Mochies (i.e. Mokkapalat)

I would like to call them brownies, but really they are not (similar, but not quite) so Mochies sounds like a good English name for them (and yes, I am aware of the slang definition of mochies).

When I was little I remember our mom making these quite often, though it may be just my imagination, evn though our mom bake a lot when we were kids.
And when I was in my teens I had a phase when I made these all the time. Though today I changed the recipe quite a bit, but still... yummy!

Mochies, aka. Mokkapalat

• 3 eggs
• 3 dl of sugar
• 200g of melted butter
• 2 dl of natural yoghurt
• 5 dl of flour
• 2 tsp of baking soda
• 3 tsp of vanilla sugar (with real vanilla)
• 3 tbps of dark cocoa powder (sieved)
• 100g of dark chocolate, grated

Frosting

• 3,5 dl of icing sugar (just sugar, not those things with corn starch or something like that) (sieved)
• 5 tbsp of melted butter
• 5 tbsp of strong coffee
• 2 tbsp of dark cocoa powder (sieved)
• 2 tsp of vanilla sugar
• nonpareil/ coconut flakes/ crushed hard candy for decoration

Heat up your oven to 200°C, cover oven pan with baking paper.

Mix dry goods and grated chocolate in a bowl. Whisk sugar and eggs until they form a light coloured foam. Mix egg foam and yoghurt into dry goods, then add butter. Mix carefully, but throughly.

Pour the dough on the covered pan and bake approximately 15-20 minutes.

After the "cake" has cooled make the frosting by mixing all the ingredients, except nonpareils, in a pot on hot stove, until smooth. Pour on the cake and decorate with nonpareils. Let the frosting harden.

Cut, enjoy with a good cup of coffee/ tea.

30 days later

Oh yes, I am very much alive. I have just entered the phase which is said to be nasty to most people, one month of medication, and hence I am quite... tired. Though I would imagine that my problem is mostly that Mr. Wonderful traveled to Nigeria and I simply have not been sleeping too well. As usual.
It's also possible that I have started to take my thyroxine too late and stay awake until early hours because of that, but I would bet on lack of my Wonderful. I have never been good on falling asleep or sleeping soundly throughout the night when He is not by my side.

And of course I obviously need higher dose of thyroxine, but... I really shouldn't up the dosage before I get blood drawn in August.

Regardless, I love the stuff, which obviously means that my thyroid is not ok. Actually I foresee quite a high dosage eventually which means that my thyroid is either very dysfunctional (not literally dead, not yet at least) or my body just needs more of the hormone, for reason or another... but on a brighter note, I may be able to FINALLY lower my cortisone intake!

I noticed this within last two weeks as I wasn't taking my asthma meds as often as I was supposed to and used officially empty (the magic with easyhalers is that they are not empty at that point, the manufacturer just does not quarantee correct dosages at that point) easyhaler without any symptoms of worsening asthma. Pre-thyroxine me would have been hospitalized by now.
There has also been drastic change in my allergies: I have taken like five tablets within whole month of June, whereas back in old times I would have took approximately 60 by now from June 1st... AND the best bit is that my thyroid medication actually has corn starch in it and there are no issues, taking that I take it carefully (if it touches my lips there are symptoms).

Crossed stitches

I have been stitching, have two biscornus almost finished, but I haven't got around ironing and finishing them yet. I blame work for that: no matter how great evenings are because of the extra pay they kind of limit the things you have energy for outside work.

But, I took this weekend off as my birthday is tomorrow (yikes, I am 31 soon! ) and have decided to wake up early tomorrow (3rd) and spend the whole day... stitching and watching DVDs (and eating something less healthy *grin*).

I think that sounds like a great plan.

Maybe I have the energy tomorrow (after yet another day of coming home just before 1 am... from work) to post about the loveliness Jenna sent me, too!

Wonderful

I am not sure have I ever said that He is a real sweetheart? If not there it came.
I have an interesting feeling that now that we are married He is treating me even better than before - which is of course how it should be - He even cooked some food (tuna sauce (He makes the best tuna sauce ever) and okazi soup) for me "for a bad day" before He traveled, which He has never done before (well, intentionally).
(Or maybe He has found out that Nigerian food has become my comfort food and it is easier for me to cope with it - when I had the suspected Swine I craved for egusi soup...)

