Christmas present problem joulukuu 14, 2006

Jyväskylä +2 degrees Celsius, rain/snow.
Sunrise 9:38 am, sunset 2:45 pm.

Moving process is fortunately now over. Don’t get me wrong, everything went all right and I actually loved to drive in change, but I’m just happy one big thing is over. All though, now I have some new things to worry. Like Christmas presents! Usually I have started to make Christmas presents in October. And yes, you heard me right, I said MAKE. Every year I have made the gifts by my self. But this year I have been out of touch of my routines. Last week I felt really unhappy because of it but now things seem a bit better already.

My roommate got a great idea and I followed her lead. She decided to make donations to Church Foreign Aid. CFA actually has web pages (of course in Finnish) where you can go and choose the case you want to support. The whole campaign goes with name: “Give a different kind of gift”. In this way you can give something nice to people. Just telling someone that this family got a goat because of you! Of course this kind a gift giving doesn’t work with everyone, but those who values charity work this is a great idea.

This year my biggest problem has been Tuomo’s gift. I don’t know why it has been this hard, but today I decided to buy something for him. I can’t tell you what it is, because he might read this blog as well. But I can tell you that I ordered it today from the web, and funny thing is that I ordered it to his address. Luckily they don’t deliver it home, but you have to go and get it from the nearest post office. Now I’m only nervous if I get it before Christmas.

Today I got a really surprising phone call. My last summer’s boss called and asked me if I could go to work for next week. I was so surprised that I could only stutter something really vague. I did tell him that I have school still on next Tuesday, and I promised to call him tomorrow morning and tell if I can work for from Wednesday to Friday. Now I have no idea what to do. I was really waiting to get to Tuomo’s place and spend nice time with him, but then again I wouldn’t mind some extra money… Maybe I just have to sleep over it. And tomorrow I know.

Conversion table for volume joulukuu 11, 2006

Jyväskylä +5 degrees Celsius, rain.
Sunrise 9:34 am, sunset 2:46 pm.

This is conversion table for volume:

55 ml = 2 fl oz
75 ml = 3 fl oz
1,5 dl = 5 (1/4 pt)
2,75 dl = 10 (1/2 pt)
4,25 dl = 15 (3/4)
5,70 dl = 1
7,25 dl = 1 1/4
1 litre = 1 3/4
1,2 l = 2
1,5 l = 2 1/2
2,25 l = 4

Conversion table for weights joulukuu 11, 2006

Jyväskylä +5 degrees Celsius, rain.
Sunrise 9:34 am, sunset 2:46 pm.

This is conversion table for weights:

10 g = 1/2 oz
20 g = 3/4 oz
25 g = 1 oz
40 g = 1 1/2 oz
50 g = 2 oz
60 g = 2 1/2 oz
75 g = 3 oz
110 g = 4 oz
125 g = 4 1/2 oz
150 g = 5 oz
175 g = 6 oz
200 g = 7 oz
225 g = 8 oz
250 g = 9 oz
275 g = 10 oz
350 g = 12 oz
450 g = 1 lb
700 g = 1 1/2 lb
900 g = 2 lb
1,3 kg = 3 lb

Conversion table for measurements joulukuu 11, 2006

Jyväskylä +5 degrees Celsius, rain.
Sunrise 9:34 am, Sunset 2:46 pm.

This is conversion table for measurements:

3 mm = 1/8 inch
5 mm = 1/4 inch
1 cm = 1/2 inch
2 cm = 3/4 inch
2,5 cm = 1 inch
3 cm = 1 1/4 inch
4 cm = 1 1/2 inch
4,5 cm = 1 1/4 inch
5 cm = 2 inch
6 cm = 2 1/2 inch
7,5 cm = 3 inch
9 cm = 3 1/2 inch
10 cm = 4 inch
13 cm = 5 inch
13,5 cm = 5 1/2 inch
15 cm = 6 inch
16 cm = 6 1/2 inch
18 cm = 7 inch
19 cm = 7 1/2 inch
20 cm = 8 inch
23 cm = 9 inch
24 cm = 9 1/2 inch
25 cm = 10 inch
28 cm = 11 inch
30 cm = 12

Conversion table for oven temperatures joulukuu 11, 2006

Jyväskylä +5 degrees Celsius, rain.
Sunrise 9:34 am, Sunset 2:46 pm.

