It's About Me, Amoena

Papu's Piggy Treats

2009-11-12T22:51:00.010+02:00

We are going to Viiala for the weekend, so we decided to bake some doggie treats for my mother's dachshund. Papu has eaten almost all the treats I baked her last time. I thought they were too hard, but after all they weren't. They were just hard to crack into pieces. I bought a smaller cookie cutter so the size shouldn't be a problem anymore. J.R. also rolled the dough thinner this time, so they should be easier to crack too. And now it seems that we have a perfect, simple doggie treat recipe, so why not to share it with you? Here it is:

Papu's Piggy Treats

Makes 25-30 small treats

List of ingredients:

30 grams of minced meat (that's not much)
1 tbsp of vegetative oil (quite optional if the minced meat is not low-fat)
0,5 dl of consommé (about 0,2 US cups)
1,75 dl of wheat flour (about 0,7 US cups)
0,75 dl of cooked rice (or barley or a mix of both) (about 0,3 US cups)
1 tsp of oregano

Doggie treats before baking.

Making:

Fry the minced meat.
Use a hand blender or similar to chop and mix the minced meat and consommé.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Add the flour little by little until you think it makes a nice dough.
Roll the dough (0,5cm thick is OK) and cut the cookies.
Bake in 170°C (338°F) for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes turn off the oven, open it a little and let the cookies dry in the after heat.

If preserved in an airtight jar or similar, the cookies should stay good for months.

Doggie treats after baking. They still look the same, no surprises here.

They don't look so yummy to me, but Papu is crazy for them. Maybe she knows that we have baked them with love. They don't really smell that much, and I'm not sure if they taste so wonderful either, because I have not tasted them by myself (though I could, they're not poisonous).

She wants it. She wants it really bad.

Outside the picture Papu's tail is wagging like crazy.

FINALLY!

After these two experiences with DIY doggie treats, I'm very positive that I will bake them in the future too. Like why not? Papu loves them more than she loves her commercial doggie biscuits, they're cheap and very, very easy to do. Just make some Chili con Carne or any other food with minced meat and rice and take some aside and bake the biscuits later. So ridiculously effortless!

Goodbye baby collar

2009-10-24T17:55:00.008+03:00

J.R. and Papu visited a vet on Wednesday. She had been peeing and drinking water excessively for weeks, so we wanted to make sure she's OK. And she was OK. It kinda gave us a fright, though. She's our baby and we would be absolutely devastated if anything bad happened to her. It's strange how attached you can become to a dog. They're definitely more than just pets, they're friends, family members, companions. Anyway.

Papu is now almost seven months old, and yesterday we decided it's time to pass the baby phase. We bought her a harness and a new leash. She looks so grown-up now!

The harness and the leash are both black leather. I guess some other color would have stood out more nicely against Papu's black fur, but black is pretty much the only color that suits us. They are made in Finland, and considering that I think they were quite cheap. They both cost 28.90€ in Stockmann. And I guess that since they're made in Finland, they are also designed for Finnish climate. It gets really dark in here on the fall and the winter, so it's definitely a good thing that Papu's harness is almost completely covered with reflectors. We can be sure that all the drivers can see her before it's too late.

And since Papu's a bit pampered, we bought her a new toy too. Stockmann has a good selection of toys by Kong company and we got her a Kong Wubba. Papu loves it and I'm glad it seems really durable, like other Kong company toys too. It's absolutely perfect for fetching (it's easy to throw) and tugging (it's easy to hold and I don't have to worry about my fingers). And it SQUEAKS! I also read lately, that dogs can differentiate many shades of blue, even though they're bad with all the other colors. So I guess I picked the best color for her too.

And to keep this Papu stuff coming... I also baked her doggie biscuits by myself. I got the recipe from a dog food book, but I modified it a lot. Who has some Worcestershire dressing by default anyway? I used white rice, minced meat, oregano, some oil, consommé and flour to create these:

Looks quite healthy and delicious, right? Unfortunately I made them way too big for Papu so they're quite impossible to serve. I don't want her to have a whole biscuit at once, but they're too hard to crack in to pieces either. I'm going to try some other dog biscuits later, maybe they are more suitable for Papu.

The bluebird of happiness.

2009-10-16T18:15:00.010+03:00

I started to use Twitter on April. I had created my account a few months earlier, but I didn't know what to do with it. It was quite lame to tweet without any followers or anyone to follow. I didn't know how to get started with twittering so I buried the idea. But then months later I found Ravelry's Twitter Knitters group. Suddenly I actually had plenty of interesting, like-minded people to follow! Fearlessly I decided to hop in. I also persuaded Elina to start twittering with me, because I thought it would be something fun to do together.

Here's my first tweet. Very exciting.

And twittering is, first of all, something fun. And something easy too. It really doesn't require much imagination to write 140 characters, though sometimes you need to work your best to fit your message in just one tweet. 140 characters is not much, but it's just enough to post ideas, thoughts, links, pictures, news... You name it. I mostly tweet about my daily life, school, knitting and of course about Papu. Other people use fancy apps to Twitter, but I usually tweet directly from the website or Flock's People Sidebar. Nowadays I would like to have some high-tech kick-ass communicator to tweet on the go, but unfortunately I have no reason to get a new phone.

And yes. It's that addictive that you want to tweet all the time. Or almost all the time. Though I'm not so into tweeting myself, I just want to see what other people are up to. The stalker lives strongly in me. Anyway. I wrote this post to promote tweeting. It's definitely something that everybody should try. And by "everybody" I mean people who like to blog, surf the Internet, exchange ideas and meet new, cool people. Yeah. That could be you.

