the pros of living alone

A.K.A SANNA ON STAGE

Okay, let's make one thing clear first: I've been living on my own for almost a decade now, but I've only lived alone for a month now - before I always lived with flat mates. After this first month (I'm obviously still on a honeymoon with this whole thing!) all I can say is, I LOVE LIVING ALONE!

The last time I was reminded about the pros of living alone, was merely a few hours ago. Fine, I had decided that on Monday (today) I will clean up propelly - do all the dishes (they we're kiii-iiind of piling up), wash the floors and the whole set, you know. The only problem with this awesome plan was that around 6 PM I realized I still hadn't done anything to start cleaning up, and the worst of all - I had absolutely zero interested in doing so. All I wanted to do was to knit & watch The Big Bang Theory!

Well, if there's something I learnt last year, it was this: you must keep the promises you make to yourself. Sure, it's important to keep the promises you make to others as well, but the most important thing is not to let yourself down, never! Because: if you can't trust your own word, how could you ever be confident and in good terms with yourself? You wouldn't like a person who keeps on breaking his/her promises - not even if that person was you, right? ...and this philosophy applies even to the smallest promises, like the one I made to myself last night, that I would clean up on Monday. [ohh, this is turning into one of my philosophy lessons, it wasn't my meaning!] So, I had zero interest in cleaning up, but I was entitled to keep my promise. Here's what I did: (And here comes the it's-so-great-to-live-alone part)

 I put on my finest dress, my favorite high heels, I did my hair, I put make-up on, I put on some Lady Gaga and P!nk on my mp3 player and... had a CLEAN UP PARTY! It was seriously Sanna on Stage, big time! xD Before I knew I was singing my lungs out, literally dancing with the mop and using a soap bottle as a microphone - I got the cleaning up done in record time AND honestly had a great time, too! ;-) So, all you need to have a good time cleaning up, is the right attidute and imagination - I'm not lacking any of those, obviously.

Here's a few more things I've learnt to love while living alone -- of course here someone would say you could do any of these things even if you weren't living alone, but let's face it, I personally wouldn't have guts to do these things if I was living, let's say, with flat mates. But being all on my own... there's nothing to stop me!

• You can go to bed 5AM and sleep till 4PM - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• You can postpone doing dishes as long as you want - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• You can smoke out of kitchen window while having morning coffee - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• If you don't feel like taking rubbish out, you can just leave the bag at the backyard until you feel like actually taking it away - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• You don't have to cook for a week if you don't feel like, just live on ice cream and sandwiches as long as you like - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• You can watch TV with as much volume as you like as late as you like - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• You can stay in your pajamas all day long if you feel like (or clean up in high heels!) or stay inside three days in a row if you don't feel like going out - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• You can make pancakes at 3AM if you get hungry - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• You never need to tiptoe, no matter what time of the day or night it is! 
• You can take a shover whenever you like, even at 2AM - and no one gives a rat's ass!
• You can sing and dance all you like and no one will ever laugh at you and your stupid moves!

...and so on. Long list short: when you live alone, you can practically do whatever you want, and there will never be anyone criticizing you. What a wonderful freedom it is!<3 I understand living alone isn't for everyone, but still I'd hope everyone would get at least a short chance to try it. It IS liberating, after all. Maybe not for a lifetime, but for some time, at least.

And now... since I managed to keep my promise and cleaned up, now it's time to enjoy the night. I made a smoothie out of blueberries I picked up myself, I'm going to continue knitting a sock (I love the yarn!) and watch a few more episodes of The Big Bang Theory... va bene, sounds like a plan, right?

yours truly-

Love ~ you can't find it; it has to find you

My best friend Silje and her boyfriend just announced their engagement, and I'm so happy for them!

...so, I want to take this chance to officially congratulate them and wish them all the best ❤

I'm simply ridiculously happy for them, they're such a cute couple! :-)

Jari & Silje

♡♡♡♡

We're all a little weird. 

And life is a little weird. 

And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours,

we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness

- and call it love - true love. 

