Springy

The Olavi Lanu park at Lahti
Kariniemenhill. There are these
statues in the middle of the forest.
It's beauuutiful. ^_^

The hugging couple. <3

Me and the sad one.
(ugh, I'm so fashionless and blah in
this, please ignore me, I wasn't prepared
for photos. XD)

the "right trough the rock" one.

A little swamplake in the middle of the forest,
called Häränsilmä: Bullseye. =D

Aaaand flowers, got to photo some flowers. =P

And... err... a couch, in the middle of the
forest. XD

This is what the weather looked like a few days ago. Now it's grey and raining. But on Sunday it should be sunny again... gonna take more photos then, mothersday trip with mom and my brother. =D

Real life 2012

Suddenly my life seems like... well, normal. I go to work, I plan future events, I see friends and my boyfriend.

Well, there was the whole MESS with my meds, again. So I finally changed the medication, again (From Aurorix). My new medication is called Voxra and apparently it's also used as a weight loss medication... and for quitting smoking. And depression. WEIRD!

But if it works, bleeh. I might even lose weight. And quit smoking... wait, I don't smoke. LOL. XD At least this time it has not been hell to change the meds, so far. Then again, it's only been 2 days. So it can still change. Optimistic, aren't I. XP (I think I'm gonna write more about the meds later, there was a whole hassle about them but now I just don't wanna. XP)

My friends wedding is in a few weeks, so getting clothes, jewellery, shoes, rides and so on, has been a hassle. And expensive, I'm gonna be bankrupt after this month!
I also took a third day of work, a Tuesday, so now I have Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays  of work. We just agreed that I can stay at the workplace for at least until 6 of October. So I have no worries about that anymore. I started a new work thing too, from now on I'm gonna be a lobby watch every Tuesday.
And I was recruited to make a hand program to a theater group at the workplace... and to design a new blog to the workplace. YAYYYYYYYYYYYY! I am so excited! \^_^/

A little while ago I realized that this is the first spring after my childhood when I'm not completely burned out and stressed because of the pressure to find work and finish school assignment. WOAH! I love not studying, I can't believe I did that for 25 years! XDD

Oh and Vappu (1st May) was wooooonderful! We hung out with friends, ate a lot of donuts and went to see a movie. The Avengers. YUMMMMMMMMM! =D~

I've also been reading a LOT.
I just finished a series from KarenMarie Moening and loved it!
"Fever-series" it's called. I recommend it for
everyone who looks GOOD urban fantasy.
(With some really steaming chapters too ;D)
... ah yeah, this is fan art for the books. ^^

Up and down

Last week was awesome! I was feeling so good, every day. I walked for hours, on the weekend I went shopping with Ktiraam, cleaned my wardrobe and visited family and saw my viking. ♥ A week ago I had reduced my medication because of the restless legs (went from 450 mg to 150 mg in 2 weeks) and WOAH, it made me feel better (not just the restless legs, but everything)! What a huuuge surprise!

On monday I started to get a little tired. I asked for an extra day of work at my workplace, so now I have 3 days a week of work (4 hours/day).

... and then it hit me. Again.

When it's the good "season" you so easily forget that you are depressed. You just feel so good and so healthy that you think that now, I am getting better, this is so great! But then it always comes to an end so suddenly. =( Tuesday I woke up with sore muscles, stomach ache, upset stomach and a racing heart. I felt like I was gonna throw up and couldn't even move properly, it just made me feel sicker. I felt like I was gonna have a heart attack any moment, my chest was aching.
I saw my psychiatrist and she tried to calm me down. Yesterday I spent all day doing absolutely nothing! I sat in front of the TV, on the floor and tried to calm down, just concentrating on relaxing my muscles and breathing. I walked outside, slowly, trying to relax and think of nothing, I slept two naps, I was so so tired... today is better, but life's still shaky.

