Midsummer

Happy Midsummer's Day everyone!

Midsummer Day must be one of my favorite holidays. Not only because it’s the longest and lightest day of the year, but every holiday gives you a permission to eat and drink well!

My mom gathered together the most beautiful bouquet and brought it home. The smell of the fresh flowers were intoxicating!

The cats were also interested in about the bouquet... Way too interested! Haha. 

Later we put on the grill and barbecued our own delicacies – only vegan delicacies for me, of course. 

The dinner was very filling and good. And what can I say? I love food and I love to barbecue! 

The Midsummer Day’s morning was beautiful and misty! Almost like a painting... On Midsummer Day I give myself some more leash and let myself to stay up later than usual. There’s nothing better than a night full of light when sun never sets and you can get to see the rise of the new day. 

We had made the summer’s first sangria in the fridge to cool down and to absorb all the flavors from all of the fresh fruits well ahead of time! To me, sangria is a sign of summer! 

Because it was a holiday and stores were closed and there was nowhere to go, we slept late – our cats are fascinating creatures for many reasons; one of them is that they tend to sleep when we do. They don’t fill almost any part of the cats’ manual for they are unique. And besides, tiredness doesn’t look at a place or time...

The Midsummer’s Eve and Day couldn’t gone any better! Only the weather could have been sunnier, but to be honest, even the rainy, cloudy days didn’t bother that much in the end. There’s still time for the sun to come out! 

 

A Brave Little One...

Yesterday we had to take our second cat, Lara, to the vet. Her behavior changed during late at night on the day before yesterday and we got very worried. She woke up from under my bed and started to meow really low and different than usual, and it sounded weird to our ears. She snuck near the corners and meowed and when I went to sit on the floor, she came onto my lap. She crawled into a tiny ball and she just wanted to be there. When she was on my lap, she was quiet. Someone would confuse this to a cat’s need to get attention, but we know our cat and this kind of meowing and behavior was unusual to her. Except the need to be close to us – Lara has always been a cat who likes to be near the people she knows well, but something this time felt “out of the ordinary” because first she meowed like she was in pain and then she came onto my lap and just did not wanted to leave. If I tried to move her she meowed and didn’t wanted to move.

We took Lara onto the sofa and she was so tired. She just went to sleep onto the couch and seemed exhausted. We were really worried and discussed about taking Lara to the vet. She had an Idiopathic Cystitis about two years ago, in July, 2013 and we feared she might have it again...

Our other cat, Pikkunen (Tiny), seemed helpless, because it was like she also sensed that her sister wasn’t well. We decided to take Lara to an on call vet which was open the whole night. 

We took Lara to the on call vet at midnight but there was about two hour waiting. We were told we were supposed to call first, but there had not been such information anywhere when we were looking for a vet. I was so angry and sad and disappointed that I can’t even describe it with words – I know I reacted too strongly but I was just so very worried because what had happened to Lara already in 2013 and remembering what happened to our first cat, Siru, I was beyond concerned.

So then we decided to go back home and decided that if the situation would look as alarming as it had already seemed we would go back at 2 a.m. But Lara seemed a bit energized when she came out of the carrying box. But soon she went back onto the couch and slept through the whole night. We were up till 2 a.m. discussing what we should do about her. We decided to keep watch through the whole night and go back to the vet first thing in the morning... No need to say, I didn’t get any sleep.

So, we called to the vet next morning but the vet came on call duty at noon. So we scheduled a time right then and took Lara to the vet again. We got the most heartfelt vet and veterinarian nurse who cared for our dear Lara so well and gentle. 

They did all sorts of tests to Lara and in the meantime, we waited in the examination room with Lara as the test results were getting ready. We pet her and talked to her to keep her calm.

We waited for the final test results for over an hour and I was so nervous before the doctor started to tell about them. They were basically fine except a few levels which were a little high, but the doctor said they were not anything alarming. I was so worried if Lara’s kidneys were also failing like they did with Siru. One of the basic things, like blood levels and kidney levels were alright, so I could sigh for the first time since last night. 

