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

Eating and Thinking

So the weekend is over again. It was so nice to have Tarmo around all day :)
Yesterday we did much nothing, played some DD and that's mostly it. Oh, we cleaned the house. And I cleaned the bathroom! It was a bit harder than usually but I didn't want Tarmo to do all the things, I wanted to help :)

Today it's two weeks since my surgery. And I can already bend my knee a bit ovet 90 degrees and I can do the exercises almost perfectly. I'm going to increase them to four a day. I have also cut down some pain killers and I feel a lot better. I can think now and I'm not so tired all the time. I ate two 600 mg panacods plus 2-3 600 mg buranas a day and now I eat two 600 mg buranas and one panacod a day. Panacod for the night so that I can sleep well and buranas mostly to keep the inflammation away. Because I know there's still something going on in my leg, I have a nasty habit to develop a rash with blisters on my skin when I'm having an inflammation. And my sole is now peeling its skin so it's starting to be better now.

Two weeks after the surgery.

I have also got back my appetite. This is very very good and bad. But not very bad. The good thing is that I know I'm getting healthier when I'm back to my normal feeding rythm and the bad thing is that as I cannot move much, I'll get fat. Muaha! Just kidding. I just need to look what I eat and eat smaller portions :)

During the weekend I developed bruises on my ankle, I think it had something to do with my knee... And as my missing tooth is doing better too, I can eat already normally and sleep on my both sides. And last night I slept without any bandages! Though I woke up several times, I guess I was a bit careful with my bare knee.

So, as I said, I'm able to think now. I've been working with my poster for the winter school (two day kind of conference rehearsal for PhD students), wrote a record for the meeting I was on Friday, been exercising twice already and ate breakfast, snack (orange) and lunch (rice with some vegetables). I'm so fast!!! And I made my own coffee this morning!

And during this week I can start put weight on my leg, so I need to learn to walk again. I'm hoping to get so good at it so that I could go and visit work at the end of the week...

ps. the bank thing is OK now, phef.

Bathroom Update

I think we might be saved!

I found these from ON24.fi:

This is Toscana series, and it's original price is 158 € but now on sale 137 €. So this is 238 € cheaper than the previous one! And this looks really good! The colour is coffee brown.

I also found a matching cupboard:


This costs normally 60 € but now on sale 53 €, so again, a lot cheaper (177 €) than the Ronja one!

So now with these the total price is 965 €. So this looks a lot better ^^
I still need to find better sink as I still don't want that soap thingie... I have started to think if we should buy just a sink without any cabinets under it. That could be an option too... And might cut down the expenses...

Update
I found these from IKEA, though I think Tarmo doesn't warm to things bought from there... :/

Well, the sink (Höllviken 99 €) and tap (Grundtal 99€) cost total of 200 €:


The problem with this is that I don't know if you can include bidet in this... And they're not quaranteed Finnish standard and quality... With these the total cost would be under 600 €!!! :O OMG! And it still would look good... But the missing bidet and Finnish quaranteed quality (and price) are big buts... As is Tarmos opinion too...

Though with these savings we could travel to IKEA and buy stuff from there... though IKEA is coming to Kuopio next year. But I think I cannot live in BABY BLUE bathroom that long. And I think Tarmos final answer for these last two things is no anyway :P

Relaxing and Bleeding Happily

First, movie update. The Skulls (nah, nor good or bad) on Wednesday and Pride and Prejudice (liked it) on Friday. Today we're going to watch Eragorn, and it's good, I've seen before and the dragon is cutie <3 Besides this I've been watching a lot of TV.
I have increased my physiotherapy to three times a day and I'm doing quite well. I have also started to walk propelry by using my both legs (thoug still with the walking sticks!) and test my knee a bit and it doesn't hurt anymore to put it on ground and let it rest there. I can also sit almost normally already and keep and relax my leg straight. And sleep on my both sides :)

