lördag 25 februari 2017

A beautiful winter's day

Greetings from the other side.

Today is an incredibly beautiful day outside. The ground is covered in snow, the sky is blue and it is essentially a very beautiful painting as you look out over the landscape. Each season is beautiful in its own way, but I think that a really clear winter's day with blue sky and lots of white snow is among the most beautiful. We had guests over today and I spent a good chunk of that time looking out the window at the beautiful wintry painting that nature had painted outside.

This winter has been very mild, and so we haven't really had the amount of snow outside that I had wish we'd have. I guess that is why you notice a day like today even more. I've been spending some time outside, shoveling snow, bringing in fire wood, etc. It's a pleasure working outside in beautiful weather like this. :)

In other news my future father-in-law celebrated his 70th birthday last weekend. It was a very fun event, with lots of good people and good food. :) His children, grandchildren and sons-in-law and me sang a song for him as well.

It was less fun to come home and find about 30 carpenter ants over the following 2 hours crawling around our living room and hall. We've had a guy over to look at the issue and take care of the problem. Unfortunately we don't know yet where they have their nest in the house, so we need to wait until we can find it. There is a problem with that though, and that is that it has been too cold so they haven't been very active since last weekend. So we'll have to wait until warmer weather comes along and they become active again before we can start locating their nest. We're hoping that will come soon.

As we understand it the nest in our house is probably a satellite-nest, with the main nest is located somewhere else in the vicinity. This means that unless we can find the main nest this spring/summer they might return. Wish us luck!

In more positive news, my fiancee and I are going away together with her sister and her husband this week on a bit of a skiing holiday. It's also to give my fiancee a chance to get away for a bit and rest up.

I think that'll be all for today. Feeling a bit tired so going to go rest my head a bit.

See you all on the other side!

lördag 18 februari 2017

Finding the rhythm

Greetings from the other side.

Getting back into the regular blogging thing has been a bit more difficult than I envisioned when I decided to slow down my blogging output over the holiday season. There are many times when I have thought I should write something, but then something else comes up and I end up postponing writing a new blog entry for another time. Oh well, such is the way of life I guess, and I will have to see where it takes me. The blog is still there though, so maybe I can get into a better writing rhythm with it again, eventually.

Last weekend we had a visit from two good friends from Sweden. It was the first time they were here since my move, and it was a real pleasure to have them here for a visit over the weekend. Having friends or family over to visit is always a good feeling. Even though I like it here in Finland, and I am very happy here, there is always that part of me that misses my friends and family back in Sweden. So whenever people have a chance to come over here for a visit, or I get a chance to go over there to visit, it is always a good feeling.

Tomorrow we are going to celebrate my fiancee's father's 70th birthday. His actual birthday is on Monday, but for convenience sake the celebrations are being held on Sunday instead. It should be a good time, and my future father-in-law has made the food and cakes himself, so you know it will be really good. Being that he is a chef and all.

In a couple of weeks time my fiancee and I are also going away for a few days together with her sister and her husband. It will be nice to get away for a little bit and see something else. There might be some skiing involved as well, if there is enough snow. Either way, I am really looking forward to it. It will be nice to get away and see a different part of Finland as well. :) Hopefully I can remember to take some pictures while I am there and possibly post some of them on the blog.

That will have to round off a relatively short blog. Before I sat down to write it I thought I had a ton to write about, but when I actually started writing most of those things just disappeared. Oh well, maybe for the next blog post. :)

See you all on the other side!

torsdag 9 februari 2017

A very mixed bag

Greetings from the other side.

Another couple of weeks have passed (give or take) since my last entry on this blog. It has been a time of ups and downs, I must say. On the whole though, I don't have much to complain about.

Granted, I say that even though yesterday my father-in-law had to put his best friend, and long-time partner, Bamse to rest. I am of course talking about his dog here. That kind of puts a sour note on everyone's day. We all miss him. :(

A couple of weeks back, we also had a day where things just seemed to go wrong for us. It started when my fiancee was in the kitchen as an oven form suddenly exploded right next to her. There were big pieces flying everywhere and it kinda felt like a miracle that she wasn't hit by anything. The reason it had exploded was that she had accidentally put it down on a hot plate on the stove. There was nothing in the form yet, but she was planning on using it for cooking something in the oven. Anyway, she was visibly shocked by what had just happened, but I was just relieved that she hadn't gotten hurt.

The second thing that happened on that day was that the hose that leads away the water from the washing machine came loose and we had sudden flooding on the bathroom floor. After that we had to keep watch over the hose, and sure enough it came loose one more time before the machine was finished.

Now, please don't think that it has been all bad. There have been good things happening as well!

For example we've had a planning meeting with my future brother- and sister-in-laws and their spouses (unfortunately one was away on a trip and couldn't make it). Feels like we got a lot done, which was good. There's a lot that goes into planning a wedding, even though we are trying to keep it relatively simple and we are going for a more rustic theme. I am sure it will be good once it is all done. :)

We have also collected the addresses to everyone we want to invite. Again, we are going to keep it relatively simple, so we are not aiming for a huge thing here. But we should probably end up somewhere around the 60 people mark when all is said and done. The invitations should be sent out in the not too distant future.

Two weekends ago we went to visit some friends of my fiancee. It was the first time she had seen them in a while, so she was really looking forward to it. It was nice to meet some more of her friends, and as always it turned out to be really good people. :)

I have to say, I've been sick since last week. The fever is gone, but I still have a bit of a throat problem and a runny nose. My head hasn't completely cleared up either, which is a shame. I hope it will get better soon though, as we are getting visitors from Sweden this weekend. :) I am really looking forward to that!

That's one of the things I guess I miss most being over here, my friends and family back in Sweden. I know they technically aren't that far away - only a 4½ hour boat-ride - but still. Anyway, it will be good to meet a couple of them again. :)

I think I am going to go lie down for a bit before lunch.

See you all on the other side!