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The key holder on our messenger bag inspired this project!

I dispensed with a major pet peeve of mine–digging through my purse to find my keys–today with a simple craft project using only items I had laying around the house!

My beloved Timbuk2 messenger bag has a nifty little clip on the end of a ribbon, so I can attach my keys and never lose them in the otherwise cavernous bag. So why not my other purses?

Now each of my purses is outfitted with a clip made to hold my keys. It was quick and easy, even for a novice with needle and thread like myself.

Materials

• 1 keychain with a swivel hook and several detachable key rings or several individual swivel-hooks as pictured
• several 4-8″ pieces of remnant ribbon, preferably in colors that coordinate with your handbags
• heavy-duty thread that matches the thread
• sewing needle

Here’s how I did it…

Everyone probably has something similar to this in their junk drawer, right?

My original idea was just to completely replicate the Timbuk2 bag, so I set off rummaging through all the shit treasures in our junk drawer and tool box looking for several clips.

Instead, I found this little gem! I bought it some time ago to do something similar to this and it failed because modern-day car keys are too big to fit on the tiny rings and it was far too bulky to carry around in my already heavy purse.

But what if I turned it upside down and used each little detachable key-ring in a different purse? That would give me four built-in key holders at any one time so that I could easily change bags on the run. Score!

For purses that had a clip on the inside, I wouldn’t even need to do any sewing, but for ones that didn’t, I would just sew in a ribbon just like the Timbuk2 bag.

My everyday keys.

Here are the keys that I carry on a more or less daily basis: one set of house keys, one car key.

They fit easily onto the swivel hook of the blue keychain, meaning that I can detach them without taking my gloves off when it’s -20C! That’s less convenience and more necessity here in Helsinki.

The other thing I love is that I can easily detach the car key and leave it behind on days that I’m taking public transport instead of driving without breaking a nail fiddling with a conventional keyring. Less clutter and weight in my bag leaves room for my Kindle, a knitting project, snacks for the kids, or a few small groceries picked up on the way somewhere else.

Attach a keyring to the zipper in your purse...

However, my new Marimekko bag has solid zip-pulls, and it’s extra-large, three pocket design meant there were extra nooks and crannies in which to lose my keys. So I pulled out my sewing box and got to work.

I chose a short piece of extra ribbon I had laying around. I eye-balled the length of the ribbon so that the heavy keys would rest on the bottom of the purse instead of dangling with hopes that the ribbon will last longer and that I’ll have less jingling as I walk around town.

The finished product.

Then I put one end of the ribbon through the key ring and folded the ribbon in half so that it overlapped itself by about half an inch. At this point, if you have a sewing machine, I would recommend machine-stitching for extra durability. However, I doubled-up about 18 inches of heavy-duty thread and hand-stitched down the edge of the ribbon, across the cut edge, back up the other side, across the top of the ribbon (just below the keyring) in a square and put a few stitches in the middle of the square for good measure.

Then I folded the other end of the ribbon down half an inch and carefully stitched it to the top edge of the canvas of my bag. I made sure that I was getting the needle all the way through the inside layer of canvas, but that I wasn’t hitting the outside canvas–I didn’t want stitches showing through or want my brand-new bag to pucker.

Leather or other materials may pose more of an issue than cloth, but hopefully you can find a tag or other bit of cloth that you can get a needle through to outfit all of your bags with this nifty little key-holder.

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A picture (or in this case, a scan) is worth a thousand file folders...

This winter I finished a project I started in June of 2010 and posted what I thought was this innocuous little picture of what is left of my paper-based filling system–a tiny set of file drawers that fits next to my desk and is small enough to fit in a suitcase–on Facebook. It set off a lively discussion that continued right into the next morning at school drop-off and I realized that a blog post was in order. It’s a sad fact of life that expat life, no matter how amazing, is unpredictable. And moving your entire life to a new country is never easy. It’s even more difficult, however, when your filing system resembles the Library of Congress in size and complexity.

Last year I wrote about decluttering your child’s artwork and about the huge purge we did in anticipation of our international move, but now I want to focus specifically on how I moved my filing to a paperless system.

1. Choose your tool
2. Start with the present
3. Purge & scan
4. Maintenance Tips

Step 1: Choose your tool
The first step in this adventure is choosing your tools: an electronic filing system and a scanner. As an expat, my local bank, my mortgage lender, my retirement accounts, my insurance, and basically any filing-worthy paper-producing institution in my life are all located 7-10 time zones away. That means I need to be able to get to the details I need quickly and easily whether they’re on paper or stored electronically because I can’t just pop in to the local banking center and ask a question.

Because ease of access from multiple locations and search capability was important to me, and because I didn’t mind paying $5US a month for the convenience of basically unlimited uploads while I was converting my files (you can upload 40MB per month free of charge), I opted for Evernote. Evernote saves documents to your account in the cloud, and also has a mobile app, so I can access my files from any computer world-wide. In the absence of a computer, I can pull details up from anywhere there is a mobile signal. The latest version even includes a Kindle Fire app.

