Even though Christmas times are all festive and fun it's also a time filled with stress and to do-lists. I think most of us have a couple of days before Christmas in an "almost-breakdown-state", at least I do. My nerves can't handle the pressure I put on myself to clean the house into perfect condition, while at the same time make Christmas gifts, bake sweets and have a relaxed time. And as for us who study there are most often a lot of deadlines around this time as well. This equation just doesn't work. I kind of had a small breakdown today. After I had been studying for most of the day I started crying, because I had no time or energy for all the other things I had planned for the day. I decided to change the mood I was in, because it ain't fun being there. The best way I know to change my mood around is to put on really good music. For me worship music is the best way of changing my thoughts. Works every time, after just a couple of beats I'm way better. Today I put on Chris Tomlin's Christmas album for the first time. And it was good! Other times I put on anything by Leeland. Every time I do this I'm amazed by the power good worship music has. So after I was in a better state of mind I felt like doing something for me, a moment of pure happiness. Today that was baking. When I'm allowed to do it without the pressure of time it's joyful. So now I'm going make a cup of tea and enjoy my banana bread. Perhaps I'll have more energy tomorrow to finish off the things I had planned for today. When we got married I never thought I would have to share my camera with Andreas. Then he started wood working more seriously, and with that he got an interest for photography. I am thrilled about that, and he's getting so good at it. But that means that I'm at home now with no camera to shoot with. Have to use an old bit good photo to decorate the blog post for now. I think we might need to get another camera soon. But they're so expensive.
I really hope you're all able to take time this Christmas to enjoy the moment. And to do something you really like, just for you. Love, Elin
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Friday night, date night. Candlelit dinner, dressing up and spending the night at some fancy restaurant. That's the most common association with dating I think. Even if that's a lot of fun, specially the dressing up part, it's not our kind of date. We've been talking a lot, my husband and I, about the dating culture. Since social media is such a big part of our lives you more often see couples showing off their dating life. And the most common thing you see, the dinners. Ever since we got together, I feel like we've been a bit different. We have explored our own ways of doing things. Such as dating. We think that every couple should find their own way of spending that quality time with each other, and not only think of dinners as the main alternative for dating. There are so many other ways of dating. For us a date night can be an evening spent in Andreas' workshop with both of us being creative. Most times I bring my knitting, but this time I brought my colouring book. Even if the both of us have our main focus on the things we're creating, it's so cosy to make it together and share our thought. Dating is all about spending relaxed time with each other to catch up and see the person you fell in love with. When we got together we used to spend time just like this. Creating stuff together. It's one of the things that defines us as a couple, it is who we are. This summer we had a revelation. We we're out on a dinner date, and after the dinner we went for a walk in a park. We walked around and looked at all the trees. We realised that the trees had been the best part of the date. The thing is, my husband isn't himself a lot of the times we spend eating at restaurants. He feels like he should be in a certain way to fit the traditional date, which isn't who he is.
So we made the decision to from then on spend the majority of our dates in a non-traditional way. To spend more time doing things that we are comfortable with. You should do the things you love with the person you love. Who knew this could be such a joyful day? One of our cats, Sigur, is quite the adventurous type. He has been away before, but never like this. Last time we saw him was the day we got the chickens. This means that he's been out in the wilderness by himself for almost five months. We thought he was dead, since there was no sign of him anywhere. Imagine our surprise when he all of a sudden stood outside our door this morning. I feel like throwing a party. It's a miracle that he's back!
You know I love knitting and crocheting, and creating stuff with my hands. This autumn I found a new way of creating stuff with yarn. It's called Afghan Stitch or Tunisian Crochet. When I tried it out I immediately thought of a small make up bag or accessory pouch as the perfect product to make of it, since it turns into a really steady piece of fabric.
Yesterday I made the finishing touches on this one. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. A perfect gift as you never can have too many pouches. I've had a rough couple of days, nothing major, but you know how it is sometimes. You get sad and you need to cry. And even if nothing has changed, that cry makes it all feel a bit better.
