The holiday season is upon us

I know this by several ways. The days are shorter and nights darker. Halloween has come and gone and Thanksgiving is near. All the stores have christmas crap stuff in them and christmas songs playing over the air. And I'm getting stressed and sad.

I love Halloween, but it isn't really celebrated here. Sure, in the last few years, you can find more Halloween costumes and related stuff in stores. Some daycare centers, kids clubs and schools have a day where kids get to dress up and adults go out to bars to drink. But there is no trick-or-treating and I get strange looks if I do dress up for the day. Even if it is only my devil's horns or cat ears. I miss Halloween.

And then comes Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving doesn't exist at all in Finland. And I miss turkey-day! I love the food! The getting together with family. And especially the food. But, the night before Thanksgiving, when I was 14, my grandmother (mom's side) passed away. Every year around this time of the year I think of her and everyone else who has moved on. Starting last year, that includes my own mom. I started thinking about my grandma and mom today. It made me cry.

This has nothing to do with the post, I just felt like putting a picture here.

After Thanksgiving comes christmas. Finnish christmas is different than what my family does in the US. I do like the Finnish christmas, it's just different. I especially like the food. It makes up for not having Thanksgiving.  I do love the family time and being together. I also love baking cookies and other holiday treats. I'm very thankful I have Mr Siili's parents and that we spend christmas with them. It has definitely made the holidays easier.

But christmas itself, is still the same. I'm not a religious person, so the whole meaning of christmas doesn't really do anything for me. I've struggled for years to find meaning in the holiday. Something more than people just wasting money on gifts that people don't really need and also people being greedy for gifts they get. I hate the stress of gifts! Which is why for the last few years, and most likely this year too, I've taken to baking goodies for most everyone. (I have no idea if they like them, but I haven't heard any complaints.) As I said earlier, I like baking and I figure most people will like the treats, plus after the holiday season is over they won't have more junk laying around that they don't really need.

Once again, 'tis the season for me to think of family that is no longer with us. 'Tis also the season to stress once again what to do about christmas gifts. I know I'll feel better once I get a bit of sleep.
Until then: Bah, humbug!

Happy Turkey-day (or stim day 5)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you are able to find many things you are thankful for this year and during this holiday season. I do have many things to be thankful for, but this time of the year has always been a bit bittersweet ever since I moved so far away from my family. The holidays just aren't the same as what they used to be. We don't have Halloween or Thanksgiving here in Finland, but we do have Christmas, even if it isn't celebrated the same as in the USA.

Thanksgiving has been touched with a drop of sorrow since my grandma died in 1990. She was my favorite grandma and only 66 (3 days short of her 67th birthday). My mom's mom died Thanksgiving eve in her sleep. I was 14 years old and all of us grandkids had just spent the summer with her that year. I am thankful for that summer, but I still wish I had more time with her. (Isn't that always the case about the deceased?) My last conversation with my grandma was about how she was thinking of getting her ears pierced! I remember thinking how cool she was for wanting to get them pierced even though she was old. This was also the grandma that "hired" an 18 year old boy/man to take us kids to the pool and hang out with us that summer. My mom never could believe that her mom would hire such a boy (Mormon, sweet and innocent that he was!) to watch after us kids, especially since I WAS 14 and noticing boys. LOL

This year is going to be tinged with more bitter than sweet as it is the first year without my mom. I'm still missing her, a lot!

Right now is feeling much worse because of Thanksgiving, hormones from IVF and stress with finances for our new place we are trying to buy. I haven't been sleeping well or enough the last few nights. I'm fighting off a cold, which I hope doesn't get any worse, because I just can't miss work (but if it comes down to it, I will miss it and that's that). I do have my first appointment with a therapist tomorrow morning. I'm quite nervous about it and I'm also quite sure I'll leave there with puffy eyes. I also have another clinic appointment to see how things are progressing with the hormones. I'm worried that maybe I shouldn't be trying to get pregnant right now with the stress of buying our place, I'm not sure we have enough money and having a kid won't make it any easier. Bleh, I hate feeling so horrible.

To end this post in a slightly more positive note, I'd like to say I'm thankful for each and every person who reads and comments on my blog. I appreciate every single word!! (I know I'm being totally horrible this month about reading and commenting for ICLW. I'm sorry.) I'm also thankful for my husband who puts up with all of my shit (and there is a lot of it). And most of all, I'm just trying to be thankful for everything. It's not always easy, but I've got to keep trying.

What I did on my holiday

Remember the first few days back at school and how you had to write an essay about what you did during the summer? Hehe, that's what this reminds me of. While this isn't my whole holiday, but only a snippet of it, it's still stuff I did, with Mr Siili, the cats and my father-in-law (FIL).

Mr Siili and I tossed the cats into the car on last week's Wednesday and drove to his parents' house to spend a few days with his dad. (His mom is walking the Way of St. James pilgrimage in Spain.) We should have waited until the evening as our cats were very hot from the trip and Rusty was panting for quite some time after we arrived. It was quite scary.