Lara got medication and we got to take her home. We went home with a bus, and it was actually Lara’s first time in one – but she took it like a pro; silent and still. 

Once back at home, Lara was exhausted from the visit at the vet and retreated to the couch for some well-earned beauty rest. I cannot express my feelings with words, for there is not enough words to tell how overwhelmingly happy I was to get this little, brave girl back home!

Since yesterday, Lara has shown significant improvement and she has been more energized and full of life compared what she was like earlier. I have my hopes high, but I have to admit that after such amount of stress and worry, I don’t quite know how to be still just yet or relax. Maybe it will subside in the coming days... 

 

May Day!

Happy May Day everyone!

Like last year, we decided to avoid the crowd of the May Day market at downtown and stayed at home more than willingly.

I have always loved to eat and my love towards making food burst out in a bright flame since I quit eating meat. I love that every kind of festivities are great opportunities to use the whole day making food and gives me a chance to try new recipes! 

I always try to hold on the traditional aspect about what I will make and eat, which means that I won’t eat something completely different than what is usually related to each festivity, but instead I try to create something new around the traditional foods. 

Although making most of the foods from scratch, using a lot of time to do so, we still had time to make vegan doughnuts which we rolled in sugar.

I have been eating the whole day, but isn’t that what these days are for? I hope you had a great and plentiful May Day in every way! 

p.s. The quality of the photos are not like they used to be because my camera decided to break up its co-operation with me after all these years. I should’ve seen this coming... 

 

Happy Easter!

I don’t know why, but Easter is one of the ”holidays” I wait the most! I guess all the good childhood memories about egg hunting and eating candy until I felt sick, comes into my head.

We planted some grass for our cats way before Easter – Tiny couldn’t care less but Lara was crazy about it, even before it started to grow... Oh, the joy when she finally got to it! This is just one way of showing how diverse and different cats can be!

Like during all holidays and days alike, I like to bake and make food.

I baked vegan peach-quark buns – something I’ve had in mind for a long time, but I had never baked before. And they turned out perfect! I couldn’t have been happier!

For dinner I made my traditional Easter seitan roast with spicy oven-roasted vegetables. The picture isn’t the best, but at least there’s a picture...

I hope you have had a great Easter and you’ve eaten yourselves as full as I have, ha!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Christmas must be one of my favorite holidays. On my previous post I wrote about things that has uplifted my Christmas spirit... The final thing, which I didn’t even dare to say out loud before I was absolutely sure it would happen was that my brother came to spend the Christmas with us for the first time in four years. Since he moved to another city, it has been rather difficult to assemble a Christmas together. But, that was the final thing that sparked up my Christmas spirit, which had been missing to the very last days that preceded Christmas Eve.

We had some plans what to do, but instead we sat down and talked for hours and hours – something we hadn’t have the opportunity to do face to face in years. We literally talked through the whole days!

On Christmas Eve, we slept late and later we made a lot of food, something for everyone. In fact, making food and eating was the only time we were rather quiet. Every other time we just talked and talked.

For an appetizer before the Christmas dinner I had ryemeal bread with fake fish roe mousse and dill. 

Like every year, I made a seitan “ham” in a place of regular ham. It is a big part of my food on Christmas.

For my big surprise, my brother said that he will taste everything on the table – even the traditional casseroles which he said he doesn’t really like that much. I was prepared for him starting to joke about my diet and foods but instead, he even tasted the seitan I had made. His reaction made me smile; he was very careful how to say it out loud, for he is a meat-eater to his very core but even he did say that seitan isn’t his thing he didn’t hate it. That meant a lot to me, for he must have had the image of my very first attempt to make seitan in his head so he must have waited it to be as horrible as back then.  

We hadn’t really prepared to bake anything but out of an impulse my brother decided to make a chocolate cake out of everything he could find and it turned out to be one of the best cakes I’ve eaten.

On this year there were not many gifts but as I’ve gotten older I don’t really feel like needing any, even it is nice to get something, but it’s not a necessity anymore... What is even more important for me is celebrating Christmas together with the people I love. 

