Ramblings of a SAHWNK

When I moved to Finland to be with The Finn, I gave up a lot in Louisiana. I quit my job, sold my car, cleaned out my bank account and left the only world I’d ever known to fly across the Atlantic to be with him.

Granted, my world in Louisiana was not peaches and cream. I had been working three jobs just to make ends meet. The place I was living in was a shack and when my mother decided to go on one of her crazy sprees and tear the place apart, I found myself homeless and living out of my car for about a month. But I managed. My self and my two cats, we managed.

I suppose to some it seems obvious why I moved to Finland, why I gave all that up. But things are seldom as simple as they seem. Sure, I was right miserable in Louisiana during that time and things were not easy, but I was independent. I didn’t have to rely on anyone. So for me to give all that up and put my trust and faith in The Finn and move to his country, well, it was a huge thing and was not an easy decision to make.

In Finland, I became a SAHWNK. Stay At Home Wife with No Kids. And I never heard the end of it. American family and friends constantly asked me, “What do you do there? Why don’t you get a job?” Nevermind I was working myself into an early grave in Louisiana—in their eyes I was doing something. What is so wrong about being a SAHWNK? I didn’t miss work in Finland. Work was the last thing on my mind. What I really missed was having a car and being able to meet up with my good friend Goober once or twice a month to have some coffee, go out to dinner and see a movie. But work? Hell no. The Finn didn’t insist I work so I didn’t. I kept house instead.

Of course, now that I am in the divorce process with The Finn, he feels it necessary to spit in my face about being a SAHWNK. Suddenly, I have no more worth. Suddenly, because I didn’t kill myself in Finland like I was killing myself in Louisiana so we could have 150€ extra each month, I’m worthless.

I haven’t met many other SAHWNKs, but those that I have met I don’t think, “Why don’t they get a job? What do they do with themselves all day?” No, that isn’t what goes through my mind. I wonder, “Are they happy? I hope they’re happy.”

I didn’t mind playing house-wife. Honest, I didn’t. I love cooking and while washing dishes isn’t my forte, I can vacuum and scrub toilets like no one else. These things didn’t bother me. But what did bother me was the lack of respect I, as a SAHWNK, received.

I read this and I don’t know where I’m trying to go with this. My emotions feel a bit conflicted. In today’s workaholic society, the SAHW loses respect when pitted against women who put their jobs first and work all the time. At least, this is how it is in my family. My aunt, who went back to work just two weeks after giving birth to my cousin and even today NEVER takes off of work to attend any school function involving my cousin, has more family respect than I do as a SAHWNK. Oh, “B. works. She makes her own money.” Yes, indeed. She also has a daughter that feels unloved and looked over. But that’s diverging from SAHW to SAHM, which is another topic in itself.

Maybe after I move I should get knocked up by some dashing Nordic man and be a SAHM. I guess the fact I have cats who are like toddlers isn’t enough to qualify me as a SAHM, is it? No, I must be content with being a SAHWNK.

And this post was just one long babble. But I’ll end it with this thought: why should a person have to be miserable in order to garnish respect from their peers? Why isn’t the pursuit of happiness something to be respected, regardless of whether or not you work?

The Power of Words

I receive a word of the day every day. Most of the time, the words that are selected enhance my vocabulary but they are not words that I connect with or find utterly beautiful. I am a geek. I love words. They hold so much power. They can portray grace, kindness, forgiveness, they can build or destroy, they are the tools to which pictures are painted in the mind. But most importantly, words inspire thought and breathe life into your imagination.

Yesterday’s word of the day was aubade. It was the first beautiful word I’ve encountered in a long time. Aubade. It rolls off the tongue so gently.

aubade \oh-BAHD\, noun:
A song or poem greeting the dawn; also, a composition suggestive of morning.
Aubade comes from the French, from aube, dawn + the noun suffix -ade: aube ultimately derives from Latin albus, white, pale, as in "alba lux," the "pale light" of dawn.

To greet the dawn.