On Wednesday I had one of my wisdom tooth removed and luckily Santtu was able to pick me up and get me back home. I was too afraid to walk to the dentist as I almost fainted on Tuesday though the dentist is really close to us... But the removal went well, it was quick and easy. Though after I got back home and called Mom, I had to stop talking and almost started to panic as my missing tooth started to bleed really badly. I was running out of those cushion things that were supposed to stop bleeding and I didn't dare to move or speak at all. And I had been holding a cold packet on my cheek for a while already. Luckily Tarmo came home and calmed me down, and the bleeding stopped too. I slept a bit and in the evening we ate ice cream Tarmo had bought for us <3

On Thursday I was just relaxing as I was still tired from the tooth removal and I knew I'd have a hard day coming on Friday. So I watched TV the whole day and slept. In the evening I went to movies with Santtu to see American Crime. It was really really hard and exhausting movie but good. Well, I hated and loved it. The story was... it was shocking, sickening and sad. But true. Well, you have to see it yourself.
Last time I went to movies, it took 25 min to walk there, and this time it took 10 minutes! :)

Yesterday I went to remove my stitches in the morning (it didn't hurt at all and was a lot easier than I expected) and after that I felt so free. I could walk more easily as my skin didn't feel as being stretched all the time. Then in the afternoon I went to bank to do some loan things, though we couldn't finish it as all the papers hadn't arrived there... Which was quite annoying as they should've been there because they need few days to process out loan and we need it on next Wednesday. Argh. Well, now we hope that they'll be there on Monday and we'll go and sign the papers on Tuesday (Tarmo has to leave from work earlier, again). Oh this just annoys and stresses me so much, it's big money we're talking about and big deal. And we had done our share of this thing early and informed all the others early enough. Ah I cannot think this anymore or I'll just get so stressed again... Let's just hope that everything will be OK on Monday.
After that (or actually even before we had finished our things at the bank) I had to leave to Jyväskylä to SSB meeting. Luckily Santtu was again driving me there. We chatted the whole time there and back and the meeting went well. I was back home at 10 pm and I was sooo tired. And now it's weekend and Tarmo will be home with me and I'm so happy about it ^^ Here's some really nice pictures of my knee again... Ten days after surgery:


And after the stitches had been removed:


I'll have ugly marks on my leg from the metal stitches :(

Exhausted Cook

I feel good still but I have noticed during yesterday and today that I'm still actually sick. I was really energetic yesterday and planned a lot and in the evening when Tarmo came home from work, I wanted to go to grocery shop with him. There was a minor accident when I was putting clothes on as Tarmo accidentally hit my leg and twisted it a bit but luckily the pain went away quite soon and I was able to go to shopping. The grocery is about 50 m from our home so it's not a long trip, but after we had found almost everything we needed, I suddenly felt really tired and exhausted. I needed to pay the groceries and wanted to go to sit down but the benches were so low that I couldn't sit down. I decided to get some fresh air and when I was really close to the doors I felt really weak and I was afraid that I would pass out.
Well, I made it outside and waited for a while and was able to continue to come back home. After this I was really really exhausted.

So no shopping trips yet for me.
And someone had taken our decoration from our door and put it downstairs (we live in 7th floor)... I don't know why but it cannot just move accidentally 7 floors down! :F I think some brats had been playing again, they already stole some chalk from our deforation and messed up the elevator. Annoying.

Yesterday my wounds started to itch too.

Today I have been really hardworking. In the morning I did some things for the meeting I'm going to attend on Friday (needed to go through some e-mails and find some names), started to do my poster for Winter School (just planned the layout and figures, I still need to actually write it and if I can I should maybe so some more graphics, but I don't have that program at home that I need) and prepared some food! I peeled carrots and cooked them, now I need to mash them. But it wasn't that easy, as I needed to cut the carrots without cutting plate (both of them were dirty and I wasn't sure what Tarmo had been cutting on them and they were covered with dishes), some of the carrots had mold on them and I had to get a container to measure the water (it was in lower cupboards so I needed to kneel down a bit) and I needed to move around the kettle as I couldn't lift it up with my both hands. Then I had to come to rest a bit as I started to be exhausted again. After I had rested a bit I went back to the kitchen and just in time, as the carrots almost boiled over. Then I peeled the rest of the carrots and called to a friend. Then I had to come back to the sofa to rest again, as I started to have stripes in my vision. I ate the carrots I peeled and now I should go back to the kitchen to finish my mashed carrot orange soup.

