Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Tall Puppy


OK, it's not really "Tall Puppy" it's "Tall Poppy". But it's much funnier to imagine a really tall puppy - in fact, it's hard to imagine a tall puppy. But....I digress.

I'm reading the novel "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho (a fave author of Pink Lady's). He mentions something called "the Law of Jante". I became immediately very interested and googled it. The law is first mentioned in a novel by Aksel Sandemose called "A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks" (1933). It is, however, believed that this unwritten law is in effect thoughout Scandinavia and also in some other societies - especially those that claim to be egalitarian. Being Scandinavian myself (from Finland), yet having lived in many other countries as well (see previous post), I inately recognized this "law" and felt that it is still very much in effect in Finland.


Finnish movie director and producer Renny Harlin, who nowadays lives in Hollywood and makes movies there, has said that one of the reasons he left Finland is because our society does not want anyone to be too successful (or something along those lines).


Here is the Jante Law (from Wikipedia):


1. Don't think you are anything. (Du skal ikke tro du er noget.)
2. Don't think you are as good as us. (Du skal ikke tro du er lige så meget som os.)
3. Don't think you are smarter than us. (Du skal ikke tro du er klogere end os.)
4. Don't fancy yourself better than us. (Du skal ikke bilde dig ind du er bedre end os.)
5. Don't think you know more than us. (Du skal ikke tro du ved mere end os.)
6. Don't think you are greater than us. (Du skal ikke tro du er mere end os.)
7. Don't think you are good for anything. (Du skal ikke tro du dur til noget.)
8. Don't laugh at us. (Du skal ikke le ad os.)
9. Don't think that anyone cares about you. (Du skal ikke tro nogen bryder sig om dig.)
10. Don't think you can teach us anything. (Du skal ikke tro, at du kan lære os noget.)


A friend of mine has said that the best way for a Finnish woman to be popular and liked by other Finnish women is to put herself down, e.g. by saying that her thighs are fatter than those of her friend, that she is less pretty than her friend etc. If you doubt the truth of this, try the opposite and see how popular you will be... ;-) Many Finnish women are also constantly putting down their husbands. It's as if they are an extension of themselves.


One of the biggest sins in Finland seems to be pride - we say that one should not praise one's children or they will "become proud". Envy is also one of the common characteristic of Finnish society. There is an old joke about this:


"A Russian and an American find themselves in the exact same predicament: their neighbour has a nicer car than they do. The American decides to work extra hard in order to make more money so he can buy an even better car. The Russian waits until it is dark and then vandalizes his neighbour's car. That'll teach him!"


Especially laws 7 and 9 are horrendous - yet that is the idea that many people have of themselves. Finland has a very high suicide rate (it is similar to former Soviet Block countries). Perhaps one reason for this is that too many people really believe laws 7 and 9, i.e. "Don't think you are good for anything" and "Don't think that anyone cares about you". If you really believe this about yourself, what is there indeed left to live for?


I truly hope that you don't believe these laws. In fact, I think we need new laws. So here they are.


Pink Lady's Law:


1. Know that you are amazing and unique. There has never been and never will be anyone quite like you in the history of the universe.
2. Know that you are just as good as everyone else - if not better.
3. Know that everyone is good at something and that there are many different kinds of talent, skill and intelligence. Know also that emotional intelligence is a much more important indicator of success and happiness than IQ. And know that emotional intelligence is not something that you are born with but something that can be developed and improved.
4. Know that we are all equal. There is richness in our diversity. Know that it is OK for someone to be better at something than others. Everyone should develop the very thing that they are already good at instead of trying to improve the skills that they are not so good at. Find your area of strength and make it even stronger.
5. You are allowed to learn as much as you wish. But never forget that stupidity and ignorance are two different things: just because you don’t know something, does not mean that you are stupid. Know that you can learn whatever you need to in order to achieve your dreams.
6. Everyone is amazing and can be as great as he or she chooses to be. Everyone can make a difference. It only takes one person to change the course of history.
7. The universe would not be the same without you. Decide what kind of difference you wish your presence here on Earth to make – it is all up to you.
8. Let’s all laugh together.
9. First and foremost, love yourself unconditionally. If you care about yourself, others will also come to care about you. On the other hand, never be afraid of making a fool of yourself – others are too concerned about what others think of them to even notice. And keep in mind that anyone who ever does something truly new and innovative risks ridicule - but who cares? If someone laughs it is only because they believe the other laws, Jante's laws.
10. We can all learn something from one another. Everyone has something to give. Younger generations can teach the older ones and vice versa. We can learn the most from those who are different from us.


