THE LAST OF APRIL

Voom voom, time flies and it's almost May! Yey!  I've been busying around, but here are some of the things that happened during the last week of April (as my instagram saw it)...

Ok, this is the shittiest picture I have ever posted, no doubt about it. An iPhone really is no night time camera. So in this picture you can se an in-real-life gigantic full moon to the left, and two huge moose to the right. Or you can if you could.

I was driving home to the countryside from the studio late at night, as usual, when I saw a big moose (or actually, elk, as they are called over here) standing by the road. And they are huge. Majestic. It really is a sight, especially if they are standing still and not running away. They are rather shy, so you don't get to see them that often, although this time of the year the elks and deer move around a lot.  I stopped the car and stepped out to take a picture of the animal who had joined another moose on the field. With poor result. They just stood there a while and stared at me and I stared back and drove off and spotted a crowd of white tailed deer skipping over the road at the next turn. The following night as I was driving home from a gig, at a spot a few kilometers before I had seen the animals earlier, just before I turned off the big road up to the farm, I saw a big dead moose along the road; it had been hit by a car. They were trying to ligt  it on board a pickup. Elk-accidents are dangerous, and often fatal for the weaker part, but can be for bothm as the animals weights several hundred kilos; you don't want one trough your windshield. Those warning signs you usually see on tourist mugs and t-shirts are not just for fun.... I drive a lot and see lots of roadkill during the summer months but I've never seen a moose crash before. It was so sad to think of the beautiful animal by the road before, and now to see a similar (or, probably the same individual) dead the night after.

I finished filming the music video for Dark Country. It was cold and raining, as it usually is when filming outdoors, and I was happy from the waist-down-shots, strutting around in my summer dress plus knitted dance-wear-pull-on ballet stretch pants, knee socks and boots (and later, to make it even more stylish: rubber boots).

Filming in dark and wet woods. Phone-shot by @jamipietila.
There is some awesome behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot but that will be for another time!

Dag had a masquerade at his playschool, and he had planned to be a lion for some time now. But then he suddenly grew up to become a big boy and didn't want to be a lame lion anymore but a kick-ass red ninjago ninja. And for those who don't have kids (or are Lego fans), that's a Lego character.

And at the end of the week I received my Peak Pilates advanced matwork instructor certification!
I have had the certification for some time already, but to get the actual paper is always a final manifestation of the achievement. Yey! (I intend to continue the education with apparatus but that will have to wait for a little while now.) Pilates is the most awesome thing you can do for your body (it really is!)  so do come and try out a class, wink wink!


And today it's Vappu! Cheers!

"SON OF A BITCH, I'M SICK OF THESE DOLPHINS"

The other night I was talking about movies and reminded myself about  my love for Wes Anderson's films, in the same time realising it's been a while since I've watched any.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is one of my absolute favourite movies of all time, so full of detail that I've been able to watch it over and over again. And so are all the Anderson films, very visual, with a subtle humor that works. All the worlds and characters Anderson creates have always appealed to me and somedays you just want to get lost in them. Last night we were filming until three in the morning so today is really one of those days; my tired mind just wants to soak into a pastel coloured space where everything is specific, tidy and everyone deeply dysfunctional.

(The internet provded me with screencaps 1, 2, 3)

What is your favourite Anderson movie? I actually haven't seen them all (yet!) though; Rushmore still to go! And a new round of Zissou, of course, always.

THE BLACK SUSPENDER SKIRT

I finally had the time to sew myself a long-awaited (bought the fabric last autumn already...) new black suspender strap A-line skirt!
I made a copy of a skirt I already had purchased from ze interwebz two years back, but the quality turned out to be so bad it became pretty much unwearable after a few washes (floppy and noppy).
It was one of the easiest pieces of clothing I had so I'm relieved to now again have something quick to pull on before and after work, that can easily be styled into anything.

MONDAY IS MY SUNDAY

Monday, wohoo!

During the weekend I went over to Turku with Tinker Bell to teach our posing & posture class.
Kiki snapped this unofficial photo of the class getting ready just before everyone started posing for the actual photo.

We also hosted a pin-up fleamarket sale in our studio. There has never been so many people in there at once before (sadly for us, ehrm...). There was in fact so much fuzz that I didn't have the time to snap any picture of all the dolled up sellers and their nice stuff, neither did I get any stuff myself (that I wouldn't really need anyway so yeye!). Well, apart from a gold lurex overall. Which of course is very essential, not sure how I managed without one until now.

After that I went to film day1 of a music video. This was on stage at the theatre museum and the next location and mood will be something very different. Back to that later!
Photo by Minna Lehtinen @minnaminnanen

But today I've spent my day how most people spend their Sundays. We stayed in bed long with Dag and just took it easy. Because it's Monday and that's my day.

A day when I  can have a long late breakfast and catch up with the weekend's newspapers for example. And water all my plants.

Everybody hates Mondays. Or, not everybody, but you know- Mondays are Mondays and the thought of those are usually followed with a sigh.
Not for me however - that is most often the only day that is a day off for me; as a lot of my work occurs in the weekends. It's been like that pretty much my whole entire adult life actually, the good monday-thing: when I worked in the harbour Monday was off the weekend after the nightshift, and when we did the full 7-day morning shift week Monday was the last day before the glorious six days off. Nowadays it's usually the day I can calm down after the weekend (and wash some laundry. Plus organise my papers and bills and such - although I usually spend Mondays to think about that and won't manage to start doing it until the day after.) Or well, when you run your own business you seldom have an actual day off; I do update social media sites and stalk my email as much as usual, but I really seldom have anything scheduled and that is a bliss.

Finally, after almost a week of waiting, I  got to do a good set of pilates myself, but that does not really make for a good self-taken picture and there's already one here of feet... But more still about feet here anyways - I finally also got to open up and try out the wild-mint foot bath salt my friend and student Melody from Superfiilis gave me. She has her own little well-being centre in town.
Even though it got more splashy than calm; Dag discovered footbaths, joined and stuck his feet in and splashed around like whoah.

Then we played a Lego-game for a while, where you are supposed to build what a card tells you to. I clearly will never be scouted as a builder for Legoland but my son still stands a fair chance. (That's an old-school carriage in the picture btw. And not built by me. I had to make a toothbrush.)

Then the two of us head in to town for our workweek, me the studio and Dag for his day club/play school. And now it's Tuesday already i.e, super late and I am still awake, as usual.