If you're a bit harder to buy, I thought I could make a list of things I have "got" from Twitter. They are also the reasons why I have fell in love with it.

It has given me more confidence. Usually I'm too shy to even write comments on other people's blogs, but I have no trouble to tweet with new people. It's like the beauty of it, it brings people closer. If you can follow them, they're friends. If they follow you back, they're even better friends.
It has given me good advice. People can be really helpful if they want to. For example I forgot to take cable needle to school, so I was unable to continue my knitting. I tweeted about it, and @villapeikko guided me a tutorial how to knit cables without extra needles. I was able to continue my knitting after all. It made me really happy.
It has given me new friends. First they were strangers, now I tweet with them in a regular basis. It's really cool.
It has given my blogs a bunch of new readers. Twitter is a great place to promote your new blog posts, and it's perfectly OK to do so. You can use Twitter for whatever purposes you want. Many companies tweet about their new products, and that's not considered as spam, it's considered as good marketing. I follow bunch of websites and companies on Twitter, because I like to hear about new products, updates and other news.
I'm never alone if I have access to Twitter. I'm a lousy knitter. I don't know any fancy knitting terms, I don't go crazy about some super expensive super exclusive yarn, I don't go to knitting meetings, I don't even know knitters in real life... but I'm still able to be a member of a very large community of knitters. It's quite awesome.

That's all, folks. Feel free to follow me on Twitter. I'm @amoenaonline.

I'm sensing something new... A blog post!

2009-10-14T10:59:00.013+03:00

Apparently people are starting to loose their patience with me. You know, with me still not blogging. Except I'm blogging right now because I got tagged by Minttusuklaa. She's clever! She probably knew I can't resist any blog memes. I simply can't. They are a fabulous way to blog when you have absolutely nothing to say. I kinda miss having a life.

OK. Let's start. Here are the rules:

1. Laita tunnustus blogiisi. Put the button on your blog.
2. Kirjaa sinne myös nämä säännöt. Tell the rules to the world.
3. Linkitä blogiin, josta sait tunnustuksen. Link to the blog that tagged you.
4. Listaa viisi aistia ja kerro mitä ne merkitsevät sinulle. List five (5) senses and tell what they mean to you.
5. Haasta viisi muuta blogia jättämällä niihin kommentti. Tag five other bloggers and let them know about it.

Here are my five senses:

Sense of hearing: I can always hear when J.R. is biting his nails, even when he tries to hide it from me. But sometimes I have troubles hearing what other people say, when they don't speak loud enough. It's very annoying! Speak louder, people!
Sense of sight: I can't see anything without my glasses, and even with glasses my sight is poor. I wouldn't want contact lenses because I think my glasses make me look smarter and prettier.
Taste: I'm really bad at tasting things. Seriously. If the difference between the tastes isn't strong, I think they all taste the same. For example I can drink five different cups of tea and think they taste the same.
Sense of feeling: I get shivers down my spine when someone touches my hair. I like to touch things that are warm, like Papu and J.R. Otherwise I rather watch things, not touch them.
Sense of being heard: I like to talk and I like to be heard. Sometimes being heard is more important than the things I say. I like blogging and twittering for the same reason.

I tag J.R. and Elina because I want new blog posts by them too.

PS: I'm old! I turned 23 like a week ago.
PPS: I forgot there's actually a thing called "sense of smell". Silly me.

There will be Kongs!

2009-09-23T11:06:00.020+03:00

Papu's been quite destructive lately, so we decided that she needs more activity toys. We visited two pet stores nearby, but the selection of active toys for dogs was quite narrow in both of them. Of course we use empty toilet paper rolls and stuff to keep Papu busy in a more economical way, but we don't have enough toilet paper rolls to keep her busy for hours. We definitely needed more toys. We ended up buying another Kong toy for Papu. She loves her Puppy Kong, but we though she's big enough for Classic Kong too now that she has her new pearly white teeth set. Now she has two Kong toys, which means she has twice as much to do while we are away. That will probably prevent her from getting bored.

Papu totally recommends Kong toys!

We also bought her a mini Molecuball. The package said "the product should be slightly larger than your pet's mouth", but there were no "small" or "medium" Molecuballs in the stores. Just these mini Molecuballs and quite large-ish Molecuballs. We decided to try mini Molecuball, even though there is a big change of it being too small for Papu. On the other hand, Papu is a MINIature pinscher, so maybe it is the right size. ~~We haven't tried it yet, but I let you know if it works with minpins.~~ We tried it. It's OK as long as there are treats inside, but once they're all out, she starts to chew it. And it's not strong enough for chewing. But Papu seemed to like the toy, so we will let her play with it. We just have to supervise her really closely.

There is also another dog toy I would like to recommend: Flossy Flappy. It's definitely Papu's favorite toy. Seriously, she loves it. It's perfect for retrieving, tugging, chewing... And it squeaks in a way that won't kill your ears, I promise! Papu's been playing with her Flossy Flappy a lot, so I have had to fix it three or four times by now, but I still think it's very durable. No dog toy is indestructible (except Kong toys maybe). Papu also has a Fleecie Flappy, but she doesn't like it as much as she likes Flossy Flappy. It's just not as... flossy.

Fleecie Flappy above, Flossy Flappy below.

