NordenBladet – The night was so warm tonight that I slept with the window wide open. In the morning I woke at eight and made some pancakes which we enjoyed with the raw jam made from blueberries that were picked from the wood last year. Today has largely been spent preparing food and enjoying the meals. How luxurious is that!
I believe it is a great luxury to be able to find time (you can find the time!) to spend with your family. I have had home assistants (who also completed duties of a gardener, chef, and nanny) for several years, but today I wish to do everything by myself. I enjoy it and I find it to be a greater luxury than keeping the assistants. Maybe at some point when there is a tighter schedule with the businesses in the future, I will again need to buy the help of assistants, however, as long as there is no direct need for that I will try to do everything by myself and plan my businesses so that life would not turn into a vicious circle of creating new businesses and conquering new mountain tops. Why? Because I have this opportunity, the opportunity to plan my own time! The luxury to enjoy the home that I have, be 100% together with my children, have the freedom to choose the food and prepare the meals with love, and to serve it to my family delightfully.
This morning I made pancakes, Estella Elisheva made herself a smoothie and then rode to Saku to her football training by bike. After that I cleaned up, did the laundry, and started cleaning the children’s summer room. I don’t know how but stuff just keeps accumulating… wherever there is open space, stuff keeps emerging :D. I think if I had a house 1000 or 2000 square meters, then at some point I would still run out of free space. Tomorrow in case the weather should fail us, then the children will play in the summer room, not outside. We have planned a small joint birthday party for Estella Elisheva (she will be 15!!! tomorrow) and for Ivanka Shoshana (she will be 13!!! on May 23). OMG! They are so big already!
For dinner I made quinoa, minced meat sauce and wild garlic salad (yessss, the same mega tasty salad, the recipe of which you can find HERE). I served the meal outside and we enjoyed the delicious food along with the wonderful weather! Thereafter I went to the grocery store and made for tomorrow for the children’s birthday party two strawberry-banana-whipped cream cakes! Now I will continue preparing the rest of the dishes for tomorrow, and in the evening there will already be the first guests from the further corners – my elder sister Marie with her son Lauri 🙂
NordenBladet – Life in the countryside is wonderful! I am so fond of nature! In the morning I wake up to bird song and feel how the fresh country air that I breathe in, along with the pleasant scent mix from the plants in the garden, gives me energy. For me the replacement of sweating in an indoor gym is here working outside in the garden as well as gathering herbs. For example, today I had the bow and squat training program on the meadow, from where, under the careful scrutiny of ‘Pandu the Cat’ we gathered six boxes of primrose blossoms! Primrose is a Nordic herb full of power, and it helps alleviate very many ailments! Just now is the best time to gather them.
Primrose has been so popular among our forefathers and in folk medicine that it has piled over two hundred names! The best known names are chicken toe, rooster pants, golden key, worn pants, cuckoo flower, maiden flower, milk teardrop, swallow flower, landlord pants, sky eye, sky key, butter cake, etc. In various legends, primrose has been described as the golden keychain that will open the gates to heaven, it has been considered a magic plant that brings luck to the one who finds it. Blossoms, leaves, rhizome and roots alike are gathered and used. No other wildly growing Nordic plant contains as much vitamin C as primrose leaves. Besides, primrose is among the few plants that preserves its vitamin C through drying, salting and marination.
Primrose is delicious while fresh in a salad as well as when dried, inside herbal tea. It is very good on the occasion of several health conditions:
-antifungal and antibacterial effect
-calming, alleviates sleeplessness and anxiety, reduces chronic fatigue syndrome
-heals coughing, acts as an expectorant, alleviates bronchitis and asthma
-reduces dizziness, headaches and migraine
-helps against kidney stones and bladder stones
-stimulates secretion from digestive glands, soothes constipation
-lowers blood cholesterol via binding bile acids and cholesterol
-has a positive impact on the cardiac function by strengthening the heart muscle
-alleviates joint pain, gout, and reduces tremor in limbs
-anti-cancer, inhibits growth of tumor cells, for example in the colon (roots)
-perspiration enhancing and cleansing effect
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Afterwards I starting making wild garlic salad and we enjoyed a long nice healthy, invigorating breakfast.
Wild garlic, being full of minerals as well as C- and B-group vitamins, is an excellent organism cleansing, health enhancing and health improving plant. I came up with a new wild garlic salad recipe and I must admit the salad turned out sooo good, so you better take notes and try it out!
