Yes, I have been away for long time. I got tired of the blog and felt I had nothing to say to you. The pause have  helped me to collect my vits and I hope I have more to tell you in near future. This Year has so far offered its ups and downs – and even adventures.

I copied this meme from Modobs in “What’s love got to do with it?” It sounded like fun and she did not direct it towards anybody particular, so I decided to take it over.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?Visited Naples at least.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?I don’t have any idea what I promised last new year – and I have made some again and probably going to forget those too.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes and I became besotted god mother of my adorable god daughter soon to be six months old.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Happily no.

5. What countries did you visit? Just Italy

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? Romantic relationship of some seriousness.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? The birthday of the sweet pea.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Learning more about life and its meaning.

9. What was your biggest failure?  Not being able to find a man of my dreams – again.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Not anything serious.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Two pair of wonderful old fashioned shoes.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Nicole Richie as new mother

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? The New Boss we got …

14. Where did most of your money go? to my bank account

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? The baby

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? Nothing comes to my mind.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer? Sadder. Thinner. A bit poorer, I suppose.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Wear more dresses.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Be less worried (and shy).

20. How did you spend Christmas? With my mom and singling in the country side surrounded by snow and eating far too much again.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Sadly, no.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Runaway. 23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No at the moment I am not really hating anybody, but lets say that some people have disappointed me.

24. What was the best book you read? Nothing comes  to my mind right now.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Recorder.

26. What did you want and get?  Goddaughter.

27. What did you want and not get? Man of my life.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Happy Go Lucky.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? Went to the movies alone, I think. Tried to forget of getting older.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? I am again going to repeat myself – my goddaughter.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Experimental.

32. What kept you sane? I am not so sure I was always so very sane.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? No big fancies last year, I am afraid – it was quit boring.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? Economics

35. Who did you miss? My dad (who is not around here anymore).

36. Who was the best new person you met?   This was more of a getting to know some old acquaintances better year.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Don’t take it so seriously.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. 

Smile when your heart is aching
even though it is breaking
when there are clouds in the sky
you’ll get by
if you smile through your fear and sorrow
smile and maybe tomorrow
you’ll see the sun is shining through
for you

If you read this, considered yourself tagged!

He seemed nice, well educated and polite. We had nice chat over the net. Then he told he had nothing in the home to eat and silly me joked about needing to order the pizza. He wanted to meet me over lunch or dinner next day. I am no follower of the rule book - yet the invitation surprised me.

I had a polish friend in India, who used to say, that I was a good judge of human nature. Yet I admired her openness towards new people. She was never worried of them nor about their true intentions. She had huge amount of friends and she was always smiling. I still wish I could be more like her.

I myself don’t trust strange people. Part of it is probably because I don’t trust my self to be a good judge of human nature. When I was younger I was in general sceptical on cross-cultural romantic relationships and especially on marriages. Is this truly a question of being afraid of the trouble or does this belief hide something more hideous behind it?

This man was from Iran. I have heard a lot of stories about Iran as well as maybe of Saudi Arabia. Both countries have similar flavour – really old fashioned and misogynist. There is not so long time I watched the movie called Persepolis about Iranian life. I did not recognise it during chatting him, but afterwards some prejudices crept up that I was not proud of.

Maybe it was because of those prejudices people generally have that I felt his reluctance to tell were he was from. It took him a while to answer. Although as usually across the net, it is really difficult to interpret peoples feelings. But I felt the conversation stop for a while after I asked. Yet during the discussion I did not let the fact affect me, but it was after it, while the consciousness of the fact came in to my mind.

Yet the prejudices affect me and I am not proud about this. I have seen enough people around the world to know that prejudices are not always true. Some people just don’t fit in them. I don’t fit in typical prejudice about Nordic women myself. Prejudices are not people, they are simplifications we make to be able to make the world easier for us to comprehend. Yet I seem to not be able to hinder the stories I’ve heard running around my head.

Most of the second half of 2008 my life evolve around work (a lot of new and stressful things), my mother (who I’ve been worried about) and my god daughter, who will soon be half year old. I have to admit I am besotted. She is a little darling.

On top of all that the apartment building my friend is living in had a quite serious fire and she was evaquated and stayed away some days. I help her to drag back her mattress (in a tram) and that was quite funny. Some good moments after a moment of terror. The fire made me think also, how fragile the life really is and how we cannot know, when it is going to end.

There has not been much time to think about men or about being single. In fact I am a bit tired of this topic right now. My head is empty, which you may have noticed in this blog. I am sorry, but I really did not have much to say about anything related to men or relationships. I hope I would have, but I really did not.

Well there was an office christmas party and I was told I was dressed prettiy – by some of my female colleques. And I met an old (male) friend of mine, who I like a lot, and who is married and has a baby. Long time not seen and such. So no romance in the air, at all.

Somebody asked me this question in this blog for a while ago.

I don’t think it is a question of need. I can do without a mate. I might feel more satisfied with a family, but I am rather happy with my life as it is. In fact relationships (with men) usually make me feel frustrated and uncomfortable.

 It is more like I want one. I want a man to share my life with and I preferably also family. I’d love to have some one waiting me to come home after work and share my lonely nights with. I’ve always been a bit maternal type and I’ve wanted kids the last 15 years.

Yes, I feel like time is running out, but it is more because of my ability to count, than because my friends are already married. Most of them are not. In fact only one of my good friends is and another one is going to go next summer. My sister is not and propably will never be, because she does not want same things from her life. My mother has never been hinting on this.

Take the Quiz here!

Yesterday I was standing in the line checkout line behind two young men of about 20 years of age. Other one started to talk about his “future ex-wife” and noted that he did not intend to be married forever. He did not seem like a hard person as in fact he was quite polite towards me.

