain and wind (in the presence of sand) are enough to keep my camera put away.  Instead, I'll share some pictures of a delicious cake I baked last week.  (Remember the cookbook revolution?  One of them is a cake cookbook!)

White chocolate cherry amaretto...oh, why am I looking at these pictures after the cake is all gone?  Torture!

Tuhat

We drove almost 1000 kilometers (621 miles), northeast to the heart of Finland and home again. In between, we rented a beautiful old house in the countryside for four nights. And on the way back, stopped for one night at a spa with children's pools and water slides, which was packed because a few other families had also decided to spend part of their winter vacation there. During this week, and especially while I sat in the back of the car entertaining a one-year-old and a three-year-old for 10 hours, I found myself wondering:

What were we thinking?
What was supposed to be the point of all this extra stress?
Are we crazy?

I haven't found any answers. But it was still an important time for all of us! The good moments are to be cherished and the difficult ones to be laughed at - later on.

Tree hugger/cutter

This tree was full of conks, something indicating a diseased tree, and it has always leaned out over the road, the power lines, and the neighbor's fence.  I counted the rings...99 years old.  In 1913, none of the houses in this neighborhood even existed.  It was a wild jungle of cedar, a rural fishing campground, and this little fir was nothing more than a twig.  But the old rotten stump next to this new fresh stump is probably twice the diameter!  I've always loved the feeling of owning a tiny piece of land, but it doesn't feel right to say we own the trees.  (Not to sound like a total tree hugger...)

The other tree that had to come down was a huge cedar, which was so rotten on the inside that I have no idea how old it was.  It was filled with carpenter ants and bees nests!

Konepaja

I had completely forgotten about these pictures! In December we visited an old railway engineering workshop in Turku, the oldest parts of which were built in 1876. More recently, it was re-named Logomo and re-opened as a giant cultural center. Last year when Turku celebrated its year as the cultural capital of Europe, these were the settings of the main exhibition, which was a combination of the science and cultural history of fire. During the course of centuries fire has had an important role in this town, causing great tragedies but also renewal. The interactive exhibition was worth experiencing, but the building itself is impressive, well enjoyed especially by those who love industrial romanticism! Talk about high ceilings! And by the way, later they decided to keep the exhibition open until summer.

Ceilings

Wow, Lara!  After reading your last post, I wonder if maybe you and I could be opposite yet still very much alike!  I LOVE house guests who visit and stay up late talking and hanging out while I go about my activities!  I love tiny spaces!  In fact, one of my favorite vacation moments was squeezing through a tunnel in the base of a giant redwood tree, and finding myself inside a tiny damp wooden room.  And when we first drove into our neighborhood (while house hunting), I told my husband that I didn't care what the house looked like, I wanted to live in this neighborhood.  Huge sky-blocking cedars, a narrow one-lane dead-end road, it is as close as reasonably possible to living inside that giant redwood.

Earlier this week, I visited a neighbor in the evening, and was surprised by how bright the moon and stars seemed to be in her front yard.  As I was leaving, she pointed out that she had just taken down the giant cedar in the front yard, which explained why I could see the sky.  This tree was one of my favorites in the neighborhood, a tree that had its own rock wall built around it.  In exchange for this tree, however, my neighbor now has a new patch of sunlight, a rare treat in this neighborhood.

Tilaa

I'm the kind of person who needs a lot of peace and quiet to feel good. I get exhausted if I spend many days with people and no time to myself. Some personality types are more oriented towards people, others towards doing. I'm the latter - also known as a human doing. I need my inner space.

In a family of five, claiming your own space is not easily accomplished! To make it even more complicated, what I do in life at the moment is actually quite lonely. Parenting at home that is. It's easy to feel isolated from society, but at the same time I can't live without my space. So I find myself constantly searching a balance between negative loneliness and positive solitude.

I've been conscious about this personality trait since I was a teenager. I was very fortunate to have the greatest community of friends, many of whom I know to this day. But I've still always thrived on my solitary moments.

And this is the reason why, during my almost ten years of motherhood, I have still not learned to go to bed on time! Anyone out there who can relate?

These pictures are here because I also deeply enjoy physical space. Flying, of course. High ceilings. Wild nature. And if I visit a new town, I always like to find a tower or something to climb.

Swap

I had never been to a swap before moving to Portland, nor have I heard of these happening in other places.  It is a fun and brilliant excuse to get together and hang out with other women.  The host provides a house and a few snacks and wine, and the guests bring any clothes in good shape that are otherwise destined for donation.  Everything is laid out as guests arrive, shirts in one place, pants in another, etc., and after everyone has arrived and visited for a bit, the swapping is announced by the host!  The swap I went to on Sunday had about 20 people, so there were a LOT of clothes!

My greatest treasure of the afternoon:  A beautiful yellow spring jacket!