BLUE BROWN AND BLACK CATS

 Posing without cat.

 Posing next to cat.

 Posing surrounded by cats.

Posing with cat.

Or, cat posing with me, acually.

My sweater is from King Louie, the wool skirt vintage and the shoes from Next from some years back.

WINTER WINDOW

I am staying in town for some time now; it's nice to be here for more than just a quick stop to pick up things or just sleep and leave. The view of open fields out in the countryside may be magnificent but I've always loved the view from our windows in town as well. The kitchen window with it's pine trees always remind me of a Pekka Halonen painting.

THE PIANO

I got a piano to the countryside house!

I had been looking for one for quite sometimes but never managed to get so far as to bring one home.
Whenever I had some extra euros I'd browse online market sites for pianos in the somewhat near areas for sale. My dream was to get a grand piano, as it would fit in the living room, but those euros once planned for that you could say went to my abs instead (-that would be the pilates training).

We also have an inherited piano in the city home that I was thinking of moving out here, but it is old and rather worn; a few of the keys don't sound anymore. The piano man I had over tried to get new ones but the right kind for that piano were not to be found anylonger. Which means you can't really play that piano anymore without losing your mind.

The reason to get a piano was not that I think it'd look good as part of the interior (it can actually be a bit hard to fit in. A grand one would actually be easier I think as it's all BOOM in a room and takes up all attention and just IS there...) but because I really do want one to play on. As you may recall me mentioning it sometimes before I've played the piano for over twenty years.  Or, thirty by nown since I started playing (must remember that I am getting older and start updating my sentences, heh), but as I don't practice it regularly anylonger my technique is a bit rusty. And, ehrm, my nails are too long nowadays for proper playing. (I can still hear the voice of my first teacher at the institute telling me that she can hear my nails click on the piano which back in the days resulted in an immediate consulting with the sciccors...).

Nowadays I mainly just fool around and improvise but I'm always telling myself to get some sheets and practice chords and scales again to get back at least part of the technical skill I had before. Well, that's one on the list along with starting to paint again and brush up my German and French. And a whole lot more of those things you'd just want to do but don't have the time for. But sitting down at the piano playing whatever comes to mind is enjoyable if even just for just a few minutes. So I was very lucky to get this piano for free via a friend of a friend of a relative of mine, who were just looking for it to get a good home! It was definitely one of those mountains coming to me moments.

I'm also hoping to teach Dag some basics, but that will have to wait some years still. Now he is just very much into making sounds as loud as he can on it. Which is just the way it should be.

DOUBLE-DRESSED

I am wearing two dresses on top of another.
In case you haven't noticed me mentioning it already: it's cold.

And while I've actually driven out to my far-away classes – I have a set in a town about half an hour west of the farm, where I teach one evening per week) wearing my dance wear topped with skiing pants (!yes, me. My envy of Dag's thick winter suit grew so strong I decided to be dress-smart for real during those evenings. And damn that's warm comfy! Plus easy. In and out and off and on. – I've also been putting layering into some serious action.

So yes I am wearing two dresses- one for warmth and the other more just for show. Like a cover for all things underneath. It's part of keeping the body warm is pretty much zero I guess, but I like to think that every layer helps.

So the dresses, plus a t-shirt, thermo stockings (that look like normal ones but that are fleece lined), wool shorts (cut off from old stockings...) and long wool socks. And then it's on with a cardigan and shawl before going outside.

Altough now that the minus twenty-something days are gone, even a cold -13C feels rather doable, and all the stufing and wrapping oneself still goes somewhat quickly.

The dress is soft and long and flowing plus, as it seems, one item closer for me to get rid of the polyester-disgust that had developed after too many years in my youth of wearing thick seventies ultra polyester-y shirts and dresses. The ones that just. do. not. breathe. This dress is vintage that I picked up form UFF the other week when actually scouting items for a music video. It is always when searching for items for others, that you find such for yourself. (That could be some kind of consumerist proverb, now couldn't it?)

LUX HELSINKI

On Sunday evening we went into town to see the LUX Helsinki light festival's outdoor art installations that have been spread out around down town Helsinki since Epiphany. It's a yearly happening arranged by the city and I've never paid it too much attention before, but this year the pieces were all rather impressive and I really wanted to make it (which is not always easy when you pretty much live where you work and if not then out in the countryside). 

Sunday was the last night of the event. And so there were, of course, thousands of people out in the same business. It was so crowded we did not manage to see all the pieces (you can't stay in line with a three year old for that long a time when it's shit cold outside), and some of the artwork perhaps got a little lost in the crowd. Well, I should have been out earlier than on prime time the last night I guess... It was very fine experience nonetheless; the lights ands sounds combined with the hard cold created a very special atmosphere of it's own, and it was well worth the freezing hours.