I have to admit that I found this comment slightly shocking. Is this something that has always been part of the male thinking or is something in our society making young people to think so cynically. How much changes does a relationship have, if you enter in it thinking you don’t want it to last? Is it only way to protect one self?

Before people used to just live together so they did not get stacked in boring marriages. I wonder if the trend has changed and young people are getting married more, but not intend it to be forever. Is it because divorce has become so common or because people are looking for variety. Maybe marriages are entered more light hearted than before.

Destined to Divorce?

Often when one compares the divorces with new marriages, one can get gloomy. About half of the marriages end up in divorce. What statistics don’t often tell us, is that most people never split. There are certain people that repeatedly marry and divorce, and they distort the statistics for the others. At the same time there are a lot of those, who stay with the same partner after they have once gotten married. How do they make it happen?

The changes in the marriage are better, if you’re mature enough. The risk of divorce decreases with 1/4,  if the both partners are at least 25 years, when entering the marriage. Resent studies of brains have shown that human brains continue to mature until the age of 25. It might not be coincidence, I think. So maybe the comment is more due the maturity of the person and less due to any real change in the deeper values and attitudes of the society.

Risk factors of the marriage are baby less than seven months after marriage (1/4) and that the parents were divorced (1/6). On the other hand good income, college education and going to the church together as the family reduce the risk of divorce slightly. Yet I would not recommend anybody to start going to the church because of their marriage. Instead one could think how the shared family values help to fight for the relationship. Still you should not think that religion itself could save your marriage. That thought itself could ruin it as some statistics show.

Even a high school level of education reduces the risk. It is also better to try to work for your first marriage than start looking for a new one, because second marriage are even more likely to end. You could protect your marriage by entering a premarital education class (reduces risk 1/3), create fair share of chores and invest in your communication skills.

Divorce rates also wary a lot from country to another. The highest divorce rates in the Europe are in UK and Russia, both well below the US rates (about 2/3), free minded Scandinavians reach in about 1/2 of the North American rate and South Europeans are between 1/6-1/10 of that rate. So one should not arrange funerals for the marriage yet.  What is more important is that divorce rates have been slowly dropping in most western countries for years. For example in US the peak of the divorces was already in 1981.

Why Marriage?

Why am I defending marriage? There are a lot of scientific studies to show the benefits of the marriages. Happy marriage is good for ones health and especially for the health of children. Marriage has the ability of making us happier than singleness. Especially it protects the future of our children.

 All these sensible reasons aside, what can a hopeless romantic to do?

If I were a beginning, I would be… the first giggle
If I were a month, I would be… May
If I were a time of day, I would be… evening

If I were a planet, I would be…. Neptune
If I were a season, I would be… spring
If I were a sea animal, I would be… sea turtle
If I were a direction, I would be… behind
If I were a piece of furniture, I would be… divan
If I were a sin, I would be… laziness

If I were a liquid, I would be… milk
If I were a scare, I would be…. birds
If I were a gem, I would be…. jade
If I were a flower/plant, I would be… oak tree or poppy
If I were a kind of weather, I would be… summer rain
If I were a musical instrument, I would be… wooden flute

If I were an animal, I would be… cat
If I were an emotion, I would be… longing
If I were a vegetable, I would be… aubergine
If I were a sound, I would be…. whistle
If I were an element, I would be… earth
If I were a car, I would be… VW 1302 Si (also known as beetle)

If I were a food, I would be…. curry
If I were a place, I would be… small town
If I were a material, I would be… wood
If I were a taste, I would be…. lemon
If I were a scent, I would be…. vanilla
If I were a religion, I would be… wicca

If I were a sentence, I would be… far too long.
If I were a facial expression, I would be…. almost smile.
If I were a subject in school, I would be… geography.
If I were a colour, I would be… sky-blue.
If I were a thing, I would be…. pen

If I were a book, I would be… thousand and one nights
If I were an artist, I would be… writer
If I were a landmass, I would be… volcanic island
If I was a watch, I would be… hourglass
If I were God, I would be… Pallas Athene
If I were a vowel, I would be… A

If I were a theory, I would be… light
If I were a famous person, I would be… Jane Austen
If I were an item of electronic equipment, I would be… handheld electronic game
If I were a sport, I would be… football (European) alias Soccer
If I were a movie, I would be… Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain
If I were a cartoon, I would be… Calvin and Hobbes

If I were an explorer, I would be… Marco Polo
If I were a scientist, I would be… biochemist
If I were a relation, I would be… grandmother
If I were a river, I would be… Nile
If I was intoxication, I would be… arsenic
If I were alone, I would be… scared

If I were a question, I would be… How?
If I were a habit, I would be… spinning hair
If I were in an atom, I would be… copper
If I were you, I would be… different

What would you be?

The Men’s health listed 10 ways to win woman – and that is a good list. The key message was: be nice and relax. The best in it was that it was written to average male and boyfriend and not for a serial dater. Only the name of the list “10 Ways to Make Her Beg for More”, was kind of jerk itself. Oh, and why did you need naked woman with it? Well I was not part of the target audience, so maybe it is one of those “male things” again.

The Bestlife showed that most important Male Physical Atribute in the eyes of the women is sence of style.

I don’t love my work, but being sick and not able to do anything else than read and watch TV. I’ve had had fever for 6 days. I am so bored and sleepy. I feel being stuck. I had two days off last week and was sick both days. Yuck! Now I sound like I’d be 10 or maybe younger.

I suppose I used to be seldomly sick when I was young and I’ve not learned to enjoy the experience. I don’t even have that much fever – only just so much that I barely have it. That is the worst thing, I think. I hope my feever is off today – I seemed like that in the morning.