I feel like my life is in a period of night, a period of darkness. I can’t see anything and I’m unsure of where I’m going. To see this word made me thing of the inevitable day when I would have a period of dawn again—a period of spring. Because nothing stays the same forever. Things change, people, the world, nature … Everything changes.

One day, sooner or later, I will be composing my own aubade to welcome the dawn, a new springtime in my life.

One day.

I Don't Need Yo’ Thought Control

I’ve long known I’m a magnet for the perverted and the weird. I accept this and take it all in stride. Really, it takes a lot these days to get me worked up. Coping a feel of my boob in a crowded French metro just won’t work. Yes, it’s happened. I guess when you got jugs like these those old French men just can’t help but try and get a feel (Hey, monsieur, these nénés are not for the touching)! I’ve also been mooned while driving down the interstate in Louisiana and been flashed numerous times. Really, I don’t get phased anymore—especially after I moved to Finland and it was nothing to see men with nothing but a towel wrapped around their behind drinking a beer outside their apartment building in the middle of the day. I don’t get mad if someone speeds past me, flipping me off and cursing at me because I drive like a maw-maw without her glasses on. I don’t even get mad anymore when I’m served bad food. I simply sigh and say, “C’est la vie.” But my gripe isn't with being groped or being served bad food, it's about something else entirely ...

It's about thought control and religion. Someone trying to throw their religion in my face. I don’t get upset about politics that much anymore—I guess it’s because I moved out of the US and now I hardly ever watch TV. But someone trying to convert me to their religion, their way-of-thinking just irks me.

So, what brought this on?

Well, I know someone who got into Scientology. He’s been into it for a number of years and I never really cared about it. I don’t agree with it, but hey! It’s none of my business what he chooses to do with his spare time. I suppose recently he’s decided, “Hey! Rowan’s divorcing and she’s full of mistakes. Scientology can help her!” Maybe his intentions were good, but enough! Quit trying to throw your beliefs in my face and convert me!

I’m going to quit writing about this now before I get into a real tizzy and have a conniption. I’ve been thinking about L’s post on weight gain and marriage for over a day now. I keep wanting to write about it, but am not so certain what words to use or where my thoughts really lie. Enh, maybe tomorrow I’ll spit something out.

Then again, maybe I’ll write more about boobies. I don’t mind talking about bathrooms and boobies! Granny, three photos of a faucet is about right. You need one of every angle, of course!

My Little Helper

Today I broke down and said, “Self, you are really going to try hard to get some packing done today.” And my Self replied, “Oh yeah? Who’s going to make me? Monk is on TV, it’s snowing outside and I feel lazy.”

So, for the whole morning, Self and I fought about our laziness as we watched Monk and large snowflakes plummeted down outside. Then I decided it’s the least we could do if I started packing some books. So, off we go, gathering my books and magazines and putting them into boxes.

It was at this time that Galina awoke from her nap and realised I was getting out BOXES. This is a cat’s dream come true. Loads of boxes everywhere, all for her. And I suppose she had a good nap, because she decided she would help me pack by making sure everything was packed down as flat as possible. After a box was filled, she would go to it and squish everything down as far as it would go—all 5 pounds of her.

Now see, where would I be without such splendid kitty assistance? Why, I simply just couldn’t live without it (so my cats tell me)! I still haven’t gotten much packing done. I think deep down I like cutting things to the wire. I like that surge of adrenaline one gets when they are rushed, a deadline is near and you must GO-GO-GO! I also hate boxing up my life. It is absolutely amazing how much stuff I have at my grandmother’s that I haven’t managed to ship to Finland yet. It’s all packed away in my room, waiting. And it’s been waiting for over two years now. I leave so much stuff behind every time I move (except for when I moved from the apartment in Espoo to the house in Riihimäki—I hated that place in Espoo).

You know, Freud (or someone like him) once said that when people leave stuff behind at a location, it means subconsciously that they want to return. I am inclined to believe this is true.