It is certainly not the only option. If you have any sort of storage out there in the cloud, and have access to a scanner, you can create your own virtual filing system. You could probably do it fairly easily in Gmail and then take advantage of Google’s savvy search engine for locating your documents. Other Evernote competitors include Memonic, Microsoft’s One Note and UberNote. I have not personally used any of these, but they all offer fairly detailed FAQs and demos if you have a particular reason that you don’t want to use Evernote.

I have used a combination of my camera (for odd-sized documents) and the inexpensive scanner built into my printer (an HP OfficeJet) to move my files to electronic format. Nothing fancy, just quick and easy-to-use.

Step 2: Start with the present
When I started this project, I had a five-drawer filing cabinet that was stuffed full of files, as well as several file boxes and an additional couple of cardboard boxes filled with our taxes, school transcripts, and mementos. Instead of accumulating additional filing while I was dealing with the huge back-log, I started with present day. It not only allowed me to tackle the archive in chunks as time allowed, but gave me time to familiarize myself with the tool, to think about what tags and categories I wanted for my filing.

If you’re used to shoving opened mail into a pile and then filing it away once a week (or, let’s be honest here, once a month or once a quarter!), you’ll need to do a little retraining. I will admit that I don’t always open my mail daily, but when I do, I have a decision tree:

• Do I need to do something with this (pay a bill, fill out paperwork, etc.)? If yes, do it right now. Don’t leave it for later. It will get lost in the shuffle and create clutter.
• If I don’t need to do anything with it, do I need to keep it? If yes, do it right now (see the pattern here?!).
• If I don’t need to keep it, or if I’ve scanned it in to Evernote, it goes straight in the recycling with the envelope. Clutter averted!

Remembering to keep on top of the filing is an on-going process. My desk is not always clutter-free, but it’s getting better all the time.

Step 3: Purge & scan
Step three is scanning and purging that giant back-log. My parents were of the “keep it forever” variety when it came to financial statements. I’m pretty sure my Mom has every credit card statement she’s ever gotten in her filing cabinets somewhere. When they retired to Florida and sent me their old dining room set in 2000, they sent me the original receipts for the furniture from 1985!!!!

Since we seem to move every 2-3 years, that style of filing just wasn’t going to work for me. Now, not only have I scanned in that whole backlog, but I have carefully chosen what to keep and what to dump. Here’s a sample of items I used to keep that I no longer do:

• Monthly statements from the insurance company. Now I only keep the most recent copy of the policy and recycle the rest. And by “keep,” I mean scan, upload to Evernote, and recycle.
• Credit card statements, bank statements, investment statements–I have opted for online statements when possible and have verified that I can get access to old account details on the provider’s web site if they’re needed in the future.

There’s a lot of stuff that I think got lost in my labyrinthine filing system before that I make sure I hang on to (electronically) now:

• Receipts and warranties for large purchases
• Test results and other medical records
• Donation receipts and other tax-deductible expenses

This step is absolutely the most daunting and it’s very easy to accidentally sabotage yourself by biting off more than you can chew. I recommend breaking it down into the smallest, most manageable pieces possible so that you don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t pull out a whole drawer and try to tackle it in an afternoon. Pull out a single folder (or if your folders resemble MegaFolders with lots of smaller parcels of documents contained within them, choose a single manageable stack from a single folder and start there). Evaluate each piece based on the decision tree in Step 2. Scan in what needs to be scanned and immediately recycle the rest.

If you know there are whole folders in there that you don’t need, purge those first. It will give you a feeling of success and accomplishment that you’ll very much need when you get to the folders of endless odd-sized receipts and carbon-paper pages that you need to keep, but which won’t auto-load in your scanner’s paper tray and therefore have to be positioned by hand.

I left the entire filing mess in my unfinished basement while I was working on this project and carried a single folder up to my office at a time. By the time we moved to Finland, I had it down to two boxes of filing, which I then stowed in our guest bedroom (no huge unfinished basements in flats in downtown Helsinki!) and again, pulled out one folder at a time.

Step 4: Maintenance Tips

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Finnish chanterelles (suomenlainen kantarelli) for sale at the market by our house

Despite having added meat back into our diet a few years ago after more than a decade as vegetarians, we still eat meatless meals several times per week. It’s not really a conscious decision, just something that naturally happens when I plan the menu. Still, with the abundance of amazing local poultry & fish available here in Helsinki, I’ve been feeling like my best meals, at least recently, have included meat. That’s why I was so excited to hit one out of the park this past week, and on Meatless Monday no less!

Chanterelles are in season here in Finland, and by that, I mean the market stalls are bursting with these tasty orange mushrooms, and people are out combing the woods for them at every opportunity. So I bought a kilo the other day, and just threw them in to just about everything I was making from vegetable side-dishes to pizza. But I wanted to do something to really showcase them as a main course, and this Chanterelle Tart did the trick.

