Welcome to the new year!

Greetings from the other side.

And thus I return from the holiday season, bringing wishes of well-being and happiness for you all. I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years together with family, friends, loved ones, etc. I also hope that the new year will be a good one, for everyone on this blue marble in space that we live our lives upon. May this new year at least see the beginnings of an end to wars, abuse, poverty, loneliness, and all the other things that ails the world. At least that is what I hope for, and pray for.

The night before yesterday I sat up until 4 or 5 am playing a tabletop roleplaying game over the internet with my friends. It was so much fun, and I have missed it dearly. I don't get to do that too often these days. Then I ended up getting about 4 hours of sleep, before I got up because I had to be at work the next day. Granted, I didn't need to be there until 1 pm, but I had some other stuff to do before-hand as well. It is safe to say that I was pretty knackered by the end of the day. So early night for me last night and then I slept for about 10 hours. I guess my body needed it. It's good that the weekend is here now.

So, my last post was on December 20, which you can find here. Since then I have had my first Christmas here in Finland, and it was a fun and enjoyable time together with my fiancee and her family. Next year we will be celebrating Christmas with my family in Sweden, and then probably do an every-other-year kind of thing. Anyway, focus on this year, and this was the first time I had ever celebrated Christmas away from my family, so it was a bit of a strange feeling. In the end though, it was an enjoyable time surrounded by good people and a warm atmosphere. It is definitely something I am looking forward to do again another year! :)

Even the family dog, Bamse, got excited about Santa's visit and all the presents. Sadly I don't have a picture of him at that moment, but here's another picture of him taken on the same day at least:

He's a big Newfoundland boy, and at 10 years of age he is currently older than the average life-expectancy of dogs of his breed.

There were a few new food-items among the Christmas food that I hadn't tried before. I honestly don't know what to call most of them in English,so I won't attempt to. I will say however that I enjoyed everything that I tried.

Oh, and I also worked during Christmas service on Christmas Eve, as well as during mass on New Years Day.

Christmas Day was spent taking it easy and having lunch with my fiancee's parents. On Boxing Day (Annandag Jul in Swedish) we went to visit my fiancee's sister and her family.

In the days before New Years both my fiancee and her mother got ill. We had intended to celebrate New Years with my fiancee's parents, but in the end we went over for dinner and then went home again. My fiancee went to bed early and I stayed up chatting with friends online for a while. Luckily they are both feeling better now. Though her mother had to go to the hospital and was diagnosed with pneumonia, something which she has since then been going to the health clinic 3 times a day and gotten regular doses of antibiotics intravenously. My father-in-law and myself have luckily managed to stay healthy so far.

All in all it has been a good time, and I can look back to it with fond memories. Now we have a new year in front of us. Let's do the best we can out of it! :)

I wish you all a happy new year. May the new year bring happiness, peace and love to all.

Until next time.

See you all on the other side!

Christmas time update

Greetings from the other side.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Since my last blog entry, I mean. I have been meaning to write, but things have gotten in the way or the energy just hasn't been there at the time to write something. Then again, it is Christmas time. Hopefully I will get the writing back on track soon again! :)

So, what's been going on since last time? Well...

We went over to visit my parents in Sweden over the weekend a couple of weeks ago. It was good to be back in Sweden again. Strange feeling coming home again after 4 months living in Finland, and a strange feeling going back to Finland again. I've always felt at home here in Finland, so it was a bit like leaving home in order to go home. I can't really describe the feeling any other way, and it wasn't like any other feeling I have felt before.

My fiancee and I also got to visit a couple of friends while we were there. It was good seeing them again. They had recently moved to a new apartment, and it was nice seeing their new place for the first time as well. :) I wish I could have visited more friends while I was there, but sadly there wasn't enough time. I guess there is always next time though! :)

As of December 15th I am done with the 4-month trial-period for my job and I am now a regular employee! :) In practice this doesn't really change anything. The trial period is only there to give the employer and myself a period to try each other out. It feels good that it is over though, as I am quite enjoying my job here. :)

Speaking of my work and the people I work with, we went out for Christmas lunch together last week. We went to a place where my father-in-law used to work. He can even be found on a painting there, together with 3 other chefs who worked there at the time.

