Life is sweet - enjoy the little things

 

This evening, around 10PM I took my dog out and got all the summery feels from the blooming bushes and trees outside. Then I sat for another half an hour at my balcony, eating a cone of ice cream and just appreciating how nice that felt. My home, my balcony, my life. How many people do that? Just sit down, feel what your feeling, appreciate that feeling and try to remember how that felt for the rest of your life? Because I do. I do remember those little moments, I think of them everytime I'm going through something or if I'm sad or angry. I try to remember those good moments that didn't necessarily take a lot. Maybe just the smell of flowers, warm summer night weather, staring at the partially cloudy sky and eating ice cream.

I've been jamming a lot to Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop The Feeling", which I found out, is actually perfect song for summer in general. Makes me wanna dance whenever I hear it (and yes I've kinda done that in work, my colleagues will prove that).

I have a feeling that this summer is going to be great. 

Last Saturday I hosted my 2nd homewarming party. The first was on April 16th for my colleagues from work and this one was for all of my friends so there was about 25 people packed into my small apartment. We had lots of fun, watched hockey (sadly Finland won all the other games but the final so silver for us... once again) and eventually ended evening in a bar. Where I finally found my courage to sing karaoke.

 

And to other things. I actually got a new camera Canon EOS M, which is way smaller than my #1 camera. However, my Canon EOS 60D is actually so damn heavy to carry around everywhere to actually make it my everyday camera, I decided that it was time to get a second, smaller one but with the same kind of qualities (cause honestly me and pocket cameras are a disaster!). Now I've got it going with me to New York.

I also booked tickets to see WICKED ON BROADWAY. Guys, I'm so excited right now! I'm also gonna see Finding Neverland, but I haven't booked the tickets just yet. And of course I'm trying very hard to get tickets to see Jimmy Fallon bc he's my favorite talk show host ever. Aside from Ellen Degeneres. Oh there are so many things I would want to do and so little time. I booked my accommodation from a very nice hostel in Upper West Side in a dorm of 6 females. So this is really my first time for everything - first time traveling completely alone, first time in New York, first time in a dorm with 5 other people (or less, but we'll see). However, I'm becoming more and more excited about this everyday.

So yes, life is what you make it. I've always been a person who wants to live and explore, even if I've always been scared of doing it alone. But I'm really not. Not anymore. I might be carefree and I don't take life seriously (or like my mom tends to say; you have no clue how life works). Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But I will figure it out. Because after all it's my life and it's my world. And I'm trying to make the best of it everyday. Try it if you haven't. You might be surprised.

love,

Looks like home to me

A new post in a while. I apologize for being MIA, but my work schedule got crazy busy and I had no energy to do anything after work. Things are looking much sunnier right now - SPRING IS HERE.

Oh yeah I probably didn't mention - in the end of october I took my friend to a Scooter's gig in Helsinki after winning two tickets from a radio station competition. I actually called in to participate in this celebrity imitation game, where the hosts each imitate one celebrity and usually you have to have two out of three right to win the prize (usually a cd or something like that). It came as a total surprise that they had added Scooter tickets to that prize and this time I had to get all three of them right. Which made me nervous since I heard them practice their imitation earlier that morning but didn't really have a clue on the third. But then it hit me when I heard it the second time. And I won.

Scooter, oh Scooter. God I feel so old since I danced to their songs in school discos when I was in elementary school and so forth. Good memories, good memories.

But, back to the apartment!

Everything is in place and I should be able to move in in no time! The fact that this renovation has been going on for 9 months is ridiculous but two months are explained with waiting for my kitchen cupboards and everything and one month is explained when a water leakage from upstairs damaged my kitchen a bit so we had to take one cupboard off, let it dry and paint it over again plus add new tapestry. Now it's finally done, the only things lagging are the wall decals and paintings. I've been moving my belongings into my new home slowly, but now I've got most of my stuff in there and still some room in my cupboards/closet. Which is kind of odd considering how much clothes and other things I actually have...

Anyway, let's look at some photos (straight from my instagram so you might've seen this earlier):

My kitchen is probably the best room in my home. The first photo was taken a couple of days ago and the second one was taken before I had moved any stuff in. I have this lovely manual kitchen scale (on top of the digital one I have) from this lovely store in Vammala called Casa Rosalin. I also bought a lot of other stuff there. The bread tin is from Click Store in Ideapark (Jamie Oliver) and Smeg toaster is from Gigantti. I'm still missing my stand mixer but it's on its way! Cause you know what? I'm going to have KitchenAid Artisan mixer in pink and I can't wait to get that baby home!

My dog's at home in the chair though. Alright so living room. Sadly my mother had my couch and chair covered since my dog was there and her fur is everywhere. However, I've decide myself that those will come off and I'll just vacuum the chair and couch if she sheds. No big deal.

