New Year

OMG I haven't written in here for such a long time! I don't even have any good excuses for that. Well, anyway, now I'm here.

Not so much has happened since May 2009. I passed my driving school and I've been driving now and then. It's not a passion for me, it's OK and it definitely helps Tarmo as he doesn't now need to drive all the time.

I also went back to taekwondo and will have a belt examination next week. Jump kicks are still something I really cannot do, but nowadays my knee doesn't hurt anymore. Now it's mainly inside my head. But I'm taking it easy, I'll give myself some time.

I also started a new martial arts, kobudo. It's a relative to karate but we use weapons. Mainly 180 cm long stick bo, sais (kind of daggers, those that turtles have) and tonfas (short sticks with handles). The training does really good for my upper body as taekwondo is mainly for lower body and it's not as physically hard as taekwondo, so it's just usually nice "warm up" ;)

I was also an international tutor last Fall. I had five students, one from Pakistan and four from Egypt. The Pakistan guy is in the Master programme and will be in Finland for two years and all the Egyptian guys (and a girl) were here for only one semester. Though I think one of them will stay for another semester too. Tutoring was fun but I really didn't have as much time for them as I thought I would. The time I started tutoring I hadn't yet started training and when I started doing that, I didn't have much free time for them anymore :( Also for some reason all my weekends were fully booked. I had seriously busy Fall! Well I got to know some awesome people and had fun :) Though this Spring I won't be a tutor, at least officially, as I want to give more time for my students. Now I felt a bit bad though they said they were (quite) OK with that ;) Well, not with the lack of time but with me, obviously.

We finished the painting in our house during Christmas so now our home is beautiful :) During summer we also renovated small part of our garden. Didn't do much in there last Summer as I just wanted to see what I have in there. Now we just should change two doors in here and do something to the stairway (probably change the carpet and paint it white) and of course the bathroom renovation. The last one will cost too much for us for now, so I think we'll do that after few years. I'm also dreaming about buying a kitchen table for us and some cabinets for the kitchen. I also would like to have a good storage space in our stairway (we now have one cabinet that the last owners left here). And new bed. I'm dreaming on motorized bed for two, they're just way too expensive. Though I think we can save for that and sleep in our 120 cm bed until that :>

I think that was basically all I've done. Of course I've been working hard with my mice. I'll also start few new projects this year and hope to get enough good results so that I could publish my first paper!

All in all I'm quite happy with last year, though I didn't have as much time for my friends as I'd hoped but that's the problem I've always had.

I'm really looking forward for this year. I'll start to watch what I eat, mainly try to eat enough (now I don't eat enough, I think my body is getting too less energy and it's in saving mode because after the surgery I stopped training and ate less) and no candy or chips during the weekdays, exceptions are holidays and special days, when I'm allowed to eat what my heart desires :> Also I'll try to lose few kilos and get myself back in shape. Though, no stress over this. I'll do what I can.
And this reminds me something new I started last year, I've been baking cakes and goodies almost every weekend :)

And my New Year resolution: I'll try to say "I love you" to someone every day.

Finally

Finally I decided to find some time to write.

Our home starts to be actually ready and we absolutely love it!

Work room (was first to finish)

Kitchen (required only a little work)

Livingroom from kitchen

Bedroom

Bathroom (not so blue anymore!)

Our "backyard"

Looks quite good, huh? :)

So I've been back at work for a month already, went back two weeks before my sick leave actually ended. At first I was really tired but now I'm back at normal rythm. I enjoy being back at work :)

And we bought a car too!

Got it for a good price :) So now I'm actually in driving school too! Been already in four (of the seven) theory classesand have had two driving lessons (of the 15, actually it's 30 times 25 minutes but they're held two at a time, so it's ~one hour lesson per time) and I have surprized myself! I really like driving and it's easier than I thought AND I've been better than I thought! After two lessons I'll be going to actually drive with other people around! Not so safe anymore! But I'm excited :) In about one month I'll have (hopefully!) my drivers license and this makes our life easier, now Tarmo doesn't need to drive all the time :)
One bad thing in car is that it requires quite a lot of money; insurances, gas etc. And my drivers school costs 1700 €!!!! :F So now even though I'm at work, I don't have any money as they all go to the house loan and driving school (I pay it in six parts) :P Well... Life is.

