From the desk of Pink Lady….in the very pink saree…..

Well, we moved yesterday. Yes, we loved the old apartment, it was gorgeous. But some little things were finally just too much for me. The worst thing was the electricity: Bangalore has a huge problem with electricity, i.e. there simply isn’t enough for everybody in the city so they need to cut the power of each neighborhood for something like one to four hours every day. Of course places like big office buildings, big malls and good hotels will have their own back-up generators so there is no real problem. But many people are without electricity during those times and they just have to live with it. They use candles, wash clothes by hand, cook with gas or just on a fire, iron with one of those old-fashioned irons where you put hot coals inside, etc.

Now we paid absolutely an arm-and-a-leg for our previous serviced apartment. Well, my company did. In any case, it was simply a ridiculous amount of money and for that amount of money, one would expect there to not be any problems with e.g. the electricity. In fact, before moving in, I asked several times: “Can you guarantee that there will not be any problems with water or electricity?” and they assured me that there would not be any problems. Well, we had nothing but problems with the electricity.

Until I first threatened to move (after about one month), the situation was such that there would be no electricity at all for a couple of hours each day. They had a diesel power generator, sure, but they simply did not use it! I suppose to save money. This did not bother me during weekdays since I was at the office, but it was not fun for the hubby: he had no air-conditioning, no TV and – what’s really bad – no internet either! There was a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) box that the internet was hooked up to but it seems that in the beginning it was configured wrong and did not actually work. Well, I gave the landlord a major piece of my mind and they did two things: started using the power generator and fixed the UPS so that the internet did not go down when the electricity did. So some improvement….sort of.

The power kept going off and coming back on and going off and coming back on. Sami counted that on the last day we were there this happened around 40 times. And every time it did, the UPS box would beep very loudly. Really, really annoying – and embarrassing on those days that I tried to work from home! I would be in a phone conference with customers and would have to explain what all that terrible beeping was in the background. :-( And of course sometimes the internet would simply stop working and then I would have trouble doing any work at all.

The other thing was the water: hot water was unreliable, especially in the mornings. Maybe it was one of those solar-heated water tanks, I don’t really know. But I took many a cold shower in the mornings. But that’s not even so bad, but what I really did not care for was the water pressure – or rather lack thereof. Some mornings I would just wash my hair under the tap because it was faster than waiting for the slow trickle-trickle-trickle of the shower to rinse out the shampoo.

Well, what happened was that I was in Chennai on a business trip on the 23rd of April…and of course stayed at a nice hotel. The shower was so heavenly that I told the hubby: “I want to live here!”. It started out as a joke but then it just sort of snow-balled from there. We figured, well, we might as well look around a little bit to see what else is available out there for the same money and, long story short, we moved a week later on May 1st. The current place is very hotel-like in every possible way, i.e. in the good and the bad. But at least we don’t have any more issues with the basic infrastructure….apart from the internet, which is fast but seems to sort of come and go. Here’s hoping that won’t turn out to be a major issue….

I don’t normally like to dwell on the negative, so this posting is a bit atypical for me. But I just wanted to give a realistic picture of what life is like here: even the so-called “luxury” lifestyle is not always all that luxurious. But, those are just small things, we still love India!! Especially now that we can have nice, long, hot showers in the morning, perhaps a nice dip in the pool and then go downstairs to the breakfast buffet… :-)

Indian Summer

I got to thinking how different my life is here in India as compared to how it was in Finland. Here are some reflections:

Today is April 10th, so in Finland it’s barely spring yet. The snow has just melted because of the rains. Here in Bangalore it’s already officially summer and it’s been a bit hotter than normal, the forecast for today is 36 C. So far, it’s rained twice during the past two months. But of course the rainy season is approx. July-Aug, which is the hottest (should I say "warmest"?) time of year in Finland. It's so far been sunny here nearly every day.

The food I eat here at every single meal is just amazing. Sometimes I can hardly believe that food can even be made to taste that good! Especially the vegetarian food (which I eat for free at work every day) is truly delicious. Can’t say much for the Sodexho food back home. And at home in Finland, we were mostly too lazy and/or tired to cook so we ate a lot of foods that “go bing” and also payed an arm-and-a-leg to eat out. Here we absolutely never eat anything that isn’t freshly cooked and eating out is mostly dirt-cheap (especially for Westerners).

In Finland I did a lot of housework in addition to my work at the office. Here I do nothing at home since we have a house-boy who cleans, does the grocery shopping, cooks, does the dishes, waters the plants and the garden and does the laundry and the ironing. Or, to be specific, he does not actually do the ironing: he sends it out to the nearby village! Sometimes they deliver our laundry early in the morning when our house-boy has not yet arrived (he comes around 8 am), and we need to pay the delivery guy: a big pile of ironing costs 55 rupees, home-delivered. That’s about 90 euro cents. We pay a fixed fee of 3000 rupees a month for laundry and ironing, i.e. around 50 euros. That’s actually really over-priced for India!

In Finland I drove an 11-year-old VW Polo. In the winter, we had to dig it out from under piles of snow. Sometimes we couldn’t use the car because it was simply buried too deep under the snow (we lived in Töölö). Here, I have my own personal driver who is at my disposal 24/7. The car is a diesel Toyota Innova, which is nearly big enough to be a mini-van. Every single expat in India seems to have one.