Papu doesn't have so many toys after all. I would love her to have more toys, but I'm really critical with her toys. I want her toys to be durable and safe, and many dog toys aren't. Especially plastic squeaker toys look hazardous. Anyway. Papu also have a rat softie we bought from Ikea about month ago. As you can see, it's still very much in one piece. Hooray for Ikea quality? Papu likes her rat, sometimes she even uses it as a pillow. You know, when she's not killing it. Papu also has a basic rope toy for tug games.

Yes. A dog has replaced my life. This blog was supposed to be about me, Amoena, but nowadays it's mostly about my dog called Papu. I hope you're not disappointed. Papu is just much more interesting than me. But if you're fed up with Papu-related posts, please let me know. I could try to blog less about Papu.

What's new in Amoena's exciting life? NOTHING!!

2009-09-21T16:44:00.010+03:00

Every week I decide to blog more. And then I end up posting less. I should decide to blog nothing at all, and then I would probably post every day. I have all the time in my hands but yet nothing to blog. Nothing interesting, I mean. It sucks to have a such a normal life. I wonder how other, normal boring people deal with blogging. Is there some trick that I'm not yet aware of?

Anyway. We spent the last weekend in Viiala at my parent's place. Papu was super excited to meet her best friend, Minni the dachshund again. They play-fought through the whole weekend. Their fights can look quite rough sometimes, but they're both still in one piece. We have to watch them constantly while they play together, though.

We also let Papu to run free so she could sniff everything as much as she liked. And she liked to sniff a lot. And I think Papu looked gorgeous with the autumnal background. She's just so beautiful sometimes. I'm so happy that we have her and we can watch her everyday.

We also took Papu to a walk one warm day and borrowed my sister's dog retractable leash. There's not much traffic there so we wanted Papu to be able to explore things more freely. Here in the city we keep her on a short leash. There's too much people and cars here.

I sewed a Barbie doll dress while J.R. was picking mushrooms with my mom and aunt. I would like to sew Barbie clothes more often, but my niece doesn't really play with her Barbie dolls so she doesn't need so many clothes either. I'm not so happy with this particular dress, I've definitely made better ones. The fabric was very forgiving, though. I literally sewed it on the doll and it still turned out OK.

We also visited few flea markets and I found and bought a really cool board game, Bombay Bazar. It cost only 5€ so it was a real bargain. And we played it many, many times during the weekend. Even my aunt and mom liked to play it. It's a shame we don't play board games so often at home.

And that's pretty much it.

Fail semester... sorry, fall semester

2009-09-06T17:55:00.007+03:00

My school started on Monday and it feels good to get out of the house regularly again. I missed seeing people and having conversations without the trouble of inviting friends to come over. Though I don't have many friends at school, due to my weirdness, but at least I think that I have all the right friends around me. I wouldn't even want to be friends with everyone in my class. By the way, there's some changes in our class dynamics. There used to be more girls in our class, but now there's only three of us. I kinda like it. When I studied dentistry, there were only girls in my class and it made me feel quite insecure. I feel better now when the vast majority of our class is boys, because I don't have to care about how they feel about me. Girls are more critical and gossip-y and they easily create an unhealthy study environment. Or at least that's how I felt studying with only girls.

Anyway. I have four new courses to study. On Mondays I have a course called "Developing Data Network Services". We don't have any lectures in it, just a few seminars. We should watch some virtual lectures independently, but I still haven't installed that vpn-client on my computer which makes it possible. I read the instructions for Linux OS and there was an end-note which said it doesn't work on Ubuntu. And currently that's the only operation system I have in hand. J.R. said that there is a change it might work, because my Ubuntu is a newer version than the one mentioned in the instructions. We'll see. And oh... of course we have to do some big project. Laurea is all about making projects. We still don't know what our subject will be, though.

On Tuesdays I have some bullshit called "Managing Business Performance". I know I shouldn't be so judging, since our teachers probably mean well. But the last time we had the same teacher it was real pain in the ass. Seriously. Some people just shouldn't be teaching. Thank God we have two teachers in this course, and the other one is more pleasant. We were actually able to a) understand what he was trying to say and b) listening through the lecture without falling asleep. That's really special in Laurea.

On Wednesdays I have "Managing Information Security". It's the first course that actually sounds important and useful. And the teachers seemed OK too, like they actually know what they are talking about. We also got some books for free in our first lecture. That was cool. Free stuff is always cool. And it's quite amazing that finally some teachers actually believe that we're capable of like a) reading a book, b) learning something and c) being truly interested. Whoa!

On Thursdays I have a second part of an "Analysis and Design" course (I couldn't find a matching course in English and the Finnish name was absolutely impossible to translate), in which we are supposed to continue our project. In the last course our team designed a booking system for a hotel and in this course we should execute it. On the first lesson our team found out that we were the only team who managed to pass the last course completely. Talking about having the right friends... It feels good that everyone in our team is equally motivated. Or motivated in general.

And on Fridays I have NOTHING! Hooray! Anyway. You could probably hear my negative attitude towards my school through my post. It's justified. If my school was a person, it definitely wouldn't be the sharpest Crayola in the box. It wouldn't even be in the box, it would be too second-rate for it. I think the main problem with my degree program is that anyone can get in. Even monkeys. And monkeys aren't motivated to study, which doesn't make teachers exactly motivated to teach us. We do projects after projects without proper guidance and the end-results are poor (except in our team, of course). And the monkeys also have low moral "oh, let's plagiarize everything, that's why we have Wikipedia in the first place". Argh. Enough said.