I loved having a home of my own, a yard to garden in, a kitchen to cook in. I loved home ownership. When we bought this house, I was raring to go, tear down, remodel and build! The Finn, on the other hand, wasn’t. He was never nearly as enthusiastic about home ownership as I was, and that is why hardly anything got done around here. I couldn’t do everything by myself and he never wanted to do anything. I remember it taking me a MONTH before I could convince him to put up some shelves for me. It’s not that it was hard work for him or that he was incapable—he simply didn’t want to do it. I guess this baffled me, since I come from a family of hardworking do-it-yourself’ers. My grandmother and grandfather spent two years building their house on their own, I have an uncle who is excellent at wood crafting, another who is excellent at welding, one who is a plumber … The list goes on! So when The Finn didn’t want to do anything with our house, I was baffled and felt … dejected. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it: dejected.

Ironically enough, The Swede went to carpentry school. I always liked a man who could build … Hehe!

Liver Hauntings

I had my first liver encounter when I was around 5 or 6 years of age. I ate it ONCE and I remember that moment as if it happened 30 minutes ago. My great-grandmother told me to come taste some chicken she just fried up in the skillet (because I love chicken). I tasted it and immediately ran to the trash bin to spit it out. I told her, “Granny, that's bad chicken! It will make you sick if you eat it.” It was calf's liver. Tricksy woman! Since that day, I swore I’d never eat anything but chicken breast because it’s kind of hard to pass liver off as a white, juicy chicken breast.

Fast forward many, many years later. I’m in Finland and I’m always getting served stuff I don’t know what in the world it could possibly be. Most of the time ignorance is bliss, so I don’t ask, I just eat and hope my iron stomach holds strong. One day I was served a dish they called “maksalaatikko”. This was when I first came to Finland and my Finnish skills were very poor, so I hadn't a clue as to what I was eating and couldn’t figure it out from the title. I just knew it had brown sugar, rice and raisins in it. Fast forward one year later and I'm still eating the stuff because it tastes decent—much better than most Finnish fare. I decided one day to look up what this “maksalaatikko” is in the dictionary and it says ... Liver Casserole. The liver hath returneth.

I guess it took grinding the liver up, coating it with rice, brown sugar and raisins for me to eat it, but I’m eating it. I bet my Granny is smiling down on me every time I have a plate of the stuff. I bet she arranged that herself. Tricksy woman.

Springtime Shuffle

It’s that time of year again. Time to do what I call the “Springtime Shuffle.” When the weather warms just enough for the snow to melt, it turns into slush and then freezes into solid ice on the sidewalk. Seeing as how I’m a Southern Belle, I do not have the Finnish expertise on how to properly walk on solid ice. So, I shuffle. It probably looks like I’m trying to ice skate my way down the sidewalk. On my way to and from the grocery store, I keep myself entertained by singing a song in my head revolving around the Springtime Shuffle. I guess my silliness knows no bounds.

My good news for the week is that I will be having a “Finn-Free” weekend. The Finn told me he was spending the weekend at his mother’s. Yeah, okay. I only partially believe him, but in all honestly I don’t care where he goes. And my good news continues in that the week after next I will be moving. Mooooooo-ving. Doing the Springtime Shuffle and mooooooving.

I will certainly have to post pictures of my new apartment. Every time I look at the place, that Eiffel 65 song “Blue (Da Ba De)” plays in my head because it seems like the place is just totally decked out in blue. Kind of sucks, since I’m more of a red girl, but I’ll manage.

Yo, listen up, here's a story
About a little guy (girl? Heh) that lives in a blue world
And all day and all night and everything he sees
Is just blue like him, inside and outside
Blue his house with a blue little window
And a blue corvette
And everything is blue for him and hisself

Got it all except the blue corvette. If anyone wants to pay for the gas, I won’t mind having the blue corvette either!

On French Fries, Hush Puppies and Food Culture

I was reading Granny’s blog on French fry allotments for her grandkids and unhealthy foods, on having fast food as a treat or every day and decided I’d post some of my (albeit scattered) thoughts on it here.

