Day 49: How to spend your vacation?

We have this storage in our back yard. There we are storing  lot of stuff like outdoor table and chairs, tires, bicycles, flowerpots, rakes and other gardening tools. Once a year (normally) we carry everything out, clean the storage, get rid of unnecessary things and finally get all back in good order. Last summer we didn't do that since we have this renovation of our back yard going on. So one our planned vacation activity was to clean the storage and that we did!

Day 48: Why to loose weight?

There are several reasons why to loose weight. To be more healthy. To have more energy. To avoid some deceases related to overweight. And to fit your old cloths.

I really have huge amount of cloths which have been fitting me few years ago. What an earth I am thinking by  gaining more and more weight! That also means that I have to buy bigger and bigger cloths and vice verse having more and more cloths not fitting me on closets.

Day 47: Look what I found!

I am so old that I no more hear grasshoppers voices. But I am not too old to see those fellows.

Day 46: Black tomatoes - really?

Today we visited marketplace of Turku. There is one seller which have very tasty vegetables and often also new varieties. Today we just have to buy these black tomatoes looking like plums. And I have to say: even looking very suspicious the taste was good. This is more healthy choice than yesterday's pastry and eating these every day would be way to loose weight.

 

Day 45: How to celebrate last work day before vacation?

Well - was again this is more issue of "why I am not loosing weight". For some stupid reason I allowed myself to celebrate the start of vacation and I ate one pastry with lot of calories. Too many calories! Far too many! But it was good and vacation has started. Please note that the other one is for my husband whose vacation also started today.

Day 44: How beautiful flower can be!

I love to photograph flowers (and butterflies and birds and ... I might have mentioned this already in my previous posts) and today I was once again managed to surprise myself. I was once again learning how to use macro objective and photographed flowers of garden nasturtium. I was surprised the beauty of that flower and that is something which you don't see when looking these flowers afar.

Day 43: Look - another unfinished embroidery!

This is quite embarrassing. I checked my closets and found out that I have several unfinished embroideries. I stopped counting in ten. Some of them are not all even finished and just waiting for hemming - instead they are waiting for more embroidering. Okay - I decided that this summer and especially during my summer vacation I finished as many as possible. If not for any other reason then for getting more space for my closets.

Day 42: What a family!

Today I visit the Old Town. I don't know why we are calling that part of Naantali so because for me it is more like shore (I used to say that I am going to Naantali shore) or marina (since there are lot of boats). That is the place where I sometimes just sit reading a book and watching people. But not today.

Today I was watching this beautiful family: how mother duck was taking care of all those little ducks. I wasn't the only one. Lot of people stopped to watch these little ducks and especially children were excited. 

Day 41: What is Finnish summer like?

Well - we have had several warm and sunny summers in last couple of years but it seems to be so that this year we have "the normal summer". That is, not so warm and raining all the time. I took this photo while we were driving home. The weather was not this bad but I like this picture: it looks like it is storm out there. So it reveals also that even picture can lie.

Day 40: How lazy I have been?

Embroidery - that is also one of my hobby. I love to do different kind of embroideries but there is one phase which is not my favorite. Since I am little bit lazy it often happens that I finished embroidery but hemming - which is time consuming phase - I don't do immediately. I often think that I do that later - maybe tomorrow. Today I finalized, that is, I hemmed one embroidery which has been waiting in my closet over ten years. Oops! But now it is on the wall looking quite good.

Day 39: Why I love butterflies?

I like to photo butterflies. Finnish summer is so short and when ever possible I go out with my camera. I just love butterflies: they are so beautiful. So fragile! And sometimes very mesmerizing. When they fly I can watch and follow them for a while before getting possibility to photo. Sometimes the possibility is not there. And that is also one part of the fun. You never know whether you manage to photo them or not. And even when I think I have a photo in my camera - it might be totally blurry or only part of butterfly is there.

Just today I was sitting in crouch waiting butterflies to come. I had seen some and I was sure they are coming back. My neighbor was standing about 5 meters behind me smoking and most likely wondering what on earth I am doing there almost in ditch. But I didn't mind and didn't want to give him any explanation. I was so concentrated.

This the result: nice photo of small tortoiseshell - taken in Torpparinkaari. Hopefully butterflies are here also in the future.

Day 38: Welcome!

This is view from our outside door. You are most welcome to visit us - any day. Just ring the doorbell and wait until the door opens.

Day 37: What a pizza! Again!

