Category: Personal

Answers to last Friday’s question at f.riday5.com 🙂 

1. What do you usually reach for when you need just a little bite?

Usually chocolate if I want something sweet. If I want an actual food, a drinkable yoghurt.

2. How frequently do you visit convenience stores?

I guess my closest grocery store is technically a convenience store because it has somewhat limited selections and sells no clothes etc. but still has plenty of choice in food brands etc.? It’s a very common type of shop here, part of a supermarket chain called K-Supermarket – the next biggest type is the hypermarket which also sells garden stuff, small(ish) electric appliances, clothing, some books, cosmetics etc. in addition to food stuffs. But all the shops here which sell groceries sell the same brands, even if they have just a tiny selection basics.

I go shopping in my local store 1-3 times a weeks; it’s my main shop. Then there’s another shop of this same type and size but by S Group called S-Market, that I also go regularly to because some products are a little bit cheaper there and the fresh bakery breads selection there is different from my local shop and currently better. This shop is located in the city center and I usually go there when I also go to the library. But I try to shop a lot in my local store so that it stays and isn’t closed because then there won’t be any stores close by and probably also the other serviced in the building will get eventually closed down (post office, the chemist, restaurant etc.). Both shops have a nice fresh fish and meat counter, but in the S-Market it’s a lot bigger with also things like cheese and grilled chicken and fruit and vegetable salads. I love this because for a while there fresh fish and meat counters were non-existent except in the very big hypermarkets and even then, often not very good. But they seem to be making a return so I guess I’m not the only one who missed them!

I go the huge hypermarkets only about 3-4 times a year these days because I don’t have a car and so have to take the bus and the whole trip always takes 2 hours minimum or 3 hours depending on which hypermarket I go to, even though the actual shopping itself usually takes only 20 mins. The bus trip each way take so much time that I don’t want to do it often – when I go to a hypermarket, I’m always after some particular product my local shop doesn’t have or, after several rarely bought products (flour, cleaning stuff) my local shop does have but it’ll be a little bit cheaper to buy all of them from the hypermarket than my local shop. Back when I had a car, I generally shopped in a hypermarket once a week. Hypermarkets are usually a little cheaper than the supermarkets but reaching them can take a long time if you don’t have a car or don’t live right beside them. But if they are conveniently located or you have a car, they are the best place to shop at for the prices and the selection.

3. What’s your favorite chip?

Potato chip? Either the classic Taffel Sips The Original (flavoured only with salt) or Taffel Sips Broadway (sourcream & onion). Depends on the day.

4. What’s your favorite candy bar?

Fazerina by Fazer and/or Fazermint by Fazer. I can’t decide! I buy both of them as much, I think. I also love Pätkis, also by Fazer, almost as much as Fazerina and Fazermint.

5. What are some hard candies you especially like?

I’m not huge fan of hard candy and almost never buy it… but I LOVE Monpensiers Fruit Drops. I don’t think I’ve seen these fruit drops being sold anywhere but in tax-free in airports and on the Helsinki/Stockholm and Turku/Stockholm cruise ships. Before COVID-19 I used to ask my Mom to get them for me sometimes when she and her SO went on the 24 hour cruise to Stockholm. They used to do that 5-6 times a year so he could buy his topacco on the ship because it’s a lot cheaper there than in shops here in Finland. So I’d ask Mom to get me certain chocolates, chocolate liquor for baking and these fruit drops sometimes for me.

Today’s questions at thefridayfive@DW

1. What’s the last thing you got in the mail?

The letter on Monday from the hospital detailing the time for the iron infusion next week, and the approximate date I need to go get routine Crohn’s Disease blood work done in May.

I don’t get much mail anymore – most bills and official letters come via electronic mail or electronic bills. I rarely subscribe to magazines because I usually can’t afford it/rather use the money for something else. I used to often subscribe/get a gift subscription to a certain computer magazine but its contents were “redesigned” and “renewed” right into stuff that didn’t interest me (game reviews, camera usage tutorials etc.). So once that magazine was unexisting as far as I’m concerned, I usually only get bills and official letters and occupational and union magazines and most of those have gone mostly or all online now.