Besides all these things I was invited to give a talk regarding that manganese thing I did a year ago, so I gave a speech to ~40 people! And I think thank god I don't live in Kirkkonummi, I think they all hate me now :D At least the one hysteric old man who was so eager to try to infect all the other with the hysteria (luckily the others said shut up :D). But it was fun (?!) and I got some money from that :) I'm now allowed to swim, go to gym and walk longer distances and been trying to do all this. This Tuesday I got a cramp on my leg but luckily I had physiotherapy today so she massaged it away. She has been saying that this is the fastest recovery she's ever seen ^^ And that because I can train my knee so well on my own, we'll meet only every other week and on those times she concentrates on massaging and helping me not to have cramps.

We've started to play roleplaying games (meaning the ones with dices, pen and paper!) with a group of people in here, so that takes time too. So we're actually busy these days!

And summer is coming and I love grilling (vegetables and plain chicken) and we bough a grill and chairs where you can lay down outside. I love our "backyard" <3

Life is good.

New Home <3

I have been sooooo busy.

Winter School went well, I had fun time and I won the best poster award!!! I was so surprised as the poster I had was the very first one I've ever done. And for that I got 100 e gift card ^^
After Winter School I came home and after an hour my parents came. We visited our new home but I can't remember anymore if we did anything there. But starting from the next day we definitely did something there, for the next week and a half. We painted walls, installed new baseboards, got new toilet and sink and cleaned a lot. And Tarmo painted the livingroom roof (and it looks great!). My Mom had her birthday on Sunday week ago and we took her to a Chinese place to eat and she liked it :) Last week on Friday we moved and luckily Tarmos Mom came here to help us as Dorota and Konrad were sick and everybody else were unavailable. We rented a van though couldn't get all our stuff on Friday to the new place as Tarmo was working until 3 pm and me and Mom couldn't carry anything. The next day Tarmo and his Mom brought all the rest and Tarmo brought our bikes this week.
During the weekend we installed all the things and Mom sewed new curtains for us. And now the new house is almost finished, we still need to build the cat cage outside (going to do that during the weekend) and constuct the headboard for our bed. And put all the pictures on the walls. And I need to sew one curtains.
The house looks really good now, it felt like home immediately after we had finished painting, it looks like us. I really really like it :) It required a lot of work and without our parents we couldn't have managed this fast. We worked like 12-14 hours a day in there for almost two weeks! Luckily I was (and still am) in sick leave so I could be there too.
I took some pictures of the progression and will post them later.

And then about my knee. It has healed quite well though two weeks ago I got some kind of inflammation in the joint (arthritis?) where they took the construct and it has started to bother me again. It presses some nerves and when I'm putting my leg straight it sends a burning pain all the way to my ankle. The physiotherapist already rubbed it and gave some deep warm therapy to it and it was better last week but now it's acing again... I just need to rest I hope...
Otherwise I'm doing good, I han bend my leg almost as much as my healthy leg and without the swelling and inflammation I think I could get it fully straight. I was hoping to go for a swim this week but my periods just started, so I need to postpone that to next week. I can also go in stairs, though going downstairs is still hard.

Today I came to work just to go through some papers and get some paperwork done (sickleave things), starting from tomorrow I'll start to actually work again. Though tomorrow I'll have my therapist at noon, so I'll end my workday to that (I'm still in sickleave until 16th day). But I'm happy to be back now that the house is finished :)

Well, back to work. I need to go for shopping today (I need spring shoes, I don't have any) and we're going to give the keys for the old apartment today to the newcomers.

ps. Sorry about the misspellings, I'm too lazy to check my text :P

House Theater

During the weekend we window shopped for paints, baseboards, laundry machines and other stuff. We had agreed that we would spend the money we get from this apartments "guarantee" on home theater system. We found Jamo speakers from Tekniset, and they were on sale, 229 €:


And Tarmo ordered from Jimm's PC store an amplifier (Sony STR-DG720S, 299€):

He also ordered a roof rack for the projector from the same place, 119 €. So we fit in our planned budget :)

Today I called to the parquet man and our floor is going to be polished and varnished at the beginning of next week. And it costs 24€/m2 (about 650 € total). We just need to remove all the baseboards from the livingroom for them during the weekend.