And now you probably wonder why I keep studying in Laurea. Here are my reasons:

a) It's very close to my home, it takes only 15 minutes to walk to school.
b) I have a few good friends in my class that makes it worth the whine.
c) Despite all the bullshit, it's still about computers. And that's what I wanted.
d) It's only 3,5 years, 3 years if I keep myself busy. And I just started my second year.
e) Business Information Technology sounds good. I might actually get a job after I graduate.

EDIT: I have changed my mind. I said that one of our teachers is real pain in the ass, but now she's quite good at teaching accounting. I have absolutely nothing to complain about her way to teach in this course.

Papu doesn't give a rat's ass...

2009-08-31T16:58:00.002+03:00

...because she most likely eats it.

Hairy happenings

2009-08-24T18:32:00.006+03:00

There are things happening in Amoena's world. First, and most importantly, Papu has lost her first canine tooth. Our hairy baby is growing up!

Canine tooth of a canine.

Secondly, we've been hitting dog parks. We like to visit them more than Papu does. She's very wary around strange dogs, especially if they are bigger than her, but we want her to get socialized. Dog parks are pretty much the only socialization option, because we don't have any friends with dogs. Anyway. Sometimes Papu is feeling more brave and she might actually try to play with other dogs. You know, if and only they happen to be almost the same size as she is.

She's gonna catch you, J.R.

Sometimes, quite often actually, the dog park is empty so J.R. has to play with Papu. They run around in circles. It's nice to watch, because they both run so fast. Papu obviously runs faster, though. She's a little lightning. And when she's not running around, she's jumping around. She's good at that too.

Jumping off the picture.

Sometimes, not so often this time, I'm worried that the other dog owners won't like us. Papu is not a good playmate for bigger dogs or for dogs that are too eager. They make Papu scared, and when she's scared, she does nothing but hides behind our legs. And we let her. She can choose if she wants to play with other dogs or not, we're not pushing her into anything. Anyway. If the other dogs get too near her or try to approach her too eagerly when she's scared, she shows off her teeth. I don't know how the other dog owners feel about that, even though there's a very good reason for it. Papu's not aggressive. She just wants the bully dogs to leave her alone.

Papu looks funny when her eyes are closed.

Hmph. I can't believe I just wrote another Papu-related blog post. I wasn't supposed to. I was going to blog about the My Little Ponies I bought for my mom from the flea market we visited today. She collects them and I'm a good daughter. Here they are:

I'm pretty sure she doesn't have these ones yet.

Elina's annual visit

2009-08-18T09:45:00.006+03:00

Last week Elina visited us. She's my friend. I've known her for a long time now. Our mutual online friend introduced us. He thought we might like each other, and eventually we did. Though it took several years before we met in real life, probably because Elina thought I was weird. Anyway. I like Elina because she's a girl. And before you think "that's the most lamest compliment ever", let me explain; She's the only girl friend I have, the rest of my friends are boys. So it feels really good to hang out with a girl for a change.

I didn't do anything special with Elina. I asked her earlier what she would like to do, but she said that she only wanted to see my family. She did visit me last year, but J.R. got sick when they were supposed to meet and Papu obviously is a newcomer. So meeting one new person and one new puppy would be enough entertainment for two days.

So we didn't do anything special, but we did knit. (Knitting is cool, kids. You should try it too.) Elina chose some super bulky yarn from our stash and started to knit mittens. She's not very experienced with knitting, so we had to help her. She knew how to knit and purl, but not how to read knitting patterns or how to decrease and stuff. But her first mitten turned out great! Like seriously great. She should be proud of it. At least I'm very proud of myself , because I was able to help her to make it. I thought I couldn't even read knitting patterns. It's proved now that I'm not so hopeless after all. I'm getting there, slowly.

Elina was also very generous. She brought us three skeins of Novita's 7-Veljestä wool yarn: one dark green, one lime green and one natural white. She also brought me her old fashion magazines, because she knows how much I like to read them. They probably weighted like hell, so I really appreciate the effort.

Papu says "thank you"!

Anyway. I had fun. I always like to spend time with Elina, and I'm a bit sad that we weren't able to move to Tampere. It would have been fun. We could have visited each other more often and make some tea and knit and watch TV. That's all I've ever wanted. A friend who likes to do everything that I like to do and vice versa.

Amoena @ Assembly 2009

2009-08-10T09:53:00.008+03:00

Last Friday I got my laptop back from Sweden again. We had to send it back because some new problems occurred. Anyway. This time they didn't just replace some components. They made a recovery. Of course I had backups of all the truly important, irreplaceable files, but I lost my whole movie and music collection. I also have to reinstall all my programs again, which is probably the biggest nuisance ever. I just keep remembering new and new programs that I had and still need. It feels that I'm literally building my laptop again. But hey, at least it boots faster now!

On Saturday I visited Assembly with J.R. And I'm once again unable to describe what it is, so I quote their website:

Assembly is a four day computer festival, in which thousands of people and their computers spend the long weekend by meeting friends, playing games, surfing on the net, talking on IRC and enjoying the great productions from the demoscene. The idea is to be there with or without your computer and enjoy the great atmosphere of being with likeminded people.

Though for me it means spending several days by myself, because J.R. is one of the voluntary organizers. I'm glad that this year he didn't have to work during the event, just before and after it. I was able to spent time with J.R. like normally. Anyway. I'm quite envy of the nerds who are actually able to participate Assembly. It seems like fun. It really does.

Click to enlarge.