In Finland we mainly did housework, took walks, and watched TV on weekends. Here, we’ve travelled somewhere nearly every weekend. I’ve now been here just over two months and we’ve already been to: Chennai, Mamallapuram, Pondicherry, Goa (Panjim, Palolem and Bogmalo), Pune, Mysore, Srirangapattana, Kerala (backwaters, Kovalam and Varkala). This weekend we are, exceptionally, staying home. But already I’m thinking it would be nice to go to the beach near Mangalore next weekend…or to the Coorg hill station…it's apparently really nice and cool there...

At work, my company is in the process of getting rid of approx. 500 people in Finland. The morale is not great. Here, everyone is really motivated, really proud to work for their company, there’s not even a trace of cynicism. It’s truly a pleasure to go to work every day.

The most common trees in Finland are pine, spruce and birch. Here we see palm trees, banana trees and trees whose name I don’t know.

In Finland, many people only see their parents a couple of times a year. They could easily see them more often but either they’re “busy” or they’re not that close to their parents. The first time we gave our driver a long weekend off, he was over-joyed. I asked him why. He said he had not been to his home village in a year! The previous people he worked for never gave him a single day off. He calls his parents every day and he has their first names tattoeed on his forearm.

In India, everywhere we go and no matter what we do, we are constantly stared at. I feel pressure to always look good…I’m starting to understand how movie-stars feel...

I still feel that everything I see here is really interesting. There’s constantly something to look at, something to wonder at. I am constantly asking the locals: what’s that? Why are they doing that? Etc. Feels like being 3 years old all over again. India is infinitely fascinating.

What about negatives: well, little things like not being able to rely on hot water and electricity. We had minor digestive issues for approx. the first month. People have a lot of desire to provide really good service, but sometimes they seem not to know so much what they are doing. What I mean is, it sometimes seems to be very difficult to buy something because it takes them 5-10 minutes to find out how much it costs. Little things like that. We don’t dwell on them, we like to focus on the positives.

It’s tough to see real poverty, tough to know what to do about beggars. However, there are not so many beggars in Bangalore since there is so much work available. Poor people do mostly seem very happy. Or is it just the way in Asia that you are always supposed to put on a happy face? At least my yoga teacher is always telling us to "keep a smile on the face" and to "be of good cheer". Indian people seem to think that it's good for the health to do so...I tend to agree! :-)

As they say in India: No issues!

Pink Lady

P.S. The photo shows Pink Lady at Brindavan Gardens near Mysore. It's very popular: there are 2 million visitors a year!!

Pink is the new black

Well, Pink Lady is at it again, up at 5:30 am and not able to sleep anymore. I wonder what it is about India that makes me get up so early, since this is something I absolutely never do at home? Maybe all those roosters crowing? ;-) Even though we live in Bangalore (population 8 million), we live in the outskirts of the city. This means that it takes me 5-10 minutes by car to get to work when it’s typical here for people to travel an hour – or even two – one way to get to work. The traffic is completely unbelievable. But, living where we do, I don’t need to worry about it all on my way to and from the office. The only “traffic” we see here is of the four-legged kind: cows, dogs, cats, goats and a monkey or two thrown in. And chickens, lots of chickens. We live in an Indian village (called Srirampura) in the middle of one of the biggest cities in India. It is right behind the campus where my office is located. My husband bought a couple of bars of soap from one of those tiny little kiosks in our village - which here pass for shops - and both packages of soap had (in addition to the soap) medium-sized cock roaches inside the package!! We now called it “cock roach soap”. ;-) So in our Indian village, the cocks they are-a-crowing and the cock roaches they are-a-running.

And now about the colour pink….when I say that I have seen women here wearing literally 20 different shades of pink, I am not exaggerating. Sarees and salwar kameez seem to come in every colour of the rainbow. I have seen sarees in the hottest pinks you can even imagine on 80-year old grandmothers. I’ve seen baby pink, bubble-gum pink, old rose pink, salmon pink, peachy pink, bright pink, muted pink, fuchsia, cherry pink – you name it, I’ve seen it. I’ve now been in India just over 3 weeks and I feel that just the fact of having seen the clothes of the women here has changed me forever. I may never wear black again!! Why should a woman ever wear black when there are so many gorgeous colours out there? I am now wearing colours such as bright lemon yellow, bright orange, bright turquoise – bright everything.

I have a theory about why Indian women wear so much colour. Of course the usual explanation is that it somehow “looks right” in the bright sunshine and that may well be part of it. But the theory that I’ve come up with is that women everywhere simply want to be beautiful. And since in India women cannot – for reasons of tradition and modesty - so much emphasize the beauty of their bodies by wearing tight or revealing clothing, my theory is that they, instead, emphasize their beauty with the use of beautiful colour and fabric (and of course jewelry to match). Shiny, richly embroidered silk is not just for evening here, it’s every-day-wear for those who can afford it. And those who can’t afford silk wear cotton or have the choice of the most amazingly gorgeous man-made fabrics in every possible colour under the sun.

Bangalore is extremely modern for an Indian city. You see Indian women here wearing clothing that would be unimaginable in rural India: tight jeans, tight, sleeveless tops, tight T-shirts. Showing a lot of skin is still not the done thing, but in Bangalore, the younger women are starting to wear tight-fitting clothing. I am just hoping that the tradition of wearing bright colours won’t die out with the modernization of the Indian woman’s wardrobe. It would be such a shame. Life’s just too short to wear black!!