Mix the following ingredients in the salad:
Wild garlic leaves
Fresh cucumber
Fresh tomato
Organic mung bean sprouts
Peeled pumpkin seeds
Fresh thyme
Sour cream
To garnish and season the salad:
Pour over with grated cheese (Atleet or Atleet Cheddar)
Croutons
Primrose
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What else? More garden works! Lately I pretty much resemble a full time gardener – fingers in the ground ca 6-7 hours every day. Great! Doing this and that in the garden and you won’t even notice gathering 10 000+ steps during a day (mowing the lawn, cutting the branches, raking the leaves, planting, sowing, watering, other maintenance works). For example yesterday we re-painted the children’s climbing and swinging centre as well as the garden table and garden chairs. We used HolzBio brown shade deep imbue agent. This efficient deep imbue wood care agent helps against decay, mold, wood damage and wood pests. Above all, it gives the old surface a new and fresh look! The faded surface will look just as good as new. We used the same agent to imbue the flowerbed boxes. We reached full circle with mowing the garden lawn! I so much adore when after a long industrious day I peacefully walk in my garden, admiring what has been accomplished during the day. The eye takes a rest and I feel how I am overwhelmed with happiness and contentment. Creating beauty with my own hands makes me happy!
For supper I prepared grilled meat and oven dish and nothing could beat a cool can of A Le Coq beer overseeing the tidy garden and the setting sun!
NordenBladet – Good morning! The weather is already so good that in the morning there is no desire to stay in bed very long. At about five or six o’clock I lose sleep and then wish to start working in the garden at once. Yesterday I was indeed looking forward to mow the lawn, but had to wait for some time before switching on the machine not to wake my neighbours. I instead extended enjoying the morning coffee peacefully, and made buckwheat porridge (I garnished it with cottage cheese, beet, dill, and pickled tomato and cucumber). Thereafter I sent my family to work and to school and went outside to gather primrose to be dried for winter. Gathering herbs and drying them is one of my great hobbies!
Then I started mowing the lawn and tidying the garden. Most of May has passed by under the title of garden works. I cut down some of the lilac bush and planted lavender on top the cellar. In the flower boxes I planted marygold flowers. Since the spice beds are still in progress (the boxes are ready and have also been stained to endure the climate, but they haven’t yet been set in place), thus I planted a bunch of thyme and oregano in a large flowerpot. I cut the lower branches from the spruce trees, those which were against the ground, in order to make it easier to care for the garden, and spread coniferous type soil around the tree trunk. During these works I ran into a giant snail/slug. At first I was scared that this might be the dreadful Portuguese slug Arion lusitanicus, but when I took a closer look I realized that it was a quite innocent local Leopard slug that eats decay and dead plants and can rather be considered a useful fellow in the garden. Many times this year we have been able to burn branches and decay – for example we have partly torn down the old fence that went straight into the fire. Today is the time when 200 (80-100 cm tall) Brabant arborvitae should arrive from Hortes. There is a plan to plant them partly as the hedge in the places where the fence was torn down. In 2017 I bought from Hansaplant a hundred 100cm arborvitae plants (see the blog HERE), these have already become quite tall as of today.
In the evening a few guest came by and brought a large sack of freshly picked wild garlic from the wood. Yummi… this will be made into a delicious fresh salad today! In return I offered them frozen buckthorn berries picked from our garden last year.
Hugs!
(below the garden gallery you will find yet another gallery where I post some photos from the recent Mother’s Day).
Sunday 9th of May was Mother’s Day! I got a lovely flower plant and a box of salmon from Estella (she knows salmon is among my favourite food) and Ivanka had prepared for me an assortment of greeting cards! I love the both of you so much – Estella Elisheva and Ivanka Shoshana!! You are my treasures, my delight and my concern!
NordenBladet – Last weekend was eventful. April 30th (18 Ijar) was Lag ba-Omer, and it actually already began at the sunset of April 29th. Jewish holidays are moveable feasts, and this year the celebration collided with Saint Walpurga’s Eve which is a widely known holiday in Estonia. Due to Covid restrictions, the Estonian Jewish Community skipped the usual annual celebration, however those of you interested to know more about the celebration, can read and have a look at the post with a synopsis of the event back from the year 2017.