Last weekend my fiancee and I, together with her parents, went for an hour-long drive to listen to a Christmas concert with my fiancee's brother's youth choir, which he is heading. It was really nice, with a live band and some really good singers. It was a really beautiful church as well. :) Well worth the long drive to get there.

My knee is finally well enough again that I have been able to roleplay (tabletop roleplaying) with my friends again! :) See, in order for me to do that I need to go upstairs since we usually play late in the evenings and my fiancee needs her sleep. So I can't really sit downstairs and play. But now that my knee is better I have been able to go upstairs and play again. For those who don't know, we play over the internet, using Skype to talk and a program called MapTools for maps, tokens, dice-rolling, etc. Works a treat when we are all scattered across the globe. Anyway, it is really good to be back playing again. I've missed it.

Time for me to head outside now and help bring in the Christmas tree. I hope you all are having a wonderful Advent-time and if I don't write again before Christmas I want to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS! :)

See you all on the other side!

Advent time

Greetings from the other side.

It's been a week or so since my last update here. Though I suppose due to the season I've had other things occupying my mind.

With the help of my father-in-law I have gotten 3 Christmas trees for my employer, and decorated two of them with lights. The third one is going inside the church, and it isn't my job to decorate that one. The two that I HAVE put lights on though, have been fighting me a bit. After some issues we finally got the one outside the church to light up, which was a good feeling. The one at the cemetery still hasn't managed to light up though, and I am not sure what the issue is. We have tried the lamps and they all light up individually, but when we connect the whole thing it doesn't light up at all. Only thing we can think of right now is that one of the lamps isn't of the correct type, so it works individually but not together with the others. I will try out that theory as soon as possible.

Last Saturday we went to celebrate my fiancee's brother-in-law on his birthday. It was enjoyable and the food was great! :) I think someone mentioned there were something like 80 people there to congratulate him on his day. Good to see so many people come to celebrate a really good man. He had made his own birthday cake as well, and salmon soup, for all the guests.

Today is Finlands independence day. It marks 99 years since they became an independent nation, having belonged to Russia before that, and Sweden before that. Technically you have a day off from work today, but I went in to work this morning to raise the flag. I'll be going back later to bring it down again at sundown. Next year will mark the centennial of Finland's independence, and I expect there to be massive celebrations going on. It is a big deal after all. :)

We have snow on the ground, albeit not a lot. While there is a white blanket on the ground, you can still see tall grass sticking through in places. The last couple of days there has also been ice under the snow, making things a bit more 'interesting'.

In a way it feels like there has been a lot going on, but at the moment I can't think of anything else. That is kind of a strange feeling, I have to admit. Oh well, I am sure if I think of anything else, I can always write about it later instead. :)

I hope that you all are having a wonderful Advent, and that the Christmas preparations are going well. My thoughts also go out to all those who are alone this holiday season, and to those who try to do something for these people. I wish you all the best.

Until next time my friends.

See you all on the other side!

Advent Sunday is a coming

Greetings from the other side.

As Advent Sunday approaches, the Christmas spirit is on the rise in this household. My fiancee has made gingerbread cookies, and Christmas music has slowly started to filter into the ambient atmosphere. Both of us are people who love this time of year. We have even got a bit of snow and frost outside today, which was a pleasant surprise to wake up to this morning. It isn't much, and you can still see blades of grass sticking out through the snow cover, but it is better than nothing. :)

I got calendar from Sweden in the mail today from EFS. For those who don't know, EFS is an independent organisation within the Church of Sweden, which focuses on missionary work, voluntary work, and every-day faith (according to the website. They can say it much better than I can. Though I had to translate it from Swedish, so hopefully my translation is acceptable). I spent two years at an EFS church in Umeå, Carlskyrkan, doing work-training, and even more time as a volunteer. It was a really good time in my life and I have a lot of fond memories. I met so many really good and wonderful people there, including the people I worked with. I am really thankful to all of them for giving me the opportunity to be there, and for receiving me with open arms! :)

I am happy that the calendar has arrived, because we were talking just the other day, my fiancee and I, how we needed one. :) It is now hanging on the wall above my desk at home.