Ingredients:
1/2 recipe of my pie crust or enough to cover a 9″ pie pan
1 onion, chopped
olive oil
2 T balsamic vinegar
sprig of fresh thyme
2 T of white wine, stock, or water, to deglaze pan
2 cloves of garlic
1 lb chanterelles or mixed wild mushrooms
1/2 zucchini
1/2 yellow squash (you could substitute bell peppers, tomatoes, or really any veggie here, just adjust the cooking time accordingly!)
1 250g tub of ricotta cheese
1/4 c cream or sour cream or plain yogurt
2 eggs
4 ounces parmesan cheese
2 T fresh parsley, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 400F (200C). Roll out the pie dough and place in the pie pan. Trim or crimp the edges. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator.
2. Chop the onion and sauté over medium-high heat in enough olive oil to keep the onion from sticking. Once the onions start to soften (but not brown!), turn down the heat to medium-low and add the sprig of thyme, salt & pepper, and the balsamic vinegar. Leave the onions to caramelize for 20-30 minutes, stirring regularly.
3. While the onions are cooking, whip the ricotta cheese with a whisk and stir in one egg, one egg white (reserving the second yolk), the cream, the garlic, parmesan, and the parsley. Stir until smooth and season with salt & pepper. Set aside.
4. Once the onions are done, remove them from the pan and add a little wine or water or stock to deglaze. Add another drizzle of olive oil, increase heat to medium, and sauté the mushrooms and squash (or other vegetables) until they have released their liquid and their liquid has cooked off. If you do not cook the vegetables enough, your tart will not set as nicely, so this is important!!!
5. Remove your pie crust from the fridge and discard the plastic wrap. Stir the vegetables into the ricotta mixture and pour into the pie pan. Glaze the edge of the crust with the reserved egg yolk and then put any remaining egg yolk straight on top of the ricotta mixture and mix in gently with a spatula.
6. Bake for 20 minutes at 400F, then reduce heat to 350F (175C), and bake for another 20-30 minutes until the crust and top have browned nicely and the tart has set.
7. Let cool for 10 minutes or so before serving and serve with a mixed herb salad and vinaigrette.

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Gabriel's first day of kindergarten in Colorado, August 2010

I’ve never been one of those moms who cried at milestones. I’ve looked forward to the first solid food, the first steps, the first loose tooth, and even the first day of school. It’s hard not to be excited when your kids are absolutely desperate to escape you and each otherover the moon at the thought of seeing their friends after nearly two months of traveling.

But something’s just a bit different this year. Not only are we 6,000 miles away from where this picture was taken on Gabriel’s first day of kindergarten in Colorado last year, but this year, Lily starts school too. That’s right. As of 8:45 this morning, I’m sort of an empty-nester. The International School doesn’t have a half day option for kindergarten, so Lily will be joining Gabriel at school five full days per week. Besides catching up on the 800 blog posts I’ve been meaning to write about our amazing summer, I’m a bit at loose ends. Maybe it’s because the kids have been with me pretty much around the clock since early June. Maybe it’s because it seems impossible to me that my baby is actually a five year old who managed to lose her first tooth and teach herself to read this summer. And did I mention that’s she’s grown?

Lily checking out her kindergarten's book nook....

Here she is at Kindergarten orientation, just as calm and grown-up as can be. You can read my thoughts on Lily turning five to learn more about what a challenging kid she can sometimes be, but suffice it to say Matt & I are both shocked AND thrilled that Lily has grown up to be such a resilient, adaptable little girl. It’s not like we haven’t thrown a lot at her with this move to Finland from different foods to learning the ropes of public transportation to jumping right into a Finnish preschool, as Gabriel enjoyed the relative familiarity of International School.

Gabriel, as always, amazes me with bursts of maturity that give me a glimpse of the big boy struggling to emerge. Today, as I walked them in to school, he assured me that I could just drop them off at the curb and that he’d walk his sister to her class so she didn’t get lost. My heart melted just a little bit, but Lily also squeezed my hand, her unspoken request that I stay with her for just a few minutes before sending her off to her first day of school.

And that’s the fine balance of parenting, isn’t it: Knowing when to let go and also recognizing when hanging on for just a few more minutes will give them the little boost they need to make it the rest of the way on their own.

Gabriel & Lily about to head to their first day of school, 2011

So I’ll totally get back to writing those blog posts and working on the novel and all those Big Important Things I always seem to worry about. But not today. Today, I’m going to hang out, enjoy the peace and quiet, and reflect a bit on the last seven years (seven years!) of my parenting journey. Truth be told, I think I’m the one who hit the milestone today…

The kids (and mama) enjoying the beach after their first half day of school

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Lily's first bath at home a few days after her birth...