Must stop here, I have a job to get to...

Bright Pink Lady

P.S. Speaking of black, some Muslim women here do wear the black burqa. However, I have heard that when these Muslim women are in the privacy of their own homes, they dress to the nines and have their hair, nails and make-up perfectly done. So yes, women everywhere do want to look beautiful! :-)

P.P.S. The photo is showing Pink Lady admiring the Bay of Bengal at Aurobeach near Pondicherry.

Pink Lady Goes East

Well, it has finally happened. After more than 2 years of planning it, waiting for it, Pink Lady has finally moved to Asia. To Bangalore, India to be more precise. The Hubby will join in a few days.

Since I will be working here, I wanted to buy some local-style, business-appropriate clothes. Frankly, I felt very underdressed here in my Western clothes. All those Indian beauties in their sarees and salwar kameez…well, they just all look so feminine. And so colourful. I just see one gorgeous outfit after another everywhere I look.

Even before I got here, I had already decided I wanted to wear local-style clothes. I come from the “When in Rome….”. school of traveller/expat. I already started eating with my right hand. Actually, I’m left-handed and have trouble eating with a fork using my left hand – but no problems at all using my right hand to eat. Yep, I just get my fingers right in that mushy rice with the sauce mixed in. I do have serious issues with tearing off pieces of naan bread using just one hand, but I’m convinced it’s just a question of practice.

So back to the story about clothes. You do know that Pink Lady is nuts over clothes right? I adore fashion. I love the touch of luxurious fabrics: silk, cashmere...simply the stuff dreams are made of. So when the taxi driver I had hired for the day insisted on taking me to this silk shop he knew, I did not complain. I did not realize how life-changing this experience would be, however. I may never wear ready-made clothes again!

My taylor (as he's now known) showed me the most amazing, delicious, delectable hand-woven Bangalore silks. I did not need to doubt the quality for even a millisecond. Just touching the fabric was like stroking the side of a cloud. And the colours! It took a long time to select my two fabrics (see picture). He then very modestly and apologetically took my measurements (highly appreciated) and promised to deliver the two outfits to my hotel already the same evening. I was also quite impressed by the fact that the shop-owner came personally to deliver the clothing, lovingly wrapped up in paper.

For those not familiar with Asian clothing, a salwar kameez is the “three-piece suit” of Indian women, consisting of a baggy pair of trousers (a bit harem pant-like), a tunic and a long pashmina-style scarf. Speaking of the scarf, I’ll need to consult some local woman about how to wear the thing...I’m somehow not able to wrap it around elegantly the way the locals do, mine just hangs there like a dead animal.

So the clothes were delivered to my hotel. I unwrapped the lovely parcels, photographed the outfits of course, and prompty decided I was too sweaty to try them on. I had to shower before attempting it. The clothes seemed so precious to me immediately. After my shower, I put on the one on the left: oh the heavenly luxury of the silk on my skin! And the fit of taylor-made clothing! As I said earlier, I may never wear off-the-rack clothing again. I would rather own one outfit like this than 50 uncomfortable, constricting, itchy, off-the-rack Western outfits. Believe me, you don't know what comfort is until you've tried on one of these babies. The salwar kameez really takes into consideration how a woman’s body works. We are, for example, prone to bloating in the abdominal region (especially after the absolutely amazing food here), which is why it’s so wonderful that the pants are of the drawstring variety. I could probably be pregnant and still wear the same ones. They are not meant to be tight, not meant to be constricting. And yet wearing the 3-piece combo, I feel perhaps more feminine than I’ve ever felt before. I’ve obviously already decided to go back and have more clothes made next week. What seemed expensive at first now seems like the best deal ever.

As mentioned, my husband is not yet here in India with me. So I am spending this Valentine’s day alone. But hey, I’m sure having a wonderful love affair with my new silk outfits in the meantime! And don’t even get me started on the local jewelry...

Happy Valentines Day 'ya all!

Lots of love,
Pink Lady

P.S. My next salwar kameez will be, you guessed it, pink!

The Colour of my Parachute

Pink Lady finds herself in the grips of a nasty head cold, yet is still somehow inspired to blog. Can't complain...

Pink Lady recently attended an innovation seminar, where the keynote speaker was Sarah Miller Caldicott, great-grand niece of Thomas Edison. She (together with co-author Michael Gelb) has written a book called Innovate Like Edison, which Pink Lady was immediatly inspired to purchase. She is now in the process of reading her copy (signed by the author). Pink Lady truly does not recall being so inspired by any book - perhaps ever!

Edison was a genuinely brilliant man. Most people know that he was a great inventor, but may not know that he was such a brilliant - and innovative - business man as well. He not only invented things, he also productized, manufactured, marketed and delivered them right to people's homes! He had thousands of employees. He also understood the importance of both leadership and of networking - he realized that we can achieve nothing witout other people. So he was anything but the prototypical "lone inventor" locked up in his ivory tower. He did lock himself up in his room to think, but he also collaborated with other brilliant minds.

As Pink Lady was listening the Sarah Miller Caldicott speak, she was actually listening on two levels: she was listening to, and fascinated by, the subject matter, yet she was also looking at the proceedings on another level: she was imagining herself as the author of a non-fiction book, up there on the stage speaking about it and then signing autographs. The dream has been identified and now it's just a question of making it a reality.