WIP Diet might be in order

I have lately found out that I have tons of WIPs and while trying to kit yet another project (it is Lady's project, it does not count!) I stumbled upon few more. It made me thinking that I may need some WIP dieting, though it would actually mean that I had to collect all my WIPs in one pile and I am not quite sure am I mentally prepared for it yet!

But honestly speaking I think that I have a problem, bad case of startitis and even more severe case of not-finishingitis (or maybe it is simply called hypothyroidism), and that eventually I need to do something to them.

I was thinking that in order to make it at least a bit nicer WIP diet I could set goals, like being able to start a new project after finishing two WIPs - and well, Lady's projects wouldn't count anyway so basically I get my starts from there.

By the way, did you notice, a really stitchy entry (not just pretty pictures of newly acquired stash, even though it is always good *grin*) after such a long while? Maybe I am really getting back to myself again!

And on the seventh day...

Well, generally I love the stuff. Thyrosine, I mean, but the nasty part is that certain symptoms get worse for a while (like feeling pressure in my throat, coarse speech etc.).
I foresee much higher dosage than prescribed, even though I am not taking the prescribed dosage yet.

As the doc said my energy levels are probably the first thing recovering... well, they are, but for some reason I think that having bouts of energy is almost more irritating than having none at all: now I know how it should be and those few minutes per day are not enough for me. I want normal energy levels now!
Impatient, me?

I was reading the summary regarding my visit this morning and noticed that The Doc had interesting choice of words: "TSH 3,7, T4-V and T3 within normal levels." I read that: "TSH is higher than it should be."

The most interesting thing those little pills have improved has been my ankle: since the accident it has been misbehaving and hurting, but I have just been too lazy to see a doctor about it (actually I saw one on week six - "just wait for a week and come back if it still hurts").

And today, all the sudden it does not hurt, there are no needles in my ankle when I run up and down the stairs at railway stations and I am not screaming in pain when my ankle twists for reason or another.
I actually suspected this, but it feels SO good to be right.

Little white pills.

It wasn't me...

... it was a pink elephant, called Lou, sitting on my right shoulder...

...and Lou went crazy at 1-2-3 Stitch! some time ago.

Twice, actually.

And as you may have noticed from the picture with floss I still have my turquoise period: I accidentally ordered five skeins of Weeks Dye Works' Blue Topaz.

"Ooops", in a good way.

And that scrumptious purple linen - also by WDW - is something I just had to buy because of the colour - and it is cheap(ish) too! (There was also a beautiful shipment of gorgeous earrings from KittyAndMe's Etsy store - but I will share them later, when I am able to get a decent picture of them.)

In other news: thyroxine seems to be working! ^^

I knew it!

I saw the endocrinologist today.

It was such a stressing experience, I couldn't sleep well the night before and was very anxious whole morning...

...but the main thing is that the doctor thought that it is much more useful to test what thyroxine does to me than spend, like the other doctors, years arguing about the diagnostics of hypothyroidism.

And even though my values are still within the allowed limits my symptoms, family history and swollen thyroid (can we say goiter?) are enough to justify prescribing the medication.

So, Houston... we have thyroxine!

We agreed to meet again around September and see how the medication has affected to my health - and if it has affected positively The Doc will up the dosage, as in his opinion 0,1 mg is not enough in my case, and apparently give me the official hypothyroidism diagnose.

No matter how it makes me sound I am HAPPY!
It took over two years, but finally a doctor listened to me and examined me and admitted that I have probably been right all along.

This is why some people are called specialists.

Writer's Block: Bitter aftertaste

 

Basically I have never gave a damn when it came to roommate's or friend's musical preferences - though admittedly I do not think too highly of a person who listens solely of one artist or genre. Being a person with very varying musical taste I find it disturbing that there is someone who can be so limited, strict or just plain boring.

When it comes to love music has played a big part and it has usually been unifying factor (excluding Dan's love for Mozart, whereas I can not stand most of Mozart as it shuts my brain): without my love for music I had never ever met or got to know Sonnenschein or Wolfie (in Wolfie's case this is more than true).

Though we have never discussed much about music with Mr. Wonderful we seem to share at least some preferences (soul, jazz etc.) and the differences we have haven't been an issue.

I have also found several music styles I love because of love. Had I ever learned about Indian, Brazilian, Thai or Nigerian modern music without the persons who matter the most, I can not say, just assume that I hadn't.