 

So my living room is green as you might see. My chair is more... purplish than my couch but they kind of fit together. Altogether I wanted to make this room kind of relaxing and energetic at the same time, hence the colors. All the cabinets are white though and all of them are from Laulumaa. The table is also from there. Couch is from Ikea and I was super lucky to get it! There were only two left in that particular color. I didn't want white or light colored couch cause I knew all dirt and hair would show up immediately in it (and well, having a dog that's not really good). So I went with cherry. The curtains are bunny curtains designed by Minna Parikka and I'm in love with them.

 

And then we have the bedroom, which is pink. My favorite color is pink and while I'm well aware that people rarely paint their walls pink or... well any other color but rather just leave them as white/light/with one wall different color than the others, I'm not really that kind of a girl. I love colors. I kinda tried to mix modern and vintage in my decorations in every room. Though my kitchen is more retro than vintage but I have tons of cute tins and everything in there. However, I went with a bit more romantic edge in my bedroom since I already had the crystal crown my grandmother gave me. The bed and side table is from Ikea, shelf is from Anttila. And well, I don't have much anything else in here. Except my clothes in the wardrobes. And my collection of Victoria's Secret body mists and beauty products.

Then the entrance which is kind of hard to get a photo of since it's very small. But I have a bench and a coat rack there, nothing more. The entrance is painted light purple.

And well I have bathroom too but somehow I've managed not to take photos of that but I will someday. It's kinda cute with owls on the walls.

Well, this is my home and I can't wait to move in!

xoxo,

Home sweet home

(photo from here)

This is the day I've been waiting for a long time. Getting my own apartment, renovating it to my liking and planning everything. Yes, I've been living at home until now and trust me, I've been trying to find an apartment and I meant to move as roomies with my bf but plans changed. But now, I'm finally getting my own apartment. 

It's a very nice three room apartment (becoming two-room apartment after we'll expand the freakishly small kitchen near the city center so everything is quite nearby. The area is the best and there are also good walks which I can take with my dog.

Of course, the best part is planning and then getting to decorate it. I've left the actual renovating mostly to my mother, since she's better with that. But I have very clear visions of what I want - colourwise too. I've already decided that my kitchen will be painted somewhat in the shade of cafe latte, my living room will be light lime green, my bedroom will be light rosy pink. I haven't decided the color to the small hallway though. It might stay white, or i might do light lavender or the same as my living room (since it kind of continues to the living room anyway, so that would be the obvious choice - on the contrary I have never been that obvious).

(photo from here)

I'm a bit of a quirky person - well let's just say I'm an adult who will never grow up, I'm my own Peter Pan. So I've chosen to have Disney Quote wall decals in every room. Except the hallway cause that's too small. And the bathroom maybe, we'll have to see that. I will get the above wall decal to my bedroom. And for my living room it will be plainly "Hakuna Matata". My kitchen will have a quote from Alice "I believe in at least six impossible things before breakfast" - fitting huh? And as for my bathroom, if it fits.... "Mirror mirror on the wall...".

Yeah well, my apartment won't be turning into a Disney shrine though. I love it in a small amount in my decorations. I can't wait to get all my photos up in the wall and the paintings - one particular Tinkerbell painting from Disneyland Paris and the lovely drawings of some characters by my best friend. 

As for my kitchen - oh dear that will the the most important room to me, even though fate has put some hardships ahead of me. See, I had decided that I wanted Gorenje's retro fridge/freezer in milk coffee. Problem? Yeah, turns out it's nowhere to be found anymore so I might have to go with champagne. My kitchen will probably have sort of country romanticism since I love all the lovely wooden boxes that say candles and teas and also the metal jars.

I will begin to renovate my place next month, although it might not be done until late August. Most of the places that produce cabinets for kitchens and all are usually closed in July and it takes some time... But I will definitely post photos of improvement after everything gets started.

On other things. Hockey. I love hockey. I'm a diehard fan of IIHF but the unbelievably incompetent referees piss me off so bad. Sadly Finland didn't make to the final games. Gladly USA won bronze and Canada won gold, I'm so happy about this since I'm very patriotic in this game so Swedish team and Russian team are the two teams I love to watch lose the games. Nothing against the countries or actual people. I bet they are as much pleased to see Finland lose too :D But yes, don't even get me started with the idiotic, blind, are-you-goddamn-serious referees (who always seem to be either Swedish or Russian, seriously?!). Also I think that knowing that FIN-RUS and FIN-SWE are practically nemesis' in the brink, no Russians or Swedish should be put to judge our games as well as no Finnish referees to Russia's or Swedish games. NHL referees would be just a+ for World Championship games.  But well, those are over and my stress levels are back to normal. Kinda.

It's a beautiful day outside and it finally feels like summer!

with love,