Nothing in life happens before we can first see it happening in our minds. So day-dreaming is far from being a waste of time: it's "mind creation". Athletes know the power of seeing themselves winning or beating a record in their minds; they need to see themselves as winners before they can become winners in the real world. Athletes say that it's about 90% mental.

Yet the same applies to everything in our lives, not matter what field we are in. You can't get what you want 'til you know what you want. We first need to see - and feel - our goal clearly in our minds and then start taking the concrete steps needed to make it a reality. Pink Lady has seen the light (pun intended) - what colour is your parachute?

Pink Lady, signing out - and wishing everyone a happy holiday season!

P.S. Pink Lady took the attached photo on a hot air ballooning trip.

Back to Nature

No, in spite of rumours to the contrary, Pink Lady is not dead...just tired. She yearns to write yet has trouble "finding the time".

There is a saying "There will never be enough time to do everything that is important but there will always be enough time to do the most important things" (or along those lines). But why is it that this does not seem to be true in our lives?

Why do we spend so much time watching TV when we could be doing something much more creative? Why do we lie on the couch instead of taking a walk? Why are we so tired?

It is my belief that it is not the amount of work that makes one tired. What makes one tired is doing something that one does not really want to do. You only need to be in a boring, useless meeting for 20 minutes and already you are completely exhausted! Compare that to the feeling you get when watching a really, really good movie or when spending time with really good friends. Or doing something that you truly love to do - whatever that may be. It is passion that gives us energy - and the lack of passion that makes us tired.

It is up to each one of us to find that one thing which we are "born to do", our "calling". If we are able to do that, then work is no longer work but something much more. The old mind trick is to think what you would do if you did not have to worry about money and knew you could not fail.

Here is Pink Lady's list:

• write best-selling books
• some of those books would also have my photos in them
• exhibit my photography in galleries
• publish stories in magazines and on-line
• sing jazz at night clubs
• perform as a flamenco dancer
• lovingly restore houses and even whole villages in e.g. Italy

Those items are listed in the order of their importance. So writing really is "my thing". I know that now. Now I just need to find the time to do it somehow. But fear not, Pink Lady has a plan... ;-)

Watch this space...

Respected Reptile

As mentioned in the previous post, Pink Lady had a birthday yesterday. And, as is customary, she has bought a present for herself. It is really the only way to guarantee getting exactly what one wants.
Pink Lady was naughty....she had a half hour to kill while waiting for her hairdresser's appointment and, alas, her hairdresser's is located right next to a really super vintage store (Ruuturouva): clearly a recipe for disaster! ;-) Pink Lady seems to have some kind of radar that instantly draws her to all luxury items: whenever she is in a vintage store - or even at a flea market - she seems instantly and mysteriously drawn only to the most expensive materials....cashmere...angora...silk...suede...leather... and yes, now even genuine crocodile! The purse pictured is the real thing: croc!!! Pink Lady's first (well it's about time!)
The vintage store owner said that croc is normally not even sold in Finland because it is so prohibitively expensive. In other countries (she mentioned England), it can cost thousands if not tens of thousands. Oh yes, Pink Lady is an investor!! This purse "only" cost 130 euros (buy low, sell high - you know the drill...)
However, a word of warning to all croc-owners or future croc-owners: it is to be worn only in the daytime, it is not an evening accessory. Here is a quote from Genevieve Antoine Dariaux (former Directice at Nina Ricci) from the book: Elegance - for every woman who wants to be well and properly dressed on all occasions.

"...I cannot restrain myself from expressing the dismay I feel when I see a woman carry an alligator handbag with a dressy ensemble merely because she has paid an enormous sum of money for it. Alligator is strictly for sports or travel, shoes as well as bags, and this respected reptile should be permitted to retire every evening at 5 P.M."
Pink Lady is a bit unsure if the same etiquette applies to alligator and to crocodile....hmmmm....after a quick bout of googling, she is none the wiser...there does not seem to be a huge difference. They are different animals, but it is not clear what is the difference between alligator and crocodile accessories.
What is the point of this scribbling? Do we need one? Well, if we must find one, here's a thought: a luxury accessory lasts a lifetime, is timeless and therefore always in fashion: a luxury vintage accessory is the ultimate green purchase. Pink Lady's conscience feels clearer already! ;-)
Have a good weekend dearies!
TTFN!
Pink Alligator

The Birth of Pink

Pink Lady is thinking a lot about birth right now. It was Pink Lady's own birthday yesterday - hence the beautiful (pink!) flowers (pictured) that Hubby brought to her (a day late...). There was the usual dining, bubbly-drinking, gift-giving extravaganza on the day, however.
But the other reason that Pink Lady ponders birth is that she is awaiting news any minute/hour/day now from a friend....she is late...i.e. she is in a blessed state and her due date is already past...so exciting. She is a collegue and all of us are bombarding her with SMS's, phonecalls and Facebook entries asking: Are you STILL waiting?
So any minute now....and we don't even know yet which one it's going to be....could it be any more exciting? Well, she was always one to make an entrance and to make everyone pay attention to her...it seems her offspring is no different! ;-)
Good luck - hang in there ma chérie (yes, she is French), won't be long now. One thing we can be sure of is that no baby ever stayed inside for ever....they all come out sooner or later. ;-)

The world is awaiting with breath that is baited!

