PumpkinPetal

Now you can play with me, mush Susu in the pumpkin and animate the disaster!

Creepy!

Happy Halloween!

fancygens.com

Lazy

I want to be lazy. I want to do nothing, just linger in the sun, just lay on the grass doing nothing, absolutely nothing. No has-to-do-things, no hurry, no nothing. To be without time, melt into the memories too far away to remember, feel the stillness of the moment.

I want no tomorrow, no yesterday, no challenges, no demands, no thoughts of the future. I just want to be. Alone, and vanish into the nothingness of time. Doing nothing, thinking of nothing, seeing nothing. I only want to hear the breathing of my motionless body, nothing else.

Lazy. Nothing else.

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The weekly theme for Moody Monday is Lazy

The Nightmare before Halloween

The weekly theme for IF is
Trick or treat

Birthday Bob

Because my Finnish main blog celebrated its birthday yesterday, the writer of the blog also spent a nice evening on the town listening to that mighty guitarr virtuoso Bob Brozman at his concert. It was a nice evening with sounds of blues and roots all over the world.

The Toddler

The first picture ever
in my first blog

Today my main blog SusuPetal celebrates the honourable age of a toddler, 2 years! That’s not a long time, although it absurdly sometimes feels like an eternity.
It’s quite unbelievable that for three years ago I didn’t even know the existence of blogs. In fact, I spent very little time in the net.
Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe…

I started my blog to keep up with writing. Before my blog I’d spent almost six years –due to various reasons- without writing. I had a need to write, just didn’t have the means. I’d seldom fantasized myself writing a book, because I had difficulties with longer texts. I just didn’t have the patience to write one story for a long time. I had to get rid of the text as soon as possible.
I knew, and know, that short stories are my thing. Very short stories.

And when I found blogs, I knew I had found my way, because like all writers, I also wanted readers. If that wouldn’t be so, you might as well put your writings into a cupboard.

When I started publishing my very short stories in my blog, I wanted to illustrate the stories as well. I didn’t want to use other people’s pictures, didn’t want to mess with rights of this and that, so I had no other possibility than to start to draw myself. I had only Paint in my computer, so I opened it and started to draw, having never before drawn anything with a computer. Having actually never drawn much at all…

Nothing is impossible, I figured, and I’ve noticed that it is sometimes true.

After having written very short stories for some time, I decided to put up another blog for photos, a blog with fewer words. . I’d acquired a digital camera, but didn’t take much photos, just occasional shots now and then. After starting my second blog SusuPetal –kuva ja sana (SusuPetal –picture and word) I began to have my camera always with me. Photos gave me a holiday from words, which I sometimes needed, being occasionally fed up, and tired of words.

Toying with Paint and digital photos made me want to learn more about picture making and I loaded some free programs from the net (Pixia, Picasa) and started to manipulate my pics. This proved to be very addictive and very satisfying also.

Somewhere along the manipulating, I started my third blog SusuPetal –RunoSaari (SusuPetal –the Poem Island) where I publish my poems for children.

Blogging is a global thing, and when I found my way through some Finnish bloggers to bloggers from other countries, I was struck by the urge of writing in English. Therefore, I started my fourth blog, the one you are reading just now. If you got this far….

And when you start, why stop? The fifth blog was in Swedish.

(I’m not talking now anything about my homepages, got to spare you)

And maybe you already know about this….

Really, two years ago I had no idea of where this addiction could lead to! I’ve found the possibility to write, to take photos, to draw and manipulate photos and while doing all that, I’ve had the luck in getting to know a lot of wonderful people. Other bloggers, their posts, their comments, are the thing that keeps me going. Therefore, I’d like to thank you all and say cheers!

Until you've learned the meaning of the blues

I’ve been trying to learn a new song. It isn’t completely new for me, I’ve heard it years ago, but I don’t know it by heart, if you know what I mean.
I don’t read notes without playing, that is: I can’t sing straight from the notes. I have to play the piece with piano to learn the melody. Sometimes it’s hard, because I’m not a virtuoso with piano and the melody comes out in a peculiar way.
Luckily I have hundreds of CD’s and LP’s, but not all the music in the world and that is why I’m thankful for youtube.

I learned a while ago another song with youtube, and although Ella Fitzgerald was performing, I didn’t get upset. I sang it my way…




Today I’ve been listening to Etta James and her version of the song I’m bound to learn. Etta has turned jazzier in her old age, I prefer the young Etta with the raw rhythm’n blues style. I don’t hate jazz, just prefer the blues and that is why Ella Fitzgerald doesn’t thrill me half as much as Etta James, Koko Taylor, Wynona Carr or Bessie Smith. Billie Holiday is jazz for me, although many regard her as a blues singer. Her lyrics may be bluesy, but her interpretation is jazzy.




