Category: Personal

Friday 5 for January 20: Now I lay me down
Posted on
Jan 22, 2023

Friday 5 for January 20: Now I lay me down

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

1. What keeps you up at night?

Sometimes it’s pain, sometimes restless legs and sometimes it’s Crohn’s Disease symptoms but mostly I have no idea! I just can’t fall into sleep, or can’t stay asleep and keep waking up every hour or two from light, poor sleep. Insomnia sucks.

2. How well do you operate on insufficient sleep?

Not very well. It feels like everything is difficult because I’m exhausted already when I wake up. Even every little thing takes a lot out of me. Luckily (I guess – I don’t know how I could work even part-time) I don’t work so I can do things at my own space and I make do.

3. Under what conditions do you get your best sleep?

These days it’s either when I’ve over worked myself during the day, or when I’ve been awake for 32+ hours in one run. Then I get the kind of normal, good sleep I used to have before all these illnesses.

4. What unusual places have you slept in?

Hospital, a tent while camping in a camping area, and in a train sleeping car when I was a little kid and we went to a holiday in Moscow back in early 1980s. Sleeping in the sleep car was exciting! So not unusual places at all.

5. What’s a good song about dreams or dreaming?

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This by Eurythmics and Enter Sandman by Metallica are the ones that come to mind…. donno how good they are about specifically dreaming, but I do like both songs a lot!

Jo’s Daily Questions – January 17-31, 2023
Posted on
Jan 19, 2023

Jo’s Daily Questions – January 17-31, 2023

Jo over at Dreamwidth put together a list of daily questions for 2023 again  🙂 Here’s my answers to January 17-31 questions.

17 – Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day: Do you make New Year’s resolutions? If so, how successful are you at keeping them?

I never have, not really. When I was younger, I sort of half-heartedly did but I wasn’t serious about it and didn’t even try to keep them. I don’t remember what the resolutions were.

18 – Thesaurus Day: Do you own a thesaurus? How often do you consult a thesaurus to find just the right word?

I do own ones both in Finnish and English, but I use the Internet for that now and have for more than a decade. About weekly.

19 – Popcorn Day: Do you like popcorn? What is your favourite topping for popcorn? Or do you prefer it plain?

Sure, I like it salty and nothing else. Traditionally popcorn is always salty here in Finland and that’s it. When my best friend and I were in London back in 1998, we went to the theatre and bought a big popcorn thingy to share. To my horror, the popcorn was sugared! It was absolutely horrible – it’s supposed to be salty! I couldn’t eat any after that first one, so my friend who isn’t as picky as I am, ate them all by herself but she didn’t love them either. It didn’t even occur to us popcorn could be something else than salty! Cultural differences, I guess. Continue reading Jo’s Daily Questions – January 17-31, 2023

The Friday Five for 13 January 2023 – Food and Time Edition
Posted on
Jan 13, 2023

The Friday Five for 13 January 2023 – Food and Time Edition

Answers to today’s questions at thefridayfive @ DW.

1. What’s a food you liked when you were younger but don’t anymore?

I can’t think of one… I think I still like them all! I might not LOVE them anymore, but still like them just fine.

2. What’s a food you used to not like but now you do?

Oh so, so many! I’m still a picky eater, but I’m not as bad as I used to be and can now eat many things I couldn’t before. Blue cheese is the most prominant change – I LOVE it now, and eat it regularly. It’s one of my favorite foods now! Another is cucumber – when I was a kid, I didn’t see the point of it: it was tasteless and wet – I might have just drank water in my opinion. Now I like it exactly for those reasons!

3. What’s a food you enjoy eating both warm and cold?

I can’t think of a food… I usually either like them only hot, or only cold. But drinks: hot chocolate (made with real chocolate and milk) and chocolate milk (made with cocoa powder and milk) I like both ways.

4. Are there any foods you can’t get anymore? Why not?

There was this After Eight ice cream sold here in late 90s/early 00s. But it stopped being sold here soon after I discovered it. I’m still terribly sad about it – it is my favorite ice cream ever!

5. What’s your favorite “breakfast for dinner” (or “dinner for breakfast”) food?

Special breakfast for dinner Ohukaiset (thin pancakes resempling crepes) hot with frozen but somewhat thawed (so you can crush them) strawberries, or with home made apple jam, or with just sugar. Special breakfast because we’d usually have them as lunch/dinner but occasionally also for a late winter morning breakfast. Ohukaiset aren’t a normal food for me, but a special treat.

Proud Of Myself!
Posted on
Jan 12, 2023

Proud Of Myself!

I’ve accomplished three extra things this week and I’m so proud of myself! As a spoonie it’s hard.