Pink Lady - awaiting news of a pink baby... :-)

I resolve, I resolve, I reserve, I HAVE a reservation!*

It was inevitable: Pink Lady is writing down her new year's resolutions for 2009. 

*The title is  from the Madonna song Act of Contrition. 

The photo shows Pink Lady mountain biking near Rovaniemi, Lapland - near the Arctic Circle. 

In 2009: 

• I choose health
• I choose energy
• I choose well-being
• I choose happiness
• I choose joy
• I choose beauty
• I choose wealth
• I choose freedom
• I choose courage
• I choose strength
• I choose determination
• I choose growth
• I choose progress
• I choose flexibility
• I choose gratitude
• I choose appreciation
• I choose peace of mind
• I choose calm
• I choose passion
• I choose love

What does all this actually mean? It means that since life is about choices every second of every day, I wish to conciously make choices that lead to the results I wish to have. E.g. I want to make choices in my eating, resting, working and exercize habits that lead to long-term health, energy and well-being. I wish to make life choices that lead to my peace of mind. I wish to make financial decisions that lead to my long-term financial well-being, i.e. wealth. You get the point. 

Aristotle has written "We are what we frequently do. Excellence, therefore, is not an action but a habit."

Someone has also said: "The secret of our success is found in our daily agenda."

The average person watches several hours of TV per day. What else could we do with a couple of hours a day?

• learn a foreign language
• learn to play a musical instrument
• get fit
• get an education
• cook (from scratch - instead of "food that goes PING")
• practice a creative hobby - that could potentially turn into a new profession
• start a home-based business - that could turn into a second (or first) income
• spend time with our kids, spouse, family, friends
• Clean the house (it's therapeutic - and good exercize!)
• Organize our closets
• Do volunteer work

We say that we "are busy" and that we "don't have time", but the fact is that we have lots of time - it's all a question of how we choose to spend that time. 

So let's spend less time in front of the TV and more time doing the things that we actually enjoy the most - or the ones that will give us what we truly want in the long-term. 

And in order to have the energy to do the things above, we need to take good care of ourselves. The older we get, the more important this is. It's easy to have tons of energy at 20, not so easy at 30, 40 - and beyond. The older we get, the more we need to work at being healthy and fit. But it's worth it since this one body is all we got. 

All the Best in 2009!

Luv,

    Pink Lady

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.

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

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! :-)

Time to relax...

Well, it's finally Christmas and all the shopping is done. It's time to just relax!

The photo actually shows the spoils from a shopping trip in Paris in February (Notice the Burberry bag! That's was my new Burberry trench - in light pink!). But I did do a lot of shopping before Christmas this year, as I do every year. However, some of it is now done on-line and delivered to my home and that certainly reduces some of the hassle. Well, I actually love shopping, but enough is enough. It can get a bit extreme around this time of year.

Actually, this time our Christmas preparations have been more about getting rid of stuff than about acquiring more. We moved just over a month ago (on Nov 19th) and we got rid of a lot of stuff before and after the move. I am doing a major de-cluttering currently since I really want our home to be spacious and airy. For anyone attempting to do the same, I highly recommend the book "Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui", it is both very practical and very deep; it goes into the reasons why we are afraid of throwing away even things that mean nothing to us. I really recommend it - even for people who are not interested in feng shui at all.

It’s been hectic moving twice in the space of a year, but that’s what it can be like for those of us who are renting – we never know when we’ll need to move. I lived in my previous place exactly a year. I hadn’t even finished decorating it and then it was time to move again. But the positive side of it has been that my stuff is now more in order than it has been in years – or perhaps even decades. I’ve been forced to go through it all so I’ve had to decide what to keep, what belongs together, etc. It’s by no means finished but at least I’ve made some serious headway into the project.

My next major steps are:

• Converting all of my (over 500) CDs to MP3 format and managing them on my iTunes. I recently bought an iMac desktop and it’s great. The actual computer and the screen are integrated into one so it reduces clutter that way as well. And it can even be used as a TV – we are seriously considering getting rid of our 2 TVs now. I also got a new iPod with 160G’s of memory. I won’t be running out of space on it anytime soon (my previous iPod had 20G's of space and I could no longer fit everything in my collection on it at once). Once all of my music is in MP3 format and also backed-up in some foolproof way (e.g. burned on DVDs), I can get rid of my CD collection. The advantage of MP3 is that it doesn’t collect dust. ;-)
  
• I want my home to be as paper-free as possible. Just like they talk about a paper-free office. My office (at work) is in fact nearly paper-free now since I recently had to move into what is called a “flexi-space” or “modern office concept”. It means that nobody has their own desk, they just sit at the first free place when they get to the office in the morning. So all our files need to be electronic so that they go with us in our laptop (and are of course also backed-up on company servers). I now want to implement the same thing in our home.