This is so hard. Every time I think I am getting better, this happens. And it stops everything. I can't do anything I want. I wasn't eating very healthily last week (too much sugar and fat) and I know some of that is at fault so I've been eating really healthy this week (dark rye bread, tea, vegetables and soups)... tomorrow we have a party at my brothers and I know they have all kinds of yummy foods and drinks and I also know that I can't enjoy any of them without feeling worse again. ;_;
But I am going to enjoy the company, it's just so difficult to try to explain to people why I act so weirdly sometimes, but it's really hard to act normal when your heart is beating too fast, your hands are shaking and your muscles are trembling and you feel like you can't breath. Sigh. And it makes me feel really sad when my family doesn't understand me.
And... when you've had depression for 4 years, people are tired of hearing about this, they don't want to hear about it. You can see from the look on their faces that they think that you are over exaggerating what you're feeling ("oh no, not that again"). It's so frustrating when all you want, is to just feel normal!

One day at a time. Little steps. Maybe I'll feel a little better tomorrow again.

Finally it's here

Spring! ♥

Went out with my camera. Took loads of photos. It was cloudy and a little gloomy, but the details... aaaaah, pretty pretty flowers. And all the little animals. Everything waking up and coming alive again. I looove spring! 

Bumblebeeeeee! ♥

Tiny pretty blue flowers.

Liverwort. ♥

Blue tit! ^_^

The gulls of Lahti. There are thousands of them!

The ice is finally melting. ♥

Crocus.

Weird red/pink flowerplantthingy.

Duckduckduckduck

Common goldeneye. ^__^

Memories and dreams

I visited Italy during the summer 2007. The year itself was the hardest of my life, which soiled the memories somewhat. But the yearning and dreaming of going back to Italy has stayed with me. I went to the trip with my ex and no matter how things ended with him, I will forever be grateful for him for taking me on this trip and booking every single day-trip that I wanted to go to. =)

I've only shown a few of these pictures online before this, which is kind of a shame, because I really like the pictures... so I decided to post this memory post.
I visited Italy, Cattolica (a small coast town in the east coast of Italy below Venice) on August 2007. I was in the town very little because I had booked every trip possible during the week. I visited Firenze (Florence) for a day, Venezia (Venice) for another day, the Frazassi caves for half a day trip and small vinyard in Toscana the other half and spend a night in a beautiful homestead in Toscana, eating a festious Italian meal. Yum.
What a trip! ^___^

The view from the balcony of the hotelroom at night. Ocean
and more ocean and warm, salty ocean wind. Ah!

The beach close to the hotel (you can just see the hotel at the
end of the beach). I only visited the beach when it was already
closed because it was way too hot and crowded for my taste in the
 middle of the day.

The Frazassi caves, HUGE caves with these stalagmites and
stalactites in caves that went on for miles and miles and miles.
... 42 miles, if I remember correctly.

The air was almost Nordicly cold in the caves, which I absolutely
loved. I also seem to have no claustrophobia, because I loved
those caves. ^__^ Then again, the caves were pretty big. The
biggest one is so big you could fit the St. Peters basilica in it.
It was HUGE!

Firenze, at the Piazza Della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio with the
Michelangelo's David's (replica) statue and Bartolomeo's
Bandinelli statue. ♥

View from the Piazza Michelangelo on top of Firenze. The
view was just incredible! You can see the famous Pridge Ponte
Vecchio and the church Santa Maria Del Fiore.

Another picture from the Piazza Della Signoria,
one of the MANY statues on the square. The
cote where most of the statues were, is called
Loggia Dei Lanzi and this statue is Perseus
by Cellini. I completely fell in love with this
statue, so much so that I had to buy a small
replica of it to take home. ♥

Galileo's tomb in the Santa Croce church.  The
whole church was full of these incredibly beautiful
artistic tombs. Also Michelangelo and Dante are
buried in the church but I didn't get photos of
their tombs because taking photos was really difficult,
flashes were not allowed inside the church.

