Angel Spun: Exactly!

Garden & Health: This week looks like it's developing into a really busy one. The weather is cooling rapidly and it looks all the time that it's going to rain in the next 10 minutes, so we have decided to try and prepare the garden for winter ASAP. There aren't too many tasks but they are quite heavy work, so I suppose that I can skip the remaining Nordic walk of this week with good conscience. I'm not going to skip my workouts though- I need those muscles!
    T is going to come home early today, and we named this the gardening day of the week. Tomorrow we are both busy, on Friday we'll have to do the weekly cleaning of the house and on Saturday we have guests. On Sunday...more gardening! But I really hope we manage to do most of the heavy work today so that Sunday will become a relaxing day and not a work camp. Last weekend was a nice one, but it all was spent working hard so one day of relaxation would be perfect. But we'll see how it goes.

Hair: Those Fakkares I bought from H&M are really good- not just good for the price, but in general. They are much sturdier than my old black fakkare, and I love the colors. Of course, I hope to be able to find a way to get real Ficcares, but I need some thinking time to figure out how to do that...in other words, I'll postpone that task until after the wedding party. Having good new Fakkares lifts my spirits though! I'm wearing the matte silver one right now over my bun.
       Hair is happy and clean-feeling, it has taken the months of neglect really well. I've started to think my new length as "elf length" hair, because in LOTR movies many elves (except Galadriel, of course) seemed to have their hair somewhere between BS and waist. So, though my hair will still need some growing before it is a real Galadriel hair, at least it finally resembles the locks of the right race.

Crafts: I realized I have so many projects on my to-do list:
          bridal shawl: Halfway done! I suppose there's no way I could finish it by next Thursday when I'm going to fit my gown, but at least it will be ready by the wedding day. Considering its size, I'm quite proud of that.
          kitchen curtains: Crochet project, 2/3 of the first curtain is done. Until the shawl is ready, this project is on hold though.
          sewing projects: I haven't yet sewn the third and last skirt of my skirt project. After that, I should sew a duvet for our bed, a fine tablecloth for the wedding, and most importantly, some aprons.
          embroidered tablecloths: smaller, embroidered tablecloths for living room
          socks and mittens: When the winter comes, we'll need these. So these are another high priority.

Hmm. It seems that almost everything on my list is either a high priority or "would be very, very nice to have"-item. I guess that all there is to do is to be patient and to work steadily. It's nice to see how different all these projects are- I'm in no danger of getting bored!
         
           

Your French twist is fantastic and the combs you made a beautiful!  You are quite talented.  Maybe you could make combs for those bridal shops.   

We too are avoiding starting the furnace.  We had our first fire in the stove the other night.  We are dropping into the mid-20's at night (about -15C) and daytime highs have barely exceeded freezing, so a fire is necessary to keep the chill out of the house.  I had to clean out the kettle that I keep on the stove so I could put the water back in it.  If you don't already have a kettle to keep on the stove, I would highly recommend getting one.  We use a cast iron kettle - looks like a tea kettle, but it is intended to be used just to put humidity back into the air.  Good luck making it to November before turning the heat on.

Thanks, BB & Sakina. Making the combs was fun. I don't have any time to expand my production at the moment, but you never know about the future. .

BB, wow, it's cold in there! I don't think the temps here have gone below freezing point on any night yet.

So, a busy weekend is behind. I think this was my first week here when I've earned all my exercise points by working in the garden. I don't count light garden work (picking apples, weeding & such) as an exercise that would free me from doing my regular workouts. However, the things I've done this week have been far from leisurely gardening. But I'm happy: the garden will be ready when winter comes, and I have had some different exercise. Hope my body liked the surprise!

For my hair, the weekend has been normal: wash, bun and go. Today, when we visited T's mother I enjoyed of the chance to dress nicely and to wear pretty hairsticks (Caramello) instead of garden scarves and cooking caps. I still keep dreaming about doing a SMT treatment, but for some reason I just never seem to get into it. Or to oiling... I keep telling myself that I return back to all my good haircare habits when the winter comes. However, lately I have notice myself telling that about so many issues that I have started to doubt whether the coming winter will be nearly as peaceful as I'd hope it to be.  

When I was combing my hair after the shower, I noticed that it was not just below BS as it was just a month ago, after the trim. Now it was clearly WELL PAST BS. So, I grabbed nearest tape measure and guess what- in barely a month my hair had grown from 67 cm to 70 cm/27.6 in! That's over an inch of growth! Wow. That really made my day. I haven't even been taking all my hair supplements (I told you I was in a neglect stage, didn't I ?   ). I guess this is just a rare occurrence, but neverthless, I've made a leap towards waist length and that's incredibly exciting. You would think that after growing my hair for years, I'd get used to seeing it grow, but after I passed the "longest it has ever been" mark, I find my excitement renewed.
In order to celebrate the event I decorated my locks with Spring Forsythia hairsticks -IMO, olivine green and jonquil yellow suit quite well to fall too and felt like a queen.