Here’s what that means in practice:

• All photos are digital. We only take digital photos and I have bought a scanner that scans both photos, negatives and slides. So I will slowly convert all old photos to digital format as well.
• Whatever information I need can be kept in digital format. Information does not need to be kept on paper. This means that I can get rid of things such as address books, phone books, shopping lists, magazine and newspaper clippings, instructions booklets, most receipts, etc. Whatever I really want to keep can be scanned and filed electronically. There is very little paper that we really must keep in paper format (e.g. for tax purposes etc). And it’s a good idea to scan those as well so that there are back-up copies in case of fire or other disaster. So it’s a good idea to keep electronic back-up copies of those kinds of really important papers somewhere other than your home. I, for example, send myself a copy of my passport to my gmail address. It’s a great (and free) back-up place with lots of room.
• I have now started buying books in audio format. They are available in both MP3 and CD format, so they can also be kept in your computer and you can get rid of the actual piece of plastic – so there’s no clutter. And it saves time since you can “read” a book e.g. while driving or while doing housework, exercizing, etc. I still do have a huge library of books (6 bookcases full) but I keep them in bookcases behind glass so that there is a minimum of dusting to do (I’m allergic to dust and house dust mites so this is a big consideration). I am also thinking about which books to keep and which ones to get rid of. For example, do we need encyclopedias as books anymore? It’s so much easier to do searches with an electronic one. These are things to consider.
  
  In addition to clearing out paper junk, I have been going through my wardrobe and clearing out clothes. I have also done a lot of repairs and have taken lots of clothes to the cleaners, shoes to the cobblers etc. I am trying to see what I actually have before buying more. And I'm slowly going through things in my kitchen cupboards etc. and am seeing what to keep and what to get rid of. Getting rid of stuff you never use (and don't even like) is good because you then have room in your closets and cupboards and can go out and do more shopping! ;-)
  
  Happy New Year 2008 – and happy clutter clearing! :-)
  
  Pink Champagne Lady
  
  
  
  

Ocicats!

Hello there!

Aren't these creatures adorable? In life, we must make choices...and sometimes we must give up something that is important to us. I have a fridge magnet that says: "You can't have everything - where would you put it?" ;-)

But seriously....these are my boyfriend's former cats. Why former? Because I am allergic to all animals and he had to give them up when we moved in together. It's really sad but it was the only option. He made a big sacrifice...

So what happened to the cats? The smaller one (on the right) had to be put to sleep. He was very sick throughout his whole life. He had some sort of problem absorbing the nutrition from his food so he was quite small and really skinny and he always had lots of stomach problems. The problems kept getting worse and the vet said that putting him down would be the kindest thing for him. It was really sad. He was such a cute little critter.

The bigger cat (on the left) went to live with my boyfriend's brother. The cat seems to enjoy it there and adjusted to the change amazingly quickly. I wonder if somehow he "recognized" the fact that, being brothers, my boyfriend and his brother are somehow similar? Genetically I mean? Do they have a similar smell - or something else that makes it easier for an animal to accept his new owner? The cat actually went to a different new home at first but meowed so much the first night that the family got fed up and did not want to keep him. Being a typical ocicat, he's a very strong personality and also quite loud. So we were starting to worry that perhaps he would not adjust to a new home at all. But he immediately seemed to be at home with my boyfriend's brother. Of course we couldn't be happier. This way we can visit as often as we want.

We do miss having cats - somehow a home seems empty without cats. I keep hoping that medical science will develop enough so that one day I can have cats again.

She's Back!

Well Ladies and Gents, Pink Lady is back!

It's been quite a roller coaster ride lately. In about 9 months time, the following major events have taken place in Pink Lady's life:

- Splitting up with live-in boyfriend of 4 years
- Moving to one bedroom apartment
- Selling house and doing the mine/yours thing
- Buying car (used - alas!)
- Falling in love, thus acquiring wonderful new boyfriend!! :-)
- Having a major birthday (I won't reveal the number but it's big and round)
- Going on a trip to Paris (pictured above) with above-mentioned new boyfriend to celebrate above-mentioned big birthday (trip involving major shopping with recently-acquired cash from recently-sold house - highly recommended form of retail therapy!)
- In the space of 6 months, boarding a plane a total of 16 times (a new personal record) on trips involving both for work & pleasure (Pink Lady loves travel - but enough is enough!)
- Losing a suitcase twice on the same trip - but eventually getting both suitcases back. Getting a hefty compensation for the temporary loss (and ensuing enforced shopping extravaganza) in one case.
- Moving in with said new boyfriend and trying desperately to fit truckfulls of stuff into said one bedroom apartment......the process still continues.....apartment resembles warzone.....but the war against clutter is not yet over....Pink Lady shall prevail......OK, so what's your excuse for not posting? ;-)

Expensive Cookies for free - from Neiman Marcus

Hi,

I received this via e-mail and simply had to post it. Enjoy the cookies! :-)

Pink Lady

*******************

BISCUIT
RECIPE

This is a true story. Please forward when you finish reading! A little background: Neiman-Marcus, if you don't know already, is a very expensive shop; i.e. they sell a typical $8.00 T-shirt for $50.00. Let's let them have it! THIS IS A TRUE STORY

My daughter and I had just finished lunch at a Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas. Because both of us are such biscuit lovers, we decided to try the "Neiman-Marcus cookie". It was so excellent that I asked if they would give me the recipe. The waitress said with a small frown, "I'm afraid not, but you can BUY the recipe." I asked how much, and she responded; “Only two fifty - it's a great deal!" I agreed to that, and told her to add it to my bill. Thirty days later, I got my VISA statement, and the Neiman-Marcus charge was $285.00. I looked at it again, and I Remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two sandwiches and about $20.00 for a scarf. At the bottom of the statement, it said, "Cookie Recipe-$250.00". That was outrageous! I called Neiman's Accounting Department and told them the waitress had said it was "two fifty", which clearly does not mean "two hundred and fifty dollars" by any reasonable interpretation of the phrase.

