Crying moss

On this weekend I saw my dad after a long time and it felt so great to see him since the last time we saw was two to three months ago. After he took me back home I saw this beautiful rock face which had been covered with thick layer of ice the whole winter but now it was dripping water, drops sparkling in the sunlight like crystals. So I had to go home just to grab my camera and head back trying to capture it.

This is what I did today.

45 minutes went by just like that and I started to notice that when the sun started to set and the light didn’t reflect from the water drops as much anymore. While I walked back home I saw this view (and an overexposured photo of it):

But I also noticed this:

Oh, go ahead and walk down those stairs - they under there somewhere.

I decided to bake Tosca Cake tomorrow. And I had just eaten the last cinnamon roll today (and I’ve been giving them away also). Friday was good. I felt good.

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EDIT:
I didn't had time to make the tosca cake (vegan of course) the next day but I made it later. Here's how it turned out:

Cats & Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

I woke up quite early considering I had went to bed a little late. But a big good mug of rich, black coffee would cover at least an hour of sleep. I spent the beginning of the day on the computer surfing on the internet and stuff. During the day I destroyed the lentil goodness from last night already planning the next food.

Food making continued later this night with vegetable lasagna and baking. For days I had almost dreamt about baking and cinnamon buns were the first thing that came in my head when thinking about baking and kneading a dough. To save time my mom made the lasagna while I was making the cinnamon rolls. It had been a looong time since the last time I baked and making perfect vegan cinnamon buns ahd been on my to/do /list for ages now. The buns were success overall.

If I would gain a pound for each thought of food I would weight a million pounds already. I like food. Once again, I ate way too much - but that’s ok.

Buns before and after the oven...

The cinnamon rolls turned out to be so airy and fluffy.

A perfect cinnamon roll.

Nice weekend

Today when I got home I went straight to bed and we had a serious nap with cats.

So this is what I’m dealing with...

Later that evening I ended up making a huge pot of pasta with red lentil sauce. I could’ve made it elegant and put the sauce on top of the pasta but I smashed it all together and it was gooood.

I was hungry and so I didn’t have time to arrange a nice portion with parsley on top. Not very elegant picture but tasted a thousand times better than it looks in here...

I wanted to watch a movie and definitely something humorous to “clear” my head. Purely coincidentally I noticed there was “Hot Fuzz” coming later that night and I think it’s hilarious so I decided to watch it.

After that I went to the computer for a moment and then I went to bed. Siru had been following me around the house all day and was entrenched in my bed half the time – so I didn’t have to sleep alone.

 
After going to my bed I felt absolutely blissed.

Self-Injury Awareness Day

** NOTE!! Even because of the subject, this post does NOT contain disturbing images or photos!! **

 

The orange ribbon of self harm awareness.

On every year, the 1st of March is designated as Self-Injury Awareness Day (SIAD) around the world.  It's a time when we can all come together to help raise awareness about self-injury and self-harm. Wear an orange ribbon for Self-Injury Awareness Day if you or someone you know has been affected by self-injury or self-harm. Today I wear a ribbon myself.

SIAD has been running for many years, and has become more and more popular in the UK over the last few years. It’s still a grassroots annual global awareness event / campaign. On this day, and in the weeks leading up to it, some people choose to be more open about their own self-harm, and awareness organizations make special efforts to raise awareness about self-harm and self-injury. Some people wear an orange awareness ribbon, wristband or beaded bracelet to encourage awareness of self-harm. The goal of the people who observe SIAD is to break down the common stereotypes surrounding self-harm and to educate medical professionals and people in general about the condition.

WHAT CAN YOU DO ON SELF-INJURY AWARENESS DAY:
Please reach out to someone. Whether you self-harm, if someone you know self-harms, if someone who’s dealing with self-harm or someone who has dealt with self-harm. Your story matters and needs to be shared.

Don’t judge people who self-harm but try to help and understand them - that’s what they will need. What people, who are self-harming, need is support. People who knows a person who self-injures and people in general needs information and facts rather than assumptions. Many seems to think it's just teenage girls or emos who cut - but they should think again, but it could be anyone older or younger, a female or a male, a student or an engineer or anyone else.