In addition, I have a “no ads and no free distribution leaflets/magazines” label on my mailbox to stop junk mail. So I can go an entire week with only “wow! such-empty” for my mailbox 😀

2. What’s the last thing you sent in the mail?

I can’t remember! I used to have to send unemployment and social benefits application forms monthly but that was more than a decade ago; now I almost never have to send anything in the mail anymore – everything’s done online. The last time I sent anything in the mail was probably five years or more ago.

3. How many unread emails are in your inbox right now?

I have four e-mails in active use. My real name e-mail which I use for all real life official things (online orders, library, bank, social benefits etc.) currently has 4 unread e-mails. My fandom one has technically 1 unread e-mail but it’s one I sent myself from the mobile Tumblr app – a link to a Tumblr post with links to Sansan fanfics so I can check them out on my laptop – so, in reality there’s 0 unread e-mails on that account. And my webmaster e-mail and Oded Fehr fanfic archive e-mail both have 0 undread.

I usually clear my inboxes as the e-mails come in, or within a an hour or two. Except when I’m sleeping, and even after that, it’s usually quick work.

4. What is your most recent text message about?

The library sent an automated text that one of the books I had put on hold is ready to be picked up.

5. Do you have a favorite postage stamp design?

Nope. I don’t even know what the current ones are. I don’t buy stamps anymore because I never need them. On the extremely rare occasion I do, the letter or package is always too heavy for regular stamps so that I have to go to the post office to get the correct weight and postage amount needed and they print the postage stamp so it’s been a boring computer printout for ages now for me.

I have seen some Star Trek stamps around, and I like those, but I’m not sure whether they are/were real or just fannish mockups.

And answers to this week’s questions over at f.riday.com.

1. When did you last put honey on or in something?

I’m not sure; it was either when I baked bread rolls, or in Rooibos tea. It’s been a while either way!

2. How do you handle a bad mood?

I try to watch a comedy that always makes me laugh (examples: The Golden Girls, Soap, Get Smart!), or putter around with my watercolors. If my head can handle it, listen to music. Anything that feels like might distract me.

3. Which Winnie-the-Pooh character do you most identify with?

I hardly remember these… The only character I remember is Winnie-the-Pooh and I don’t have any kind of special connection to the that character or stories. I remember liking them but that’s about it.

4. Which Winnie-the-Pooh character would you best get along with?

See the answer to #3.

5. What’s your favorite way to do nothing?

Just simply to sit and chat about whatever (no heavy stuff or at least not much and not for long) with with my Mom in her garden in the summer when the weather is just right, or my best friend in a cafe or at my place. It’s so rare to just be able to sit and chat without having to do something and just enjoy being together.

Answers to this week’s questions at Livejournal.

1.You’ve been home from vacation for a week now, what still needs to get done?

I don’t go on trips enough to have for this questions to apply to me in any true way – I’ve never been on a vacation trip, truly. Simply because the two trips I’ve taken as an adult were when I was unemployed so they didn’t feel like a vacation and also don’t count as one because I still had all the same job hunting duties during the trip as normally. I’d had to have cut my 5-day trip short if an employer had wanted to interview me during that time or something, but luckily that didn’t happen so I could enjoy London for all five days.

I suppose I might have some articles of clothing I wore on the trip in need of a wash still if I hadn’t run a washer cycle for that type of clothing yet since coming back, but that’s about the only thing I can think of.

2. Have you detected any signs of Spring/Fall yet?

Days have started to get brighter earlier and for longer. Otherwise it’s the normal, slushy winter weather here.

3. How often do you check the batteries in your smoke alarm?

Not often enough! I try to do it a couple of times a year. The sound is so awful that I can’t bring myself to do it more often because my head rings for a while after and might trigger a migraine attack.

4. How is your weekend looking?

Just my normal at home. Quiet. Planning on watching season 2 of Soap which is a comedy tv series I adore. I got my 5th COVID-19 vaccine shot on Friday; this was the bivalent vaccine which is by a different company than the previous four I’ve been given, so there might be more or different side effects than before. Writing this on Saturday… so far only a sore jab spot and some headache that may be vaccine related or just my normal chronic migraine related. ButI’m planning on taking it easy just in case for the weekend.

5. What could really stand to be replaced in your home right now?

The couch and the fridge.