Neiman-Marcus refused to budge. They would not refund my money because, according to them; "What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the recipe. We absolutely will not refund your money."

I explained to the Accounting Department lady the criminal statutes which govern fraud in the state of Texas. I threatened to report them to the Better Business Bureau and the Texas Attorney General's office. I was basically told: Do what you want. Don't bother thinking of how you can get even, and don't bother trying to get any of your money back."

I said, OK, you've got my $250, and now I'm going to have $250 worth of fun." I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie lover in the world with an e-mail account gets a $250 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus... For free. She replied, "I wish you wouldn't do that." I said, "Well, perhaps you should have thought of that before you RIPPED ME OFF!" and slammed down the phone.

So here it is!

Please pass it on to everyone you can possibly
think of. I paid $250 for this, and I don't want Neiman-Marcus to EVER Make
another penny from this recipe!

NEIMAN-MARCUS COOKIES
(Recipe may be halved)
2 (500 ml) cups butter
24 oz. (680 g) chocolate chips
4 (1000 ml) cups flour
2 (500 ml) cups brown sugar
2 tsp. (10 ml) (Bicarb) soda
1 tsp. (5 ml) salt
2 (500 ml) cups sugar
18 oz. (500 g) Hershey Bar (grated). (Cadbury chocolate for Australians & South Africans)
5 (1250 ml) cups blended oatmeal
4 eggs
2 tsp. (10 ml) baking powder
2 tsp. (10 ml) vanilla
3 cups (375 ml) chopped nuts ( optional )

Measure oatmeal, and blend in a blender to a fine powder.
Cream the
butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour, Oatmeal,
salt, baking powder, and Bicarb (soda).
Add chocolate chips, Hershey Bar, and
nuts.
Roll into balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
Bake
for 10 minutes at (180 °C) 375 degrees.
The above quantities
make ± 112 cookies.
Enjoy!

PLEASE KEEP THE RECIPE AND SEND IT TO EVERY PERSON
YOU KNOW
WHO HAS AN E-MAIL ADDRESS!

This is not a joke-it's a true
story.

*****************************

I'm Growing!!!

Hey there, hi there!

My blog seems to be turning into a bibliography. I do apologize. It seems that books are my current raison d'être...

I read a surprisingly deep book called What Your Clothes Say About You by Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine (of BBC TV series What Not to Wear fame). The book inspired me to go through my closets and to commit a whole big trashbag-full of old clothes to recycling (check out the What Not to Wear style baromater (quiz) too!)

The book has some lovely photos and great ideas on how anyone can update their wardrobe. However, it really goes very deep into the female psyche, explaining why we make certain fashion faux-pas (mainly lack of self esteem). And they believe (as do I) that making a positive step will also improve your inner self, i.e. dressing in a way you truly love is a step towards loving yourself more. I also believe that the same applies to our surroundings, so I undertook the seemingly overwhelming task of clearing my study from under piles of accumulated junk. I had to do it because my physical therapist forbade me from using my laptop placed in my lap while sitting on the sofa - so I had to clear my desk. It feels great. We now only have one junk room left in the house....yes, I still have a lot o' growing to do.

Speaking of growing, I am still reading the amazing, A-mazing book, Principle-Centered Leadership. The more I read it, the more I totally fall in love with it. Here's a quote:

"Principle-centered leadership suggests that the highest level of human motivation is a sense of personal contribution. It views people as the most valuable organizational asset - as stewards of certain resources - and stewardship as the key to discovering, developing, and managing all other assets. Each person is recognized as a free agent, capable of immense achievement, not as a victim or pawn limited by conditions or conditioning".

Wow!!! I love the idea of stewardship: "...the idea that you don't own anything, that you give your life to higher principles, causes and purposes."

It's kind of like in Out of Africa: Karen comes to realize that we don't own anything in this life, we are only allowed to borrow it (whatever it is, it can even be a person) for a while and our job is to make the most of it.

Another lovely book that I finished reading yesterday is The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman . It's about how different things make different people feel loved. One person needs physical touch more than anything else, another needs gifts. So a well-meaning husband could be showering his wife with presents, yet she could feel unloved because he doesn't hug her often enough. So it's useful to find out what our (and our mate's) primary love language is so that we can "speak" that language. It's really a lovely, positive book. The five love langues are: gifts, physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation and acts of service. Do check it out!

P.S. The photo is Pink Lady with Black-and-White Cat

Flexing the Cranium

Hey There Bloggers!

The news of the death of Pink Lady's blog have been greatly exaggerated - Pink Lady has simply been busy with other things...

I am reading a book called Principle-Centered Leadership by Stephen R. Covey (the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and also known as a "modern day Socrates"). He has some brilliant things in the book. Here is one: The Seven Habits of Ineffective People - I love it! It's funny - yet sadly also many people really do live like this (I can't claim that I don't occasionally succumb to these habits...).

The Seven Habits of Ineffective People


1. Be reactive: doubt yourself and blame others.
2. Work without any clear end in mind.
3. Do the urgent thing first.
4. Think win/lose.
5. Seek first to be understood.
6. If you can’t win, compromise.
7. Fear change and put off improvement

Something else that really struck me in the book is that Covey says that he often asks this question at his seminars: "How many of you would agree that the vast majority of the work force possess far more capability, creativity, talent, initiative, and resourcefulness than their present jobs allow or require them to use?". About 99% of people agree with this statement. Covey goes on to say:

"We all admit that our greatest resources are being wasted and that poor human resource management hurts our bottom line".