– On Monday I sent a message to my doctor through a health portal because just before Christmas I had learned that my Type 2 Diabetes medication will be discontinued this year (there are already difficulties getting it becaus of that). I waited this long to contact my doctor because the country wide national Reform of healthcare, social welfare and rescue services came into effect on January 1, 2023. Which slowed down non-emergency public health services after Christmas and official expressed wishes that things that could wait, would wait until after the New Year. I have enough of the old meds to last me about half-way through February so it wasn’t that an urgent matter and I’d figured I’d wait until they got the messaging feature to work on the new health portal. My doctor messaged me back today with details of a new medication to try so this thing is under control and I have a plan how to proceed!

– On Tuesday I defrosted my freezer 😀 I’d been pushing it off months but that morning at 7am, soon after I got up, I abruptly all of a sudden got the feeling saying “This is the day!! Today I will defrost my freezer.” Took about about 6 hours until it was all clean and dry and could be set to refreeze. It nearly killed me (well, it felt like it!) and I was dead on my feet the rest of the day. I was so exhausted that I went to bed at 7.30PM to read a bit and then turned off the lights at 8.00PM sharp and fell asleep literally at once. And I slept so well! I slept deeply for 6 hours straight without waking up once (99% of time I wake every two hours or so and the sleep quality isn’t great). A good night of sleep makes such a difference! I felt so much better yesterday than I normally do, just because of that abnormally good sleep.

Also, I remembered again why I hate defrosting my freezer: the drain which extends and is supposed to guide the water from the melted ice away into a wash basin or another container is 2cm too short to reach over the freezer’s bottom edge to accomplish its purpose and a lot of the water ends up on the floor instead of any containers no matter how I try to position them there *head-desk* Nice try engineers/designers but zero points! So defrosting involves a lot of towels and wring them them dry in addition to switching out the hot water containers and emptying out the melted water containers. Defrosting is a simple process but a lot of stupid work only because the damn drain is 2cm too short.

– Today (Thursday) I picked up a package from the post office, did some grocery shopping and then when I got home I got a feeling again: “Today is the day I’m baking herkkupulla – I guess a type of sweet rolls which I got the recipe from my Mom in December. It’s a tiny dough, 2dl milk and only about 5 dl flour; makes about 14 rolls so it’s perfect for me – I can’t do those 5dl doughs anymore. She had made them for her birthday and they’re so delicous! I’ve been meaning to make them for 3 weeks and today was the day finally. Just got them off the oven – hope they’re as tasty as Mom’s!

All this is abnormally much for one week – I’m usually too exhausted to do this much extra stuff on top of my normal stuff. But it’s nice to feel up to doing more – it’s so rare! Now I completely expect to have to rest for several days at least until after the weekend. I don’t have any extra stuff to do for the next week – if I did, I wouldn’t have done so much to avoid paying for it the days after.

I’m SO majorly happy and relieved about the defrosted freezer though! It’s been on my conscious for months! Now I don’t have to worry about it for a long while 😀

Friday 5 for January 6: In with the old
Posted on
Jan 7, 2023

Friday 5 for January 6: In with the old

Answers to today’s questions over at f.riday.com 🙂 

1. How did you celebrate your most recent birthday?

By having my Mom and her SO over for a visit on that day. And then I baked a chocolate cake later that week even if it was techinically after my birthday, because I was feeling good enough to do it then. I considered it my birthday present for myself.

2. What was the subject of a list you recently composed?

Uh, I can’t remember… most likely a grocery shopping list, or a shopping list for the pharmacy. Or a list of things I want to mention or talk about with my best friend and/or Mom the next time we talk on the phone. I can’t remember which of these is the most recent because I do them all the time because my memory isn’t what it used to be!

3. What did you most recently use vinegar in?

I’ve never used vinegar in anything. I did ask my Mom to give me about 4 table spoons from her bottle a few years ago, because I wanted to bake a chocoloty… something (can’t remember what! Other than it was chocolate). But I never did because by the time I saw my Mom, I was feeling worse again and didn’t feel like trying any new baking. I asked Mom because it’s sold in 0,5 litre or 1 litre bottles only and I’ve never needed it before in 20 years so no point in buying a big bottle when I’d only need like 2 table spoons of the stuff at once.

4. What can sometimes get you out of a bad mood?

My favorite music. Or a favorite comedy such The Golden Girls, The Fawlty Towers or ‘Allo ‘Allo!

5. How do you feel about shrimp?

As long as its far away from me in the sea, it’s all cool.

As a potential food, it’s suspect and I won’t put it in my mouth.