~Robert Fulghum

 ♡♡♡♡

my USA roadtrip

Authors Notes: 

1. in the end I created a backup blog for myself, so this official blog of mine won't be completely taken over by my american dreams. Don't bother following the backup blog, if/when I use it, it will all go through this blog anyway (I'm planning to use it with my upcoming travels as well). Nonetheless, you're more than welcome to leave comments to the backup blog as well ;-)
2. Since the backup blog is brand new, please let me know if something there isn't working right so I can fix it!
3. Photos are mostly taken by yours truly or Caroline (thank you so much for borrowing your memory card!)
4.  I hope you enjoy reading my ramblings as much as I enjoyed writing them - in the end this whole USA Blog operation took around 16 hours of my not-so-precious time... and right now I'm too tired to read it all through - forgive me all the spelling mistakes and other weird stuff - I'll fix it all later!
5. Everything written in italics is uncencored and straight from my travel journal. 

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First I would like to introduce you my lovely group:

from left: blond Louise, Fiona, Becca, Caroline, me, dark Louise. The tall guy is Flo, and the one kneeling is our leader Art.

Louises were danish, Fiona & Becca british, Caroline from Switzerland, and Flo from Germany. There was also an Austrilian guy, Will, but unfortunately he had to leave us in Santa Fe )-: I started my USA adventure in Boston, and you can read about it HERE. Then I took a bus to New York City, and from NYC a train to New Jersey, where our trek officially begun. Click the links, my ramblings will pop up in new windows.

this is my ADVENTURE IN AMERICA!


Washington D.C.


Wytheville, Virginia


Nashville, Tennessee


Memphis, Tennessee


New Orleans, Louisiana


Houston, San Antonio, Austin - Texas


Roswell & Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico


Santa Fe, New Mexico


Monument Valley, Utah/Arizona


Grand Canyon, Arizona


Las Vegas, Nevada - Part 1


Las Vegas, Nevada - Part 2


San Diego, California - Part 1


San Diego, California - Part 2


Los Angeles, California


Reyakjavik, Iceland

YES, it was the best trip I've had so far, and my heart is still aching to get back to America. Oh, one more cliché - I feel I'm not the same I was before I went to America for the first time! I... I really loved it. USA is amazing, and I cannot wait to get back.


yours truly-

xxo

it's a wonderful life ❤

Whee, I had such a great day! :-)

I knew this was going to be a great day as soon as I woke up and saw sun was shining ☼ I've missed the sun so much... I guess Helen was right when she suggested I'm suffering from the lack of sun light. Anyway, as soon as I saw the sun was shining, I knew it was a good day and I was entitled to have fun.

Not even a glance at the termometer slowed me down. Well... -32•C xD That's the crazy thing about winter. If the sun is shining, it means it's insanely cold! Doesn't really make sense, does it? I decided it's only a matter of clothing, and wore the warmest clothes I own:

...I felt like a Michelin Man but I was right - I wasn't even cold when I got out there! :-) L0L and note - I wasn't wearing my glasses (if you don't have glasses, you will never understand how absolutely annoying it is when your glasses fog/freeze up). The thing is that I have so-called refractive error in my eyes, which in plain English means I can actually see pretty clearly but I'm a little cross-eyed, and I wear glasses to fix it. So, I can survive without glasses, but it makes me feel like I've had a few beers and after four or five hours I get a headache (actually I'm starting to feel that headache now, ugh). LMAO it was actually pretty hilarious - I stumbled in stairs, felt like it wasn't so easy to walk straight and even bumped into one door in downtown! xD Oh well... it was worth of it.

First I had a massage, like I do almost every Monday. I started having massages last winter when my back was in such a bad condition it made me dizzy and caused me terrible headaches. Nowadays my back is just fine, and I mainly go to massage therapy just because it feels sooooo good (and because my massagist pretty much doubles as my psychologist too, HA). It was lovely as always.

I didn't feel like going home straight from the massage, so stayed in downtown for a while. I realized Valentine's Day is on the way, so I had some shopping to do. I think Valentine's Day is like Christmas - people hate it or love it. I hate Christmas but love Valentine's Day. In Finland we call Valentine's Day "ystävänpäivä" which translates into Friends' Day. So, for me (or us) it's not so much about lovers, but all about friends. I love my friends, and I love having this special day to celebrate my friendships. This year Abby will come to Joensuu to celebrate Valentine's Day with me, and I have some awesome plans (but not telling any of that here - Abby is reading my blog anyway and I want to surprise her) ^^ Cannot wait. I'm also going to write some letters and send cards to my long-distance friends... yes, like I said, I love Valentine's Day.