Tomorrow, my “baby” girl will be five years old. Five years since my father told me I needed to hurry up and have this baby because his flight home was booked for only a few days after the conversation.

Five years since I squatted down to pick some asparagus on May 7 after days of on-again, off-again labor, only to stand up and say emphatically, “time to go to the hospital!” Five years since I became a mother of two.

A lot has happened in those five years.
We lost my Dad just a few short months after Lily was born. We learned to live in a state of almost constant sleep deprivation and grief. We learned how hard it is to chase a fledgling toddler with a cranky baby in tow. We learned about all the amazing ways said toddler could devise to torment and wake up his baby sister, but also how much our hearts could expand when he made her laugh.

Lily's preferred outfit at age 1

We built a house in Lyons, decorated it, put down roots both literal and metaphorical, made amazing friends, and then said goodbye a few years later to return to Europe for the third time, this time to Finland. We said good-bye to Sun Microsystems after more than a decade. We endured one of the worst wintersin recent history in Helsinki, only to come out on the other side and realize that six months out of the year this is the most beautiful place on the planet.

Lily & her cousin holding hands

And through it all, Lily grew and changed. Convinced that she needed a fourth (fifth, sixth, seventh?) trimester, Lily entered the world screaming. No one else but Mommy would do, even when Mommy was tired, grieving, and fantasizing about running off to Tahiti. I became an expert with slings, mastering everything from cooking to shopping to trips to the toilet with Lily hanging on to me like a baby lemur. I learned that some babies (Gabriel) nursed and slept on a schedule and some babies (Lily) just didn’t, no matter what you tried. I read every fussy baby book on the planet and never found anything that worked except time, patience, and flexibility, oh yeah, and nursing (really the only thing that ever worked for anything!).

Lily & I napping on her second birthday

Then one day, it got easier. It happened so gradually that I can’t pinpoint the date. Lily moved from our bed to Gabriel’s sometime around her second birthday and sleep started to become a regular occurrence instead of a rarity (not without trials and backslides, of course). I started to exercise again, and felt a bit like I was emerging from a fog.

She still challenged us every chance that she got. She cut her hair into a horrendous mullet (twice), refused to have her hair washed, wouldn’t wear seasonally-appropriate clothes, and managed to terrorize us on so many shopping trips (either hiding/running away or having a major meltdown) that we learned to shop only when she was in preschool, or when we could divide and conquer.

But she was also prone to fits of entirely contagious giggles and could charm even the most hard-hearted. And did I mention she has ninja tendencies? Although girlie to the core when it comes to clothes, toys, and movies, she has also snatched a full-grown water snake and multiple tadpoles out of the river, can catch toads in no-time flat and has out-maneuvered children three times her age in pursuit of grasshoppers. She likes to get dirty more than any girlie girl I know. She gets that, and her temper, and her drama, and her way with animals from her mama.

She also gets her crazy from her mama!

She gets her looks and her stature, thank goodness, from her father. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her grow up to be a super model, an astro-physicist, a bar-tender, an actress, a princess (yes, with the recent royal wedding hoopla, she has decided that marrying a prince is high on her list of life goals. I can live with that), or anything else she decided she wanted to do. I recently told a friend that Lily came to me in a dream when I was pregnant with her and told me what her name would be. My friend thought that was entirely believable given her personality, and I do too.

She and Gabriel, at 19 months apart, are almost more like twins than siblings. They’ve shared a room–first at my insistence and then at their own–for three years now. This is the first year that they’ve been at different schools and there have been almost daily complaints from both of them for most of the school term, although Lily has been amazingly effective at insinuating herself into Gabriel’s class whenever she gets the chance. They annoy each other to no end, but when it counts, they’re loyal, and I’ve seen each of them risk physical and/or emotional pain to defend the other in a tough situation.

Lily & Gabriel - partners in crime

As hard as it’s been for them to be at different schools this year (and as relieved as I am that they’ll both be at ISH next year!), I think it’s been good for Lily to come into her own without Gabriel. He may be the quieter of the two, but he’s also very smart and bossy and Lily is often quite pleased to follow along, leaving him to do the planning and masterminding. This year, she’s had to figure things out on her own, and we’ve seen so many changes in her in such a short time.

Lily on her 3rd birthday - She always did love a costume!

First, she’s more or less lost the speech impediment that worried us quite a bit when she was first learning to talk. Saying R is still difficult for her, but she speaks very clearly otherwise, and her vocabulary is expanding. Now, in addition to English, in includes some French and Finnish, which is one of the many things we hoped for when we moved to Helsinki. This past week, when a new child started at Lily’s school, the mother mistook Lily for a Finn and spoke to her in Finnish. She was astonished to discover that Lily was American when Lily answered her Finnish question in perfect American English. Lily claims even now that Susannah was speaking English to her (she must have been, Mommy, because I understood what she said!), but the fact is that she understands more Finnish than I do, despite all of my lessons and study, just by being around Finnish children three days a week.