Cutting is cutting - whether the cut is deep or not. It needs to be taken seriously.

ABOUT SELF-HARMING:
Surprisingly many people self-harm. The number may be higher because people keep it to themselves. Many self-injurers hide it because they may feel ashamed, alone and scared. And what many may think is that it is a suicide attempt. It's not a suicide attempt. Most self-harmers aren't suicidal. Other than being a suicide attempt, it's more like a coping strategy. To help them cope with difficult feelings, such as depression, despair, self hatred, shame, grief, loneliness, stress, abuse and bullying. Someone may think that one cut just to get attention. In some cases this may be, because sometimes self-harm may be a cry for help without precisely seeking attention with (some can, people are different and self-harm by different reasons). Someone may be scared that someone will notice, but when they do, they find themselves kind of glad that someone are noticing their despair and someone is willing to listen and help.

It may start as “simple” as that, but in the end it becomes a problem of its own - It's an addiction. The self-injurers often feels they can't get help. Because of the stigma and what people think, because they are ashamed, because they don't want to hurt the ones they love.

But you are not alone with this addiction and that there are always people willing to listen and help you. There are. Don’t let it sound cliché – and even if it sounds like it that doesn’t make it any less true.

So remember! On each year, March 1st is Self-Injury Awareness Day - wear ORANGE to help support self-injury, and spread some awareness.

I’ve written this, so please don’t copy this straight away – if you want to distribute this text, please do add the source (this site). Thank you!

Valentine's Day

It’s Valentines Day!! Ok… No. There’s no overly romantic post to come... I fact I spent my Valentine’s Day with my ladies. I am damn single all the damn time. Always have been – unfortunately. So there will be no princess of a unicorn under my balcony. Thank you.
What do I do then? Whine about it in every internet media I could find? HA! No... I accept it and pour more booze in the drink.

Anyhoo, that was the wannabe-sarcastic thing about this in my head but this is just another holiday for me. Eating well and drinking well... No time for clichés or anything, no reason or logic for cheesy “I love you too” blabbing. I do, however, post greetings with “<3” on internet and to my friend’s telling they are important. This is more like a friendly thing to me. I do hope it won’t change if I some day find someone. I don’t want to swim in syrup.

So spending the Valentines Day just between us girls included good food, good dessert and good puch.. In other words; red wine, vegetable lasagna, waffles with raspberry jam and (vegan) whipped cream and pink raspberry punch.

So starting with eating well, we made vegetable lasagna. I’ve got an obsession about vegetable lasagna. Unfortunately it only last in this house not more than two days (or rather one and a half).

 

Getting everything ready and during that short moment we turned our backs, Siru had got herself into the lasagna dish. I bet she felt so overly comfortable in it we would have not got the dish back for the rest of the night, but knowing cats you can always trade the bowl to another. 

And that suited her better, like it was made for a cat. Perfect. (no worries we didn’t make the lasagna to the dish before cleaning it thoroughly – 100% free of cat hair and everything else!)

 

For dessert there was heart shaped waffles with raspberry jam and vegan whipped cream. I had been absolutely craving for waffles I had to make them and this vegan whipped cream was a new thing and I wanted to test it out, and what better way than make delicious waffles?

One of the most important things in every holiday or anything holiday-ish seems to be drrrinks (people find million reason to drink but holidays give them a million more). On Valentines Day it’s got to be pretty and pink: raspberry punch – with lovely raspberries and, oh what the hell...alcohol, or course. I had tried to look over the internet to make a GOOD raspberry punch, not overly-boozed up juice. Many punches seemed to have raspberry liqueur and other alcohol like white wine, sider etc. in it ON TOP of vodka. And I was looking for something a little more cost-effective but still very tasty and effective – It sucks if punch is overly sweet (yuck!) or too juice-like children’s party dishwater. And after wading through those liqueur versions and non-alcoholic baby shower shit I came to the conclusion that adding “raspberry-thing” this and “something-else” that and booze and tasting it every once and a while would work just fine. And it did! When adding frozen raspberries lastly, they coloured the punch and kept it chilled. Very, very nice...