Personal
Night owls, it's time to step up
Early bird catches the worm is total bullshit. Besides, who wants the worm when you can be an owl and get the bigger game? This is how we night owls need to start to see the world. The problem is that currently everyone is expected to be up and ready early at morning, earlier the better. And to be all perky and ready to answer difficult questions or learn new things. This is because we night owls are stuck with the expectations of early birds. If you google morning person you'll find soon articles that will help you to "become one". Yikes! You cannot really become a morning person Ba...
Kale and banana smoothie
I have found kale. Finally, at this point of my vegetarian life. It contains lots of beta-Carotene (source of vitamin A), vitamin K, vitamin C, iron, calcium, magnesium and then some. Sounds pretty perfect. Some people say kale has a strong taste, but for me it's not that strong. It can be used in cooking, salads and, as I did, smoothies. Here's what I did to create a healthy, simple smoothie. If you are afraid it's not sweet enough for you, remember that bananas are a good sweetener. 2-4 kale leaves 1-2 bananas splash of juice of your choice (non-sweetened; I used orange juice) Thro...
Running tips from a slow casual runner
Are you a casual runner? You are likely to have been getting tips from running coaches and pro runners. Good tips, helpful and all. If you are like me, a casual runner, not seriously serious and not for competitions, the tips from pros may discourage you. Firstly I'm not a professional running coach or a marathon girl with years of experience of running. I'm a casual runner, very slow and I take breaks due to winter or just cause I don't feel like it. Here are my quick tips for my fellow casual (and most likely not very fast) runners. The faster runners with their tips mean well, thoug...
Dear Summer
Dear Summer, Last year you were on a bad mood mostly and things didn't go too well. But when it didn't rain I used to go for a run and it was all fun. Unfortunately your sister Winter has been gloomy, cold and kind of sarcastic. Yes, I as many others asked for some snow, since it was so dark and depressing without it. But then she decided to throw in all the snow possible. And more is coming as I write this. Anyways. I miss you, even though you tend to be moody nowadays. I wish we see soon. Yours truly, Mervi
Resolutions
Every time the year changes lots people decide or promise to change their lives, do new things, be different. Every year lots of these decisions and promises are broken. The disappointment, sadly settling to the fact you can't change yourself. Years back I stopped making New Year's Resolutions. I stopped making promises of things I wouldn't be able to keep. This year I made a decision instead of a resolution: Not to force myself into a change. I'm stubborn, emotional, have a bad temper and odd sense of humor. I can be overly empathetic, loud and know-it-all. I am not organized, not pus...
Thinking inside the Dropbox
I wanted to move most of the photos and videos from my iPhone. All the options I had available to accomplish this seemed so slow and too much work. So I dusted my old unused Dropbox account, installed it on my computer, got the iPhone app and started to copy the photos from iPhone to Dropbox and from Dropbox to my hard drive. This isn't one of those horror stories where everything goes wrong and then all the way wrong. Nope. Everything actually worked. And pretty nicely too. I had rather lots of photos (and some videos too) on my iPhone so the moving them around took some time. But it was fa...
Farewell Juuso
15 years ago my parents and I brought Juuso, the little brother of Eetu home with us. He was a tiny thing, scared and confused by the car ride, the new people and everything. After a little while he set in and became a part of the family. Juuso loved being outdoors. He was known of spending the days and nights out, sleeping somewhere, climbing to dizzying heights and entertaining himself with hunting small prey. He was a little wild like that. A couple of years back Eetu had to go and last year it was Miku's turn. Today Juuso had been put to sleep after his health collapsed rather su...