PREPARATIONS

I'm at work in Siberian weather loaing like hell until midnight, but yesterday and this morning I prepared a lot of things and put ourselves in the Christmas mood!

With a martini and some Sinatra we decorated our small Christmas tree last night.

It's actually the first Christmas tree I've had since I moved away from home a decade ago!

I usually pack a lot of my gifts in old newspapers - saving money, saving nature. Normally I go for the daily papers I've read at home, but this time I picked up some free chinese magazines in my local supermarket (apparently Tapiola is full of Chinese readers?). I make the cards out of lace-like cake paper or left over gift paper from last year.

If you have no idea of what gifts to give, a pretty bowl (from the flea market/super market/fancy store, however you like it) filled with fresh fruit would at least be appreciated by me.

I baked heaps of gingerbreads! Spelt gingerbreads with a hint of orange and another set with almonds.

Eddi wasn't totally happy with being dressed in my apron, having to mix the other dough. But he did enjoy eating it later on.

Saved some for ourselves, while the rest is meant to be decorated and given away.

The decorated ones turned out surprisingly ugly though. For a while I considered saying it was Eddi's kids who baked them. Disappointment. But well, I'm good at a lot of other things! And they do taste good.

I also gave myself a little Christmas present!I had already give up on receiving these before the holidays, but then the delivery boy arrived only minutes before I was on my way to work. Ave Maria was playing in hte background when I opened the parcel. It was a very beautiful moment.

And very beautiful shoes!It is however minus 20 C outside so I won't be wearing these beauties for some time. Well, except for indoors.

Bonus cat-in-the-box!

How are your Holiday preparations coming along?

Ok, Edit : it's almost minus thirty, not 'just' twenty.

THE SUNDAY DRESS

I've been winterizing more of my summer dresses.

It's funny btw how a dress you were never really that interested in but bought as it happened to be on sale (that's the right consuming spirit, buy even if you don't care!) turns out to become your absolute favorite one. The cut is the Doris dress from Trashy Diva and it's just perfect, although it looks less interesting on the site.
(Well you can't see that much of it actually since it's "winterized" but anyway.)

The cherry brooch is by Frollein von Sofa.

THE BLACK CAT MEETS THE WHITE ONE

I've had this lamp for perhaps a year already, not being able to use it - I ordered it online from the US and didn't think of the fact that it wouldn't work over here as it is (you know, as everything has to be different there in America). As taking it to that one electronics shop outside of town that I was told could change the whole shabadang into matching our power system seemed to be one of those never-gonna-happen things I almost gave up on it. But yesterday Eddi removed the bulb system and used one of the extra lamp chords we had here at home and now, ta-daa, let there be light!

Pekka posing.

The siamese lamp is from Modcloth.

(Eddi asked me if I wrote out that he was like Mc Gyver, well, I didn't but now I did, sort of :)

LULU IN THE BATH

Here's a little cat-pic for Monday morning.

I have tons of these pictures as I for some reason have to take one every time I see one of the cats have gone and stuffed themself inside something. WHich is pretty much all the time...

SALT AND PEPPER

Now I have two more cats, white ones!

Vintage salt and pepper shakers from Little Bukowski. Every kitchen needs a little kitsch!

SOME THINGS I'VE COME ACROSS LATELY

You know, come across as in bought.

A bamboo tray found in an antique strore.


A mint condition bag from Pretty Damn Cute.

With a complimentary mirror inside.


And last but not least-
-a 1958 Blaupunkt radio Cabinet!
It also has a built-in but removable record player, but we haven't fixed the electricity chords to see if it works yet.


It serves as a kitsch-y liquor cabinet as well!

We found this at an antique store out of town; Fasaani.We went there only looking for "something small and absolutely no bigger furniture as it will soon get crowded at home". Now this piece was not exactly small, but we just couldn't leave it there.

Even though the piece has a few decades of tobacco smoke impregnated into it Lulu does no seem to mind. I have had to clean it quite a bit though.

TWO THINGS RIGHT NOW

Strawberry-cherry-rasberry milkshake and cat playing hide-and-seek.

THE CATS ARE SETTLING IN

They are everywhere and all at once (goddamit :)!

ASIAN INSPIRED TOMATO SOUP FOR SUNDAY NIGHT

Tonight we make soup.
Or; I make, you watch.

You need:
Red lentils, (peeled) cherry tomatoes, canned crushed tomatoes, coconut milk and chili sauce.

(...bonus pic of cat in between, watching the pot while cooking...)

And to make a long story short; you get:


Not that the story is that long if written out either - just boil the ingredients in mentioned order, first the lentils, then the cherry tomatoes etc. You can also go for just crushed the tomatoes if you want. Spice with some chili sauce, soy sauce, garlic and fresh coriander (if your lucky enough to have some at home -I didn't have any today) and whatever you feel like, a drop of lemon perhaps.
Done! If you want to pimp it up add shrimps, tofu or chopped vegetables, but the soup works fine just like that.

KITTIES

How many cats can you spot in the picture?


Eight altogether. Well the point here being that I got a kitty blouse from VintagEija's at the Ofelia market last month. It has cat patches on the pockets, which are both hideous and adorably kitch at the same time!

Now this is something you could pimp up any old blouse with rather easily yourself I guess. You just have to find the patches first of course, but they do have a selection of the weirdest such in haberdashery shops...

SOUP

I'm sick at home with a flu and alone so today there's no dressing up. Instead I'm making soup - a broccoli and lentil soup that I once tried out from scratch and turned out surprisingly good and has worked well ever since.

You'll need green lentils, broccoli, cooking cream and spices of your own preference. I've started to freak out over natrium glutamate so I'm not adding any stock cubes for taste, rather some garlic and bits of chopped onion, gourmet salt, pepper and a hint of chili. I prefer to use ecological vegetable cooking cream since it's additive free. I'm trying to be more concious about these things (and every now and then I actually succeed to be).

First, rinse about half a coffee cup of lentils and place them in cold water with the onions (or stock cube) and heat up.



Add the rinsed and slightly chopped broccoli when the lentils have gone soft. I actually use quite little water; it heats up faster and rather steams the broccoli than cooks it, that saves more vitamins. And no need to pour the boiling water away either. Cook under a lid until the broccoli is soft.



Add about one cup of cooking cream. Heat up and use a mixer/blender to mash it into a smooth puree.



Sprinkle on some pepper and whatever else you feel like, chopped herbs or such, and serve!

Since I'm slightly obsessed with not having a too monotonic colour sheme on my plate I have my green soup with a tomato sandwhich (on roasted rye bread with tahini) and some pineapple juice (which I normally only have for breakfast but hey, I'm ill). And mango sorbet for dessert. (Not so bad being sick in some aspects no :)

And believe it or not, my little carnivore Lulu enjoyed what was let of the soup. Who would've thought!

YOU KNOW I LOVE PARCELS AND PACKAGES - part1

Ran home fast from the post office. (Thank god it's only about 100m from my building!)

At this point I'm always excited as a baby.

...exciting...

Oh!

Double-oh!

(Well that did't take long.)

Ta taa!

(Once you get one cat out of the box, the other one enters it.)

The shoes are from Sniff.