I'm a big supporter of tears. I strongly believe that crying is like a cleansing lotion on your soul. You get to rinse off stress and the mountain of emotional crap that you've been building for some time goes away. It is even scientifically proven that tears bring out toxins, and thereby it literally cleanses your body. I would say I'm a sensitive person, definitely, and as the sensitive person I am I cry a lot. All kinds of emotions makes me cry. And it ain't a bad thing. We all need to let those tears fall once in a while. As the years have gone by I've become more confident in my sensitivity. Even so confident that I think it's okay to not hide my after-cry face, which ain't too pretty. Crying is a part of life, and so it should stay. I even think it should be more okay to cry in public, be more open with our feelings. Especially here in Finland we rarely show any feelings, and it makes me so sad. We loose so much of ourselves if we don't tend to our emotions, and allow them to grow. And they really can't grow unless we allow them to exist. The best part about yesterdays cry was the fact that I had my mother around as a shoulder to cry on. Even though I'm 25 years old, I still need my mother as a rock and for comfort. Because what could possibly be better than feeling such a familiar embrace in time of need? Let us never grow up too much, so that we no longer need the comfort of your parents. If you read this mom, I love you more than I can express in words! By the way, my favourite cry movie is Hachi: A Dog's Tale, because sometimes I just feel like crying. The first time I saw this movie was in Italy, while we were on a vacation. We had some time to relax in the middle of the day. I think Andreas was taking a shower and I turned on the TV. The movie just started then and even though it was dubbed to Italian I was hooked. I saw the entire movie, didn't understand a single word, and I wept like a baby. I still can't even watch the trailer without bursting into tears. It's so powerful! I've recently started reading more of the non-fiction genre to hopefully get something more out of reading. More than just the pleasure of escaping reality for a moment. I love fictive stories, and will always keep on reading them. But once in a while you need something else mixed in. Since it stood in our book shelf just waiting to be read I picked it up, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The book consists of a lot of different stories to make you understand what makes someone successful. How no one actually can make it on their own. I'm not gonna tell you too much about what the book is about. But I can honestly say that it was really interesting.
I really recommend this book, but don't believe it will contain a recipe for success. The point is to get a better understanding at how people get where they are. I personally think success is a kind of strange word. Because what is success actually? Some (or a lot) would probably say success is fame. But I don't agree. Success to me is being able to do the things you love and still being true to yourself. A lot of people today strive for fame and success, but loose themselves along the way. And what's the point of that? I really hope to find things that make me happy, and keeps me satisfied. And I wish I'll be able to hold on to that and make time for it. If you're a fellow reader or interested in following what I read, join Goodreads and add me (username eliningrid). It's the best place for getting great book recommendations and keeping track of your reading. Finally the first snow of the season arrived. Now all I'm hoping for is that it'll stay, it doesn't look good though. I guess I better enjoy this day and make the most out of it. Who wants to build a snowman?
When I was younger I thought a lot about what it meant to be grown-up. I wondered about all the things you should be able to do, things grown-ups know about. I used to dream about going to the store to buy food, all by myself. Figuring out what to buy. I'm actually serious. Still today I sometimes look forward to going to supermarkets and just wander around, with all the time in the world. When I travel, one of the main events of the trip is to explore supermarkets. I love how everything smells different, and all the different products. So obviously one of my hobbies is to buy food. (I think my husband can testify to that. I hate going to the store in a hurry when it's about to close.) And the other hobby that comes with it is making food. I am blessed to have grown up with parents who both were active in the kitchen. They always tried new recipes, they still do. Dinner was something to be made together, as soon as we where old enough me and my siblings helped out with preparing the meal. This is when my interest in food started. It's because I had role models to look up to, who shared their interests. What I've learned through my cooking journey is to not give up. If you try a couple more times you may succeed. This can relate to anything of course. When I lived by myself, in my first apartment, I wanted to be a grown-up. So I wanted to bake bread, one of the most adult things I could think about. Let me tell you it didn't turn out so good, the only way to eat it was to toast it first. But as I've continuously kept on baking bread I've gotten better, a lot better. Nowadays I hardly ever follow recipes when baking bread. I've learnt to feel it. And the satisfaction when you eat a slice of freshly baked bread, it's perfect. In that moment I'm ecstatic! I can admit that sometimes I might be a bit too exited about food. But I just love it so much!
Find your passion and keep on trying. Sometimes you might not even know what you're doing. But it's okay, cause you'll never get anywhere if you don't dare to try. I bet you all have seen or heard about Essena O'Neill by now, but I thought I'd share my thoughts on the subject.