I don't think I'm too old. I think I just lack basically everything it requires: nerd reliability, nerd skills and, most especially, nerd friends. Wouldn't be much fun without them. I only dream about being a nerd, as sick as it may sound. But at least J.R. makes me feel special. I get a free entrance to almost every other nerd's wet dream. How cool is that?

Even Papu thought it was cool and tried to steal my ticket.

So we visited Assembly together. We saw a prize ceremony and it was nice. Though I would have wanted to hear the winning songs completely. It's easier with still graphics because they don't take time to show. Anyway. After that we watched short film compo, which was the reason why we got there in the first place. It's J.R's favorite and I can understand why; It doesn't take much background knowledge to understand. And most of the short films we saw were funny.

And I got a new Assembly T-shirt to sleep in! It's not black, because organizers are not worthy enough to get T-shirts in cool colors. They get only this weird dirty-looking wine red. I'm not complaining though. It will look black when it's dark.

Papu liked it so much that she got an urge to lick her personal parts.

Puppy picture overload

2009-07-30T20:40:00.010+03:00

Hello! It's Amoena and Papu and we are blogging in Viiala. Papu actually sleeps on my lap right now. We've been at my parents' place since Friday and boy, this feels like a vacation. Things are so much easier here. We don't have to worry about the food. My mom cooks it. I don't have to do any housework (though I know I should) and it's so much easier to take Papu out for a pee. I can just open the door and let Papu run free. I love the life at the countryside. And so does Papu.

And guess what? Since I'm on a vacation, this is pretty much all I'm gonna blog! Hooray for puppy pictures!

Here's Minni. She's my mother's dachshund puppy.

She's obviously best friends with Papu.

Really. They like each other. They even share the same bed sometimes.

And here's Pipa. She's my sister's dachshund puppy. She's from the same litter as Minni.

Many things happen when three puppies meet.

We also took Papu to swim. She's not into it. Yet.

She's all wet. But at least she looks quite happy.

Papu's not digging it.

Papu's sitting on a flower. Good girl. They're weeds anyway.

Obviously she needs plenty of sleep after the long day.

I lurve my goggie

2009-07-21T14:16:00.007+03:00

I borrowed a 10 mega pixel digital camera from my aunt. She bought it a long time ago, but she hasn't used it for once. She doesn't know how to use it, and she doesn't even have a computer. I think it's a mystery why she bought it, but I'm glad that she lets me borrow it. I can finally take some decent pictures of Papu. She's growing so fast and I want to take some puppy pictures before it's too late.

We took Papu to the vet yesterday. She's vaccinated now. We were a bit worried about how Papu would behave on the vet, because our last visit there wasn't exactly successful. But this time Papu was much more relaxed and caused no problems. I'm proud of her. The vet said that she's a really pretty dog, but I guess she says that to everyone. All dogs are pretty on their own unique ways. She also said that we should watch Papu's weight, because she's almost on the chubby side. That proves me right! Some time ago J.R. complained that Papu's too skinny and that we should increase her daily portions. I thought that Papu was normal, but I agreed to feed her more. Anyway. No harm done. We have decreased her daily portions now, so she won't get too heavy. Though she will be one big minpin, the vet said so, as well as our neighbor who also has a minpin.

And now to the cute puppy pictures!

Papu is licking a strawberry.

Happy face.

"Puh-lease, mommy, stop taking my pictures!"

Shiny and handsome. Love the carpet.

Yes. My life pretty much evolves around Papu. I can't help it, she's too cute. And soon we are taking her to the best place on earth: my parent's house in Viiala. She will be able to run free again! And there will be two completely new dog buddies for her, because my mom and my sister just got dachshund puppies, called Minni and Pipa. They are both girls and they are about ten weeks old now. I hope that Papu knows how to play with them. And I hope you don't get tired with my Papu reports!

And the only thing that you wanted to do was show your mum that you could play the piano

2009-07-16T13:29:00.002+03:00

I played piano yesterday. It was a lot nicer than I remembered. The last time I played piano was about three or four years ago. No one has pianos nowadays. That's a shame. I like to play piano, because I don't really know how to play it. It's not my instrument, my instrument is electric keyboard. The idea is the same, but you play it differently, it feels different and sounds different. Piano allows me to improvise and that's something I really enjoy. I can just pick some random chords and compose something. It's not even difficult. I wish I had my own piano some day. Though then I would learn how to play it properly, and then it would be less fun.

Anyway. We bought new tea mugs. Finally! We have been planning it for months. We couldn't decide which colors we wanted, though eventually we decided to take the colors that we wanted in the first place. No surprise. The manufacturer of the mugs is Arabia, which is very popular and trusted brand in Finland and the range is called KoKo.

They are just mugs, nothing fancy. Just like we wanted it. And we are pleased with the colors too; chocolate and orange. Chocolate will go well with our brown teapot and orange with our orange sofa. We might get other colors (and bowls and stuff) in the future, but now we are happy with what we have.

Papu is four months old now, and she's still very cute. Her one ear is completely up now, and we are waiting for the other one to get up too. That's how we want them.

She has learnt new tricks too. For example, she knows that when we are not at home, she can jump on the tables and take whatever she wants and play with it. She's so clever. She has already unraveled one skein of yarn, destroyed several nail files, eaten my sleep mask, eaten her own food without permission... But I guess that's what puppies too.

Been shopping. Bought something.

2009-07-10T10:59:00.010+03:00

I got my laptop back three days ago. UPS delivery guy brought it to me. They fixed it. My laptop boots now without a problem, runs nicely and the screen doesn't flicker anymore. I have nothing to complain, it's as good as new.

