STENCILED

Showgirl by Nadja Mikkilä 2014, 40x50cm, acrylic paint on canvas 

My friend Nadja has once more honoured me as motif in her series of stencil paintings.
This one is inspired by images from my Chloris shoot with Asko, who also happens to be her fiancé (yes they are a true power duo!). I appeared in one of Nadja's earlier stencil work last year, which you can see here, for example.

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: SATURDAY MORNING

Woke up to a slow grey November morning.
Look at my plant btw. It's grown over 3 metres long during this autumn! It's called doftranka in Swedish and tuoksuköynnös in Finnish but I don't know the English name -it has white flowers that smell very sweet and I'm hoping it would bloom next spring; last year it didn't.

Beautiful dew-drops on the porch plants.

Made a porridge on our homegrown organic oats with pomegranate and banana plus an anti-flu smoothie with red oranges, pineapple, wineberries, lots of organic ginger and cilantro.

Then Dag (and all his animals) got a quick bath.

And now it's on with our clothes and heading to the harbour and hopping on the ferry to Sweden tonight for a family trip!

A SWEATPANTS SKIRT AND... MORE CHECKS!

I made myself a skirt out of a soft and stretchy sweatpants fabric that probably was meant for sport gear or so as it has a somewhat shiny surface. Well, shiny surface = fancy skirt so this is one of those 'HAH! I fooled the universe'-pieces of clothing.
Or, almost, because then the universe fooled me a little bit by making me lazy and putting in an elastic waist band instead of a zipper & hook/button fastening when in fact I did not cut the skirt with that much extra to make it easily pulled over my hip . So it is not so comfy to get into but comfy once it's on. I figured as I only have to squeeze twice per day to get in and out of it, or perhaps four times if I got to the gym, I can live with it.

The skirt is cut in something between a half circle and a 3/4  circle skirt. The shoes are old Minna Parikka's and yes, I am wearing checks again because that is clearly the theme for this autumn!

BY HIMSELF

Dag has for some time been approaching, and now definitely reached the age that most parents recognise; when he needs to try and do absolutely everything himself.

It is heartbreakingly adorable but can also be highly annoying at the same time, in those moments when you are in a hurry or really need to get things done.

Having two bigger (half-)brothers that are a lot older than him of course also pushes it, because he wants to do everything the same way. Plus the huge need to HELP MOMMY.

Dag wants to use a knife while eating. He has been eating with a big fork a long the time since he does not want to be the only one with a spoon in the table and baby cuttleries is hard to hand to him when the whole family is dining. THE BIG ONE. (I can then have the tiny fork.) But he's quite skilful around the kitchen already so he can handle a lot. (He actually managed to peel some clementines rather well the other day. And once he had done one he wouldn’t stop. TO MOMMY he says and pushes a whole one , warm and rather well worked-on, inside my mouth so he can go on peeling a new one for himself.)

And then he's cleaning the table. When I was washing walls and doors the other day it wasn’t as successful as the floors were very wet after him “helping out”.

And when we go grocery shopping he has to, really has to, put everything in his little cart himself. The whole world will fall apart if I am the one to put it down or even. god forbid, put it in my cart.
Well as a parent you develop lots of ways to innocently trick your child, and so I have developed a system for secretly moving some items into my cart as we shop along. Altough sometimes he outsmartens me too, as surprising and random things might show up at the cashier.

But shopping - he has a lion-cap that he shopped himself! ("The Lion Cap" has to be said with a rrrroaring sound when you say LION.) Sort of. We were at the mall doing some errands when Dag showed me he wanted to visit this one accessory shop. Um, OK. Then and went right to one shelf an pointed at the lion cap and said THAT ONE. I was not raised as a child that got everything I pointed at, and so will Dag be,  but in this case I had to give him the hat that he surprisingly enough must have spotted earlier and remembered!

As it was father’s day yesterday (over here) I will end this post with a pic of me and my father thirty years ago. Like Dag (or, Gad as he says)  in a mini dirndl!