all I can say is being a rabbit owner and a ferret owner,I know exactly what you're dealing with and what shenanigans can happen!!!

Thanks for support, Curlgirl, and thanks for compliment, juri!

I'm glad to report that no one escaped last night.
In general, I'm once again a bit surprised of how little I have managed to accomplish here without T. Sleep deprivation has slowed me down, but still- I've mostly been just cleaning the place (T left just before weekly cleaning day, so I had to clean the whole house), working and of course recovering from the flu. That's pretty much it. When I get to spend time alone I always have these grand plans about what I am going to do once I have the evenings all for myself. Going out, perhaps even to Helsinki. Taking long walks, taking care of a hundred little things for which I haven't had time. You know. I seldom manage to realize even half of my plans, and this time my record looks even more pitiful. Blame the flu.

Hair: Washed hair today, so on Thursday I should have second day hair which is about as good and easy hair as it gets. Styles-wise, the fakkare bun is still the best idea I've had so far. There aren't that many options, all things considered. Most of my favorite hairtoys are either outright banned for security reasons or at least I might have to take my hair down at security check.

Thanks for support, juri and Angel Spun

Well, I'm back! The trip went well, my presentation went well (in my standards, anyway), and now I'm back home with sore feet and nice memories.

The town (in my standards, a city but everyone else seemed to think otherwise), was very cute in a flowery-ornate-abundant way. A bit too colorful to my tastes, though I think I will have to rethink my decision not to bother even trying to grow tea roses. Most of them have no chance of surviving Finland's winters, but there are a couple of hardier variations...hmm...
   Germans I encountered were nice people- a bit peculiar, but very nice. In the town I spent most of my visit, I noticed though that my 10 word vocabulary of active German was much more useful than all my English (especially since I soon discovered that I understood just enough German to insert the right word in the right place). The dialect of that area was a bit softer than the German I have been taught at school- if my longer visit will become a reality one day, I might even learn to pronounce it. According to my foreign friends, Finnish sounds much like Japanese and [EDIT: finishing the missing end of sentence  ) therefore it's difficult for me to pronounce some of German consonants.
   
Hair: I tried to look for hairtoys, but found none either from the town or Bonn. However, I got lucky at Konrad Adenauer airport where I found this little shop offering what seemed quality hairtoys. Most of them were still barrettes, but I found a very nice decorated scrunchie that went perfectly with Trishashawl.  
    However, a happier surprise still was waiting for me when I came home: a pair of MT hairsticks I swapped for the last Ficcare that needed to go. The sticks are really beautiful- again, perfect for the Fall. As a bonus treat, I got a beautiful wooden hair fork that is a nice addition to my still small collection of hair forks.
    Today, I have worn a bun with my new pink Ficcare beak clip. It's true love- with this clip, I don't even need to wear a bun net. As you may remember, my hair is so slippery that a fine bun net is a must. My Ficcare beak is the only hairtoy in my entire collections that holds my hair in a secure bun without a net. It's a small miracle! Therefore, I decided that I will try to swap at least two more Ficcare beaks. I still have some pairs of swappable hairsticks left, as well as some interesting miscellanous toys, and on top of this, I am happy to create some custom craft project. I am mainly interested of the "coolfashionproduct" Ficcares- the beaufiul pearlized colors that never were in catalogs but appeared at Ebay some time ago. However, I am also interested in other colors. So, if you have something to offer and are happy to swap internationally, just press the pm button! I will not, however, swap to any other beak clips than real Ficcares because no matter how similar they look to real things, they almost certainly will not work for me.  

Home: While the Central Europe is still living warm summer days, Fall had arrived to my little Northern realm during my absence. Everything is still green, but the air is crisp, and when I went to veggie patch to pick up some beans and a red onion for my dinner, I saw that we should reap our veggies next week, prepare the soil for winter the week after that and call it a year. It looks like we're going to get yet another load of pickle cucumbers- we sure have lots of them, perhaps enough to give them away as Christmas presents. We also have a decent amount of potatoes, small but delicious beetroots, some red onions and beans, so I'd say we were pretty successful.
     Today, I'll just recover from my trip, maybe knit a little, and spend nice weekend. A good plan.

Supposedly, Finnish and Japanese are in no way related as languages, but I guess there is something similar in the pronounciation. Another interesting language Finnish is related to is the elven language Quenya- Tolkien created it based partly on Finnish.

Hair: I'm once again busy with my swaps. Some more Ficcare beak clips are headed this way! Possibly also a pretty Lalo Orna hairstick!
My hairstyle of the day is ponytail with the scruncie I got from Germany. As I mentioned before, for me ponytails are a fall style, and this year they are prettier than ever before. Prettier, of course, being equivalent to longer.

Style: I've done some more internet shopping: two pairs of 8g plugs from Glasswearstudios. I decided to start my jewelry shopping from plugs because they're pretty, colorful and inexpensive. Right now I'm wearing clear 8g plugs and they make me feel gorgeous.
     I also ordered fabric for three new dresses. I've been washing and wearing my dresses all summer so that some of them look pretty faded already. They're still good to wear at home, but I need something for going out.
     Still working on my lilac shawl and planning next knitting projects.