I grew up in Louisiana, which is probably famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) for its food. Yeah, all that fried seafood and crawfish étoufée probably clogs arteries like nothing else, but it sure does make for a happy stomach! These are the sorts of things I ate growing up: hush puppies, fried shrimp, gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish étoufée, crab au gratin, candied yams, sweet potato pie, sweet potato casserole, pecan pie … Oh lord, the list just goes on and on. And not a whit of it would fall under “healthy”. But very rarely did we ever eat at a place like McDonald’s. Why bother when the food at home was so much tastier? So, to say the least, I was not a “Fast Food” kid. A ‘snack’ for me growing up was a slice of last night’s cornbread or an orange or some Louisiana strawberries. I really liked fruit and still do. I also ate a lot of salads to go with my fried fare.

I don’t have children (yet), but I don’t want any future child of mine to be a “Fast Food” kid. But for me, it’s not so much because McDonald’s and similar chains are unhealthy, but because I feel they destroy the food culture I come from. My cousin is a “Fast Food” kid and finds things like shrimp, crawfish and andouille “yucky”. It really makes me a bit sad, because these used to be staples in Louisiana food. For me, it’s about food culture. I don’t want my kids to shy away from things like okra, andouille, crawfish and the like because it’s not the sort of nosh they get at McDonald’s. Is that making any sense?

Some French fries every once in a while isn’t bad. Shoot, I like my fries from Wendy’s, even, along side a Mandarin Chicken Salad. And a chicken nugget or two every now and then surely isn’t going to kill me. But it kills my heart to see kids wanting ONLY these things and refusing to eat the really good, delicious home-cooked meals that to me will always taste LOADS better than anything a fast food chain could serve me.

All this talk of food culture got me to thinking of the time I was in Finnish language courses and how, when asked what my favourite Finnish food was by my teacher, I said I didn’t have one. She then asked me what my favourite food was and I said “louisianalaisen ruoka”: Louisianian Food. She immediately assumed that I missed McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and the like. Her view was that all Americans ever eat is French fries, hamburgers, pizza and hot dogs. Maybe that’s what you Yanks eat (haha—kidding!), but I know that’s not the usual fare in Louisiana! Our food culture is much deeper and richer than that! Sadly, though, it seems too many kids are growing up to where their food culture does only consist of French fries, hamburgers, pizza and hot dogs. I think it’s something America really needs to remedy.

As it goes, I’ll take my hush puppies over a fry any day, and I hope my future kids feel the same.

A Recipe in Progress

I must confess: I love food. Really, I do. And while I am not a picky eater, I’m picky about certain ingredients, how things are cooked, appearance, etc. Okay … I guess that sounds like I am a picky eater after all. But, to save face, I will try just about anything at least once. Honest. I even ate mämmi my first Easter in Finland, which looks like something than came from the rear-end of a sick dog.

Anyway! I came across this recipe the other day and I am darned and determined to bake it. I have forgotten nearly all of my French since moving to Finland because of trying to learn Finnish, but I REALLY want to make these! I swear they are calling out my name. And the practice will do me good (both for my cooking skills and my French skills). I hope when I move I can resume cooking again. I don’t cook much these days because I don’t want The Finn to think I’m being nice to him by making great dishes that he can eat. He’s an unappreciative louse and I don’t cook for unappreciative lice.

I lament that when I move, I am going to have to work on buying new cooking utensils, pots, pans and all that other good stuff. Most of the stuff we have The Finn bought or it was given to him as a Christmas present from his family (okay, they said it was for “us”, but I know they meant all of it for him because that’s how they are). Of course, the bright side to all of this is that I can get what I, Rowan, WANT. Not what The Finn or his family wants. And believe me, we certainly have some differences of opinion! I am also going to cry when I have to leave my oven behind. Oh lord, I love this oven. I bought it with my own money, too. It’s a Rosenlew convection oven and she cooks like a dream. As long as you remember to reduce the temperature and cooking time, anything you put in her comes out beautifully. I can only imagine what crummy 70s or 80s-esque oven awaits me at the apartment I procured in Pori. Makes me shudder to even think about it. I know what I got when we bought this house, and that oven was a disgrace to oven-kind everywhere. I called her the Ol’ Shitty, and if she were a geyser she’d be Ol’ Faithful’s alter ego. It didn’t matter what you did, she was GOING to burn whatever you put into that black, gaping mouth of hers. I could just imagine her saying to me, “You just thought you could cook, missy! I’ll show you, Cajun-girl! I’ll make you wish you’d never bake another cake for as long as you live!”