Similarly, Saint Walpurga’s Eve and Saint Walpurga’s Day which is celebrated on May 1st, were not held this year due to Covid-19 restrictions. To be honest with you, I do not even remember the last time I attended a public Walpurgis Night celebration, and I haven’t accidentally bumped into a Witches’ Sabbath on Blocksberg hill for a long time either (hahaa.. that was supposed to be a joke). Lately I have enjoyed most of all the modest parties/events held in a small circle of friends. The little village where I live has yet been keenly taking part in the (Teeme Ära!) Let’s Do It! clean-up communal working day that has been held since 2008 all across Estonia. This year we gathered from the neighbourhood ditches and forest edges the volume of a large container-size of garbage, and we planted near the big road 600 spruce plants!
The morning saw us have a hearty breakfast (delicious omelet – Shakshuka/Shakshouka, along with pickled tomato, pickled cucumber, cottage cheese, and surely a vast mug of coffee), then clothe the kids, take the spade from the shed, and off we went 😀
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On Sunday the weather was very fine and we decided to go to Tallinn Zoo (Paldiski maantee 145, Ehitajate tee 150, 13522 Tallinn, website: tallinnzoo.ee). Despite every other place being locked due to corona restrictions, the zoo was open for visitors, and was crowded. Unfortunately, because of general Covid risk, many of the animals were not exposed to visitors, and thus we didn’t see half of the zoo. I suppose we were also the only ones there wearing our face masks. The zoo had changed a lot since the last time I went there. The sides of the pavement were beautiful and tidy and it created a very warm feeling. It was great to walk there and spend the Sunday together, until at some point Ivanka recalled the cartoon “Adventures of Lolo the Penguin” (by the way, this cartoon that was made in 1988 has been selected to be among the most horrific of children’s movies in Estonia). The animated movie includes several terrifying episodes and already the character Grandpa Piigo used to say: “People, ah, they mostly bring us suffering, and they take us to a zoo”. So, there you are… We set our steps back in the direction of our home and then worked in the garden for many hours. For dinner I prepared potatoes and a pleasant silky mushroom sauce. By the way, these wonderful funnel chanterelles had been gathered in late autumn — in the beginning of November. Read about the yellowfoot mushroom in more detail HERE.
Today, Monday, has been spent paying the bills, solving several work-related matters, planning Estella Elisheva’s and Ivanka Shoshana’s joint birthday event, and discussing via Facebook with several people our cooperation projects. In addition, I completed some online-shopping. I purchased from ON24 for the kids, for their outdoor climbing set a rope ladder; for the 4.26m diameter trampoline a new safety net, and a new 160x200cm mattress with spring interiors. Ivanka had a school-day today, as well as her swimming class, Estella had her violin performance at Georg Ots music school (with recording).
NordenBladet – The past weeks have gone by quickly. I have been painting, done some gardening, written articles for NordenBladet as well as OHMYGOSSIP entertainment sites and have advanced the ElishevaShoshana.com website and art blog, with Ivanka Shoshana we have been to the pottery hobby club and have visited Tartu, and also we have made a decision to have dental braces placed to Estella (this will be a lengthy process). But now in more detail about this all..
In April I completed a painting titled “A Year of Love“. The painting depicts the flower Hydrangea (hortensia). About the painting and the story of its creation you can browse pictures in my art blog post HERE. Retrospectively I have added blog posts also about my previous paintings. In November 2020 three paintings were finalized: “His Highness Mouse the First” – the eleventh painting from the mice series (see HERE), “Cattail, which is not in the picture” (HERE), and “Flower Bouquet” (HERE). In February I completed the twelveth painting from the mice series (see HERE) and further in March another two paintings from the mice series, this time with sequence numbers 13 and 14 (HERE and HERE). The book is not progressing so well at this moment.. I have planned that I complete the children’s book “His Highness Mouse the First” by this spring, so that it could then be launched this summer in Estonian National Museum (ERM), where my exhibition “Our Home Witch Kitchen” will be held. However, the probability that I will have this book ready by the same time is little. I have been working on the first two chapters. Regarding illustrations for the book, currently 14 paintings are there, but this will not suffice.