This is conversion table for oven temperatures:

Mark 1 = 140 ºC = 275 ºF
Mark 2 = 150 ºC = 300 ºF
Mark 3 = 170 ºC = 325 ºF
Mark 4 = 180 ºC = 350 ºF
Mark 5 = 190 ºC = 375 ºF
Mark 6 = 200 ºC = 400 ºF
Mark 7 = 220 ºC = 425 ºF
Mark 8 = 230 ºC = 450 ºF
Mark 9 = 240 ºC = 475 ºF

Carrot rolls joulukuu 10, 2006

Jyväskylä +3 degrees Celsius, mostly cloudy.
Sunrise 9:31 am, Sunset 2:47 pm.

This recipe is dedicated to Vitor, because he I promised it to him! Try it!

Carrot rolls are form of bred that I used to eat every time I visited my grandma. She was an excellent baker and cook. She used to manage feasts for other people. In Finland the feasts were expected to be grand and full of wonderful traditional food. This recipe unfortunately is not hers, because she never had time to give one to me. And now she can’t remember it anymore. But I can say that these carrot rolls are almost as good as hers!

Ingredients:

5 dl milk
50 g yeast
1 ts salt
1/2 dl syrup
4 dl grated carrot
13-15 dl flour mix you want to use (I usually use something with grains in it)
100 g margarine or butter

from one portion you get 25-30 rolls

1. Make sure that the yeast dissolves in to the milk, which is as warm as your hand. Add salt, syrup and grated carrot.
2. Knead (mix) flour to the dough. When that’s done add soft margarine/butter to the dough. Let the dough rest and rise under baking linen until it’s duple it self (about half an hour).
3. Bake dough to the rolls and put them to damper which is covered with oven paper. Let them rise under plastic (for example old bread bag is fine, you can cut it open) about 15-20 minutes.
4. Bake rolls in 225 degrees on ovens middle level about 12-15 minutes.

Please, ask me if there’s something you can’t understand about the recipe. In this way I can improve it, if necessary.

The indenpendent day dresses joulukuu 8, 2006

Jyväskylä +3 degrees Celsius, mostly cloudy.
Sunrise 9:29 am, Sunset 2:49 pm.

Here is some of the best dresses from the independent day party:

The host of the evening: President Tarja halonen and her husband Pentti Arajärvi. She’s wearing her old dress with some modification. Smart choice!

Member of the parliament Janina Andersson and her husband Kim. Usually she is famous of her horrific dresses but this year I think she nailed it! Pretty!

Probably one of the most beautiful woman of the night was our Minister of Culture, Tanja Saarela. Unfortunately I didn’t find a better picture of her. Did you know that she was Miss Finland in 1991!

Member of parliament Satu Taiveaho showed us that black does not necessarily mean dull.

Member of Social Democratic Party Susanna Rahkonen was wearing Paola Suhonen. Paola is a hot, young designer in Finland. Interesting fact is that the fabric on Rahkonen’s dress is from Paola’s next summers collection called Dead Butterflies.

Then the last picture, which is quite funny. You have probably heard about band called HIM. Well, here’s the singer Ville Valo. I don’t know how they managed to get such a bad picture of him!

Independent day joulukuu 6, 2006

Jyväskylä: +7 degrees Celsius, mostly cloudy.
Sunrise 9:25 am, sunset 2:51 pm.

Today is Finland’s independent day. There is a few reasons why I just love it. First of all is the fact that independent day the bank holiday, so everybody can stay home. Second reason is, that on independent day we have this special peaceful and festive feeling surrounding us. And the third reason is that on independent day Finland’s president is organizing a great ball in her “castle”. Of course the castle is not really a castle and I’m not invited, but I (like all the other Finns) can watch the event from TV.