Lily on her 4th birthday, post traumatic hair cut!

Although I think her fiery temper will always be a part of her personality, she’s outgrown the fits and tantrums that left us wondering what was wrong with her and if she’d ever be a happy-go-lucky little girl. Now she’s that and more. She’s full of kisses and hugs and love. She loves to dance and twirl and dress up like a princess. She draws pictures of people laughing when she’s happy and people crying when she’s sad. She tries to pet every animal she encounters, even occasionally wild ones. She still checks every flower she sees for fairies, and is sure that some day she’s going to move fast enough to find one.

Out of the four of us, I think Lily has adjusted to life in Finland with the most ease. You could argue that it’s because she’s the youngest, but I think the volatility of her younger years has made her more resilient than most. She not only adjusted to a new school in a new country, but one where most of the children spoke a completely alien language (although the teachers all speak English and conduct class in English). She has had to do more public transport schlepping around due to the inconvenient location of her school than has Gabriel. She’s had to do more shopping and errands with me on the days that she’s not at school. She’s been more likely to throw a loud fit (something Finnish children almost never do) on the bus/tram/train, but also more likely to charm the Finns with her antics. If this expat life continues much longer, I can imagine a time when it will be the only thing Lily remembers and that both excites and terrifies me.

So tomorrow she is five. This week has been one of birthday mania. Obsessed with presents, cupcakes, and party-planning, Lily has counted down each day to her birthday with obsessive fervor (and with some heated arguments about whether we count her birthday itself as we count down!). I’m honestly surprised that she went to sleep tonight–she’s vibrating with excitement. As usual, these big milestones are exciting for the children and bittersweet for the parents. Getting to know her and being her parent has been more challenging and surprising than I ever would have guessed when I daydreamed of her before her birth. Mother-daughter relationships are always complex, always loaded with projection and deeper meaning, and ours may be even more so because of our specific, and very similar, personalities and temperaments. I guess it makes sense, then, that Lily’s birthday falls on Mother’s Day this year. Because her turning five is a huge step, for her and for her mama.

My "baby" on her last day as a four-year-old

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Our Easter craftiness involved a lot more than dying eggs this year!

Maybe it’s because we’ve had so many sleety Easters in Colorado over the years, or maybe it was divine inspiration, but I decided yesterday that we were going to embark on a multi-day Easter-related crafty project. When we woke up today to a gray, rainy morning, instead of being disappointed, we had plenty of stuff to keep us occupied.

First up on our list was planting rye grass for Easter, a Finnish tradition the kids wanted to try. But that was such a quickie that I had to come up with a few more things. We’d already boiled eggs, but I had another half dozen that hadn’t fit in the pan, so I decided to make blown eggs. This is something the kids did every year at their preschool back in the US, so they were anxious to try again.

How hard could it be, right? I sort of remember poking eggs with a toothpick and doing something to get the egg out, but it was all vague, so I turned to Google. I immediately clicked on Martha Stewart’s egg-blowing instructions in the results, thinking she’d have some simple and fool-proof instructions. Um, her materials-list included a dremel tool and required one of two types of egg blowing tool–wtf???

Just for a second opinion, I clicked on WikiHow’s article on blowing out eggs. It was slightly less complex, and had the great advice to bake the eggs for a few minutes to sterilize and strengthen them, but I still decided to improvise!

Step 1 - Poke a hole in the top of the egg

Note: If you are a raw-egg phobe, I suggest you stop reading here. If you are the type who, like me, not only consumes raw cookie dough, but lets your children do so, you may continue. Rest assured, no salmonella was contracted during the research for this blog post.

So I went to my junk drawer, pulled out a paperclip and a straight pin, and got to work. I did wash all the eggs in warm, soapy water, because here in Finland our eggs often show up with some chicken-detritus attached.

The first thing I noticed was that egg shells are a lot harder than I thought! I put a pin in the top, made sure I had punctured the membrane underneath the shell. This hole would allow us, in the absence of some nifty tool, to blow into the egg and push the contents out the second, slightly larger hole, in the bottom that the egg (see what I mean–salmonella-phobes should really stop reading and for heaven’s sake, don’t look at the pictures!).

Step 2 - Make a slightly larger hole in the bottom of the egg

This second hole is about the size of pin-head, although on a couple I accidentally made them quite a bit larger. You can do this by sticking the pin in several times in a gradually-larger spiral. Make sure you get the membrane out of the way, or it will just sort of reseal around the hole and keep the egg from coming out.

Next, stick a straightened bit of paperclip into the egg and jostle it around until you’re sure you’ve broken the yolk. This step is important–the more you can do to break up the stringy bits in your egg, the easier the next step will be.

Step 4 - Blow!

I let each of the kids blow one egg out. If your children are not yet old enough to blow up a balloon, they may not be quite able to do this. My kids are 4 and 6 and did pretty well. Be sure to catch the egg in a bowl and use it to make a frittata or something! You want to blow with steady, gentle pressure–don’t blow your ear-drums on this step!