And I should do some exercise for my knee soon too, but I'm now really exhausted. For some reason I cannot ever write well and I keep making stupid mistakes and cannot remember even simple words. Feels a bit like a migrane.

I have also been asking from few companies what it costs to polish the parquet and I should check if we should change the electricity company or not. Oh, and I have booked a time for my physiotherapist.

But I think I need to go to finish my soup and eat a bit and then do some exercise and then I'll rest. I'll leave the electricity thing for the evening or for tomorrow and continue my poster tomorrow too. Oh, and I have a dentist tomorrow too... We'll see how I can manage to go there as I cannot open the donwstairs door and go down the two stairs in there at the same time... Luckily Lady Line is in the basement so there should always be people going in there, I just need to leave early enough so that someone opens the door for me...

Kitchen, Livingroom and Bedroom

Some more plans. We want to paint one wall in a bit warmer colour in the livingroom but keep the rest of the walls quite white. We have two options to paint the warm wall, either the wall that has a plain wall on its other side and window on the other side or paint the wall that has the window on the other side and kitchen (ie no wall) on the other side. It would be better to paint the latter one as we have a projector and we wouldn't need to buy a canvas if the wall would be white. But this wall has a panel on it (now white) and I don't know how it would look like with this warmer tone. Maybe it would give a bit more lively edge to it...

And as the kitchen is connected to the livingroom, the colours on their walls should match to give more balanced look. But we don't want to paint it with the same colour as the kitchen it self is quite dramatic (grey surface and black + white cupboards and black and white tiles and black tile floor).

We have decided the colour of the livingroom and it will be:


And to match to this we have two options for the kitchen:

The colour on the left is really really nice and would match quite nicely with our sofa too (though it's a bit darker red but the same tone) and the colour on the right would be closer to the colour in the livingroom. But I doubt how it would look like to have these two colours right next to each other, so the painted wall in the livingroon should be the "canvas wall". I believe we're going to pick the red one. (Does it come as a surprise?? ;)

Oh, and these furnitures on these pictures aren't ours, these are just some model images from Tikkurila and they just have the kind of furniture we have, though I have changed the colour to match our furniture. And the curtains are going to be around the colour in these pictures.

And then the bedroom. I have always wanted a strong dark red wall on my bedroom. And now I will have it! Yay!
The room already actually had a red wall, but it might be a bit too bright red. Though by painting the other walls in a bit darker tone of white might change this... Well, anyway, here's the model of what we want:

In this also the bedspread will be brown like in this image.

And just for your knowledge, I have actually consulted Tarmo with these and he has said his opinion and I had more of these painting options, so we have together narrowed down those to these. I just had to say this because as you know, I love red, but it doesn't mean that I want EVERYTHING to be red. Though now we'll have two red walls... :>

And now we have only one room and the stairs to think about. The "office"... I just don't have any big visions for this room like I had for the livingroom, kitchen and bedroom. The furnitures will be quite light, mostly birch coloured. So I think the colour of this room will be quite light too and I think all the walls will be coloured by the same paint. I think white white might be too pale so I now think that maybe we could paint this room with "left overs", meaning that we could use the warm whitish colours for this room that we have used in the other rooms. Mybe the colour from the bedroom would be good.

And finally the stairs... No big visions for this either. It's now white and it doesn't have any windows, so it's quite dark place. So it might stay as white. I'm just thinking that the door that's on the inside side of the "hallway" could have a window in it, so it could bring some light and space into the stairs... But that's not the issue of this renovation, maybe later...

The toilet downstairs can/could also be painted. The floor in there is brown so maybe again some leftovers could be used for this too...

I made some average calculations and rounded it up and ended up with this:
The total cost for all the paints might be something around 400 €.
This of course depends on where we buy the paints (there can be quite a huge difference in the cost/l in different places) and in how big containers we han buy it. But this was an average from 15€/l of paint and 8m^2/l. And this needs to be counted again after we have the exact measures of the rooms. Plus we need to buy all the stuff needed for painting.