Wedding: My veil arrived! That was very quick of them, and what's best, now I can take the veil when I go to fit my gown on Thursday. It's a drop dead gorgeous thing- a mantilla veil in waltz length. T was a bit hesitant about the length, -in vain. It's not one millimeter too long (in fact, I found myself thinking that it'd be cool to have my hair that long   One can only wonder whether my love for long things hanging from my head has just expanded to a whole new area). In any case, I love it. When T comes home, I'll start playing with hairstyles. Since it's just one tier veil, there should be some options...

Health: Today I did my first workout following the new program. It sure felt effective! I think I have said it before, but I have worried about how to replicate the efficiency of a real gym at home quite a lot. But I think it's now safe to say that things are just fine in that respect. It can be done! Now, if only I could pay a bit more attention to my eating habits. As it is now, it seems that my weight is stable but I am transforming fat into muscle very effectively. Can't say that that makes me look cuter when I look in the mirror, but it feels good. That, and the fact that T still loves me are enough to keep me happy about my body.  
Inspired by my new program I also ordered some new exercising equipment from a Finnish web store. Once the things I ordered arrive, the home gym is perfect. More fun too, I hope.

If someone described me her life saying that her spouse is leaving his dissertation early next week, we have just moved and have curious friends and relatives visiting almost every weekend, have our jobs to attend to, have a big garden and are also in the middle of making wedding arrangements, I'd thought they are either crazy or begging for an early heart attack. But, that's my life, and it's really not bad. Granted, I have little time for hobbies (I guess that journaling here is about the only genuine hobby I have at the moment), but I enjoy every aspect of my life. The different things going on seem to balance each other very nicely.

Wedding: Yesterday was a busy day on wedding arrangement front. We left to Helsinki quite early. First we fetched my shoes that had been dyed. T wasn't too shocked about the heel, though with the shoes on, I am a full 10 cm/4 in taller than he is. While the sales lady was packing my shoes, T noticed the men's wear. Up until that moment he had been undecided on whether he wanted to wear simply a dark suit or a dress coat. My choice of wedding gown wasn't any help either as it would have matched with both. But, in a short while he was set for buying a dress coat. It'll have use later too in formal occassions. So, the month-long pondering came to end very quickly. We'll just have to fetch his attire some time next week, and that's it. Couldn't have been simpler, really. There wasn't even any of the sizing problems we had feared -they had small enough size on the rack and it was a perfect fit. Shopping his wedding attire was way easier than buying a pair of pants has been for him!
   Then we went to see my wedding gown. What can I say? It was just perfect. Not a princess dress, but very much a wedding dress. Its chiffon sleeves turned out to be very elvish.  Hee hee! The veil couldn't have suited better. Now they'll just make the final adjustments and then there's the final fitting and that's it. So, this part of the wedding preparations is now done, and we can turn our attention to other details.

Hair: Not much to report on hair front. It's just hanging with me and hopefully continuing to grow. I'm wearing Plumeria Pink hairsticks (go well with colors of my pajamas   ). Yes, I'm wearing Longlocks sticks with pajamas- in these days, I seem to wear them mostly at home. Sure, they'd all deserve to be worn in balls and cocktail parties, but neither of those is a part of my life and I think Susan is very right when she says that they are too beautiful to be left in a drawer to eternally wait for one of those very rare occassions to happen. I rather match the colors of my hairsticks with my pajamas and feel like I'm a queen spending one of her more informal days.

Health: Yesterday I stepped on a scale- and couldn't believe my eyes. I have gained several kilos! The strange thing is, that my body measurements have not changed, and when I asked T, he said that he hasn't noticed any change either. So, most of the weight must be muscle. I can't believe how I manage to build that stuff. Forget about me getting feminine curves...when I lose some fat that now covers the muscles, I'll just turn into a fine specimen of an East German hammer thrower.
    But no matter what that new stuff in me is, it is making the scale go up and therefore bad. So, I have decided that until the wedding, I need to watch my eating. Then there will be wedding, Christmas and New Year and then...it's traditional Winter Fast all over again.

ongrats on the new bunny!!

I haven't felt well today, but neverthless I managed to be quite productive with my last grant application of the month. I hope I'm better tomorrow- there's so much to do: work, chores and of course my weekly exercise.

Hair: Hair feels clean and looks clean, which is nice after the weird weeks. I remembered that I bought this handy tape measure that measures both inches and centimeters, and measured my ponytail circumference with it. My career as a frequent hair board member has caused me to think my hair in inches... Anyway, I measured twice and got 3.5" as a result. A happy surprise that was, as I have recently felt that my hair is so thin. Obviously, I'm wrong and would be wise to stop worrying over something that is a) perfectly normal and b) not in my power to change in any way.
My hairtoy shelves are in terrible order- an ordinary cupboard is definitely not the place to store one's hairtoys. I really hope we have time to shop that combing table soon. That's just a rather faint hope though, and probably I'll have to survive with what I have until after the wedding. When I get the combing table, it'll be fun to discover all the toys that I've buried to the cupboard.