Lily gets her turn...

Despite washing the outside of the eggs with soapy water, we all definitely got at least a little raw egg in our mouths during this step. So like I said, if this bothers you, consider buying organic local eggs skipping this activity.

It will take several puffs before you get all the egg out of the shell, and you’ll still want to rinse the eggs by putting the larger hole under running water and blowing them out again until its mostly water and not yolk coming out. Dry them in a 300 degree oven for 10 minutes to sterilize and strengthen them–we’ve had some of these things last for multiple Easters, and with all the work that goes into them, you may as well prep them for the long-haul.

Since I boldly proclaimed that I kicked dear Martha’s ass, I should sheepishly insert here that we only ended up with 5 eggs. Remember how I said those shells were hard? Well, the last one wasn’t, and I annihilated it when making the first hole in the top.

Gabriel's favorite part - Mommy screwed up!

I had egg down my leg and even on the floor, much to my son’s delight. He was in hysterics and when I asked him what was so funny, he admitted gleefully that he loved seeing me make a mistake. Um, does that mean he’s missed all the other mistakes I’ve made? I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a very bad thing, but I’m resolved to screwing up in front of him as much as possible in the future.

Luckily, Matt Artz missed this part:

NOT the biggest mess that happened this day

Once they’re clean and dried, you can decorate them any way you like. Ours ended up getting colored with oil pastels and dipped in traditional Easter egg dye, but there are all kinds of cool things you can do with these, including using white school glue and tissue paper to color them. Two things I noticed that were less-than-perfect is that the stamps they put on eggs here in Finland come off when you boil eggs, but not when you wash them by hand before blowing them out, so the stupid stamp showed through my dye. And second, the eggs float, so you have to spend some time moving them around to get the color even.

Pretty in Purple

This may not be so remarkable by itself (although I was impressed with myself), but making Easter egg pinatas was really a hoot. Again, there are all kinds of things from wallpaper paste to school glue that you can use in the making of a papier mache pinata, but we used water, flour, a balloon, and a bunch of newspaper we collected from the Metro on the way home from school yesterday. I mixed three cups of flour into four cups of water to make the paste, tore the paper into strips, and let the kids have at it. Two layers of paper was the goal, but that’s a lot easier for an adult to achieve than a little. Still we had fun, and made a mess, and you can’t really beat that.

Getting Messy!

If I had it to do over again, I would have covered the table. In the end, it wasn't that hard to wash up.

This was a little challenging for the kids, although Gabriel did eventually get the hang of it.

We used safety pins through the tied-off end of the balloon to hang them overnight to dry.

We painted our pinatas and then covered them with tissue paper to further strengthen them.

Balloon popped, hole punches & string for the handle, and you're set!

Lily added a little glitter glue & jewels to hers.

Gabriel with his finished pinata!

This is a fun, multi-day project that doesn’t have to be Easter-specific. Lily said my pinata looked a lot like a hot-air balloon, and of course it could easily be made into a Halloween pumpkin, a face, or an animal depending on what you were willing to stick on to it!

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Traditional Finnish Easter Arrangement

Easter (pääsiäinen) is a big deal in Finland. Maybe it’s because it’s a major religious holiday for Finland’s 4.2 million Lutherans (yes, that’s nearly 80% of the population), but it also marks the first holiday of spring and a sort of precursor or warm up, as far as I can tell, to the major party that is Vappu (May Day). Regardless, I don’t really need an excuse to enjoy a four day weekend when the sun is shining at long last, and the Finns don’t seem to mind either.

The week of Easter, shops fill with the expected bunny/chick/chocolate kitsch, and at the same time flower shops and market stalls begin selling a lovely arrangement of palm leaves, pussy willows, and daffodils like the one you see here. Decorating the house for Easter seems to be a bit more prevalent here than in the United States, at least if you judge by the amount of Easter-themed home-decor I’ve seen around town this month.

Festivities began on Palm Sunday with a parade through town (from what I saw, it was primarily boy/girl scouts and a marching band) and the requisite church-goers walking around with palm leaves. Palm Sunday also brings Virpominen, the Finnish equivalent of America’s Halloween, when children dress as witches and goblins and go door to door hoping for candy. Instead of saying Trick or Treat, they offer a blessing and often wave or give out pussy willow branches, a sign of the coming spring and of rebirth. This is by no means something that all children do, and I managed to be out and about quite a bit in Helsinki on Sunday without noticing a single little witch or goblin, but I still think it’s fun. It looks like we’ll get the chance to reprise the Palm Sunday festivities tomorrow, as there is an Easter bonfire on one of the many islands around Helsinki and the children will dress up for that too.