In addition we should smoothen and polish the floor in the livingroom. This is a bit problematic maybe, because
a) it costs a lot
b) it cannot be used during that time
c) in creates a lots of dust

But it should be done (not by us). We thought that this could actually be the first thing to be done in the house and it should be done before we move in. So we either have to hope that we'll be able to get in the house before we move in (meaning that the previous owners should move away asap [they are buying a house that's already empty and thus can move there right away, though I don't know if they're going to do some renovation in there] and we need more than one day for the polishing) or we have to move out from this apartment month later.
I believe we'll end up to have two houses at a same time for a month. At least then we'd have more time and space to do all the renovation. It costs about 15-20 €/m^2 and the livingroom (including the space between the kitchen, livingroom and bathroom) is about 20 m^2, so the total cost for this would be 400 €.

So, I think this is all we should do in the house now. I need to recheck the bathroom prices and then I'll calculate the total cost for our renovation... So that we know how much extra we'll need from the bank ;)

Bathroom

Here's the first plan. The bathroom.

The deal is, that the toilet bowl, sink and cabinets in the bathroom are baby blue, and blue isn't my favourite color. The first time I saw the bathroom, I was shocked. It seemed to be wholly baby blue :F But after we visited it again with our parents we noticed that actually the tiles can be turned at grey point it the lightning of the room and other stuff in it are changed. We don't want to do a whole renovation to the bathroom as it costs a lot and the tiles are in good condition. So we decided to change the stuff. The main thing in choosing the stuff is to make the bathroom tiles look gray and they also need to be small, as the bathroom isn't that spacious.


Up left: Temal Ronja series. I love the mirror cabinet (396 €) and I'm going to choose that, no matter what the rest of the furnitures are going to be. The colour is going to be gray. The sink and the cabinet under it (524 €) are a part of Ronja10 series and the cabinet next to those (230 €) is also Ronja, and it's going to be a beech coloured. Total price 1150 €. Yieks!

Up right: Also Temal, but Trend series. I like this a lot. The sink and cabinet under it cost 599 € and the other cabinet is the same as in Ronja series but the grip is different, same price though. Both of these in beech. Total price 1225 €. More Yieks!

Middle left: So I'm now keeping the mirror cabinet and the cabinet that comes on top of the laundry machine (Trend). This sink and cabinet (again beech) belong to Temal Design series and cost 480 € plus the special sink (colour mocca and white) 80 €, and gives a total price 1186 €. Doesn't look good...

Middle right: This is what I eventually found and really like this, Temal Extra. It costs 275 € and should be, surprise, surprise, beech. With this, the total cost is 901 €. Looks better but still too much.

Down left: For some reason the taps are never included in the price in these things, so I looked up for a quite basic tap with some special in it. And of course the bidee is included. This costs about 300 €. Yeah, the taps are VERY expensive :F

Down right: And of course we need the toilet itself. I first found a toilet bowl that cost like 500 € and I was devastated. But then I found very similar one, Monopy 2008, that costs about 200 €. The only thing it has to have is double flushing. It saves water and earth :)

So, with this plan I'm quite far away from what we're going to have, as our budget is smaller than the required minimum of 1400 €. Cut down 400 € and that sounds more reasonable... But now we know what we're looking for :)

ps. all of those sinks include that soap thingie and I don't want that! :F

EDIT. Oh, and we need the laundry machine too!

Corpse Leg

And now some promised pictures of my knee too. Parental Advisory recommended :P

Two days after the surgery:


Three days after the surgery

One week after the surgery:


Gross, huh? :F

ps. my leg looks like a corpse leg in these last two ones :FFF

House

OK, so here's the first post of this house thing I promised to post here.

