"1-2-3-4" meme

Pinseri has started (28th Oct) a new meme "1-2-3-4" - he orders everybody here in Blogistan do the following:

1.Go immediatly and read four different blogs where you haven't been before.
2.Write a comment to three different blogs which you normally don't comment.
3.Write a message in your own blog including links to two different blogs (where you haven't linked before).
4. Order to your blogilista (List of Finnish blogs) favourites a new blog outside top 100 list.
5. Spread information about this meme.

New blogs - OK. I went to see C's blog. It had a nice photo of Virginia-creeper (villiviini).

Then I went to see a blog called "Life between the shoeboxes". The writer of this blog lives in Sydney -- oh, it looks so warm there! The view from her new balcony is very beautiful indeed.

I read some of the stuff Zeta had written in her blog. She used a nice, maybe self-invented Finnish word for a dog "hurttimus".

Then finally I ended up in Randomfire's blog. Not necessarily my piece of cake, but he seems to write an other blog called the life of Jalo (the dog), which was a nice photoblog.

Linking - I actually did that in the first task. But I could add a link to the new Helsingin Sanomat dogpage - where the dog owning journalist write about their dogs.

Why don't we have something similar in my working place? I spoke about blogs with my boss. He didn't seem very interested.

Great Fadista and other stuff from Lisbon

My trip to Portugal was very nice. I liked Lisbon with its hills, not so polished houses and very friendly people. We visited the monasteries, the Sao Jorge castle and did some shopping. We also went to see the biggest oceanario in Europe. Sharks and all..
At evenings we went to Bairro Alto to have dinner and heard some good fado music.

The highlight of the trip was Mísia's consert in 28th Oct in the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II. It was truly amazing. Dressed in little black dress with black scarf and red gloves, extremely high heeled shoes. And she sang with the voice, not of an angel, but with a dark deep voice of a woman who has seen the world and knows the sorrow. I had this feeling in my neck as I usually do when somebody sings with very pure voice and tears came to my eyes even though I don't even know the Portuguese lyrics. In her concert she also sang in Spanish, French, German and English. To listen some of her music press here.

She is one of the next generation of fadistas after Amália Rodrigues. The other ones are Mariza, Christina Branco and Dulce Pontes.

And fado - it's the same for Portugal as flamenco is for the Spain, or tango to Argentina. The essential element of fado music is “saudade,” a Portuguese word that translates roughly as longing, or nostalgia for unrealized dreams.

Greetings from Cascais, Portugal

We are now here near Lisbon in Cascais, Portugal.
The weather is a little bit cloudy but warm enough +20 degrees.
Last evening we hear some fado and went to see a lot of sights in Lisbon. Today we are in Cascais - a fishing village and Estoril - the beaches.

5 good stories meme

I got this Friday/Saturday meme from Kukkahattu.

1. What was your goal when you started your blog? - Mikä oli tavoitteesi kun aloitit blogisi?
Well, I started two blogs. With this one I wanted to write a sort of a net diary which is in English, so that it can be read by friends or strangers abroad as well. The other one Sukututkimus is clearly a theme blog - the purpose was to tell about my discoveries and give good hints for other family researchers.

2. Has it changed since? - Onko tavoitteesi muuttunut tähän päivään mennessä?
Not really. Of course I wanted to post here more often, but it seems that I only have time for once or twice a week.

3. If somebody would like to read only five stories in your blog, which ones would you recommend? - Jos joku haluaisi lukea vain viisi juttua blogistasi, mitä suosittelisit?
In this Daydreaming blog - I would recommend the stories which tell about my dog Jekku
-Dogs and Cats
-Brown hare makes the dog cry
-Our dog has more toys than a normal child
-Goodbye neighbour
-Seeing a lot of dentists

4. Is there a blogger, who has succeeded exceptionally well? Onko ketään bloggaajaa jonka blogi mielestäsi onnistunut erikoisen hyvin?
I often read Veloena.

Surviving back pain

This week has been dull. I've been suffering of backache or should we say lumbago (noidannuoli).
Lumbago is defined as mild to severe pain or discomfort in the area of the lower back. In my case you can talk about pain.
I guess it was that onion planting last weekend in cold and windy weather which caused it or the last week's gym exercise.
Anyway, I've been a good client in the pharmacy store.
Now I'm taking it easy and not doing some heavy indoor cleaning or sitting too long hours by my desk at work.

Genealogy event

It's Friday. Thank heavens. I'm still at work. Waiting for an aswer to my e-mail.

I should go to my work collagues going away party but on the other hand I have a dog at home who waits to get out. Maybe I go there for few minutes and then hurry home. And this is, if this Mr Big Boss will do the replying - let's say in 10 minutes.

Tomorrow I shall have a nice day. I'm going to a genealogy event in Vantaa.

On Sunday I should finally put all the tulip onions etc in the ground.

Playing with the camera

I've been a sort of fed up with the fact that I have taken most of my photos abroad.
I have very little photos of Helsinki, the town I live. Today I decided to change this and took some photos all around where I walked today (which is little because I was mostly working).

And I played a little with my camera, took some photos about the details I saw. This photo on the right represents well the warm autumn weather we've been having here in Finland this week.
Sun is shining, paving is grey and the leaf is alone.

I've felt myself very busy this week, I've been running around some meetings and seminars and almost missed some dead lines. I'm glad that today is Friday and I can start to relax.

If this good weather continues I think we will go again to the forest to pick some mushrooms and this time we are going to take some of ours friends with us.

Santas arrived

I have been writing with my brother today with messenger. I asked him what he would like me to write to my blog and he asked me to tell about my birthday presents.
Well, to disappoint you, I'm not going to do that -
but if any of these female santas that visited me last weekend happens to read this I want to say a big - a huge thank you!!!!

OK, I can reveal something. My husband bought me a watch. Which was a very nice thing to do. My old one - I've seen too much of it...
This new one is nice, silver and gold coloured stainless steel.

About this messenger. It was the first time ever I used it. I was pleasently surprised. It seemed to be a rather handy way to communicate. I don't think people use it so much here in Finland as they do in U.S. My collegue at work told me that it seemed to be very popular especially among teens in USA when she was living in NY a couple of years ago. But then again, the SMS's aren't so extremely popular in the USA as they are here in Finland.