A close-up of the HUGE and magnificent church
Santa Maria Del Fiore, one of the most known
churches in the world.  If you are interested
of architecture, this building is one you should
look into, it's history is so thrilling.

Santa Maria Del Fiore from a little farther away. You can
almost see half of it. It's so HUGE that you cannot get
a picture of the whole church from this close.

The cote Loggia Dei lanzi from the Piazza Della Signoria. You
can just see Perseus on the left hand corner and the many
other wonderful statues there were... and all the people.
There was no place in Firenze where there would not have
been a huge crowd. =D

A close up of  one of the statues in Loggia Dei lanzi.
"Hercules fighting the centaur Nessus" by the sculptor
Giambologna.

View to the beauuutiful hills of Toscana. We drove hours
along roads in this view. Unfortunately I have a really bad
travel sickness so I wasn't really enjoying the trip in a car. XD

The view to the hills at the village where the Italian meal
was served. It was just so breathtakingly beautiful. ♥

City of dreams.
Venice. This is a view to the famous Rialto bridge. The whole
immensely huge bridge is full of little stores.

View to the city itself from the canal that leads to the city. We arrived
there with a tourist boat (the trip was woooonderful!). The big
building in the middle is the doge's palace.

A square where the gondola's takes on passengers. There was
a gondolier singing here and it led people to this place. It
was almost magical, like a jump to the past.

One of the many many many canals in the city.
It was so beautiful I took several hundred pictures
just like this one.

And another canal and another condola.
The whole city of Venice is set on water, on top of
this marshland and has no roads, instead
there are these canals that you can travel
on in the condolas, or by the small walkways that
crisscross the city with little bridges over the
canals. ♥

View from the Rialto bridge, to the "main canal" of the city.
This was the place where in ancient times there goods were brought
into the city.

The huge and beautiful church of San Marco at the San Marco
square in Venice centrum next to the doge's palace.

The famous bridge of sighs. The building here used
to be a prison, where the prisoners were sentenced
to live for the rest of their lives. When they were walked
into the building, people could hear their sighs of
desperation from the bridge, that is how it got
it's name.

I hope you enjoyed this little jump into the past. I have sworn to one day return to Venice and Firenze, I say fell in love with those towns and there is still so many things I had no time to see. ^_^ Dreams...

What the future brings?

My (step)sister has a daughter. She is 15 months old and the light of our whole family's life. She's always smiling, hugging and playing. She never cries. she's a sweetheart. ♥

Her mother is a beautiful blue eyed Finnish blonde with a heartwarming smile. Her father is a handsome very dark skinned, black haired Nigerian. They both adore their daughter. Her hair has started to grow, it's dark brown and curly and soft as silk. Her eyes are almost black, they are so dark, she seems to notice everything. She's starting to speak, when she learns more, she's gonna be  multilingual. Her mother teaches her Finnish and English. Her father teaches her English and Igbo.

She's like an adorable mix of her mother and father. Her nose is her fathers, her mouth is her mothers, the tone of her skin is like milk chocolate. She is learning to walk.

♥

Last week my sister and her daughter were coming to see my stepmom and father for easter. They were coming by a bus to the Helsinki train station. My sister was pushing the stroller where her daughter was sitting. There was a group of 20-something drunk men on the way. They let her pass but stared after her.
One of them yelled: "Is that a niggerbaby with you?"

... She is 15 months old. And now it starts?

I am so scared for her. What she will have to go trough. Only because some people are so fucking stupid! She's the most beautiful, wonderful, gentle little creature you could imagine and she most probably has to listen to words like that for the rest of her life.

Last summer a Finnish actor, Chike Ohanwe who has a Nigerian parent, was attacked while he was at a beach, sunbathing. There are more and more news about attacks of racist nature in Finland. A few months ago a man shot an immigrant in his workplace, a restaurant. After the "true finns"-party won the parliamentary election a year ago, racism has shown a new and dangerous face to the public.