The kids planting their Rye grass

Just like at home, Easter in Finland is full of Easter-related crafts at school. But unlike the US, in Finland the children plant Rye grass and watch it grow in the days leading up to Easter. Then the Easter bunny nestles eggs and treats into the grass instead of into plastic grass. This vaguely reminds me of something similar the kids did in the Waldorf preschool at home, and I’m all for gardening, so we gave this a go, albeit too late to have grass tall enough to hide eggs in by Easter. The tall grass in the background of this picture came from Lily’s school, where they clearly had more time to think about Easter activities than I did this month!

We’re also hoping to check out the zoo this weekend, which has an Easter theme throughout the holiday. I’m not sure whether the Easter Bunny makes an appearance at things like this like he does in malls across the US, or if there will be more witches and trolls. Either way, it will be fun to see the zoo without snow for the first time!

Unlike at home in Colorado, when crocuses make their appearance in February and the daffodils often bloom in time for St. Patrick’s Day, spring is just now arriving in Helsinki. There are bulbs planted everywhere, and not just tulips, crocuses & daffodils either. There are wood hyacinth, scilla, and snowdrops blooming in every little green nook in the city, it seems, and the Finns seem to have a good grasp of bulb layering (interplanting early bulbs with later-blooming bulbs so that the color evolves throughout the season), which pleases me greatly. In the purest of pagan terms, there is a rebirth happening here, and all I can say is it’s about time!!!

As far as the children can tell, Easter in Finland is exactly the same as in the United States, just with a bit more time off of school. We decorated Easter eggs, made some Easter Egg pinatas (more on those, including pictures, later), and I will be hiding eggs and candy all over the flat Saturday night, knowing that the kids will be up at dawn (which is damned early in Finland at this time of year) gobbling it up.

Our Easter Eggs

I didn’t really muster up the energy to make my own dye this year like I have in the past, but if you are so inclined, you can read Dye Easter Eggs Naturally – A DIY Tutorial from Crunchy Domestic Goddess and by all means consider using up that extra dye with a fun tie-dye or other project.

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Country Mouse headed to the big city...

Growing Up – Definitely Country Mouse

I grew up in strip mall hell the suburbs of Indianapolis. It is by far the biggest city I’ve ever lived in, and (apologies to all my Hoosier friends & relations) my least favorite out of the places I’ve lived. Part of that is undoubtedly reflective of a young person’s desire to get the hell out of Dodge after graduation, but part of it is definitely that Indy is just not my style. For a big city, it has miserable public transportation, and many of the urban renewal initiatives that have, thankfully, taken place occurred long after I left. And despite being in the city most of the time, most of my happiest childhood memories took place on a farm a few hours outside the city, where we spent many weekends when I was growing up.

My first true metropolitan experience came when I ventured to Strasbourg, France, for a semester abroad. At just under half a million people in the greater metro area, Strasbourg is tiny, but as the seat of the European Parliament, and straddling, as it does geographically & culturally, both France & Germany, it was my first introduction to city life. I could walk nearly everywhere I needed to go for day-to-day living, and could hop a tram or bus to venture further in the city, or a train to make the ever-more-frequent trips to Nancy that became part of my life in France. I got to know the local drunks who lived in the bus shelter outside my apartment, and who got me out of a scrape or two in my time there. I learned to shop in increments that were easy to carry on foot and up the four flights of stairs to my apartment. I got used to having options beyond seeing a movie on the weekend as dance, opera, theater and other cultural events were added to my repertoire.

But then it was back to small-town Indiana to finish up college and off to another university town for my then-fiances’ graduate school. Again, small town life suited me. And again, when it was time to move to Colorado, we chose locations (first Superior, then Lafayette) that were smaller, off the beaten path. We moved to Windsor, England, and found the perfect balance of a small town (~30,000 people) that was close enough to have us in downtown London in half an hour by train. In addition to rekindling our love of art, culture, and the culinary delights that a city like London provides, our desire to travel, to easily jump to Paris or Venice or somewhere new entirely, cemented in our psyches.

However, it was also in England that I really discovered my love of gardening, so when we returned to the US and started looking for a bigger house than our little bungalow in Lafayette, we took what some considered a drastic step in moving to Lyons, a town of about 2,000 people. A place where I could raise children in an intimate community. A place where I could garden to my heart’s content in a big new yard and an easily-accessible community garden plot. A place with its own culture–the culture of bluegrass, the great outdoors, the river, the mountains.

And I loved life in Lyons. I loved running into people I knew every time I went to the local coffee shop, went to the park, or went for a run. I loved that we could walk across town in 20 minutes or so, and that we could walk to open space in 5 minutes. The tight-knit community meant that everyone was in everyone else’s business, but in a good way–a way in which this extroverted country mouse thrived.