During our stay, we picked black currants from Mr Siili's parents' yard and also the berries from one of his sister's yard. The weather was perfect! The first day we picked it was beautifully sunny and hot, with just a touch of warm breeze! We first had to rescue the bushes from nokkonen (stinging nettle) and then we could pick the berries in relative peace. It was so nice to just be outside, together and in relative quietness with only the shushing of birch trees in the breeze and a small plane doing aerial stunts overheard. After about 1.5 hours hours of getting rid of the nettles and 2.5 hours of picking currants, we decided it was enough for the day even though we hadn't picked everything yet. We did go back the next day for another 2-3 hours and got the rest of the berries.

mustaherukka pensas / black currant bush

I did pick about 2 liters of karviainen (goosberry), which I boiled with a bit of water and sugar and then froze to use at a later date. I think I'll make an apple-gooseberry pie or two this winter.

karviainen pensas / gooseberry bush

When we got back to the in-laws house, FIL got out their steam juicer and we put the black currents to juice. Basically you just dump the berries (stems, leaves and bugs included) into the juicer, add some sugar and steam them until the juice comes out. Then you pour the hot juice into sterilized bottles and cap them. You've then got great juice for the winter, especially if you get sick and need something hot to help you feel better. In total, I think we picked about 16 liters of berries and ended up with about 6.5 liters of juice.

Mehu-Maija / steam juicer

While the berries were juicing, Mr Siili picked me some raparperi (rhubarb) from the yard and I made 2 rhubarb strawberry pies (recipe below). Unfortunately, Mr Siili's 2 sisters didn't come join us for dessert and we had to eat them all by ourselves (ok, the 3 of us only polished off one of them that first evening).

raparperi-mansikkapiirakka / rhubarb-strawberry pie

The only thing I didn't get pictures of was the 4-5 liters of kantarelli (chanterelle mushrooms) that I picked the morning we headed back home. These are some of the yummiest mushrooms! I'm thinking I'll make a quiche, a soup and just fry the rest at some point.


This pie recipe was one of the first Finnish recipes (after potato bread) I learned when I came to Finland. These pies are delicious and so very easy to make. They are also quite versatile in that you can put any type of berry or combo of berry you like.


Mamman marjapiirakka / Mamma's berry pie
Dough:
2/3 cup (150g) butter/margerine
1/2 cup (1dl) sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup (3dl) flour (regular flour or wheat flour or a combo works)
1 tsp baking powder

Mix ingredients together, spread on the bottom and sides of a low pie pan.


Filling:
1 cup (2dl) sour cream
1/4 (1/2dl) cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups (1/2 liter) berries (rhubarb, blueberries, lingonberry, apple+cinnamon)
(w/rhubarb, put it in the filling for a few min before pouring it into the shell.)


Pour the filling in the pie pan/shell.

Bake at 400F (200C) for 20-40min.
Let cool a bit after you take it out of the oven so the filling can set. Serve warm or cold with vanilla sauce and/or ice cream.

I've been on holiday

I've been on holiday from work for the last 2 weeks. It's been great! And I even took this last week off from blogging. I spent the entire week enjoying not doing anything that I didn't want to do! I thought about blogging and things that I could write, but I just couldn't be bothered. *big grin* But now I'm back home and I'll update you all with some of what I've done during my time away from here, tomorrow. As, I still have one more week of holiday from work, I've stayed up way late (it's 2:45 am) and I should get to sleep now as I actually feel tired and I would like to get some stuff done tomorrow.

Winter holiday

My winter holiday week off from work is almost over and what a wintry week it has been. It has snowed a significant amount at least three days this week with much dark grey cloud cover and it has been quite windy. A bit more sun than  we've seen lately would be nice.
I never feel as if I've done anything during my holidays when I'm just at home. I know lots of people say that is the point of a holiday, but I'd like to feel as if I did something. I know I have accomplished a few things this week:
-starting up at the gym again (BodyBalance, BodyCombat, new workout program w/the personal trainer, Balletone & ...),
-visited a friend in another town with 2 other friends,
-worked on our financial stuff some (although I really need to do more),
-gone to the dentist to have a filling replaced,
-hungry out with kitties & hubby,
-done a little arts & crafts (but want to do more),
-and I'll go meet another friend today.
So this hasn't been a total slacking week, but I also haven't done some of the things I really should do (get organized & stuff ready for the fleamarket). Can't do everything, right?
I had a point I wanted to get across in this post, but I've completely forgotten what it was while I've slowly typed this up on my phone. Ah well, it couldn't have been too important.
Edit: As soon as I published this I remembered my point!  Being that this is my holiday week, why do I keep waking up between 7-8 each morning without an alarm?! Especially when I'm going to bed after 1am.