Happy New Year

Began the last day of the year visiting one of our favorite places, the Morgan Park in Glen Cove. So beautiful it does good for the soul.

We are ringing in the new year with friends in New Jersey with lots of families and kids. The best kind of New Year Party!

2012 was a year with some ups and downs, definitely not an easy year. Reflecting back, I am most thankful for my vastly improved health, as I finally found the right medication for my condition. I was able to exercise again which has made me feel much stronger and better. But other than that the year had many challenges, so hopefully 2013 will bring a bit more luck.

Happy New Year!

Falabella & Cookies

I love my new Falabella bag! I've been wearing hand held bags for so long that carrying a bag on the shoulder felt a bit weird, and the shoulder muscles got super tight..but I'll get used to it again. (And now I actually have a reason to pamper myself with a massage!) I love the Falabella's size as it fits diapers, wipes, bananas, and all the kid stuff that I carry with me, as well as my own wallet, make-up, etc. It is a pretty big sack, though, so lucky that I'm a big girl. And the color - I love the shimmery tweed and the gold hardware... I think you get the point so enough about that.

It seems to keep with tradition that we don't have time to bake our gingerbread cookies before Christmas. Luckily the dough keeps for a few days in the fridge. So we baked ours yesterday, and then decorated them this morning. I let the kids bake and decorate so the cookies look really home made, but they really enjoy getting to do it themselves. The other tradition is that we share some cookies with our neighbors, wrapped in some cellophane and dropped off by kids to their friends at both neighbors.

I've been experimenting with different recipes, traditional Finnish ones (conversions are tough), and last year I did Mark Bittman's recipe (very gingery). But this year's gingerbread cookies came out really good with a recipe from my new Martha Stewart baking book. This is the recipe that I will use from now on, it's the perfect blend of savory and sweet. And the kids liked them too. It was cute that my 4 year old realized that baking cookies is a tradition too, as she noted that she loves to do this every Christmas...

Gifted

We don't have a mountain of gifts at Christmas, but everyone gets something they like. Santa brought me a cashmere dress, a fur trimmed cashmere sweater, a red Gucci wallet, and the Falabella bag that I've been drooling after for quite some time... Thank you Santa!

Silent Night

A dear family member passed away on Christmas Night. The words of the beautiful song, Silent Night, have brought consolation, and somehow feel so right, even though the song is about Christ's birth.

“Silent Night, Holy night,
Son of God, Love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.”

In the memory of my beloved relative, who lived a good, hardworking, and honest life, through interesting times from 1930 to 2012, rest in peace. You will be missed, loved and remembered.

Merry Christmas

The morning of Christmas Eve began traditionally with rice porridge and the traditional dry fruit soup/jelly... And of course some chocolate. Merry Christmas!

Home Town

My original home town, Porvoo, is a historic, picturesque town in Finland. I went there to visit last summer and it was just as cute as I remembered. I don't go there very often as I don't have any family there anymore, but I have some really fond memories of Christmases there, and getting married in the old church. When I saw this picture of Porvoo I had a flash back of my childhood there...

Shells

I have a slight obsession with sea shells. Not the fancy perfect kind, that you can buy in stores, but the ordinary, a bit broken up kind of shells that line the beaches of North Shore of Long Island. Every time I go for a beach walk I come back with a pocket full of shells...and some nice stones, and pieces of drift glass or wood..or pretty much anything made pretty by sand and water... My daughters share in on my passion and they too love to collect shells (and acorns, and stones, and pinecones, and all kinds of nature stuff that I don't even have names for...).

Maybe it's the colors.. Blues, grays and whites.. after all, I am a Finn!

Aren't they PRETTY? 

Say this fast: She sells sea shells on the sea shore.