Wow!!!! I could have written that line myself. That really sums up what I live for - to somehow make the business community come to grips with this truth and, what's more, to do something about it. That's my mission in life.

I wonder why it is so easy for us to see the infinite potential for growth and development in children, yet we forget that the same applies to us adults. We may stop growing in size (or at least in height!) but there is no need for us to ever stop growing intellectually, phychologically, emotionally, etc. In the words of the former TV ad for the US Army: "The mind is a terrible thing to waste". Did you know that our minds are more powerful than any computer? And the same thing that applies to our muscles applies to our minds: use 'em or lose 'em!

So keep pumping those cranial muscles! :-)

Love,
Pink Lady

P.S. The little girl in the photo is Pink Lady - at her uncle's summer cottage.

Temperamental

I am just finishing up reading a book called Personality Plus by Florence Littauer - and I'm recommending it to all who will listen to my ranting. If any book is truly life-changing, this one is it!!

It was Hippocrates (also known as the father of medicine) who first defined the four basic temperaments:

• Sanguine
• Melancholic
• Choleric
• Phlegmatic
  

Ms. Littauer does a brilliant job of explaining the tempraments in a modern way. This book is such an eye-opener: I thought I knew something about people already, but having read this book I feel as if the scales have been lifted from my eyes.

I took the personality quiz in the book and it turns out that I am sanguine (not a surprise to anyone who knows me) but I also have a lot of melancholic and choleric traits - also not a surprise to anyone who knows me well. However, I now realize that I did the quiz wrong - that's how sanguine I am; I did not read the instructions! So I'll need to take the test again and perhaps the result will be slightly different.

However, the most important thing about this book is that it helps you to identify and better understand both your strengths and your weaknesses - and also gives tips on how to lessen the effects of your weaknesses.

The book also helps us to understand other people much better. I can't recommend this book highly enough - do check it out!

For many, many years now, I have been obsessed with two things: personal growth and leadership. But mainly the first one - I'm interested in leadership mainly because I feel that growing to be a true leader supports us in our personal growth.

I've even defined a personal mission statement for myself already several years ago: "To be instrumental in the creation of the organizational culture of the future". My mission statement does not explain what that culture is, but I mean the kind of culture where the goals, needs and dreams of the individual are met at the same time as the company is profitable. See my earlier post for more on the same topic.

P.S. The chair in the photo was hand made by my boyfriend - when he was 9 years old.

Oh Say Can You Sea...

I've been thinking about why so many people would like to live by the sea. What is the fascination? it might be something to do with being able to look into infinity. And the power of the ocean - even the potential danger. It's something very exciting. I'm not even interested in sailing and yet I'd still love to live by the sea.

I was watching the movie Basic Instinct (the first one, from 1992) and Sharon Stone's character's beach house simply took my breath away. It's simply my dream home!! It's high up on some cliffs with a view of the roaring ocean beneath - there's rocks so the sea is not calm and quiet. In one scene, she sits on a balcony/terrace having a cigarette - and the view is simply amazing. There's also some stairs so you can go down to the beach, where there is a big bonfire. It's just a magical house. It's worth renting the DVD just to see that house.

As a teenager, I used to laugh at my Mom because she'd watch a movie "just for the beautiful scenery" - I now do the same thing! I loved Under the Tuscan Sun mainly because of the beautiful Tuscan landscapes. The same applies to The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was filmed in various parts of Italy. I guess that somewhere along the way, our priorities just change.

Another equally gorgeous - though very different - beach house can be seen in the movie Something's Gotta Give. I don't know who the decorator of the set was, but I'd love to find out - because it was just perfect. I could've just moved into that house without having to change a single thing. It's that perfectly aligned with my tastes in decorating.

By the way, I believe that it's no coincidence that both of my dream houses are owned by wealthy, successful women writers. I want something else besides their beach homes...I want their whole lifestyles.

My boyfriend and I recently visited our neighbours' house - neighbours that have just fairly recently moved in. They live a couple of doors away from us. I was amazed at how finished everything looked in their house. It looked like they had always lived there - or like a professional decorator had just finished with it. I told them that now I'd be too embarrassed to have them visit our place; we've been here for two years and we still have two whole rooms as "junk rooms" and we haven't put up a single set of curtains yet in the whole house (we do have venetian blinds everywhere).

Our neighbours had even done some remodeling: they had put in a jacuzzi and they had to move the location of the shower etc. I now realize how differently they have behaved compared to us - we just talk about putting in a jacuzzi. However, I'm sure that they just took a bigger house loan and used some of the money for the decorating. Their house is only half the size of ours and with the size loan we took, we simply wouldn't be able to borrow anymore even if we wanted to. So in practice, we don't have money for furniture. All of our furniture is either stuff we had already or stuff that we got for free from relatives etc. And I've been renovating some of it.

Anyway, seeing how beautiful our neighbour's place looks gave me a new incentive to start fixing our place up - even if it just means tidying up and getting rid of excess junk. Buying new stuff will come later - when we can afford it. We refuse to buy anything on credit; we'll wait until we can afford to pay cash.

Lots o' Love,
Pink Lady

P.S. The photo was taken in Naxos, Greece.