I've been shopping lately. That's some news. I hate shopping and I can't tell you how much I hate it. I rarely find anything I like, and when I find something I like, I can't find the right size or it looks like shit on me. But recently I've been lucky. On Tuesday I found myself a new pair of shoes for the summer. I liked them instantly so I decided to buy them. And they were on sale! I also bought jeans today. I wasn't expecting to find anything, but I did. They were on sale too.

Sniff, sniff. Too bad they don't smell like mommy yet.

This is almost like playing on mommy's lap.

There is actually one funny thing about my recent purchases... I already had one pair of classic slip-ons by Vans, but they are almost worn out now. I've been using them so much. My new shoes look very similar, they are just more feminine. And the jeans... I already have the exact same pair of them, but they are completely worn out too. I needed a new pair. So technically I didn't make any new finds. I just replaced stuff with the same or similar stuff. But if you have found something that works for you, why change it?

Elina suggested on Twitter that instead of a real post, I should just post some cute pictures of Papu. But in a matter of fact, I can do both. And that's what I'm going to do. So beware, some cuteness ahead!

"Ahoy, I'm a sailor girl!"

"Me thinks not."

Jag trivs bäst i öppna landskap

2009-06-23T14:13:00.006+03:00

I've been neglecting my blog, both of them actually. And Twitter too. But I have a pretty good excuse, just wait until you hear it. My laptop, my lovely, lovely laptop is broken and taken away. I've had a problem with flickering screen since forever, but that's not the main reason why it's taken away. It didn't boot anymore. No BIOS, no nothing. Now I have to rely on my old laptop, my old, not so good laptop with a very, very crappy Linux distribution. I shouldn't complain, though. At least I still have a laptop. I just don't really enjoy working with this thing, because this thing doesn't really want to cooperate with me. Like seriously, how hard it is to tweet?

Anyway. I just spent a long weekend in Viiala, sans my laptop of course. I didn't miss it though, because I had J.R. and Papu with me. They kept me well entertained at all times. And Papu had so much fun! She made two new dog friends and she was also able to run around free. I had no idea that she might have so much energy. She doesn't really show that side at home, because we don't have enough room to run at home and outside she has to wear a short leash. I think the weekend made wonders to her socialization.

Because it was raining almost all the time, we didn't take many pictures of Papu running outside. Luckily on Sunday, which was our last day there, the sun started to shine again and we were able to took a few nice shots of her:

Yesterday we learned that Papu has been traumatized before she came to us. Or at least that's what the vet suspected and we have no reason to question that since it makes sense. So, yesterday we took Papu to the vet to get her vaccinated for the first time, and everything was fine, until the vet took out the microchip reader to read Papu's microchip. Papu didn't like that. She didn't like that at all. I think she surprised us all. The vet had to muzzle her and to give J.R. some first aid because Papu bit him. The vet said that it's a common problem nowadays because puppies are microchipped when they're still... well... puppies and it doesn't always go so well.

I wish I had known that. I would have asked the breeder not to get Papu microchipped. We could have get her microchipped later. It's so obvious now why Papu doesn't like when strange people try to pet her. She allows them to get closer, she sniffes them, she takes treats from them and she plays with them... But if they raise their hand to touch her, she backs off. I thought she was just timid and I gave her space. I never pushed her into anything since, after all, she showed interest toward strangers in a very positive way. I thought she only needed time, but no. She needs therapy too, some positive experiences and lot's of practice.

WWKIP Day

2009-06-13T17:30:00.010+03:00

Today is "worl wide knit in public day", or WWKIP if you like abbreviations like I do. We already took part by knitting in Esplanadi in Helsinki. It's a very popular and busy esplanade in the middle of Helsinki. It was actually an event held by Taito Helsky. We were supposed to knit or crochet potholders and attach them to places so the passers-by could take them. I started to crochet a round potholder, but it was a total FAIL so I terminated the project.

Anyway. Here is a bad picture of me. I'm wearing J.R's sweater because the weather was a little bit chilly at the moment. And I'm actually sitting on my own hoodie because the ground was a bit damp. You can also see the remains of my blue potholder next to me. I started to crochet another one, but I never finished it. And Papu is, of course, very interested to see what I'm doing. She was surprisingly nicely with us, by the way. She panicked only once when J.R. went to buy us some fresh peas and was nowhere to be seen.

My hair is not really that gray, in case you were wondering.

J.R. crocheted a very nice potholder, of course. I hope that someone nice took it and that he/she would appreciate it. After all, it's crocheted by a guy. That's really something, right?

Very, very masculine creation.

I'm also glad that the weather was really great today. It wasn't too hot and the sun was mostly shining. I couldn't have asked for a better weather. It wasn't all "sunshine", thought. Helsinki has a problem with beggars. (I'm not sure if begging is even legal in Finland, since we don't have so many of them.) A Romanian beggar lady came to us and asked for money, She was also very interested in the giant scarf we were sitting on. She was really stubborn! We gave her nothing. Only tourists give money to beggars here, because they don't know how easy living is in Finland. There are many grants and allowances that Kela, the social insurance institution of Finland, can give you if you don't have enough money for living. There should be no reason to actually beg for money, unless you're in the country illegally or something.

There was also one annoying Swedish talking little girl! She came to me while J.R. was buying the peas, and I simply couldn't understand what she wanted. I first thought she was interested in Papu, like the other kids that came to us, but she didn't pet her when she got a chance. It was so weird. She just stood there like I was retarded or something because I didn't understand her talking. I just wanted her to go away, which she did, eventually.