And then we got restless…

But then last year, Matt & I both felt a little malaise. An amazing trip to Seoul in February stirred up my wanderlust, and two years of job insecurity, layoffs, and uncertainty tainted our feelings about our nice new house and the nice big mortgage that came with it. So now this country mouse finds herself in an actual city for the first time ever. It’s small for a capital city, just over half a million in Helsinki itself and just over a million in the metropolitan area created by Helsinki, Espoo, & Vantaa, and the downtown area is definitely smaller than Boulder, just with twice as many people.

First impressions of life in the city

As with all things, there are positives and negatives. The population density instantly drops the carbon footprint of our family (although admittedly our numerous flights to and from the US have probably killed a baby seal or two). The municipal compost & avid recycling program helps that effort, as does not having a car and relying on walking, cycling, tram, bus, and Metro. And living green is important to us.

Living simply has also increased in importance to us recently, and downsizing our house, yard, and cars plays into that effort. We estimate that we offloaded close to 30% of our stuff when we moved. Moving away from the land of Target & Wal-Mart and to the land of the dreaded 23% Value-Added Tax (VAT) will hopefully help us remember to think carefully about our purchases and avoid the accumulation of stuff that we don’t need or love.

And don’t get me started on the cultural offerings. As if moving into a very international community (our flat is in the embassy district and Gabriel’s school boasts more than 30 nationalities) wasn’t enough, Helsinki is close enough for a weekend trip to several other countries (Sweden, Estonia, & Russia being the most easily accessible). We know relatively little about Finland too, which makes it that much more foreign and mysterious to us.

But carrying groceries in howling winds and sub-zero temperatures is indisputably a drag. Missing the bus and really having no way to make-up the time, therefore coming late to school pickup or drop-off is equally annoying. Tiny washing machines, tiny antique elevators (have I ever mentioned that I’m mildly claustrophobic), being unable to navigate by the sun/mountains/water due to all the freaking tall buildings (some of you have witnessed first-hand my inability to navigate without these natural signs), and dogs that piss endlessly in the snow piles that I have to walk by every single day all make the list of annoyances.

I’d forgotten, since my time in England, the gorgeous shop windows at the holidays. And the beauty of the symmetrical Christmas lights adorning city center. The joy of watching the streets slip by on the tram without having to pay attention to traffic had slipped my mind. So I guess I’m a hybrid, or a chameleon, or something, because I think I can thrive in this new life in the city. And exposing the children to all of this, so that they can, in some far-off distant future decide if they’d like to be country mice or city mice…I suspect that’s the real reward.

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I particularly like the colors in these two paintings by my son, Gabriel

Let’s say we don’t put a crayon into our child’s hand until they are a year old (it was earlier than that for us!). That means that, when I began my decluttering adventure, I found roughly 8 years’ worth of artwork (combined total for two children) in a giant stack in my basement. We do craft projects nearly every day, and they spent part of every day of their preschool lives doing craft as well, so you can see how quickly that can multiply. Each piece is unique, captures their developmental milestones in visual format, and, especially now that my son writes “To Mommy” on almost every piece, is very difficult to let go.

And yet, I could not justify taking a three-foot stack of kids’ artwork to Helsinki with us. What to do, what to do? I turned to the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” mantra for help with this tricky situation!

Reduce
I was able to immediately reduce the giant pile-o-pictures by pulling out some nice ones and sending them to out-of-state relatives. This made me feel good because I was sharing part of my children’s experiences with them, and they were appreciative too!

Reuse
I’ve already blogged about Zero-Waste Wrapping Paper, but it’s worth mentioning again. Larger paintings, especially those that come from easel paper, make great home-made wrapping paper. Not only does it add a personal touch to your gifts, but it doesn’t contain the heavy metals present in many commercial wrapping papers and can, therefore, be recycled. Double bonus.

Note to pack-rats: Do not fool yourself into keeping a life-time supply of child art for wrapping paper. Only keep enough for a month or so, or one major holiday at most, because you know they’re going to keep painting more!

Recycle, But Scan First!
Once you’ve sent some of the artwork on and set aside enough to wrap a holiday’s-worth of present-wrapping, it’s time to recycle 95% of the rest. Yes, I kept a small file-folder of items from the 8 years of artwork: Gabriel’s first rainbow painting, Lily’s first flower, a special drawing of Grandma, Gabriel’s first picture of our family.

But before I recycled, I took photos and/or scanned in the best ones and plan to keep those digitally for posterity. We have a combo printer/fax/scanner that is amazingly high-quality for the price, but I also took digital photos of anything too big to fit on the scanner bed. The photos are slightly lower-quality than the scanner, even with my 12.1 megapixel camera, but are good enough that I could easily put together a photo book for each child sometime in the future if I wanted to (and I do!).

I’m also planning to publish a digital album of their work so that friends and family can see the art they create in Finland. There are so many free services out there for digital storage these days (Picasa, Facebook, and Evernote just to name the ones we actively use) that it makes sense to store things this way instead of on CDs or even a disk drive that might contribute to your clutter.

So how have you found creative ways to declutter? I’m always looking for new ways to simplify!