Ystävät

Friends. I wish I had more time for you. It's just this stage of life. In Finnish they call it the rush hour that lasts for years. Ruuhkavuodet, tiedäthän.

Friend, thanks for stopping by! Please leave a comment if you're in the mood! Voit vallan mainiosti kirjoittaa suomeksikin!

I see we are posting regularly again, so now you can look forward to hearing from us every Friday. Something happened to our counter, so just when we were about to hit 1234, we had to remove it. Oh well, we will just have to come up with another good number to do something special at! Does anyone know where to get a good counter?

Routine

Living with a teacher means that September brings me back to a kid-centered routine.  I also get to do whatever I want to do all day, which is pretty nice!  This week we made pancakes...

....and I decided to re-purpose this cabinet from our old kitchen that I found in the shed.

The boy looked up at the sky and saw a baby in the clouds...he wasn't able to tell me exactly what looked like a baby, but I wondered if he has seen things in the clouds before.

And I got this shelf out from a closet and consolidated all of the tiny piles of toys in the living room.  Why didn't I think of this before? The closet is a mess now, but better that than the living room!

Parhaiden joukossa

Newsweek recently rated Finland as the best country in the world, and the most interesting aspect of that compliment being offered to us was no doubt the way Finns responded to it. What followed was a lively public discussion, with some going to great lengths to prove that it certainly can not be the best, and others pointing out the excessive modesty typical of Finnish culture, or low self-esteem, or disability of being proud of oneself... all of which makes accepting a simple compliment quite a complex matter.

Since it's a cross-cultural blog we have created, let me be diplomatic and say Finland is truly among the best countries in the world. And as far as my life is concerned, Naantali is among the loveliest towns in Finland. And this town museum, pictured above, one of its most enjoyable places. The girls and I stopped by sometime last summer. There is a small rose garden outside.

So in conclusion, does that make this place one of the best places in the world? Maybe my world.

August days and nights

This week I am posting two completely unrelated photos.  The first is of the big dipper over our house.  I spent two nights out on the deck watching the Perseid meteor shower this August trying to catch a photo of a meteor blazing across the sky.  I saw dozens of meteors, but the picture just didn't happen.  But I did enjoy some contemplation in the pitch-black moonless nights listening to coyotes yelping on the hill!

My other August endeavor was trying to preserve a fraction of the fruit on my neighbor's plum tree, which had quite a bumper crop this year.  We made spiced plum jam, orange plum jam, rum plum jam, and dried plums.  I don't think we even succeeded in taking any weight off the branches!

Maljakon olemus

One evening in June I was intrigued by the essence of a vase. And a platanthera bifolia.

Island summer

I couldn't help thinking of my cousin on another island far, far away when we visited a relative on Whidbey Island a few weeks ago.  This island in Washington reminded me so much of the amazing pictures Lara has been sharing!

Climbing up into the ferry...

A perfect little beach town on the island.

Uncle's amazing backyard...

My favorite tree, the madrone, was in abundance there.

Ilmassa

The last moments of summer vacation were in the air.

Besides good times, for me vacation also means an increased workload and something of an overdose of togetherness. Though there is a melancholy feeling in sending your husband off to work and your child off to school again, this time of year returns to me the luxury of voluntary loneliness - still not very much of it, but at least during nap time.