Writer’s Workshop – Angry Hello Kitty Birds

It’s Thursday and it’s time for the writer’s workshop again.

The Prompts:

1.) A time you felt validated. (inspired by Adventures in Alyssaland)
2.) List six random facts about yourself.
3.) Talk about a trend you don’t care for.
4.) The last thing you lost.
5.) Pinterest Inspired! Share something you pinned and actually tried.

3.) Talk about a trend you don’t care for.

Even though I’m probably not the slightest bit trendy I still find some trends weird or annoying. I don’t really care for the “pants on the ground” trend or why some women want to have mile long nails. But I’m not going to talk about those today, because there are Angry Birds and Hello Kitties that I care for equally as less.

Picture from wikipedia.org

I’ve told all of my friends and relatives that if they ever bring any Hello Kitty related things to my future kids, I will throw the things out immediately. Having said this, what do they get me as a gift for my bachelorette party – Hello Kitty rice cakes and Hello Kitty plasters. If they only knew how big of a risk they actually took, they would’ve thought it over a few times. I almost threw a fit, but we were on a train with strangers in the same coach, so I decided to laugh instead. At home I hid them somewhere so know one would never know I have Hello Kitty merchandise at home.

I don’t know what it is exactly that I don’t like about Hello Kitty, I just don’t care for it that much. I think it would be understandable if it was just kids, but grown up people go crazy over Hello Kitty merchandise. Why would you want everything to be covered with a white and pink cartoon kitty? I don’t get it, but if you like that kind of stuff, I won’t judge you. I just won’t understand it.

Angry Birds is pretty much the same sort of trend as Hello Kitty; “cute” colorful birds that are angry appeal to some people. I like the game and I love the fact that it’s created my a Finn and it being such a huge success around the world is absolutely wonderful, but do you have to put the birds everywhere?

Picture from artisancakecompany.com

There are Angry Birds themed toys, candy, coffee, mobile phone covers, amusement parks, normal parks, make-up removers, body lotion, smoothies, donuts, stickers, bags, hats, stationery etc. There are actually Angry Bird themed wedding cake toppers and I know people who have used them at their wedding. The same couple used Angry Birds bed sheets in their bed on their wedding night.

Again, I would understand this better if it was just the kids going crazy over it, but actual adults are losing their minds over this trend. But I’m not to judge anyone over what they go crazy over. I myself go crazy over Ikea furniture and all the knicks and knacks they sell. That could be a trend some of you might not understand or care for that much.

Are you a fan of Hello Kitty or Angry Birds? Do you think it’s weird someone goes crazy over those trends? What sort of thrends do you go crazy over?

With warm hugs and gentle thuds – Keri

P.S. I just googled my post headline “Angry Hello Kitty Birds” and this is a picture I found. What is happening in the world? They’re Angry Bird Hello Kitty bottle cap magnets.

My smartphone vs. My social life

Finland is, or at least sometime was, the country with most mobile phones per person. I think everyone in Finland has a mobile phone and these days quite many might ave a smart phone. I don’t know any official statistics, but most of the people I know has a smart phone.

I got my first mobile phone when I was sixteen years old. Most of my friends already had one and I had been demanding to get one for a long time (perhaps about a year). The phone I got was Nokia 6110 and I could save probably less than a hundred text messages on it until I had to delete them to make space for incoming messages. And I could only type 160 characters in one message. It feels so weird now.

I bought my first smart phone  in 2007, I think. It was an HTC Hero and I was so happy I had it. It was white and I could browse internet with it. I’ve switched phones only twice after that and once you go smart you never go back to dull, right. I love my smart phone (currently a Sony Xperia LT26w) and would never give it up.

This week’s weekly writing challenge asked in the form of a poll: “Does your phone affect your relationships?”

My answer is no. When I’m with humans, my phone is in my pocket. If you had asked me this a bit over a year ago I would’ve said “Huh? What was the question? Someone @replied me on Twitter just now.” A friend of mine actually took my phone away from me once and put a lock on it so that I could’t use it. We were hanging at a bar at the time and I kept constantly checking my tweets, so I guess I deserved it. It worked as a wake up call and I started to pay more attention to when I was using my phone too much and started to be more social with the people who were actually there.

These days it seems like my friends use their smartphones around other humans way more than I do. They update their Facebook status, maybe read the news, check in Foursquare or whatever. They don’t however spend the whole ogling their phones and that’s quite normal.