Galadriel wrote on Jan 30^th, 2007 at 4:11am:

Hi What is a scarf bun?
I am beginning to read hair journals but I had to type this right away before I forget!
Thank you.

T trimmed my hair late last night. He took a bit over ½", which puts my hair back to upper edge of the waistband of my apron. This maintaining is boring, but I think it's helping. My ends were not terribly wispy even before the trim, and now after trim they look like a blunt cut. Not a terribly thick blut cut, but it is progress neverthless! I hope I can see more significant improvement in the end of the year- so I'd be able to start growing once again next year. I'm as ready for hip length as one can be already! But I know I'll be much happier if I can actually see where my hair ends.

Style: I'm still in the process of putting together my winter style. Winter is nowhere near yet, but Finnish falls are unpredictable, and my decision to make myself as much as possible means that I will need to think of my needs in advance. I have decided that I don't want to wear pants this winter if I can avoid it -since I'm not used to wearing them, they'd just make me feel more self conscious (no, I don't feel any longer self conscious wearing my dresses). I'm planning to sew myself some simple slips in nylon and flannel. I'm also hoping to find time for knitting a warm cardigan, but I'm not sure if I can make it. I will also need a new winter coat, but I'm still thinking whether I should buy one or try making one myself.
     I pondered some of this aloud, and T commented that as long as I wear my "cute dresses", all is fine for him. I don't give a rat's little brown butt for what the rest of the world thinks, but I'm happy that T likes my look and is supportive.
    Otherwise, I think I have all I need. Last winter I knit myself mittens and scarves, my winter bonnet is still good as new. I can't tell about winter hairtoys yet. During the past days I've been wearing ponytails, but once the bonnet season starts, up goes the hair again. Perhaps with Ficcare beaks..? My ears are perfect in 8g. I think I'll stop my stretching here (I know I've said that before, but I'm sincere neverthless!)

Hobbies: It's been cloudy, so no star observing. Nights are getting quickly darker though, and there's no need to stay up very late in order to take a look to the night sky. In Germany, I discussed a little about observing- just enough to appreciate even more the wonderful observing conditions I have right on my backyard. Even in less populated areas in Central Europe, it's not self evident to see things like Andromeda Galaxy, or even the Milky Way with one's naked eyes. It's a sad thought- to live all one's life in a place where there's never point in looking up because there's so little to see anyway. While I, like most observers of the North, suffer of my share of "latitude envy" (meaning slight envy due to the fact that most luminous targets can be seen only from South), I'd still better count my blessings and be grateful of the fact that the night sky, as seen from my home, is still like Universe bowing down and coming to visit.
       Soon, it'll be also time to say farewell to my butterfly hobby. We still have butterflies, but no new species. In fact, I'd be surprised if I found a new species this late. As it is, our butterfly species count is 17, which is very well for a single garden. Most importantly, I've had fun and learned a lot of both butterflies and the life and seasons of my garden.
      Our canning and preserving projects are not finished yet, but the end is nearing there as well- depending on whether we'll go to any nearby forest to pick mushrooms and lingonberries. I hope we could make it- a homemade lingonberry jelly would be wonderful.

A weekend with forced leave from the computer. I learned the hard way that it is very, very unwise to insert a copy protected CD into an old computer. I did that, and instead of getting to listen some music, I ended up with a computer that shut down and would not restart. It wasn't until today before we managed to get the CD out of the computer and have it start normally.

So, instead of arranging my swaps and hanging out in virtual world, I worked on my violet shawl and HARVESTED all weekend. Now, almost all our harvesting is done and we are happy and well stocked. We have potatoes enough for all winter, same with apple pie fillings, pickles, blackcurrant jelly, gooseberry chutney. We also have other goodies in smaller amounts. If we have time, we may still go looking for mushrooms and lingonberries from some nearby forest but otherwise this is it, pretty much. We're stocked up for the winter. There's not much to do but to prepare the garden for the winter, plant our bulbs and if possible, prepare some new herb/flower/tomato beds.
I'm particularly proud of managing to produce the apple pie fillings: even though insects did a thorough job in spoiling our apples, the sheer amount of apple trees guaranteed us enough harvest to keep apple pies as frequent visitors on our menu. Nothing else though, but, I suspect that anyone with less than 20 trees didn't get anything at all. Not even fresh apples (unless they don't mind eating them "protein enhanced"   ).
On Sunday, we made a "harvest dinner": roast pork with everything homegrown and home canned. It was delicious, and we agreed that our first full garden year was a great success, apples or no apples. We have already ideas on how to expand next year. I'm dreaming of a little herb patch, T wants tomatoes and we both dream of strawberries. We'll see.

Hair: Not much news there. Since I've been gardening, my styles have been "the same old": buns under scarves and caps. I love how my simple outfit (apron most essential!) and some neat headcovering keep me looking relatively neat and orderly on through days like this weekend.
     Most of my new Ficcare swaps are near completion, and instead of making daily visits to the village's post office (I can only wonder what the ladies there think of me...) start daily stalking of the mail lady.   That's always fun.