So, the house is the end apartment at a row house. It's in two stores and it has two bedrooms and two bathrooms (luxury!) and a kitchen that is connected to the livingroom. It also has a sauna and a small loft. In addition there's a small patio and small piece of grassland where we have some bushes and flowers (thanks to the previous owners). Sounds good, huh? ;)

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the house, but here's what it looks like from the backyard:


This is actually a picture from the next door apartment.

And here's the layout of the house, it's quite in scale. Or at least should be.



We really love the location, it's on a hill and there's row houses on that area and apartments when you go down the hill, but the apartment houses are flat, max 3 stores. There's also a cemetery (welcome ghost hunters!) and lots of woods. The bus runs really close from us (the terminal point about 100 m from our house). It's about 5 km from the center of Kuopio and from the university. There's a quite big grocery shop 300 m away from the house and a small bar.

The plan is to repaint most of the walls and renovate the bathroom, we're going to change the toilet, sink and cabinet above the laundy machine (now they are baby BLUE!?!) in the upstairs bathroom. We're also going to change the moldings from most of the rooms to match the floors (upstairs there's dark floors and light plinths, can't remember how it went in downstairs but we're going to put moldings there where you can hide the cords inside it) and we also should smoothen the parquet floor in the livingroom. And in the livingroom we need to repaint the roof also, it's uneven.

Sounds like some american house renovation series, right?? :D
(Been watching those a bit during my sickleave ;)

At some point we also should increase the amount of the cabinets in the kitchen and before summer comes we should build a cage for the cats outside.

So, lots of things to do and lots fo planning needed! :)

Progress

On Friday we had many visitors and we played DD with some people from Kuopio. It was nice and surprising, as Tarmo had said that this game would be held on Sunday and was still at work when one of the players appeared on our door :D But it was fun.
During the night I woke up to this stinging and burning pain, it felt like my wounds had been moved and retracted. It was awful but luckily it went by after few minutes or so.

The next day the wounds kept prickling but the burn didn't come back. I also started to keep the wounds free of bandages or skin tapes to give some air to them. They don't look as gross anymore, the wounds are quite clean and have started to close. On Saturday I watched Dude, where's my car and didn't like it, at all. Though I could already guess that before I even started, I know those kinds of movies don't amuse me. Well, I just needed to kill some time as I was waiting for Tarmo to finish his work so that he could be with me :) It was so nice that I didn't need to be alone and that he was there to help me. He made chiang mae soup for us (coconut milk with red curry paste and chicken and noodles) and it was really good. We also played some DD, I made up a small mission for his bad guy. And the we watched Lord of The Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring. We have watched those movies so many times together, but I really like LOTR movies and we both felt like watching that after playing DD.
The night before I wanted to try to sleep on my side but it felt bad on my wounds, the bandage I put on was too thin. So I tried again and put the same bandages I had during the first days and now I could sleep on my side! Though I had to keep my other leg under the disabled leg to keep it off the "ground" so it wasn't so natural. So eventually I returned to sleep on my back but I had left the pillow away so I could sleep and keep my leg straight!

I have also progressed in the physiotherapy in a way that I can make the exercises better and I can almost bend my knee to 90 degrees and now straight too, and I should be able to do that wholly in a week! Because then I should start my physiotherapy with the therapist and I couldn't progress in that if I couldn't bend my knee and get it straight. And I was so worried that what if I can't bend my knee :) I guess the good muscles of mine are worth while now :)

And today I woke up too early considering it's Sunday. Pollo made some noise at 7 am and I couldn't fall asleep after I woke up. I also woke up Tarmo (though didn't want to but I really cannot get up from the bed in a subtle way :D) and told him to continue sleeping. He asked if I needed him to bring me a bottle of water so that I could take the meds I have in the livingroom but I told him I would figure out something. Then I came here (went to toilet first) and accidentally turned on our PS3 as I was trying to get my laptop and as our projector wasn't on I couldn't see anything and Tarmo asked what was I doing :D I just laughed and said that I turned on the PS3 accidentally (our speakers were onso it made noise) and now couldn't turn it off (I had also turned on the projector during this time and it makes really annoying and loud peeping noise) and he just laughed at me that he thought so, and sad he'd turn it off after he'd get up. I know it can be turned off by pushing the PS button for long but somehow that didn't work and also for some reason the projector showed no signal...