And we signed the contract to end today for this apartment, and now we don't need to pay for the whole next month as we thought first. And we have transferred the internet there and the electricity is also in order. So many things are getting settled and it feels good :)

We should get the keys this week! The guy said that they're going to move tomorrow most of their stuff and we should get the key by the end of this week. I'm getting excited!

I made some plans with the help of Room Arranger program and this is how it's going to look, about:

After planning this much, I got hungry. I need some mandarin.

I'm Walking!

HA, I'm walking! Well, almost.
I stopped using the walking sticks during the weekend at home, though towards the evening my knee gets tired and I use the sticks a bit... I also moved on with my physiotherapy and do now more exercises. No pain but some of the exercises feel on my knee, and the feeling isn't nice. I'm taking it easy and I'm not too hard on myself.

I went to visit work last Friday and it was nice. Santtu gave me a ride and when I got to our corridor, some of the laborants gathered around me and asked how I was doing and then they insisted me to drink some coffee with them and they brought my mug, poured me some coffee, gave me coffeebread and washed my mug for me :) So nice. Then I worked a bit, had a chat with my supervisor and coworker and went for a lunch with my previous coworkers. They were hilarious and I had a good time :) Then Dorota gave me a ride to my hairdresser who made my hair gorgeus ^^ After that I walked back home, then we went for grocery shop, watched House and ate some ice cream (it was Tarmos nameday). Then it was weekend and then it was over.

I have started to cook and since I don't need to use the sticks all the time anymore, I can do more and be of more use at house too. We cleaned yesterday and I cooked for us on Saturday! I also changed the dirt for the plants we have. And on Saturday we went window shopping for paints and stuff.

Here's my ugly knee after three weeks:


I'm going to see my therapist tomorrow :)
Oh, and I kind of have forgotten to take any painkillers, so now I'm eating one pill for the night and I need to ask the doctor if I can stop eating them already or if I should continue still in case of inflammation... Which I doubt because my soles have started to look normal again :)

Well, I have been working hard today and I'm proud of myself. Now I can go back to planning house things :)

Bathroom Half Way Done

We ordered these today:


And these, one for bedroom (light cherry tree coloured, 52 €) and one for Tarmo (113 €):

The total price for all these was 379 €, transportation to our door included, and I ordered all from on24.fi. Most of these furnitures were on sale and I got 44 € off because I had introduced this shop for few people :)

I've been planning the floor plan with our furnitures today almost the whole day. Still need to make the pictures look pretty, but I'll show them soon :)

House Deal Today!

Hmm. I've actully cut down my dosage of pain killers to two pills a day, I've forgotten to eat one pain killer during the day :D And I've started to put some weight on my leg when walking, and it goes well, but I still cannot put full weight on it, I can feel something on my knee when using that leg, and it doesn't really feel good, though it's not hurting either. And Tarmo said I'm walking already like four times faster that last week :D

Besides this, nothing new with my knee. I'm training four times a day now and have moved to the most challening thigh exercise now. I cannot bend my knee much more than 90 degrees, it just doesn't go over that. But I'm not worried, the goal is to get it to 90 degrees now and I'm seeing my therapist next week so I'll aks then what I should do.

***change the subject***

We're going to buy our own house today!!! Well, apartment, not a house. But anyway. I'm so excited!
I've been calling to these parquet guys the whole day and only one of them has answered to my call and promised to send me an offer via e-mail. One of the companies isn't answering to their phone and one keeps hanging me up. So I won't call to the latter one anymore. I'll give to the one company one more shot later today, and if they don't answer, too bad for them. Then that would be in order.

I keep thinking about this but just cannot realize it well, in a month we're going to have our very own home and we can go to sauna when ever we want to! ^^

I've planned that during the weekend we should visit few stores and ask how much the paint would cost and get some offers. I've already calculated how much paint we would need, but I need to still think about it a bit, I think we might not paint the bedroom. Just the curtain board from there back to white and change the plinths. Though the painting need depends on the condition of the walls. But there's no hurry to paint the walls the very next day when we get the keys to the house. So we can check all that later and then make decisions. But planning is good and fun :)

ps. Pollo slept in my armpit <3