Snow-girls

We got a lot of new snow again this weekend. The girls had a lot of fun when they were out playing. They enjoyed it so much they looked pretty much like snow-girls when they wanted to come in...

More jewelry

Agate, carnelian, aragonite and brass.

Tiger iron, brecciated jasper, red jasper, copper and brass.

Ceramic pendant by Kim O'Hara, red tiger eye, agate, copper and brass.

Ceramic pendant by Mary Harding, wood, tagua, agate and carnelian sticks, pewter charms, copper and brass.

Jewelry pics

Apple jasper, poppy jasper, red jasper, seed beads, copper beads and findings.

Brown lace agate, poppy jasper, freshwater pearl sticks, crystals, seed beads, silver toggle.

Two strand necklace with copper chain and a removable strand with freshwater pearls and seed beads. Fire-polished beads, tourmaline, copper and brass, key from Venerable Bead, heart and wing charms from Zoa Art.

Sunny Helsinki

Today we had a beautiful sunny day just like in these pictures. Well, maybe a little more ice and snow today. These were taken before Christmas, as you could probably guess from the big Christmas tree in front of the Cathedral in the Senate Square.

Water and ice

This is the same river that flows through the Aurora Park, just a little further south. I didn't dare go too close as I wasn't sure if I was standing on land or ice. The river is one of my favorite places within walking distance from where we live. I love the sound of running water.

More Winter Frost

I took another long relaxing walk today. Perfect weather for being outdoors walking or skiing. It was still very pretty even if the wind and the warmer weather are starting to make the snow fall down from the branches. Ronja and my husband were at a football tournament (they play indoors in the winter) and Mirja wanted to stay home by herself. Both girls are starting to enjoy being alone at home doing their own things. I made a couple of necklaces as birthday gifts for friends of my girls. I also finished "Plum Spooky" by Janet Evanovich. I love her Stephanie Plum novels! They are super funny!

Winter Frost

Just a quick note with some more pictures from my walk on Sunday. I'm so happy this week is over! I hope you'll have a relaxing weekend!

Winter pictures

Everything's back to normal: school has started, football practice has started, we threw out the Christmas tree and put away most of the Christmas decorations. I still need to loose a little weight, but I'm getting there!

Today I went for a long walk. I was out walking for over two hours with my camera. It was "only" about -13 C. It was kind of hazy and the other side of Lake Pitkäjärvi disappeared completely from view.

I took over 150 pictures! Of course I deleted some of them when I went through them. I'm very happy we live in the age of the digital camera! It's so much easier when you can just load the pictures to your computer and delete the pictures you don't want to save.

I love the Aurora Park and the small river that flows through it. It's a magical place!

We had a swan among all the ducks too. I haven't seen it before. People feed the birds in the park so I hope the swan will make it through the winter.

Next week is going to be super busy at work and I don't really want to thing about it at all. I hope the rest of you have a nice week!

Still amazingly cold

It's still terribly cold. We don't usually have this cold for this long in the South of Finland. I'm so happy we don't live in Kuusamo - the new record for this winter was made this morning: -37,1 C! The coldest ever in Finland was in 1999 in Kittilä when it was -51,5 C.

On Tuesday we went out to dinner to a Greek restaurant. We had an assortment of traditional starters and grilled lamb. We had baklava and handmade vanilla ice-cream for dessert. After dinner we went to the movies. I haven't been to the movies either for over ten years. We saw "It's Complicated" with Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. I didn't have high expectations, but it was actually very funny.

On Wednesday we got another darbuka / tabla lesson. It was a lot of fun and we got homework too. Christer had been fishing in Nuuksio National Park. After the lesson we got fried perch. It was incredibly delicious!

I've only read a couple books, "Second Skin" by Caitlin Kittredge and "Redemption Alley" by Lilith Saintcrow. I seem to have some kind of dark / paranormal fantasy thing going at the moment.