Concerning the upcoming exhibition I have already proper panic emerging. The nervous tension is mountain high. More and more often I ask myself if I am functioning on the level of trust that has been entrusted to me, whether I might be letting down the people and the visitors. To be compiling an exhibition as an everyday person, next to grand artists in Estonia in the mightiest and largest of exhibition buildings is enormous responsibility. Why, because I am an amateur and self-made artist and potter, and similarly my younger daughter Ivanka Shoshana whose works will also be displayed withing the same exhibition, has the same inabundant painting and pottery experience as me. Also, the exhibition hall that has been granted for the planned exhibition, is huge – 130m2! Furnishing such an enormous area with artworks is not a minor task even for the professional artist that has been stockpiling the large amounts of creative works in their studios during several years. Nevertheless, you must begin somewhere. I really like modelling items from clay, ceramics is my passion and my hobby as also are painting and gathering herbs. Indeed I cannot jump over my own shadow, but in this exhibition I do wish to present to the viewers a piece of my home activities, fragments from our common art hobby. By the way, everyone that feels like they desire or deserve to hold an INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITION, then ERM will also this year hold the contest for granting the dream exhibition. Have a closer look at “Own exhibition 2022” competition introductory info HERE.
Estella Elisheva continues studying remotely from home, yet Ivanka Shoshana has been in her classrooms. Schools for pupils with special needs are open. This is positive, since I feel more and more that Ivanka needs to have friends. This is why going to school is good for her. She is an autistic person and now already 12 years old (will be 13 in May). The neighbouring children are already little misses and have important “teenage stuff” to do. 😀 I would be so glad if Ivanka had a few friends also outside the classroom that could visit us so that the children can play together with Ivanka. Even if they don’t play together at all times it would be so good if Ivanka could call someone her friend. At the moment her “best friend” is the book “Lotte from Gadgetville” authored by Andrus Kivirähk, with all the great characters from the book. Ivanka keeps repeating that Lotte, Bruno and Albert are her friends, and at least a couple of times every day she comes to me and declares: Reading will make you wise!
We also prepare for the exhibition together with Ivanka. Under her artistic hand, the large dish set – brown ceramic dishes (plates, cake plates, soup bowls, mugs, small bowls) have come to life, also several colourful small bowls, and right now we are working on a joint project – a dish set with lilacs, in green and blue. I myself like both dish sets very much. Yesterday and today we already tried them out during our meals. 🙂
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????? As has been said in my recent blog (Helena-Reet: about April and the first springtime activities in the garden + BIG GALLERY!) the time has come for various gardening activities. The garden looks desolate (partly because there are yet no leaves on the trees and bushes), mostly because the garden has for years been sort of neglected. The fence is old and needs to be replaced, the trees and the spruce hedge needs trimming (or maybe I will let it grow out), the flower beds need attention, the greenhouse needs to be changed, the auxiliary buildings need to be repaired, the terrace floor boards need to be replaced, etc. etc. The list of works to be done is lengthy, so that it is difficult to even figure out where to begin. As of now we have been dealing with the easier and more inexpensive problems – we replaced the fabric in the trampoline (it was broken for many years), it is also necessary to buy the safeguard frame so that it is less dangerous for the children to jump there. Raking the leaves has now been completed around the garden. Several dangerous decayed trees have been cut down, along with lots of buckthorn bushes and other dried branches and bushes. Many flowerbeds have been tidied up and many beds are done halfway. We have also built two garden boxes that are now waiting to be filled with soil for plants. I plan to grow dill, onion, chives, parsley, thyme, green salad and peppermint there. Also the old wooden compost bin needs to be replaced. Ah indeed, and then I also planted wild garlic that I got from my mother’s garden. I am hoping it will start growing with a roar and that it will prosper, since there is nothing better than homemade wild garlic pesto!
To sum it up, I add a few pictures from a nice delicious and easy-to-prepare oven roast. As time goes by, I am spending more and more time in the kitchen (ca 2-3 hours every day) and I am trying out and cooking and baking several salty and sweet dishes. This time I made stew. Place in a deep oven plate chopped meat, ice salad or cabbage, onion, cauliflower, broccoli, sweet pepper and various herbs (I added at least ten different spices beginning from garlic and ending with several nice spice mix options), then pour the ingredients over with water (the ingredients must almost be covered with water) and then let ripen at ca 150 degrees Celsius for about 1.5-2 hours.
❤ This is all for today! Hugs, and until the next blog post!
NordenBladet – This Sunday we had some guests coming over and we held this year’s first barbecue party! Initially we had decided to go hiking to the woods or to the swamp, to have a picnic there, but since it is never clear what the weather will be like, then we concluded that we better have a home event in the garden instead, remaining easily ready to move indoors whenever necessary. The weather however didn’t fail us and so we had a good time outside all day long.