On Sunday, which is Advent Sunday, I am scheduled to work at church at the service. I'm not sure what the job is called in English, but in Swedish we call it "Kyrkvärd". Basically, I make the preparations before the service, I make sure everything is where it needs to be, I handle the sound equipment, and just make sure everything is in order before, during and after. I've done it on a couple of occasions already, but I am still nervous because it is my first Advent Sunday and there is going to be a lot more people there. Wish me luck!

I've had to go back to my moving-boxes and rummage through them to find the Christmas CDs I brought with me from Sweden. I've only found two, but I am pretty sure there should be at least one more in there somewhere. Granted a couple of boxes at the back of everything could contain some CDs, but I didn't feel like bringing everything else out of storage just to get to them. Luckily my fiancee has quite a collection of Christmas music CDs that we can listen to as well.

See you all on the other side!

2 new additions to the family

Greetings from the other side.

A few days ago my future in-laws got themselves 2 new additions to the family, in the shape of two little 9-week-old kittens. :) They are just adorable little bundles of cuteness and fun right now.

They have been named Molly and Freja, with Molly being the one sitting closest to my mother-in-law there in the picture above. So my fiancee and I have been pretty busy visiting and spending time with these two adorable newcomers in the family. :)

Took them a bit to get used to the family's Newfoundland dog as well. The poor things had never seen a dog before in their 9-week-old lives, so they were in for a bit of a shock. Luckily the dog, named Bamse, is one of the calmest dogs you will ever meet and he is also fairly used to cats from before. The cats however, weren't as calm as he was. You could see their different personalities in that moment though. Molly hissed at him, but stayed put, while Freja mostly wanted to run and hide. They've gotten used to him by now though, which is good.

Beyond that, it has been a fairly grey week over here. It's been raining, and even when it hasn't been raining it has still been fairly wet outside. As well as a bit windy. It has limited me a bit as to what work I have been able to do outside, but then again my knee is pretty thankful for it.

Speaking of the knee it has been getting better. Now it only complains if I put strain on it instead of all the time, which is a HUGE plus. :) I am hoping it will soon be well enough to not complain at all, but I am still taking it a bit easy because I know how easily I could accidentally aggravate it and make it worse again. Still, I am able to do more now than I was a week ago, which is a good feeling. :)

Yesterday, my fiancee and I started putting up Christmas decorations around the house. Feels good to get it all up, even though it took a bit of work. It looks nice, I have to say. I am really looking forward to our first ever Christmas together in the same place! :)

Until next time!

See you all on the other side!

A look in the rear-view mirror

Greetings from the other side.

A few days have passed since my last entry into this blog. It has generally been a calm few days, so I think this will end up being a fairly short entry, but it is an entry none-the-less.

On Thursday we went to celebrate one of my fiancee's nephews on his 20th birthday. It was a bit of a drive to get there, but nothing too big. We went there together with my fiancee's parents. It was a good evening, I thought. Good company, good food at a restaurant, and then we rounded off the evening with some coffee/tea at the birthday-boy's apartment. One of the things I love about my fiancee's family is that they are all so friendly and nice people. It has definitely helped my settling in here in Finland after my move.

I have to say, sitting in the car as it drives through the country-side over here, you could see patches of light on the thick cloud-covered sky. This light came from greenhouses on the ground below which were using what appeared to be pretty high-powered lamps to simulate sunshine for their plants in order to grow them all year around. It was interesting seeing that light reflected on the cloud-cover above though. You could definitely tell exactly where all the greenhouses were.

Went grocery shopping, and ran some errands, on Friday. It was a bit of a rainy day, but not too bad.

With Advent Sunday closing in, but my fiancee and I are eagerly awaiting the time when we can start 'officially' listening to Christmas-related music again, and plans are being made for decorations, etc. She's started baking in preparation for Christmas as well. Sadly, there is no snow on the ground anymore, but we are quietly hoping it will return at least in time for Christmas.

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day in this household. I got around to start listening to an audio book by Brandon Sanderson called "The Last Empire". I've heard from friends that the Mistborn series, the series of which "The Last Empire" is part of, is really good, but I haven't had the chance to get around to it until now. I have to say that so far I am really enjoying it. It feels a bit strange listening to it as an audio book though, as I am generally a person who prefers to hold a book in my hands when I read. It's ok though. I might get the actual physical copies of the books later, rather than just have them as audio books.

I think that will be enough for now.

See you all on the other side!