Aaaaand in the end I made my typical mistake: visited TopTen. It's a known fact I cannot visit TopTen without buying something... but for once I actually needed something. I love my Nikon D3100, but the thing is it's quite big and heavy to carry around and sometimes a smaller camera would get handy (mainly thinking the US roadtrip here). And surprise surprise, TopTen had some January Sale thing going on, and I found a perfect little Nikon (in Nikon we trust, always)! And look look, it matches my mp3 player and laptop! :D

Awww<3 I'm such a girl sometimes, but at least my electronics aren't pink! ;-)

Well, of course I did not make it out of TopTen without buying some DVDs... I got Studio Ghibli's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Tales from Earthsea for 12€. I simply love Studio Ghibli movies, and I haven't seen these. I bet I'll have a movie night tonight :-)

Now I'm thinking... hot chocolate with marshmallows and chocolate chip cookies. Maybe a few episodes of Supernatural... and getting started with those Valentine's Day letters... Lovely. It seems I was right when I wrote I still have time to have a good time in January -- this day was so great it pretty much paid back those not-so-great earlier days of the month.

Have a nice week & see you around xxo

yours truly-

take it from someone who knows

You know those books where little children ponder life and answer philosophical questions in their own adorable way? Well, today at the library I found a similar kind of book, but done with elderly people, and I love it! :-) I mean... after you've lived 70 or 80 years, you must know something about something, right? The book is called Lev livet, der går inte i repris, which translates into something like "Live your life, you're going to die anyway". I just want to share some of my favorite quotes with you, and I hope you like them as much as I did :-) Have a nice week & see you! xxo
yours truly-

ps. translations are all by me, so sorry for any odd sentences and stuff.

¤¤¤

What is the best part of being old?
Age doesn't matter that much... I mean, unless you're a bottle of wine or a piece of expensive cheese.
Arvid, 79

What is the meaning of life?
All that talk about how everything in life should be safe and stable... in my opinion, people are just fooling themselves. Life simply isn't safe or stable, but in the worst case it can be boring. Life is an adventure or nothing. Take it from someone who knows.
Stig, 79

What has been the best moment of your life?
I've had such a wonderful life! But only after getting older I've realized how fantastic it really has been. I've lived in South America, I've been married, I've had lovers, I've gone out and danced at the finest restaurants till morning... I have children and grandchildren, and I have souveniers from all over the world. And the bad things have been good too. For example getting fired from a hotel turned out to be the best thing ever happened to me! I don't think I would have travelled so much if I wasn't fired.
Stina, 82
 
If you could live your life all over again from the beginning, what would you do differently?
The hardest thing to live with is a guilty conscience. If I could live my life all over again, that's something I'd like to change. I would always follow my intution, my gut. I wouldn't fool myself, I wouldn't pretend to be anything I'm not. I believe that's the secret of a happy life. 
Sture, 70


Do you have any regrets?
The only sin in life is to be average.
Nils, 75

I don't regret things I did, only things I didn't do.
Magdalena, 71

I regret things I didn't do. I think I regret being too scared to take any risks. Sometimes I think of that... how I was too afraid of failing to even try anything new. I regret I never really lived my life for myself. I only lived to please the others. That's something I really regret.
Anna-Stina, 66

If you could give one piece of advice to someone young, what would you tell him/her?
Never ponder whether you have succeeded or failed. Instead, make sure you really live your life. You'll have time for thinking after you're dead.
Harry, 68

The most important thing is to be excited about life, to be hungry for it. That's my piece of advice. Do only things you're really passionate about, something you really want to do. That way, everything will work out for you. And keep your feet warm!
Karin, 88

My only piece of advice would be this: don't try to please everyone! It will only make you miserable and stop you from doing what you'd really like to do. And before you know, you'll sit there, playing bridge with all the other old ladies.
Linnea, 75

I always tell my grandchildren they should really travel as much as possible and explore the world as long as they're young. There's so much to see in this world. So, if you have an opportunity, go and travel!
Britta, 73

What is the most important thing in life?
I think everyone dreams about love and adventures. Unfortunately, many people give up without even trying to reach their dreams. Too many people are prisoners of their own fears. Life will be over before we know it. If you have a car, drive! If you have money, use it! If you have loving people around you, love them! What the hell are all these people waiting for?
Greta, 70

❤