I've felt a bit misplaced on social media. I like the idea of them, such as Instagram, but never really felt the need to really put myself out there. Not in the same way most people do, by that I mean putting out pictures of everything you do and everyone you hang out with. That to me seems like rubbing your life in everyone else's face. There's no point for me doing that. But my view on instagraming changed a bit when my husband started using the network as a way of showing his wood work. That way of using IG has grown, and I think it's just interesting to see possibilities. That's more how I'd also like to use it. Well, back to Essena. She's a girl who got trapped in a way of exposing herself and showing only one side of her. I admire her wake up call and the fact that she actually was brave enough to step out of it. To show how twisted media is nowadays. How the chase of likes and follows can trap you, until you no longer know who you are. It makes us form a picture of who we want to be, so we strive for that, and along the way often loose ourselves. Her story shows me that whatever you do, be true to who you are. Don't try to create a new you. Media forms us, it makes us feel like we have to be and present ourselves in a certain way to be liked. The group of people most under this kind of pressure is teenagers. Imagine what it must feel like, being pressured into behaving a certain way on the Internet, just because everyone else is doing that. I remember when I was a teenager there was no social media like today. I remember being 12 years old and still loving to play with barbie's, so that is what I did and I for sure didn't care what everyone else thought. Where are all the Barbie-playing girls nowadays? They don't exist, because they're broken by the way social media works. I'm not gonna ramble on about how everything was better when I was a kid. A lot of things was better, but today's possibilities are enormous. As long as we remember to think about how we behave on social media. And what kind of image we send to those younger than us. Last year in October me and my mum went to Israel for a week. Our mission was to visit my brother, who was staying there as a volunteer at a kibbutz. It is a beautiful country, and I became totally mesmerised by the diverse culture and history. Even though I didn't believe it would happen, I think a piece of my heart was left there. I've been thinking about the trip a lot during this year. I will most definitely go there again. Most people go there on group trips, but I would recommend travelling by yourself. That way you'll discover the real country and culture. People there seem so open, so if you're travelling with public transportations and have time to walk around you'll have a lot of interesting encounters. Enough about that. I won't give you a massive chunk of information, but rather my tips for when you go there. And a lot of beautiful pictures. Enjoy! JERUSALEMThere are a lot of beautiful and historic places to see in Jerusalem. Maybe too many to actually be able to handle on a short visit. Even though you'll want to see them all, take some time to just wander around the old town, and new town as well. Sit down in a park and enjoy the moment. A place I would highly recommend to visit is Yad Vashem. It is a museum dedicated to the holocaust. It's located a bit outside of central Jerusalem, but you'll easily find your way there. I could easily have spent an entire day there. It is huge, so if you go, make sure you have enough time to walk around. And don't worry about entrance fees, it's completely free to enter. FOODIsrael is a land filled with good food. You better be ready to eat a lot of kosher. One must-eat is definitely falafel! It will never get better! And as a little dessert (or huge dessert) find your way to the Arabic part of Old Town in Jerusalem for this unforgettable experience. Knafeh, or knafeh with cheese, which is some sort of pastry. I can guarantee you'll never experience anything like it. But since it's made of cheese, you don't need too much to fill you up. The tree of us shared this piece, and it was more than enough. If you want to eat non-kosher pizza while you're in Jerusalem, find your way to Jacob's Pizza (close to Jaffa Gate). I've heard it's the only place in Jerusalem that serves non-kosher pizza. EIN GEDI NATURAL RESERVEWe went for a walk in Ein Gedi nature reserve, one among many nature reserves and national parks. It's a beautiful place where you can hike up on the mountains and get a great view of the Dead Sea. And a lot of small ponds where you can take a relaxing bath after walking. Prepare yourselves for heat, and bring a lot of water. THE DEAD SEAGoing for a swim in the Dead Sea, as you probably all have heard, isn't something you should do it if you have any open wounds. Just don't do it. Try to avoid getting water in your eyes and mouth. It hurts. And doesn't taste too good either. A good idea is to wear flip-flops or other sandals when going into the water. It can help prevent injuries. The rocks on the bottom of the sea are all really sharp, so you'll most likely get some wounds if you don't wear them, I did at least. Once you get up and dry in the sun, don't be alarmed, but you'll have a coat of salt cover your entire body. I used that as a body scrub, worked rather well I think! When I think back on this trip my heart is filled with joy. It felt like a privilege to be able to walk where all that biblical history took place. Quite the experience.
If you have been to Israel, what did you think? Or do you want to go? |