Well, that was my event rich morning. Luckily Tarmo hasn't got up yet so I guess he fell back asleep. I'm starting to get hungry but even if I could manage to get something for myself, I couldn't bring it here without making noise. Luckily it's not bad hunger yet so I can wait and let Tarmo sleep.

I planned yesterday some of the paint options for our new house, but yet again, more about that later :) I'm going to make a post of its own about this :P I also should put some really nice pics of my wounds here but I don't know where my cameras cord is and have been too lazy to search it. My leg still swells a bit and doesn't feel really good when I put it down.

But I guess I could watch Disney cartoon Hercules while waiting for Tarmo to wake up :)

Update

So, it's Friday already. And I'm still doing quite good and I guess the worst days are over, at least the doctors said that the first 3-4 days are going to be the most painful.

On Wednesday I watched Holiday (nice and romantic), reached my physiotherapist and started to do the first exercises. I didn't do much on that day as my knee was really stiff and I didn't feel like doing much. Though I "walked" about 500 m, I went to the eyeglass shop to adjust my glasses and to the grocery shop (where I sat on the granny bench and Tarmo did the shopping). After that I was so exhausted and it took like 1 hour to do all those :D In the evening I also removed the supporting bandages and felt free :D After this my leg wasn't as swollen as before, it was actually normal when I was laying down but immediately after I started to walk or stood up, it swelled and turned blue :F But it eased as soon as I got back on my back.
At night I woke up only once and I didn't eat any pain killers :) Though my knee was hurting in the morning then but it eased soon after I got some pills.

Yesterday I did my exercise twice and it went well, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World's End (didn't like in much) and went to shower!!! So I was allowed to remove the last bandages and change them to a "skin tape". It was really gross to remove the bandages as they were quite tightly attached on me and the dry blood was attached to the bandages AND on the stitches :F But after the shower I felt really good :)
In the evening I went to movies to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Had seen it before but didn't remember much and liked it, again.
During night time I ate one pain killer and didn't sleep as well as before, though not because of my knee but because my back is getting tired of sleeping on it all the time. I think next time I'll go to sleep I'll sleep without the pillow under my leg and try to sleep on my side, that's more natural to me anyway :)

Besides watching movies I've taken care of our house things, we're going to move in about two months to our own house! But again, more about that later. :)

The week has gone by really quickly, more quickly than I thought. I haven't got bored yet and have had visitors every day, as the "real estate agent" (don't know how to call him really) has been here with his papers every day :)

But now I need to take care of some money business.

The take home message from this is: I'm doing good :)

ps. maybe I should see a therapeutist too but actually I was calling to my therapist, as Tarmo nicely pointed out to me :D

Surgery and Post-op

So, I had the surgery on Monday. Luckily I was really busy during the weekend as both Tarmo's and mine parents were here, we were looking for apartments! And found one! But I'll write something about that later. And I was really exhausted after the weekend, so on Sunday I went to sleep early. On Monday I went to work for few hours, just watched how ITT (insulin tolerance test) is made on mice and had a chat with Dorota. Then I had to pick up my walking sticks and a packet of shoes (I finally got my taekwondo shoes [going to use them much now ;D], they had been here for few weeks already but the company forgot to inform me...). And then I had to take a shower, the I filed my nails and did something.

Surprisingly soon came the time to go to Terveystalo where they operated me. I went there a bit early, as usual, and the nurse called me in time. He was laughing at me that I was hiding behind the corner, the lobby was so full that I had to sit on the other side of it. I was surprisingly calm but nervous inside. I ate in the morning so I was also getting hungry, though it vanished when I stepped into the hospital pants. Nice calm green pants and lovely hospital socks. Before that I talked with the nurse about the operation. And then I tried to relax on a recliner (I liked that chair) and watched some silly finnish program. The nurse gave be a pain killer and some sedative pill and I was a good girl and took them at the same time (like in American movies). After that I had a chat with the anesthesia girl (she was from germany and was asking what I do for work and chatted something about liposuctions and diabetes). The little white pill (with R on it) started to have an effect and I continued to watch the TV, though I had no idea what was going on there. I also had aquick word with the operating doctor. Soon they took me to the operation room, put the iv on me, some heart rate monitor things and blood pressure measurer. I was wondering the doctors nice masks (they had flowers on them) and that's the last thing I can remember. I think this was around 4 pm.

