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.

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