Dinah Washington is jazz, but luckily she recorded an album with Bessie Smith songs.




Listening to these female vocalists makes me want to sing like them. I know it’s an impossibility, but that doesn’t matter.
To want is not necessarily the same as to do.

The Colours of Autumn

Get Your Animation

I've been looking a lot out of the window for the last few days,
thanks to a fever.
No outdoors for me.
Today
the scenery looked like this.

Big

The weekly theme for IF is Grow

My New Toy

I’ve been writing less for the past few days (which many may cheer to, if trying to catch up with all my blogs...). I’m not tired with words, like sometimes happen. No, the reason not to write is completely new: I’ve been toying with my new camera and especially tried to study how to film videos.

I’ve never filmed anything, not with an old 8 mm or such. Moving pictures is quite a new genre for me to work with. I’ve always been a film freak and used to sit in the Finnish Film Archive’s movie theatre and look about three films a night for many centuries ago. So, I’ve seen a lot of films and I can assure you that seeing films doesn’t help you much or at all in making short video clips. But it doesn’t matter, because I have absolutely nothing to say and I have almost no vision. I just toy around.

A moving picture fascinates me. I’ve tried different slide shows and sometimes I’ve managed to get to a result that satisfies me. Mostly not, because the movement has been artificial, stable and sometimes boring. I’ve wanted more, more action, more life. I’ve craved for life on film.

Now I have the possibility to make life with my camera. It would be maybe good if I’d have at least some idea what to film, but I won’t let that bother me. Maybe some day I’ll think about manuscripts, or at least a synopsis, but not yet. Now I just want to have fun with my new toy.

What is the idea of filming on the whole? Short video clips with no sense? For me?

I have the answer: you can start a new blog just for your videos:))

Lucky

To have the luck to create, to express
yourself,
is lucky indeed.


***

The weekly theme for Moody Monday is Lucky

Seeking for the extreme

They look like ghosts.
Tall and thin and silent they yearn for the storm,
seek for the lightning.
They sail in small boats to their island,
wait for the thunder and when the storm begins,
they become dangerous to touch.
Thunder and lightning electrify them
and they start to glow.

***

The Hattifatteners by Tove Jansson

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The weekly theme for IF is Extremes

Light

The weekly theme for Thursday Challenge is Light

Not like the other girls

She sees things we don’t know about.
She hears voices we can’t hear.
She stays in her own world, her own place where no menace can enter.
The world outside her mind is too dangerous, too complicated and she wants to be safe.
She has no other possibilities than to run away from the real world, its demands, and its stress. If she’d stay, she’d be broken. Like finest china, like ice in the spring.

She’s too fragile for real world.

In her own world, she’s got everything: courage, power and strength. All skills that is required for survival. She’s afraid of nothing, she’s never alone, and she’s able to do anything she wants to. She copes with the stress, with the cruelty of other people, because in her own world the facts of real life don’t exist. In her own world she doesn’t have to be on guard all the time, she can breathe more easily, she can enjoy life without fear.

She’s not like any other girl. And she wants to stay that way.

******

The weekly theme for Moody Monday is Solitary

Six months

I was in Turku for the weekend. Visited the book fair and strolled in the crowd, listened to writers and met some fellow bloggers. The trip did well for me, because I’ve been in a lousy mood already for some time. Year after year autumn gets harder for me. It’s just a fact I’ve got to accept. I’ve tried to fight against my melancholy moods, but I haven’t succeeded so well.

I’ve tried to think positive (after autumn and winter the spring is sure to come…), I’ve tried to sleep enough (seven hours a night isn’t enough…), I’ve tried to find new, inspirational hobbies, tried to take care of my physical health.

I’ve done my best, and nothing helps. This is I. I despise autumn and hate winter and there’s nothing to do about that.

Maybe this is just the time for me to be moody. Maybe I’m built this way: I’m not meant to be happy for six months a year. Well, I could turn this thought around and think that I can be happy for six months a year.
But I won’t.

I’ll settle for this, I have no intention to fight against things that won’t obey me. Nature is too strong an enemy. For meanwhile.

But my time will come.

Autumn

The weekly theme for Thursday Challenge is Autumn

Have a nice weekend!

The Chairs

I can still remember the chairs by the lake. I see Mum sitting on the right, Father on the left, almost no space between the chairs. They are holding hands, sitting in silence, looking at the sun. The golden ball sinks slowly to the lake, the mist rises from the water, and the air is the colour of roses.

I look at them and I smile, because I know that next summer I’ll be sitting with them, in Mum’s lap and look at the golden lake. They just don’t know it yet. They still think they are only two.

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Inspired by

Simple

The weekly theme for Moody Monday is Simple