But I showed her. One year after we moved in, a starved and very depressed Rowan finally got some money and went out and bought a snazzy Rosenlew. Ha! And it was love since first baking.

Anyway, I have every intention to resume my baking once I move. I do have a suitor to impress, you know!

Ah yes, and I know the kitchen looks kind of enh. Our little house was a work-in-progress “fixer-upper” and sadly the previous owners had no taste when it came to anything. So, of course, the kitchen looked mighty depressing (and dirty)! I’m kind of sad I never got to remodel it.

Supplemental Prelude

And here it is: a little more intimate glimpse into my world and the people (or critters) that my world revolves around.

Rowan
That’s me. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and lived some of my years there with my great-grandmother and my great-aunt in a house that was so close to the Audubon Zoo that you could hear the lions roaring in the morning. I don’t remember a whole lot about that house in New Orleans, except that I fell down a spiral staircase and broke my collar bone and that my great-aunt had a nickel slot machine that I thought was just the greatest thing ever. I would spend many hours sitting on the bar stool and playing on it. I guess one could say I started ‘gambling’ early in life, if they really wanted to. The rest of my childhood was lived out in a small town called Walker, Louisiana, which is near Baton Rouge.

“Rowanilainen” would be somewhat hard to explain to someone who doesn’t know any Finnish, but here goes (but do keep in mind I am not a native speaker, and if any Finn would like to give their input, it’s welcomed). The suffix –lainen/läinen in Finnish is given to describe an inhabitant of something/somewhere and adjectives. So “English” in Finnish is “englantilainen”. So, “Rowanilainen” would be “Rowan-ish” in English, or something along those lines. This blog contains all rights rowanilainen or Rowan-ish, etc.

The Finn
The Finn is my soon-to-be ex-husband. I won’t speak too poorly of him here, since even snakes need to keep some dignity about them and he is not here to defend himself, but I will say that after almost 5 years of being together—two of which we were married—things simply didn’t work out. That is life.

Seamus
Seamus is my Shetland Sheepdog. Who knows how much of a role he’ll play in my blog? He tends to stay behind the scenes. Seamus only has two nicknames and they are “Turd” and “Turdie-bird”.

Gerona and Galina
My two girls. I raised them from one-week-old kittens in Louisiana and they moved to Finland with me in 2004. Galina is my baby girl and loves me to bits and pieces, whereas Gerona couldn’t give a whit about me and adores The Finn instead.

Nicknames for them include:

Gerona

• Schmoo
• Moby Schmoo
• Don Schmoo
• Schmoolie

Galina

• Baby Tuff
• Tuffus
• Grump
• Grumpling
• Grumpus

Henry
My gentleman kitty. Henry was adopted from an animal shelter in Lahti, Finland in 2005.

His nicknames include:

• Henry-boy
• Henny-penny
• Monsieur Henri
• Hen

A Childhood Memory

I find it amazing how the most peculiar of things can spark in one childhood memories long forgotten...

Today for the first time in many years I recalled a time when I was young and my comrade in all things mischievous was Ashley B. Ashley was shorter than me (though I was never really tall) and she carried about her a fiery-aura that made you want to laugh and dance with her.

My summers were spent at her house making mud pies and chasing frogs in the ditches. On days that were hot and dry, we would catch green anole lizards sunning themselves and attach them to the ears of her sleeping father, a funny and slightly eccentric Vietnam veteran, so that he could have some “lizard earrings”. Of course, then we would run and hide and wait for him to wake up and yell, “AHSLEEEEEEY!” Then, like typical little girls, we zipped past him giggling our heads off. He never admitted it, but I think he thought it was as funny as we did since he never scolded us for it (and he was the one who taught us the trick in the first place).