You're probably wondering why I wrote my WWKIP report here, instead of the Yarn-Loving Couple. There are two reasons for that. First reason is that I didn't really had anything to report. I didn't make a potholder like I was supposed to. Second reason is that I didn't want to repeat everything that J.R. wrote about it.

Imagination Award

2009-06-09T13:52:00.001+03:00

Almost a century ago I got an Imagination Award from Alexandra. I promised myself that I would post it "today", but "today" quickly became "tomorrow". And you know that you never really do the things you planned to do "tomorrow" tomorrow. You do them when it's almost too late. Anyway. I'm really flattered that Alexandra thinks I have imagination.

The Rules:
Tell 5 things about your crafts you like the most...what inspires you to make home made gifts.
Send this award to 5 bloggers.

Here are my five things:

1. I HAVE A HOBBY!
When people ask me what I do, I can say "Well, I crochet and knit together with my boyfriend". And they will think I'm like creative and talented instead of boring. Crocheting is probably my first serious hobby in years, if you don't count getting bored as a hobby.

2. I HAVE SOMEONE TO CROCHET AND KNIT WITH!
We are the yarn-loving couple. We crochet and knit together, it's like the thing we do. I can't imagine our relationship without yarn anymore. And I love to watch J.R. knitting. I like the fact that he's so talented and that he's always there to help me with my projects. I never have to struggle with crochet patterns when he's around. I'm so blessed.

3. I'M A COMMUNITY MEMBER!
I love Ravelry. I love love love Ravelry. I love to share my projects, I love to stalk my Ravelry friends, I love to read the forums (I rarely post anything though), I love to search for new (free!) patterns... And I like the fact that Ravelry is a huge community of knitters and crocheters world wide and I'm a part of it.

4. I LOVE KNITTING BLOGS!
I've been into blogs and blogging for years, but things got far more interesting when I found knitting blogs. I never knew there were so many talented people out there! And I can read what they have accomplished and get totally inspired by them. I also love our own knitting blog, or to be more defined, I love J.R's blog posts. It's his blogging voice I like.

5. I ACCOMPLISH THINGS!
And it feels good! I learned how to do something, I'm doing it and I'm getting good at it. I'm not a loser. Not at all. I make things happen and I make things. I can be proud of myself. Finally.

I want to give this award to Elina and J.R. They are my favorite crafters.

Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly

2009-06-01T22:25:00.002+03:00

I got another award. It's an Imagination Award and I got it from Alexandra. She probably gave it to me so I would have to blog. I know. I've been lazy and neglecting my duty to blog at least once a week. But I'm so exhausted... or not really. Mentally exhausted, maybe. Nothing happens to me anymore. I'm a stay-at-home mom, though I don't have kids. I just have one energetic puppy to keep me busy.

Papu's been lovely. I've taught her to sit and to go down. Now I'm teaching her to give her paw, though I'm not sure if that's necessary. I should probably focus on something more important, like how to pass other dogs and humans without making a fuss. Though she's perfectly capable of making a fuss all by herself. She's like a master of fuss making.

My transfer application to Tampere was accepted. That doesn't mean anything yet. J.R. is having his entrance exam tomorrow. That doesn't mean anything either. It's just a chance we could take if we feel like it. It's not like we really need to move anywhere. Our home is already here. I just feel good that my application got accepted. It means that I'm not a complete loser. They want me!

I wish I had more friends. I'm lonely. And when I'm lonely, I get depressed. And if I'm depressed, the rest will suck too. I'm used to not having friends around, but it's harder when there is no school or work where you could meet other people. Being alone makes me numb. I know that there are plenty of things I could do alone (though I can't leave Papu alone for a long time), but somehow I manage to do nothing all day. I can't watch TV, I can't read books, I can't write, I can't do anything. Because everything would remind me how lonely I am. I don't really want to watch TV alone, I don't want to read books alone... They're just a poor substitute for a social life I've never had. Whine, whine, whine.

Anyway. I feel really honored by the Imagination Award. It feels so good when my blog gets noticed. After all, this is probably all I've ever accomplished. I'll make another post for the award. Tomorrow, or later. I have to figure out whom I want to give the award.

Papu's first week

2009-05-24T20:19:00.008+03:00

I can't believe it's been a week and one day since we brought Papu home with us. It feels like a lot longer time. I guess it's because we've had to take her out to pee for like thousand times. It's just one pee trip after a pee trip. But that's just how puppies are, and Papu is indeed an adorable puppy. She's adorable even when she goes crazy, runs around in circles and play bites us with her needle sharp teeth. I definitely don't regret getting her, she's everything I expected. And maybe even more.

I really wish her ears would stay like that. And they probably will.

Papu still pees inside, and we let her. She's only eight weeks old, so we don't even expect her to be fully house trained yet. We're just happy that she knows where she should pee. Of course there has been several accidents, but we have mostly learned how to prevent them by now. She likes to sniff certain corners of our apartment when she needs to pee, so it's easy to point her the right spot to pee if she has "forgotten" it.

At nights Papu usually wakes me up if she needs to pee. For some reason she won't walk through our relatively tiny apartment alone at nights. She needs me to guide her. I refuse to give her any attention, though. I wait until she's quiet and then I pretend to go to bathroom or something. I don't want her to believe that she's able to get me out of bed anytime she wants. Lately she has been quiet for all night, so I've actually managed to get a good night sleep.