The early morning began with cleaning up the garage (I gathered a lot of excessive stuff and took it to the waste station), along with that I also went through all the clothes, shoes, and toys of my children, and gave away what was already too small for them, or unnecessary for us. I ended up with a land rover full of stuff!
Thereafter I started preparing for the arriving guests – I made one big bowl of fresh salad, and prepared the cutlery and dishes suitable for an outside event. The previous night also the French pastry (Napoleon cake) was ready, to be served after the barbecue main course. I like to use clay plates outside (I am not pro plastic dishes, since those are not nature friendly and are uncomfortable. With a slightest breeze they fly away and the forks do not last when you eat meat). Indeed, afterwards there is a lot more cleaning up, but this effort is worthwhile – a meal beautifully served tastes a lot better, and the day will be remembered as a cozy, snug and warm one, and also the photos that help recall the day later will be much more beautiful 🙂
We had two sorts of barbecue meat, and also shrimps and tortillas. The children played football. I was glad to see that Ivanka Shoshana was not left alone during the common games and she played along with everybody so sweetly! It was a splendid day!
NordenBladet – April is so nice! It is already getting warmer (at least there is great hope!) and the garden as well as the house is full of (spring) flowers. I like when there are always flowers on the kitchen table, this creates an extra special warm home feeling and makes the eyes shine brighter every morning!
My breakfast favourites:
Whole wheat bread toast with salmon or trout (current top 3 favourites are Leibur’s 100% rye flour toast, Linseed whole wheat bread and Oat whole wheat bread), to which I add fresh salad leaf, dill, thyme, multigrain porridge and Löfbergs Lila coffee. I am testing out several butter products (more precisely margarine products), quite good examples are extra salty Keiju and Voimix. I drink my coffee mainly with Farmi full milk. Additionally, we are great fans of cottage cheese. We try out all products that are available on sale. Most of all, the kitchen table sees Coop cottage cheese, since this product has the best price in our most close to home grocery store. Also, I have a new favourite in my shopping list – Tere cheesecake flavoured glazed curd! My style of eating a glazed curd is such that I pour milk to a mug and then smash the curd in the milk. Then it becomes juicy and nice! Yummi!
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Also, for me the garden works have begun! When we leave aside raking the tree leaves, then I commenced the more important springtime works – I cut branches from the garden trees, and I also cut down ca eight of my buckthorn trees (the tools from Makita have been of great help here!), I fixed some of the flower beds, and planted a few lilies from the Netherlands, De Ree farm (Curitiba and Muscadet), some irises (Violet) and gladioli (Green Star and Sorpresa).
There is plenty of messing around with plants. For example, lilies will have to be coated with turf for the winter time, gladiolus flower bulbs must be dug out, dried, and maintained in a cool place until the coming spring time. In earlier times I was not fully aware of such conditions when completing the purchase, I put the plants in the ground and then wondered why in a year nothing continued to grow. Thus it is always clever to check out whether a plant is a perennial, if it is frost resistant (can be left in the ground over winter), and which type of place the plant prefers for its growth (cool, sunny, etc).
Irises, tulips and dandelions are therefore foolproof – minor effort input, and a yearly flower output is guaranteed.
I actually have in mind the creation of a very countryside style and simple garden. In the coming times I intend to bring in more of the meadow and forest flowers – primrose, forget-me-not, cornflower, daisy, lily-of-the-valley, heather, etc. I also very much like the wild (as well as ordinary) lavender and all kinds of herbs.
For me, soon the season of barefoot walking begins, and to celebrate that I have had an extra pink and shiny pedicure 🙂
NordenBladet – This Friday I had myself vaccinated. I received the first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine. I was quite nervous, since news of all kinds is available to us and you no longer know, what you can believe and what you cannot. The authenticity of the global media tends to be of rather poor quality. The reliability of news is an issue that we invest great effort into in NordenBladet, we do not publish a single article where the source has not been checked threefold. Nowadays it is more and more difficult to find reliable sources. By the way, this is a topic that we would wish to tackle in depth some day. But now, back to the vaccination I had.