I seem to like "pizza diet" a lot - even it is not working. This is pizza Chanterelle which I ate in Rantaravintola.  This looks very healthy -doesn't it. But under healthy tomatoes and rocket there are chanterelles (also healthy), parmesan and blue cheese as extra topping. Once again fooling myself but this was so good. Yammy! But by eating like this I won't ever loose any weight.

Day 36: Where do I live?

Today me and my husband take a little walk around our neighborhood. There are also two other constructions going on and we went to see what is happening there. The other is in the woods where we used to walk with our dog Leevi (who died almost two years ago). It is sad that there will be less nature and more people after a while. Where do I go to photo butterflies, birds and flowers? Sad...

This photo is taken from other side of Torpparinkaari and we are living in that terraced house shown here. You can see our french balcony. Most likely next year this view looks very different.

Day 35: What a teracce!

I have to say - I am very proud of our beautiful teracce. It takes some effort every day to keep it beautiful but it is worth of every minute. 

Day 34: What a pizza!

Yum! I made a pizza. There were chili tuna, chili cheese, blue cheese, champignon and kebab meat - little bit spicy but so good! And this one was eaten as whole - nothing left. Luckily my husband helped me.

Day 33: How this view from Torpparinkaari will change?

Construction company Hartela has informed that they are applying for construction permit for two terraced houses and two semi-detached houses to be located just front of us. This photo has been taken from french balcony of our guest room. I want to follow how the view will change during construction. This is now starting point: nothing has been done so far. And plan is that construction starts at the of autumn.

Day 32: What a beauty!

My goddaughter and her mother visited us and they brought us mini gerbera. It was such a beauty! And I think the photo I took is also really nice.

I think I might like to make cards with this picture. Let's see whether my postcrossing friends will be soon receiving cards like this.

Day 31: What a nice evening!

We visited another summer theater in Paimio. It was really nice weather and play was great. After theater we went to eat and when we arrived at home we were all so full of food and culture. Weather was still great and we decided to sit for a while in our teracce and enjoy the evening. I managed to photo my husband and my daughter having discussion. Look what a view!

Day 30: What to do with these cards?

I like playing games - both card and board games. It was sunny evening and we decided to play cards in our teracce. Do you know game Club Seven? The idea is to get rid of your cards and there are certain rules how to get rid of them. Most likely I have misunderstood something or the others just were so much better players than me - I  totally was the looser of this game.

Day 29: Why to kill a viper?

We are living in area where vipers are also living. In the yard of our terraced house there are many little children and when in one evening a viper crawled near children's playground fathers decided to get rid of that snake. I don't like snakes - not at all - but still I felt that killing the viper is not the best thing to do. There are more vipers somewhere near and one day they might also be in our yard. It would be better to tell children to be careful and if necessary, to walk away. Vipers are venomous and even their bite is not likely to kill humans you never know. But they are creatures of nature and we are the ones moved to their neighborhood.

Well - fathers didn't succeeded to kill the snake. Here is one of the snake hunters not so lucky.

Day 28: What is my ambition?

Or should I say: one of my ambitions. There are lot of things which I would like to do better or what I really would like to learn. But one thing is above all the others at this point. I really want to develop as photographer - even it is only my hobby, not profession.

In the wall of my rental flat there are two pictures photoed by one relative of mine. Something like these I would like to create.

Day 27: How fool I really can be?

Some time ago I wrote how I fool myself by not adding any salad dressing on my salads. Yesterday I decided it's time to stop the self-delusion and bought salad dressing in my rental flat's frigde. Today I ate this nice salad as dinner and was happy with myself.  

This could be so much better diet than my pizza diet or Linnanmäki diet if only I wouldn't have eaten ice cream as dessert. I surprised myself once again: I had something good going on and then - what a fool!

Day 26: Who is that man?

I am married with my second husband. We got married 08.08.2008 and many may think that we picked that date because it looks nice and it is easy to remember. Well, that could be the case but actually - there is more magic here. My husband is 8 years 8 months and 8 days older than me. Someone asked if we have calculated also hours and minutes but no. It might be that the final result is example something like 8 years 8 months 7 days 20 hours and 15 minutes and that would have very challenging to get married exact that time. 

But yes - this is my husband sitting in Heinola ABC area in sunny Sunday 1.7.2012. 

Day 25: Look who has been busy!

Once again - photographing has changed me. On Saturday morning I noticed something on  table in teracce. Immediately I took my camera and managed to take only this one photo but it made me so happy. I was happy to have even this one photo. I was happy also because someone has been busy or should I say, really hardworking. Look the amount of pollen in this guy's legs! No wonder that he had some difficulties to fly but he really managed to fly away immediately after this photo was taken.