Suddenly it seems it's completely okay to bash people, to call them names, to threaten them, even their lives. Members of parliament have openly said racist comments, they belong to extreme right-wing groups. It's given a permission for those angry racists who have before stayed quiet, to come out and yell, offend and even hurt. The horrible thing is, that these people seem to get no punishments. It's a horrible example for those who seem to have waited for a rolemodel like that.
Then there's Anders Breivik. When is that going to happen again in another country? With people like the "basic finns" saying that it's okay to hate those different from "us"... us usually being white straight men? Some people actually dare to admire Breivik. Sick!

I hope the Northern Europe is not sliding into the hands of racists and extreme right-wing people. On the other hand over a million people (there are 6 million of us in all) voted in the Finnish presidential election this year for a gay president. So there is hope. ♥

But as long as a 15 month old baby can be called such names without anyone doing anything about it, without batting an eye, there is something terribly, horribly wrong with the people in this country.

Twitchy feet

Also called restless legs syndrome. I have it. I've had it since the growth sprint when I was only 12-13. I grew 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) in one year.

After that I've been suffering from the restless legs on and off. Since they changed my meds last fall, it's gradually gotten worse and worse... and this weekend, I stayed up all night (sun-mon) because my legs just would not stop moving and cramping and twitching. Those who have ever had this problem know how horrible it can get.
And I think anyone can image the feeling when you've tried to sleep for 8 hours, laying on your bed, staring that the ceiling because they sleep just won't come. As soon as you close your eyes and start to fall asleep, the legs give a twitch and you wake up with a start. You become such a nervous wreck at the end of the night that you don't even try to fall asleep anymore, you just wait for morning to come so you don't have so suffer anymore.

So... I called and booked myself a doctors appointment and went there yesterday. He was foreign, so we had some trouble getting the issue understood (most doctors here in Finland are foreign these days because it's cheaper to hire foreign doctors than Finnish ones.). In the end, after a lot of discussing that I found rather pointless (telling everything that was NOT helping me to sleep, like stretching, walking and massaging my legs), he understood my problem and:
they are gonna change my medication, AGAIN!

This medication (Moclobemid) should be a lot less horrible to change than the last one (Efexor). But still, I am worried, because with a new medication comes new side-effects, and the ones I've had so far had not been all fun and games. Plus this medication I have now has been utterly perfect if you don't count the restless legs... but it's gotten so bad that I get about 4-5 hours asleep during a "normal" night, so it cannot go on like this. =(

So now I wait while the doctor negotiates with my other doctor and they together decide what meds to try next, wooooot. In a week I should know and be able to start the switch, again.

On other news, I love my "workplace"! =D

'A'

I was in a friends birthday party last weekend. It was the first (ever) official gathering where we were as a couple with my viking in front of his friends. It was also the same party where we had met exactly two years ago! Our friend Masa's birthday party. ^_^ It was a fun night. The hosts had made all sorts of incredibly delicious food thingies and there was punch too. And my friends said and did some weird stuff that borne some hilarious moments. XD
Eda was so happy to see us dating (she was there when me and my viking met two years ago but had no idea we were together until we suddenly kissed in front of her) that she giggled and screamed a little. Hihi. *^_^*
And Umi came there, knowing that she would finally meet my Viking, so she sat at the table and with a loud voice asked "So, where's your viking?" (actually calling him "the Viking", ahaha) ... He was sitting right behind her and looked a little... funny. XD Umi was bright red when I pointed out that he was right there.