And then there was also our secret place, our land of all things mystical and sacred: Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek was really just a large ditch built in the very late 1800s to help prevent flooding on the main roads and over the years had become more like a large stream, the water cutting deep into the earth. We named it “Wolf Creek” ourselves, since sometimes you could find large paw prints there that we swore to ourselves were prints of Red Wolves, which once roamed Louisiana freely. It was our special place, and many hot summer days were spent there.

Sometimes, when the rains poured (as they often tend to do in Louisiana), we would dress in the finest of bathing suits and spend hours blowing up the old raft we found in her grandfather’s shed. Then, grabbing two oars, we would amble barefooted down the hill to the flooded creek, giggling, snickering, and splashing water on one another, loving life for what is was and not for what it could be. Once at the creek, I would always hold the raft—the water trying valiantly to snatch the raft away—and Ashley would climb in, taking the oars from the bank. Then, seeing her nod, I would leap into the raft, the water plunging us violently forward.

Many times our small raft would turn over or get caught on some old oak tree’s exposed root and we would find ourselves swimming back to the bank in water that was usually over our small heads. Perhaps it was the excitement and sense of danger that always made us come back when the rains fell once more.

There were other times we rushed to the creek, handmade fishing poles in one hand and a box of wriggling worms in another, our hopes set on catching a fish or two. We never did—the fish always got away.

Some days were spent catching mussels and putting them in Ashley’s rusty, old red wagon, pulling them around her front yard in a boastful manner, showing our pride in having caught them.

The trees at Wolf Creek always seemed greener than other trees, and the sunlight filtered through them in the most magical of ways. To this day, I still remain convinced that fairies reside there, hiding behind some wise old oak tree’s leaves, smiling.

I have not been to that sacred place in over a decade now, but today I was reminded once more of the cold water rushing around my toes, the pristine innocence of childhood, and the imagination of two little girls—now grown—who could find adventures anywhere they looked.

I bet the light still glimmers there, waiting for some other star-lost children to bathe in the magic therein...

Needy, Needy

Galina has been very needy and clingy lately—even more than usual. I think it could be because she senses some sort of change coming—finally. I believe Henry has been aware of it for some time because he’s started using the bathroom in the kitchen again, which is NOT fun on my behalf because The Finn does not help in cleaning any of it up. Henry does this every time he gets stressed or when it’s The Finn’s turn to change the litter box and he puts it off for a week and a half before I either have to threaten to do him bodily harm or change it myself. The litter box is not bad yet, so I’m chalking this up to stress. I hope it doesn’t continue when we move to the new apartment. But, if it does, there isn’t much I can do except get out the vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice and water. I adopted Henry to give him a “forever home” with me for the rest of his life, so I’m stuck with him (or he’s stuck with me, however you want to look at it) and that’s that—poo in the kitchen or no poo in the kitchen.

I really should make a post with a “cast of characters”, if you will. It would probably help. And throw in some background information, too. But lately I’ve been feeling … vague. Not because I am super uptight, rather because I fear that if I spill out too much, the things I’m hoping and dreaming for won’t come true. Yes, I’m being a bit suspicious. I had so many hopes and dreams with The Finn and look where that landed me. I’m not sad about it, but I’m at a point where I am cautious to hope and dream for too much because I don’t want to get hurt like this again.

Then again, who knows? Come next month, I could be my old self again. Somewhat on my own and hoping and dreaming like there’s no tomorrow.

We’ll just have to see.

Previous Quotes of the Moment

Because I like collecting quotes and because maybe one day someone will stumble across this niche in the web who is bored enough to want to read various quotes, I am saving all previous “Quote of the Moment” quotes here.

Enjoy.