Friday morning at 11 a.m. I got the vaccine shot in my left arm, along with the paperwork that the next shot will be administered in June. So how did it go after I got the shot? In the afternoon I became drowsy and dozed off for a couple of hours. Then I was awake for a few hours until I developed a fever. The fever ranged from 37.3 up to 38.0 degrees Celsius. In the night I developed achy joints and bones. The degree of pain was such that it reminded me of being driven over by a tractor or being beaten up around the clock. Furter, in the night I felt sick and threw up. In the morning, still in pain when waking, I took ASA Grindex (500mg) and Melox (15g). The first of these is basically the same as aspirin (I took this as a back-up to fluidify the blood and avoid blood clots) and the other one was prescribed some time ago by my doctor after I encountered elbow pain from plowing the snow. I am not sure anymore if this was a prescription drug or not. However it removed the pain and during Saturday I swallowed two more of those. ATTENTION! This was based on my individual decision, not the guidelines from a medical doctor, thus please do not follow my example! Just now I am learning that it is recommended to take only 15g of Melox within 24 hours (i.e. one pill)… therefore I exceeded the dose by two pills. But it helped. By Saturday evening I was already feeling OK.
Today, Sunday, I woke up as usual. No pain, no side effects so far. I took a walk outside 6000+ steps, painted a new piece from my mice series for the children’s book in progress “His Highness Mouse the First”, made cinnamon rolls together with Ivanka Shoshana once again (you can find the recipe HERE), chatted with my kindergarten time friend about men, about divorce and children, then I read some of my favourite blogs, updated my Instagram feed and now I am blogging. Today my home has a specifically great vibe.. Estella Elisheva played the violin for a long time, Ivanka Shoshana was in a good mood, I feel that inspiration has been building up in me, that things are beginning to go fluently again and work is going great. I am happily anticipating the springtime arriving — spring is the time for UNLOCKING, WAKING, NOTICING and the TIME FOR LOVE!
Big hugs!
Below a brief synopsis of the “highs” of this weekend (the highs and lows) with little side notes and a photo gallery 🙂
A nice and calm Sunday morning – for some the salmon sandwiches, for some black bread with ham, for some the fresh salad. It always gives me pleasure to know that me and my family are eating healthy. I aim to include fresh salad in the menu at least every other day. By the way, this beautiful blue ceramic clay bowl with lilacs on it was made as handicraft work by Ivanka Shoshana! I find it sooo beautiful. She has by today been attending the clay classes for two years and has such a great signature style! Although young (12 yrs), but to my mind already today a serious ceramic artist. Extra to that she is following my footsteps in the kitchen and in her age is already a wonderful cook – a few hours later we made delicious cinnamon rolls together – this time with brown sugar and vanilla yoghurt.
Nice and slow also my mice series paintings are seeing daylight, these will be the book illustrations for the children’s book I am writing, “His Highness Mouse the First“. To be honest, I am already in great hurry with this. In the Estonian National Museum (ERM) me along with my daughters will be holding a joint exhibition titled “Our home witch kitchen”, where in the participation hall we will present paintings, pottery, herbs, as well as our Elisheva & Shoshana brand. Launching the children’s book has also been scheduled for June when the exhibition opens… however, as of today I have completed two chapters and 14 paintings… Yeees, panic is slightly already settling!! Haha… Mega responsibility, mega expectations are placed on me … but.. well here I am somewhat stuck in the artistic hindrance. 🙁 I would love to be telling you that the life events obstructing my artistic flow are the past, but, alas, this is not the case. On a daily basis I must be involved in far more mundane worries than would be the exhibition, art, and creative work. I must stay alive! I must fight to keep my children alive! I must manage my individual life first of all. And still… nice and slow. The painting, indexed 14, is a sign that things are still advancing… nice and slow. Moving in the direction where light is coming!
I am telling you, social media addresses me less and less lately and for example in Instagram I often feel as if I had lost my head. I post irregularly, and even if I post, then it is several pictures at a time, and then follows a long break. For some reason or other Instagram doesn’t entail such a clear vision “what I should do or what I could”, as I am used to with any other thing. Should any of you have good guidelines “How to navigate Instagram” or “How to make the most out of Instagram”, then you are most welcome to share these with me!!! Haha. Anyway, the Insta to follow is available here: https://www.instagram.com/helenareetennet/ (I will be posting pictures of myself, of my paintings, my ceramics, herbs, of Elisheva & Shoshana cosmetics products, also E&S brand’s herbal tea that is on sale, etc).