(I noticed every hobby photographer in Helsinki was out with camera and full gear, which is no wonder as it was indeed an event that offered a lot of chances for interesting pictures. I suppose I had plans too to "go out and take photos" but for me it got a little too cold and it was a little too stressy with the whole family along to be able to concentrate on photos so I was more like oh fuck it and just snapped some with freezing fingers as I went along.)

This cloud was made of light bulbs that you could turn on and off.

This could be from a desk by the window but it's not; it's just a three meter desktop lamp in a park.

The Old Church park -most often called the Plague Park, as victims of the plague were buried there the old days- was filled with lanters. The atmoshphere here was perhaps the most intense here, with smoke, colours and ambient sound.

Music was also played  as part of the installations by the Senate Square.

The Helsinki dome looked very impressive being projected in different patterns.

We climbed all the way to the top.


To get closer to the light, so to say. The theme of the installations on the dome were joy.  (I wouldn't perhaps label this particular print under that label as I find it scary as hell with the eerie dancers and sad thinkers, but then again that's just me.)


Family in shadows with polka dots.

Projecting. You can see how the air sort of shimmers of ice crystals when it's moist and cold at the same time. It is like everything is glittering.

Back down on the ground across the square, on of the oldest streets in the centre, ghosts fromt he past life of the city paraded the street.

It will be interesting to see how the city will be lit up the next year!

THE ANATOMY OF DRESSING WHEN REALLY REALLY COLD PUT INTO ACTION

Everybody's fuzzing over the cold that blew here from Siberia, which is yes, damn cold, the kind of hurts-to-breathe-cold, but not really that big of a deal in my opinion, as it usually gets really really cold once per winter anyways. Or if not then every second year, as it has been during the late 2010's. So you know you have it coming at some point. But then again, when it's really really cold even one degree celcius less does make a rather big difference and it has not been minus f*cking 28 degrees over here for some years. So it really does get people talking.

(In 2013 it got -30 though and that day we went to a beautiful midwinter wedding where everyone was holding sparklers -and freezing- when the couple stepped out of the light chapel and into the dark winter night outside. And our car wouldn't start since it does not have heating so we drove to the wedding in the farm van.*)

Well anyway here you have it:

The anatomy of dressing when really really cold put into action!
Lots of stuffed layers.

When it's really really cold it's hard to smile because your face is all hard and stiff and if you would smile ayway your teeth will freeze. Dag is all "wtf (well in slightly other words) my face is hurting!"
But getting back inside after being outside is just fabulous. Like when you get to pee after having to hold it in for too long a time.

*) As you see, I am un-debatable when it comes to weather a winter was cold or not or a summer hot or not, as I always have the blog (or Instagram) to go back to. Plus, I did work outside for more than a decade and I tell you, then you really remember what the weather was like. Whenever the weather gets shitty (in one way or another) over here I give myself an inner pat on my back and ask myself how the hell I actually was able to do it for so long. But strange as it is, I kind of miss the harbourlife too.)

CHESS

It's crazy cold outside. The cats are sleeping on the windowsills, as they tend to do this time of year, enjoying the warm air from the radiators. And Dag and I are playing chess!

We have a chess game that's always on the table and he has been eager to learn how to play. (Mainly to get a reason to be allowed to touch the pieces I think...) So we have been playing a little bit, showing him how the pieces move and the idea of the game at large. Everything was fine, eating some soldiers from one another and so on, until I, trying to show him how it goes in the game (parenting price of the year!), took his horse and he cried for an hour.

But then he wanted to play again. And again. "You can eat my towers but don't touch the horses" he says, constantly keeping one finger on his king just in case.

FAUX PIGLET BANGS AND A BUNCH OF FLOWERS

 Some time ago I went to a tropically themed Christmas party with a definite chance to go for a more-is-more kind of styling. I haven't had my hair in bangs, not real nor faux, since I coloured it; in fact, I gave myself the permission to colour only if I'd grow out my bangs. Because you can't have two hair struggles at once (grow out or not, to colour or not to) and that was one way to get a decision done. Plus I  though soft pink or peachy bangs might make me look like a piglet.

But turns out the result was more just regular retro-hair-style-gal than Miss Piggy after all.

The colour really is quite the task to keep up with though, and it looks a bit different after every wash as I need to mix a few tinted hair masks to make it stay. I do like it, but not sure how long I'll have the energy to keep it up. Might have to give mint green a go in the end -well of course- before going back au naturel ;) But everything is really easier to do, hair styling wise, when you have a little (or a lot) of bleach in you hair.

The green dress was made by me for my middle sister's  wedding a couple of years back but has only been used a few times since. (I was breastfeeding at that time and the dress was made to the upper measurements of that period so it does not sit as well now...) The flowers are also selfmade from some years back.

And the party, well yes,  it of course had a little mini christmas tree with lots of sparkly flowers in it. And lots of flowers in everyodys' hair.