I have not taught her any "tricks" yet, but she's learning how to behave nicely. For example, she knows that when we're sitting on the sofa, the only way to get our attention is to sit quietly. Jumping up or barking is not going to work with us. She also knows "off", though so far it has only worked with treats.

No cuddles? But I look so cute?!

I'm a bit worried about her socialization. We don't personally know anyone who has a dog, so we can't get her safe dog friends easily. And we can't take her to dog parks either, because she still haven't got his vaccinations. I've learned that you should avoid dog parks and other popular dog areas until your puppy is vaccinated. She haven't met many people either, so she's basically afraid of everyone. I feel sorry that we are so antisocial. It would be better if we both had plenty of friends she could interact with. But no can do. We're doing our best anyway.

Here's our puppy, Papu

2009-05-16T20:29:00.006+03:00

We've brought the puppy to home now. She mostly sleeps. And eats and pees too. We named her Papu, which means "bean" in Finnish. She's actually named after my favorite food, chili con carne. I opened our fridge one day and noticed the half empty bean can. I thought it was a nice name and we never came up with other name suggestions. So Papu she is. Though I already have several pet names for her, like Papunaattori (Beanator), Papusoppa (Bean Soup), Papupata (Bean Stew, that also means talkative in Finnish) and Papana (that's like... rabbit stool in Finnish).

She's a miniature pinscher. We know that this breed is not exactly recommended for first timers, but it happened to be the breed that we wanted. Dogs live a long life and we didn't want to wait for ten and plus years to get the dog we want. We're both experienced with dogs, so we decided to take the "risk". I think it's going to be worth it.

The Zen

2009-05-11T15:00:00.003+03:00

Yesterday was Sunday, so my mother called me. Apparently she has finally accepted the news. We are getting the dog, no matter what she thinks. And since she clearly can't stop it from happening, she has no other choice than cooperating. So she was really nice to me when she called, and we talked about dogs and not about her my little pony collection as usually. M.B. suggested that she's been reading my blog and found out that I found her last comments offensive, but that's can't be the case. My mother doesn't understand English. And it would be an impossible task for her to find my blog without help anyway.

It means a lot to me that the people around me are supporting my decisions. I know that I have always been a very responsible person, but am I really responsible enough to take care for a dog? I've pondered that for years and now I finally decided that I have what it takes. I have the time, I have the money and I'm ready to make some effort. But if the people around me start to question my capability, I start to question it too. And that won't do anything good.

Right now I'm feeling very peaceful and confident, and for now on I'm only concentrating on positive things. I leave no room for doubt. Most of my friends are very supporting, so I listen to them. I don't listen to those who think that I don't have what it takes to raise a happy, healthy dog. Obviously they know nothing. I've studied all the dog books I borrowed from library. I have read Finnish dog forums and learned several important things. I'm as prepared as I can possible be.

Toy Story

2009-05-07T15:18:00.000+03:00

Yesterday we finally bought some toys for the puppy. The Puppy Kong was easy to select, since I've heard so many good things about kong toys. It's a chew toy you can fill with different treats and it's supposed to entertain and activate the dog when you are not around. It says on the Kong Company website that the dog can play with the kong toys even when it's not supervised. I'm not sure if that applies to puppy kongs because they're made of softer rubber. Anyway. We also bought a rope toy for tug plays. Now we just need something that squeaks and we're happy.

The selection of the toys was very wide, but I thought that the most of the toys looked a bit too cheap. Especially the squeaky toys. I know that you're supposed to supervise the dog when it's playing with a toy, but I still would like to make sure that the toys are as durable and harmless as possible. Just in case.

There must be a joke. I just don't get it.

2009-05-06T19:32:00.002+03:00

"When you eat Milbona yoghurt for 14 days, 2 weeks have passed."

Thanks M.B. for telling me about this Lidl ad. At least it doesn't lie!

Who let my mom out?

2009-05-04T18:06:00.000+03:00

My mother called me yesterday (as she does every Sunday) and I told her about the dog. I didn't want to tell her because I knew she would say something mean, but I decided to be all grown-up and tell her anyway. And she was mean. She let me understood that I'm not capable of taking care of anything. She said that of course I could try, but it would be J.R. who have to take care of the dog by himself eventually.

I think it's a bit funny how she thinks I'm totally clueless. I moved away from my parents when I was fifteen to live with my aunt while I studied in high school in Helsinki. After I turned eighteen I moved together with my first boyfriend. In other words: I've been independent and responsible person for years. I can't understand why she's so blind.

And she thinks she knows me! "You have never been interested in dogs". Like how could she know? She calls me once a week and tells me everything she's been up to. She doesn't bother to ask me anything to get to know me. She just assumes things. She said she was surprised that I'm actually willing to pay money to get a dog, because I'm so stingy. Sorry, but I'm not. It's easy for her to assume so because she never sees me spending money or wearing new clothes.

I know I should not blog when I'm angry and annoyed, but I can't help this. I'm a good daughter so why can't she be a good mother? Why she has to be so outspoken? I've always done the right thing so why is she so worried?

***

I bought a clicker on Saturday. There were no real selection, just cheaper one and a more expensive one ("multi-clicker"). I didn't know the difference so I decided to go with a cheaper one first. The sound of the clicker is quite loud and I'm worried that the puppy might find it scary. I've heard it could happen. I tried to damp the sound by putting the clicker inside a sock. It sounded a lot nicer.

I chose bright yellow for a reason: it's easier to see, harder to lose.