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”
—Max DePree

“Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”
—Og Mandino

“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
—Henry David Thoreau

“At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”
—PG Wodehouse

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that god's got a sick sense of humour and when I die, I expect to find him laughing.”
—Depeche Mode

I Thought They Were Mine

... but apparently I was wrong. My boobs must belong to Galina, because she’s mighty possessive of them.

When she’s in the mood for what I call “Tuff Time” (based off one of her many nicknames, Baby Tuff), her favourite thing to do is come crawl in my lap and wrap her paws around one boob—one paw on each side—and cling to me like a monkey. The best time do to this, of course, is when I am busy doing something on the computer that, in her opinion, I probably should not be doing. And the second best time to do this was when, back in the days of Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, The Finn and I would be cuddling on the couch. Since that doesn’t happen anymore, she settles for when I’m on the computer.

Galina never liked The Finn. She tolerated him, to some extent, but never liked him. And when she decided it was “Tuff Time”, my boobs became her property and she would growl and bite at him as she clung to my boob to get him to go away.

A friend of mine did not believe that a little kitten such as Galina would lower her cat-like ways and cling like a monkey, so, to show my friend otherwise, I tried to take a picture of it. This was easier said than done because Galina hates cameras and promptly either runs away when she sees me get it out or flattens her ears and tries to bite at the lens. She’s such a feisty kitty!

Still, I got something of an example.

Oh no! Camera sighted ...

Now she tries hiding under my boob.

And now she resorts to trying to catch my camera strap and pull the lens in closer to get a good bite out of it!

I pity the romantic interest that comes into my life next—mostly because Galina is probably more “high-maintenance” than I will ever be, and to be with me, one must be with my cats as well! I will insist they love her, too—grumpiness and all. And stars have mercy on that said romantic interest, and I hope he’s not too much a “boob man”, because Galina does not know the meaning of the word ‘share’ and she has claws and sharp little teeth which I think would bring down even the biggest of Nordic men!

Such is life with my baby girl.

How Do You Box Up a Life?

I wish I knew. I know I should start packing. I’m moving to Pori probably this month. Moving.

I am starting to hate that word. I have moved more in the past three years than what I would have liked. I’m tired of moving.

Granted, I do have a measure of wanderlust in me, a desire and need to go and see and do. But I like having a place to come back to. I like having a stable home and roots. I enjoy feeling grounded.

And I think that’s why I don’t want to pack. This house was my home. My home. It was the first place that was ever truly mine. Granted, I only lived in it for about a year before The Finn decided he wanted to divorce, but still. This was my home.

How do you box up a life? I haven’t mastered this art yet--I wonder if I ever will? Actually, secretly, I’m hoping I won’t have to. I keep hoping that sooner rather than later, I’ll get a home that’s mine and that I can live in and grow old in. Such a domestic wish, indeed.

Soon ...

Soon, this will be fleshed out and have life breathed into it. I will be moving again, be trying to live and love and be happy again. It feels so long since I’ve had a really good reason to smile. I suppose it doesn’t help that I am an eternal pessimist.

I’ve always wanted to just drop everything in my life and start over new, but every time I get the chance, I find myself clinging on ferociously to the past. I cannot let go of some things. Some things I never forget--I won’t allow myself to forget. I won’t allow myself to let go, drop my baggage and move on.

Of course, this tendency is not as bad as it once was. Over the past two years, I’ve learned to forgive to some extent, to let go of some worries. I’ve learned I can be patient when I want to be--if I really try. But I’ve also learned how to harden my heart. I just find I cannot feel the same way for people as I once did, I cannot love as freely and innocently. I’m not naïve anymore, and it hurts. Ignorance, to some extent, truly is bliss. With knowledge comes a certain kind of pain.

The world is not the star-laden, glittering dream world I made it up to be when I was a child. Some days this doesn’t bother me, but there are other days when I would do anything to get that fantasy world of mine back. Just for a day.

Spring is on her way. Soon, I’ll be forging a new path again. There are so many things I want to do differently this time. I’ll take my mistakes and learn from them. I’ll learn from them ...

Soon.