The next thing I can barely remember is that they took the ventilator out of me (I was gagging and the nurse said it's just this pipe, don't worry) and I got transferred to the waking room. I had a quick look what time it was (7 pm) and asked the doctor how the operation went. I was still sleepy and can't remember what he said, something that it went good and I have two months of sick leave. It took about one hour to wake up and I was the only patient in that room. The nurse was checking me up and said that I should inform him when I get hungry. In half an hour he brought me two slices of rye bread, some rice and chicken and salad. And milk. I couldn't finish it all but most of it so I was a really good girl :)

Then I was allowed to call to my parents and if it hadn't been so late, Tarmo would have been there too (the doors were already locked). I also got a cup of coffee (I thought that I wouldn't go to sleep anyway soon) and a cookie ^^
After I finished I was allowed to get up. I was a bit woozy and my wounds had been bleeding, the pants and sock were covered in blood. But I could slowly walk to the place where my clothes were and there the nurse changed the bandages. So I saw the wounds and they're REALLY gross! And I kept saying that and the nurse was lauging at me that even still you have to look :D The stitches were the metal ones (studs) so I guess that's whatmade it gross. And it's going to leave a bad marks and scars on my leg but I'll worry that later. The other wound was about 2 cm and the other something like 8 cm! So it was huge to what I was expecting!

After I got my own clothes I called to Dorota to pick me up (and Tarmo too) and had a chat with the nurse about how the surgey went and he gave me a pile of papers and some drugs (really nice opioids for the night and next morning :>). Then he walked me to the down stairs and Dorota was already waiting for me there. She was wondering how good I looked, and how cheerful I was. Well, I wason drugs and it didn't hurt anywhere. We waited for Tarmo and then she took us back home. I was walking slowly but made it easily to the couch (where I had made a small nest for myself before I left) and we watched some TV. I slept the night surprisingly well, woke up few times but actually slept and felt quite good in the morning too. I ate a breakfast which Tarmo made me and came back to my nest. After Tarmo left to work I chatted with Santtu and watched TV, I also watched Grease and slept a bit. And talked with my and Tarmo's mom. Santtu also came to check me up and chatted with me for a bit (like two hours :D) and soon after she left Tarmo came back home. He picked up my new glasses (which really don't fit me as I couldn't go there with him so that they could've adjusted the glasses for me) and now I see well and I really like these glasses now :) Though if I'm walkin I need to wear the old glasses because these new ones keep dropping off my nose :D

In the evening we watched some TV again and went to sleep in time. Again I slept well, though before falling to sleep my knee was hurting, because the pillows on the bed and on my nest have a bit different height so it took some time before I could relax my leg. Also the nice twitches you get when your muscles relax in one sudden movement woke me up, that hurt, a lot. I also got an annoying tics on my thigh. But finally I fell asleep and woke up only twice, once to take some more medicine and once I had to go to the bathroom.

We woke up at 6:45 and were laying in the bed for like half an hour before we got up. My knee was hurting again but it eased after I had bended my ankle for a few times to get the circulation on. Then I walked for a while (to my nest to clean it a bit and to the toilet, and that was the maximum I can walk :P) and came to eat my breakfast (which Tarmo again made me, it was really yummy!) to my nest and here I am. Tarmo just left to work and I'm trying to decide what movie should I watch. Or should I go to the toilet. Maybe not yet. It's hard to get up and get back here, I cannot use my leg well so I need to lift it up and it always hurts a bit. And the walking is annoyingly slow so I prefer being here :D

So, all in all, I feel quite good. Many people have offered me a help and said that I just need to call them if I need something, which is really nice and makes me feel good :)

I need to call to the physiotherapeutist today and talk with her as I didn't meet her on monday, because my operation was so late.