Ktiraam stopped by at the party too, but because she had to get up really early the next morning, she left early too. And in the end I got so tired that I came home at midnight, got a lift from a couple who were going home too. ^_^ I haven't been in such a big party in a long time, it was really fun. My Viking stayed there until the very end and went home to have a proper hangover. I didn't have that either, even when I did drink pretty much of that free punch. ^_^

Aaaaaaaand it's the international 'A' week.
I'm not gonna preach about religion here, because I think it's everyone's choice what they believe. I just wish everyone would study all sides of things and then decide, not just blindly believe something they were told to believe.
I lost my faith in any gods for over 14 years ago and during the last two years have become a skeptic on all pseudo sciences too. Life, nature and the world are wonderful and incredible without any need for a higher power. ^_^
...And that is why I made this for my facebook page:

With the wonderful quote of the physicist Lawrence M Krauss ♥

And without a quote ^_^

"Normal" life

Work started last week. It's only two days a week, but it feels like a lot since I haven't been at work for almost 5 years. So far I've been knitting and making Easter decorations. It's been fun. The place is really nice and calm, there's never a crowd or hurry, I love that. And we get a free meal at work too.

I dyed my hair today. I hadn't planned it, but when my mom asked if I'd dye her hair and as a pay, she'd buy me a hairdye of my own, I agreed. So now I'm a blond again. I had started to turn into the "mousy" colour almost all finns are, this grey'ish-brown-blond.

Then, we went on a walk with mom today, to a flea-market and the library, walked for an hour and half... and at one point I thought I saw a friend of mine at the street. She was wearing a big scarf around her face (it was really cold and windy) so I couldn't be sure, but she looked just like my friend. So I started to grin at her and stared... and then walked closer and realized that no, it wasn't my friend after all. OMG I was so embarrased, ahahahah! She must have been so scared, a crazy grinning woman staring at her. XDDDDD

Today I was a bit bored, didn't have any plans or ideas what to do and didn't want to watch TV, so I made a test make up. My sisters daughter (12 years old) asked me to do her a make up to a school play where she's playing a mermaid.

What do you think? Mermaidy enough?

Oh yeah, and I got my new (fourth) tattoo a week ago. I'm a little hesitant about posting pictures of it online, because if someone likes it and wants one just like it... I don't want that to happen. XD I made the image just for myself so... agh, when it's completely cured, I will take some sort of photo of it.

It's a tribal lion, as a tribute for my oldest (and dearest) plushie. HAHA! XD ♥

March

Samsung Galaxy Mini

First.
Day... of March. I mean. =P

I have a new phone. This one. I love it, love it, love it, love it! With it came a 2Gb memory card so I can put photos and drawings on it and listen to music too. And it has a touch screen, which is really cool but also kind of freaks me out sometimes. XDD

The clock radio. Simple and
cheap, but working.

Today we (me and Ktiraam) went to buy stuff to a shopping center a little farther from the center of the city. We'd planned this trip since the beginning of the year. We walked there for half an hour, shopped for an hour... I bought an "armour" to the new phone (a see trough plastic cover) and a new clock-radio because I had no clock... nor a radio. XD Maarit bought a memory card for her new phone and a new cool trashcan to her bathroom.

This is the hoodie.

We took a bus back to the city, went to eat some chinese (Huadu, nommm) and continued shopping for two more hours. I bought a pink hoodie!

Haha. And then we went to eat some ice-cream in our favourite ice-cream place, Ciao. ♥ That's enough shopping for a few months, but they were all stuff I've been meaning to buy for months but just haven't had the money. ^_^

This has been a little rough a week. I couldn't sleep well during the weekend, I had a sort of panic attack or something the first night and the second my dear Viking kept my awake by snoring all night (argh!!) and it left me sooo tired that it took two days to get over the tiredness. Yesterday we went on a 1 hour 45 minutes walk with my mom, so I think I've recovered now.

I still need to clean the house today. My Viking is coming here tomorrow again. And I have a friends birthday party on Saturday. And then I need to rest and relax because on Monday work start.
And on Tuesday I am getting my fourth TATTOO on my left arm! ;D

Something new from the art front. A burlesque
cybergoth inspired faery/demon woman.
... I just really wanted to paint hair! XD