Nowadays I use my smartphone most when I’m alone; I check the Twitter and Facebook of course. Sometimes I read the news, ckeck my email or play different games (like Temple Run or Alchemy). I might check if any of my posts have new comments or most of the time I read new posts by the awesome bloggers who I happen to follow.

I take the bus to work everyday, though I might start commuting by bike soon, and I think it’s very convenient that I can check the emails and tweets on the trip so I can have more time to do other things at home.

So yeah, I’d say me having a smartphone does not affect my social life negatively. On the contrary it makes my social life much easier, both online and in real life.  I can’t imagine not having a smartphone. I love my smartphone!

I’ve gotten really into memes these days.

Do yo have a smartphone? Do you use it for online social activities when you should be social with real humans? Do you know someone who uses their smartphone too much?

With warm hugs and gentle thuds – Keri

Borscht soup

I cooked something I’ve never cooked before yesterday. I made borscht soup and it was so much easier than I thought. I have no idea why I’ve even come up with the idea of it being somehow hard to do, but it was super-easy and it was super-delicious!

There are hundreds of different recipes on how to make it and which ingredients to use. Some recipes have carrots and potatoes in them and some will tell you to put sausages in it while others recommend smoked bacon. Some will want you to use red cabbage instead of white cabbage, and some even suggest you put tomatoes in it.

This is the recipe I used.

Ingredients:

1 big red onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbs vegetable oil
6 dl grated beets
200g white cabbage
approx. 1L beef stock
3 tbs red wine vinegar
400g minced beef
1 ts sugar
dash of black pepper
dash of chili powder
salt
1 ts thyme
1 ts tarragon

To serve:

smetana

This is what you should do:

1. Chop the onions and heat the vegetable oil in a pot. Sauté the onions until their tender. Fry the minced beef.
2. Add the grated beets and shredded cabbage.
3. Mix and sauté more for a little while then add the stock and vinegar. Add fried minced beef.
4. Add sugar, black pepper, chili powder, salt, thyme and tarragon.
5. Heat to boil and cook at a mild temperature for about 30 minutes.
6. check the taste and add spices if needed. You can also add more stock of it the soup is too thick.
7. Serve with smetana.

I was quite happy with myself for succeeding to make it so good on the first go. This is definitely something I will do again and again and everyone will know me as the woman who makes the best borscht soup in the neighborhood.

Have you ever done borscht soup? Have you ever tasted it? What is your favorite food?

With warm hugs and gentle thuds – Keri

Health Month – Old habits die hard

When you’ve spent most of your life as a couch potato, it’s not that easy to change it. I’ve been a lazy butt the past week for not exercising and hating water. I give myself a high five for trying to change my life and actually succeeding wonderfully for a while but I won’t allow myself to sink back into the couch just because of one setback.

On top of not exercising enough I ate too much unhealthy stuff this week. I had birthday cake, ice cream and all sorts of delicious unhealthy things, to top it all with a hamburger and fries in the middle of the night on Saturday. And I only have myself to blame.

Yeah, life is full of setbacks and you fail at things time and time again, but life goes on and so should you! I will finish this week slightly disappointed in me, but with great optimism towards the upcoming week. I will take it as a new beginning and forget all past mistakes.

This week I’ll get back to my exercise routine, though it will be hard for I won’t be at home half the time, but I will try my very best. And I will also get back to drinking enough water.

My progress on Health Month – Week 3

Yay for new beginnings.

With warm hugs and gentle thuds – Keri

Weekly Wrap Up – 20/2013

Welcome to my Weekly Wrap Up. The wrap up consists of five different parts. The first part is called Dear Diary, where I’ll write a short description of my week. The second part, Me of the Week, will be a picture of me taken during this week. Third part, News of the Week is a smaller version of the Sunday News. Stumble of the Week, the fourth part, is something I’ve stumbled on in the Internet that I find interesting. In the last part, Gratitude of the Week, I’ll list all the things I’m grateful for this week.

Dear Diary

The week has been extremely sweaty. The sun has been shining and when it hasn’t the thunder has definitely been blasting. 

I’m quite a big ice hockey fan and today has been a little sad, because Finland lost the bronze medal of the Ice Hockey World Championships to USA. I also wished Switzerland would win over Sweden, because they’ve won every single game so far, but they lost too. But I guess Sweden deserved it in the end.