Estella Elisheva (14) has been playing the violin the entire weekend. The sounds are more peaceful and more sad this time. This week, while still very young, her long time piano accompanist Veronika Tamm passed away. ? Veronika will be kindly remembered by very many youths and their parents. She was an unparalleled, friendly, talented woman!
To commemorate her, I wish to post here two videos, where Estella and Veronika are together. The 8-year-old Estella in Saku performing, and the other, in 2019 while giving her violin exam/on a contest. The music and the memories in us last forever!
NordenBladet – Yesterday was plainly horrible, one catastrophe after another. Besides the event of having the car’s windscreen broken, also a tyre went flat. We seem to have overdriven a nail or a crook, which quite literally was still peeping out of where it had been stuck when the towing assistance arrived.
In any case, the towing help that was sent out by the insurance company arrived promptly and they quickly patched up and temporarily mended the tyre so that we could keep going where we had headed. The towing assistance suggested that we could drive like that still for quite some time, but I suppose we should start looking around for a new tyre or a perhaps even a full set of tyres.
Then it happened that Ivanka accidentally spilled milk on my laptop computer, this was the third computer spoiled by these tiny sweet hands. Luckily in the household we currently have 8 computers, thus the working process was not interrupted…. but whoever uses a computer in their job understands that just that one “favourite computer” that is used daily, needs to be used to achieve the best results.
Even that didn’t complete the full volume of that day’s drama. The teacher from Ivanka’s clay hobby class announced that she had fallen ill and thus the long awaited clay class was dismissed, yet the scheduled event and all the chain of failings also served as an obstacle in attending the WIT (Women in Technology) online conference which I had very much been looking forward to.
I decided to go outside to walk and thus ventilate the annoyment heat out of the system, but it was even so crispy cold outside that the stress got worse. Then the notification arrived that schools would be closed all of March and children will continue with distance learning. The negative impact that remote learning can have on children has been revealed HERE. And on top of that the news that all businesses except for groceries and pharmacies will be shut down. Oh noo!
But still, something positive, too.. )
– This week a new piece from the Mice painting series “His Highness Mouse the First” was finished. That one was the 13th from the series! The work still continues, a lot more to go (for the children’s book with the same title just two chapters have been completed and the paintings still pending are the same amount that were already painted).
– I started building the commercial environment (online shopping centre) and auction site for NordenBladet web portal
– I got hold of seven wonderful paintings by Estonan artists to be added to my individual collection
– Elisheva & Shoshana brand launched collaboration with two new great beauty bloggers
– I was notified that the corona vaccination queue has reached me and already this Friday (12 March) I will get the first shot of the AstraZenecavaccine
– I got as a present a nice sports watch Mi Smart Band 5. The watch has such nice functions as pulse count, personal activity index, REM sleep recognition and other fun functions. For example I can check the amount of calories I have burnt. Today I connected the watch with the Mi Fit app on my smartphone and started wearing the watch on my wrist.
– I bought new lovely napkins with ladybirds and amanita mushrooms! Haha… it is a small thing, you know, but it elevated my mood. Also I cooked for many hours (I made potato cutlets, oven meat, fresh salad). I served the meal beautifully (I built a nice face from the meal ingredients, children loved it). As a new product, I tried Felix pesto mayonnaise. It was quite nice!
NordenBladet – When last year the covid era began, I was quite pleased that I wouldn’t need to drive my children so often here and there and that in the mornings we could sleep slightly longer. It even seemed that the school homeworks got done faster and time was well spent.
Yet now I feel that my flexibility has been pushed to the ultimate limit. I am not a pedagogue and I am not that crazy full of love towards children. The last remark need not be taken overly seriously and alarmingly – for sure, I do love my kids (really much!), however, spending 24h with two teenagers, and doing that all year round, is breaking me down…. is breaking all of us down.