I love watching the independents day ball from TV, even though some people think I must be a bit crazy to love it. The reason why I love it is not that I can see who of the celebrities has got the invitation this year, but because I love the dresses. I think that this particular event is really a rarity in Finland. We don’t have that many celebrations where you could put the evening gown on like you would be on Hollywood red carpet. Every year I’m having my own party in front of the TV. What would be better entertainment for a girl, than judging beautiful and not so beautiful dresses? And of course wait with suspense what kind of dress the president (remember she is woman!!!) is going to wear. This year, if I just find the pictures from the web, I’m going to share my best choices with you. And maybe even the worst ones…

One wonderful thing about today is that we Finns have some habits that we do on this day. One of them is to go to the cemetery to visit the grave of your loved ones and lid a candle for them. And if it’s not possible to visit some specific grave (if it’s for example on an other town), the cemeteries always have so called memorial stone, where you can lid a candle as well. The cemeteries are one of the most beautiful places to visit on independent day. You don’t even have to wait for the evening to get the best glimpse of the scene, because it’s dark all ready on the afternoon! Something good about all the darkness we have!

On independents day we also lid two candles on every window at 6:00 pm. The whole Finnish independent day is very patriotic compared to other European countries independent days. Those two candles have also their patriotic tradition. They are lid for the memory for brave soldiers (during I World War) who decided to enlist to the army. Two candles lid on a window was a sign for the soldiers that the house was so called “safe house” on their way to enlist. For a person who loves candles anyway, what’s the better tradition than have some candles lid for a purpose!

I want to wish you all wonderful Finland’s independent day!

On the road again… joulukuu 3, 2006

Lahti: +6 degrees Celsius, mostly cloudy.
Sunrise 9:04 am, sunset 3:09 pm.

At the moment I’m in Lahti. This is just a stopover on my way back to Jyväskylä. I left there on Thursday and went to Helsinki. I was really happy to see Tuomo and his new apartment. He is probably going to move there on next week. The funny thing is that the new apartment is on the same block he currently is living in! So, at least the moving trip isn’t too long. The apartment is in an old building (build on 1927). That’s why it has tall ceilings and wooden floors. I was very excited to take part of designing the interior to it. All though you have to remember that we have a student budget.

With high hopes we went to IKEA on Friday. Tuomos workmate was kind and dropped us to Vantaas IKEA on his way home. Before hand we hadn’t been thinking too much what we should buy from there. But because I had the whole Friday day to think it over, I had made a list for Tuomo. The list included things like: carpet, shoe shelf and coat rack to the hall, shelf for cd’s and light to the main room. Luckily we found all of these and little bit more.

Yesterday we came to Lahti, because Tuomo has his band practise (Wiidakko) twice every weekend. My aunt Elisa and her husband Matti are now in Rome, so they were nice enough to lend their apartment to us. Over here we have planned the moving operation. Tuomo is going to handle the most of the moving during the next week. For me the jittery part is that I’m supposed to rent a moving car from Jyväskylä for next weekend. I have to get the car and load our sofa in it with some smaller things and then drive it to Helsinki! I haven’t driven in a long time, so that makes me a little bit nervous. And of course the fact that it’s a bigger car than I am used to. But in the end I’m sure that every thing is going to be all right.

Soon I have to get to the bus and get my self back to Jyväskylä. I have lots of school work to do. Some of it I can do on the way, in a bus. I just know that I’m going to get really tired on the bus, because it’s so dark here. It’s all ready looking like in the middle of the night. The fact that we don’t have any snow at the moment is just making the darkness even more efficient. The light has a big effect to me. In the summer time I’m definitely more active and now when winter is coming I get more and more passive. Happy thing is that before leaving home I did a big cleaning operation there. Now it’s really nice to go there.