The cats were a bit shy at first for they hadn’t seen my brother in such a long time, but then they got accustomed to him and acted like he has never been gone. All the food got our cats curious and they even tried to be rude in order to get it, stalking on the chairs, near the table, staring at us with their gleaming eyes... With cats you feel never alone – someone is always watching.

I must say I had one of the best Christmases I’ve ever had – if not the best! 

Between Two Cities

Today I came back from Helsinki where I was for four days to see my brother. I had already packed my bag the day earlier I left because I tend to forget things when I’m in a hurry...

Arranging my beauty box was another thing... I had not touched it for months! Lara was more than willing to help me sort out everything in it.

On Friday I left with a bus to Helsinki and the bus was officially full! But luckily I had taken my tablet with me from which I watched a movie during the trip so it went by fast.

When the bus came to its destination, I waited at the inner city for my brother who was meeting me there, because to this day, I have never learned to travel inside Helsinki with all the endless busses, trollies, subway and trains... And I had way too many bags to carry on my own.

We went to my brother’s home – I loved how much effort my brother had put into this, for he had cleaned his whole home from floor to ceiling. So, we are twins and have always been close and I always feel we continue our things just where we left them when we have seen each other last time. Of course we call almost every day and chat with each other but that is not nearly the same thing than seeing each other in person.

During the weekend we played a lot! We played mostly a game “Beyond Two Souls” and a bit of “GTA V” and “Portal 2” – I let my brother to play the last one all by himself because I can’t just figure that game out no matter how hard I try! We tend to play well past the midnight every night... 

We went to a grocery store in the middle of the night because the days were spent to everything else but going there. And we made food even later. And stood up even later – gaming and gourmandizing, of course!

The mornings were the best; we slept late and usually my brother got up before I did to start of the day with his playlist of music while I was laying on the bed.

Then the day started off with coffee and a “healthy breakfast” which could be almost anything from sweet to savory. My brother had bought me vegan strawberry cheesecake flavored cookies and as much as he makes fun of my diet (always with humor!) I appreciated that so much for I thought it was so thoughtful thing of him to do. 

On Saturday we took a day off from making food ourselves and went out to a restaurant to eat. I loved to get myself ready for the night. My brother is also very pedantic about how he looks, even though it still takes him less time to get himself ready than me.

We ordered burgers – I ordered an ultimate veggie burger with so many fillings the burger was separated in half. The food came after the last call signal and I was starving but it was more than enough to fill the void. Ha!

When we got back to my brother home, we continued gaming. We got in the middle of “Beyond Two Souls” but the days went by so fast, we didn’t have time to finish the game to even see one of its 24 possible endings! So we decided to continue the game next time we would see each other... Yes, we already thought about the next time we would meet.

I was supposed to go there for only for the weekend but because we had such an amazing time, I decided to stay there for one more day. We also had time to watch some movies – deciding a movie which would suite for both of us is always a struggle because our preferences about movie genres are so, so different!

On this morning and our last morning, we were both tired because we had played so late. I had to wake up before my brother did, so I could pack everything ready. We left to the bus stop early so I would not be late, so we were there half an hour early and we had time to talk some more before the bus came. I had promised to myself that I would not have cried but tears came into my eyes when we hugged and said goodbye (until the next time). 

I always love to see my brother, because it’s not too often we got to see each other even though he is not that far away. I also love to see his cat, Mr. Morrison, which I’m as fond of as to my own cats... He was so full of energy right from the start I arrived that he wore out and slept the whole day today. 

Then I went on the bus, which was not nearly as full as the one which I went to Helsinki. I killed the time by calling people and watching the rest of the movie I started to watch when I first left towards Helsinki... The trip back home went much faster than the trip to Helsinki!

I arrived home at 9 p.m. and as always when I’m coming home from somewhere, I unpack my things immediately. I can’t leave the bag laying around still packed... It’s kind of my coming-home-ritual.

To be honest, I have never gone to Helsinki alone so I was very nervous to go there. But if I would have given up to my own fears I would have never gone to Helsinki in the first place and I would have been missing all the greatest time with my brother. So I was beyond overjoyed that I went there!