Pink Lady has spoken



Photo from Free Digital Photos.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Project Pillow

I guess Pink Lady is now really grown-up and boooring, because she bought herself a Singer (yes, a sewing machine, not Amy Winehouse) as an X-mas pressie. Pink Lady is a big fan of Project Runway (the US version) and Project Catwalk (the UK version), so she undertook her own challenging
"Project Pillow". The result is shown.

Pink Lady's colleague was kind enough to donate to Pink Lady & hubby a set of sofas in a beautiful forest green (shown). However, Pink Lady's living room's colour scheme was - obviously - pink, so something had to be done urgently to tie the two together. The green sofa was in desperate need of accessorizing.

So Pink Lady ventured where Pink Lady has seldom gone before: the fabric department. Being a big fan of all things Marimekko, Pink Lady found some nice Marimekko stuff: the green pillow shown behind the pink one was bought ready-made, but the pink fabric had to be couture'd to fit. It wasn't as difficult as one would imagine and turned out rather nicely. Pink Lady was both the designer and pattern-maker, as well as the seamstress of the project. Pink Lady turned out to be the proud winner of Season One of Project Pillow - a questionable honour considering that she was not only the only contestant but also the judge and client.

Where will all this new-found success lead? Pink Lady is also a fan of Wardrobe Refashion and has a closet full of rags in serious need of re-fashioning. Will Pink Lady do a full, Tim-Gunn-style makeover of her closet? Remains to be seen...

This is Pink Lady, signing off

Friday, September 19, 2008


Pink Lady Ties the Knot!!

Yes, Ladies and Gents, it's true. Pink Lady is now married. So she is now truly a Lady (with a capital "L") since she is no longer living in sin. ;-)

The happy event took place on Friday, the 16th of May 2008. It was a modest ceremony with only the Best Man and Maid of Honour as witnesses. The Bride wore a dress by Rils and shoes by Penelope. Hair by Pink Lady's trusted hairdresser (for more than a decade), Lisbeth Jansson-Apiala of Peili. Photo by Nina Stolt of StudioOnni (notice her cute, pink website!). Green chair in photo by IKEA

We (notice the "we"!!) have been a bit slow to do this, but we are planning on creating a website of our wedding. Well, there were actually several wedding parties. We did not have one big party, just several smaller ones. All the parties were very small with a limited number of guests - so if you were not invited, we do apologize. This was the second time for both of us so we did not want to have the huge, traditional wedding thing...

The other exciting thing that we did was to have two sets of professional photos taken. The first set was immediately after the wedding and they were slightly more traditional studio photos. The one shown here is from that shoot. But then, when we had finished with all the various wedding parties, we had the second set of photos done, the kind known as "Trash the Dress" (TTD) photos. The idea is to do some very Vogue style photos. Mostly they are done of just the bride alone, but some also have the groom in them as well. In our case, my hubby was in about half the photos. The idea of the photos is also that the bride can be lying down in dirt or swimming in the sea in the dress etc. The dress will never be worn again, so at least you get all the possible mileage out of it. What a brilliant idea! 

I may be able to wear my dress again since it's so simple that it doesn't necessarily scream "bridal". (In fact, it's not actually a wedding dress, it's just a pretty white dress). It had quite a bit of seaweed on it but I think I got most of it out... 

Our photographer said that we were her first TTD shoot. Who knows, we may have even been the first ones in Finland? Our TTD shoot was on June 6th, 2008. If you live in Finland and have had a TTD shoot before us, please let me know. I'd also be happy to see your photos! :-)

And what has Pink Lady been up to since the wedding? Well, the pink newlyweds went to Greece for nearly a month for the honeymoon. Tons of photos about that trip of course - to be posted in our wedding website. 

And after the honeymoon it's been all about clutter-clearing again. So if you refer to my previous post of nearly 9 months ago, I am still working on that project....but more on that in a future post. 

Mrs. Pink Lady

P.S. I kept my last name. In fact, my husband took my last name! :-)