Me of the Week

News of the Week

It’s comedy week on YouTube!

If you’re into fun and laughter, you better check out the comedy week on YouTube this week. YouTube stars and famous funny actors are trying their best to tickle your funnybone. I already subscribed!

If you’re not entirely convinced yet, maybe Arnold will give you the much needed nudge to be part of the fun! OR WATCH MORE HERE!

Stumble of the Week

This week’s stumble is a punch of logic puzzles.  I found a site that has enough logic puzzles for you to think on for a whole day. I’ve been stuck on that page for a few hours now and thought it might be a great place for you to get stuck on too.

Here are a couple examples of the easy puzzles. Find more puzzles on folj.com/puzzles.

There’s something about Mary

Mary’s mum has four children.
The first child is called April.
The second May.
The third June.
What is the name of the fourth child?

The Frog

A frog is at the bottom of a 30 meter well. Each day he summons enough energy for one 3 meter leap up the well. Exhausted, he then hangs there for the rest of the day. At night, while he is asleep, he slips 2 meters backwards. How many days does it take him to escape from the well?

Note: Assume after the first leap that his hind legs are exactly three meters up the well. His hind legs must clear the well for him to escape.

Do you know the answer’s to them?

Gratitude of the Week

• The sun
• The rain

With warm hugs and gentle thuds – Keri

My alter ego?

I’ve been contemplating whether to do what I’m about to do or not to do it for the past three days. In the end I thought “why the heck not!”, so here I am sharing a video I made over a year ago.

Not many people know I that have a YouTube channel that has two videos I made over a year ago thinking I’d be a huge YouTube star. I never thought I’d bring that up on this blog, which just goes to show that you should never say never. On this post I’m going to share one of the two videos I made and hope you find it amusing.

The reason I’m sharing the video is Prompts for the Promptless, a series created by Rarasaur. The series gives you a topic to blog about every week. This week the topic is Alter Ego and it just so happens that I made a silly video with my, so called alter ego, “twin sister Lilie” who I once created. At least I think she’s sort of an alter ego…

Well, alter ego or not, I thought it would suit this weeks episode just fine. The reason I contemplated sharing the video for three days, was because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to expose this side of myself on my blog. I’m sort of a shy and insecure person somewhere deep, deep, down inside myself, and thought no one would find this video fun in any way. But then again, why should I care if some stranger doesn’t think I’m funny.

So, here I go! Sharing the video! Enjoy!

Did you smile while watching the video? Did you maybe laugh a little?

With warm hugs and gentle thuds – Keri

I’m still not sure if I want to do this…

Top 7 – Healthy snacks

My new healthy lifestyle does not allow me to eat any of the usual snacks I might have during the day. I’ve said goodbye to piles of chocolate, sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks. I’ve replaced them with tons of fruit, water and other delicious things. This is a list of my favorite healthy snacks.

#7: Avocados

I love avocados and I could eat a ton of them on one go. I grind some lime-pepper mix on the avocado and just eat it with a spoon. It’s delicious and healthy!

#6: Roasted soybeans

I eat slightly salted roasted soybeans pretty much on a daily basis and they’re good when I grave for something salty, like crisps.

#5: Almonds and walnuts

Almonds and walnuts are my favorite nuts. I could eat a whole lot of them, but luckily I’ve managed to have just a handful at a time. Taking just a handful of nuts isn’t that hard actually, it’s not taking another or a third handful that makes it extremely hard.

#4: Oranges

Oranges, tangerines, clementines and mandarins are the new candy and sweets to me. They’re sweet and juicy, and that’s the way like them!

#3: Mango smoothie

Every now and then I buy cubed mangoes from the freezer and put them in a mixer with some milk and yogurt (sometimes I use quark), then I just mix away and the result is just so delicious I can’t even describe it!

#2: Quark with berries

This snack contains loads of protein, which is good for you. I usually add some berries on top and mix them together with just a little bit of sugar or sweetener. Fresh berries are the best. My favorites are strawberry, raspberry and blueberry. I also like redcurrants and lingonberries, but with those I need to add a bit more sugar or sweetener.

#1: Watermelon

I can’t get enough of watermelon! It’s the best healthy snack I know; it’s basically just water, but so sweet it instantly destroys all other sweet cravings I might have. I love it!

What kind of healthy snacks do you usually eat?

With warm hugs and gentle thuds – Keri