My elder daughter (14 yrs) is away from the classroom on distance learning and likes it, even kind of enjoys it. The volume of daily home assignments however keeps increasing and it seems to me that with individual study format, for example chemistry lessons are becoming slightly too complicated for her. Besides, I can see that my daughter is in vital need of more human interaction. The social communication that is available when children are in the physical classroom, is now missing, and this has a serious impact on someone in puberty. I can also see how the child’s “school spirit” is fading. In the beginning everything seemed just fine – the days were nice and long, one could accomplish a lot and the spare time that earlier was reserved for learning could now be furnished with hobbies. For the first time in her life she found time for watching TV…. but once you offer the finger to the devil the entire arm will be taken by the devil. It begins with one movie, then another one, then it escalates to many hours of TV-series, etc.. Now the situation has developed to watching Netflix even in the car while driving to the training or to the music school classes. Briefly, from the moment discipline relaxed, a piece of her ambition went missing. I really cannot figure out how to digress from this pattern…. recently I have been thinking about that on a daily basis. At the same time, I do not wish to bring in a very negative atmosphere, since generally she is doing really well in all the activities, and accomplishes things in the carcass of ambition set by myself definitely better than most other children would.
The situation is even more challenging with my younger daughter (12 yrs). She has autism and in such times things are worse with her since she does not speak of everything. Already the usual schoolbreak was long for her, she began mentioning that she lacked friends. She became irritated, the rage attacks that had been gone for years returned again. Without medication (Rispolept) not a day went by, and even more, we had to multiply the doses. The time period that she has been on distance learning, has been painful. She refused to do the homeworks and although I tried reading with her and helping with the workbooks, it was all in vain. I realize that for her this year as well as the past year have kind of gone missing from the prior linear development. I am very much concerned and very much saddened from this realization.
In both of the children, the teenage years make the situation more complicated. Not that I have forgotten all about my own puberty, oh I can recall… I remember hating everything and everybody, I felt like nobody really understood me, I completely blindly trusted a few of my friends, I was killing time and wasting in the speed of a sparkler my individual nerves as well as those of others. But that was the past, right… and now facing the option to go through the same drama marathon with my own kids – no, I prefer not to, haha 😀 For me there was a chance to slip out of my room and go outside (a few times I even ran away from home), but during these covid-restrictions the children are forced to remain where they are, at home. The fact that several hobby activities, several cultural events etc have been called off and people have been cut out of their daily routines, disturbs the entire world.
But I do not wish to be the one that succeeds only in complaining, without searching for or offering solutions.
What is it that we ourselves can do to stop this covid-centered existence?
– Let us keep clean (sanitize our hands) Read more: DROPLET INFECTIONS mainly spread via hands – proper washing of hands keeps the infections away! + GUIDELINE about how to properly wash your hands
– Let us wear the mask
– Let us build up our strength (eat properly, think positively, walk in fresh air, spend time in nature).. This guideline works wonders! Following these points, I have lost several dozen kilos in the past 1,5 years!
– Let us go and have us vaccinated
– Let us avoid going to town, to work, to the shop while not feeling well, and let us not take our children to school and hobby schools while they are not feeling well
– Let us pray, fill ourselves with faith, hope and love… Without the Almighty enabling it, not even a leaf leaves the tree. This is the power and wisdom always worth remembering!
Now also a few words about the Women’s Day we had on Monday… For me this was a half-hearted celebration. I somewhat celebrate this day and yet not really. I think that women need attention every day, and so do men. I try to live my life so that each day is unique and new.. but OK, understandably this cannot happen every day. Not every day can be a celebration day, this would change the meaning of the celebration. Never-ending celebration brings bad luck. You would need some days to be more extraordinary than the rest, then there is something to look forward to. Well, about Women’s Day… I can make delicious cakes (best of them are with whipped cream and with almonds, and best of them are cookie cakes), but for some reason or other it has become a tradition that on Women’s Day we always put on the table cakes from stores. In a way, it is great to test all the cakes that can be found in the stores, I would say that within time the cakes offered in the stores are getting better and better. In the current blog post I will be comparing two desserts – the curd cake (12 slices) from Eesti Pagar, and the handmade strawberry-kiwi curd cups from Selveri Köök. Keeping it short.. The winner is Selveri Köök! Although Eesti Pagar usually makes products with great quality, this time the cake was frozen (I suspect that the cake was frozen and then warmed up again), it was rather blunt for the taste-buds, and lacked personality. On a scale from one to the maximum of five, I would give two points. For the curd cups I would generously give four points, which is a good result for a commercial cake.
Our Women’s Day gallery can be found here below! Besides the two purchased desserts, and besides fresh Greek strawberries and tangerines I prepared for lunch and for dinner potato salad, grilled sausages, fresh salad, and chicken cutlets with macaroni from Tartu Mill 100% full grain pasta “Fusilli”. To decorate the table, I received 7 wonderful red roses! 🙂