Oh yeah, and no walking with this leg for 2-3 weeks, then only in the limits of pain and sick leave for two months. Though I got a permission to go earlier to work if I feel like it, as it's not a physical job. So, a bit bigger operation and thing than I was prepared for, but I try to think only positive things. At least now this is nice and I have things to do to spend my days at home. Luckily our lovely cats are here as my company, yesterday Neko came to sleep on my lap with me and she was so cute :)

Well, I guess I could call to the therapeutist. Or should I call to Mom and wait for the therapeutist to call me and if she doesn't call, I'll cal her. What a big and tough questions ;)

ps. sorry about the miss spellings, I'm too lazy to check my text :P

Surgery

I broke my knee, again :(

During warm-ups in taekwondo we were competing who can lift the other pair faster, and I guess I was too fast for myself and my knee bended. It didn't hurt as badly as last time, but I had to stop that training session and once again moved aside to follow the end of the training. Which was stupid because we did hand techniques and so it didn't require knee usage, but it was hurting and I didn't dare to go there :(

The next day I went to a doctor and he said: Surgery. Some day at the beginning of next month.

I need to strenghten my thigh muscles now so that I heal faster from the surgery. So I went to our universitys gym and I loved it :) It was renovated last summer so all the equipment are new and it's really cosy. So I'll be using that three times a week now before the surgery. And once a week I'll go to water aerobics. And on Sundays to taekwondo peoples muscle exercise.

I don't feel as bad as I felt last time, now I know what I can do (gym, swimming etc.) and I kind of saw this coming. What annoys me most is some peoples idea that I should end taekwondo here. There's no need to say that I don't feel so. I found the sports I really like, I'm not going to abandon that just because I have so common injury which can be fixed. My advice: If you say that I should end taekwondo, stop walking outside when it's even a bit slippery (or actually stop walking at all). The chance to break your knee is greater then than it is to break your knee in taekwondo.

After this surgery I will be on sick leave for a few weeks (which I don't like at all). But I believe after the first week I'll get really bored and once I can walk even a bit without pain I'll go back to work, even for few hours. I love my job right now and I'm really excited about it. Last week I did over hours every day and I didn't mind that at all! I just wanted to do all the analyses and see the results before I left home. I'm so happy about this new place :) And my boss is really nice (too bad I feel I can't write about my previous boss...) and she just said that you need to heal well then!

So anyway. In six months, that is at the beginning of next Fall, I can start taekwondo again. Too bad that I was supposed to go to belt examination at the end of next month... Well, I'll have time. After three months of the surgery I can start running, that means that even before that I can start jogging (as I don't run) and then it's Spring and beautiful and being outside is enjoyable :) And once my knee is strong enough I can go back to gym and swimming. So it's not that bad, only the first weeks will be pain in my ass.

Btw, yesterday this gym for women, LadyLine had open doors (it's located downstairs) and of course I went there. They also had just renovated their gym, so it was really nice and after gym I went to Body Balance which relaxed me. Though I guess my knee didn't like so much those bends we had to do. Too bad this gym is really expensive. But luckily the universitys gym is as good and free, and I swim and to taekwondo, so there's no need for extra exercise. Or even if there would be, I don't have time.

Oh well. I think we should do some laundry before todays exercise. Should clean the house too.

2009

Long time no write. Again.

Well, 2009, here I come!

I'm quite happy with my 2008. I graduated, got a job and got even a better job. I got a new bigger house and new friends. Also, I got back to Finland, a year ago in a few days. I got a new hobby and progressed in it. Though I would progress further in a few days if there had not been this knee injury. What else? I became closer with some old friends.

My New Year was great. We were in Mikkeli with a group of friends. We played, talked and relaxed, for four days. And it was good to come back home on Saturday, now there's still this day to do some laundry and relax with cats...

On Tuesday we'll go back to Mikkeli to this taekwondo camp. it will be fun, I hope my knee won't be hurting much.

I really don't have much to write, just wanted to welcome the new year :)