But detract? I would love to say that am too stubborn to that, but I have to say that in a way it happened back in past as I want to please the person I love too much and thought that suppressing my own personality to support the one I loved was a good idea. Well, it wasn't and I learned my lesson: music is a big part of who I am and one should be able to enjoy the music one loves.

It's quiet...

... here in my little blog, or so it seems. Though nothing much happens in my life, or maybe I am just too busy/ bored not to blog. I don't know.

Regardless, stashy pictures!

These two cane like this and I am simply loving the combo (the scanner does not repeat the awesomeness) and therefore must use these two together in some project.

As you may have guessed I had a minor shopping spree at 1-2-3 Stitch!'s Clearance section and then got some luscious Caron silk to, ahem, justify the postages.

I have been stitching

And I have actually finished little something, but I have been way too tired (been busy at work, Mr. Wonderful is traveling (yes, again *grin*), hence I am not sleepin too well, and I haven't been well (again)) to update PD's website.

Damn, if I was right

Remember how I suspected back in 2008 that I suffer from hypothyroidism? And how it was diagnosed as depression? And how the medication helped?

Well, I suspect again that I was right as my symptoms continue and I have found out more about the condition...

1. It's hereditary and likelihood of having it increases with, for eample following: diabetes mellitus type II and hypothyroidism.

   Approximately every Finn has DM II in their family, and my mom has been diagnosed with hypothyroidism last year.

2. Setralin, the medication I was given:
   • lowers TSH levels (i.e. fools the tests) and

   • can cause hypothyroidism.

3. My symptom list is now 21 symptoms long, and consist of well known symptoms of hypothyroidism.

4. Cortisone lowers TSH levels. And who takes it daily? Yes, that would be me.

5. My TSH levels were checked last Christmas: 3,7 when the "legal limit" is 4.

   And you can suffer from hypothyroidism with completly normal TSH levels.

   Fun, isn't it?

Not to mention our little experiment after Christmas: my mom gave me two weeks worth of .025 mg synthetic thyroid hormone... Not long and not much, but my toe nails begun to grow again, after appr. 17 years of growing so and so - and I just felt more alive.

Today I made an appointment with an endocrinologist who is specialised on thyroid diagnoses without blindly trusting the lab tests (back in old days, before '70s or so, there were no tests for thyroid conditions and diagnoses were made solely based on symptoms - nowadays doctors mostly seems to hide behind lab tests and "normal" values (even everyone in their right mind should know that there are people who have abnormal levels of whatever)) and I am seeing him in June.

But enouh compkaining. I will make some more coffee and stitch for a while before heading to work for the evening.

Alive and well

They say you should never compare people so I won't, but let's just say that this life has taught me many things and one of them is value of a man who calls you when he is late and tells you why he is late even when you are not asking.

Those tiny things, those tiny things which say "I love you" louder than anything else.

I may have said it before, but I say it anyway: it was really worth every second to be single so long before Mr. Wonderful found me. And soon we have been together as long as I was waiting for Him.

So...

Everything is well, I am not, but that is normal anyway. *grin*

I have even been stitching lately, not much or quickly, but I am loving every minute spent stitching over one on 36 count linen. I have missed that. Maybe I even give you some stitchy content some day again. o.O

So, I am off to stitch again! Have to keep my mojo going now that I have found it again!

Writer's Block: Turn and face the strain

First of all I wish to thank everyone for the well wishes upon our marriage. ^^

 

Suitable meme for this period of my life...

I would say that the biggest was absolutely getting married with Mr. Wonderful and I would say it is nothing but a HUGELY positive thing. ^^

Writer's Block: Take me as I am

Maybe I am not the best person to answer this as I have encountered such a situation in my life, but on the other hand I am because I can say things based on experience.

Dan, my ex-husband (for those of you who don't know), confessed many things after we got married and one of them was that he had been sentenced for committing a serious crime in his past. It was his luck that he was young and that in here certain types of crimes are not punished as strictly as they should as he got out of it with parole.

I was surprised and shocked because I couldn't understand why he never told me about that as he had had his issues with law and order in his youth and he had told me about that stuff before our marriage.
Shortly put I was angry at him because he didn't trust me more earlier.

When it comes to the crime I never believed, nor believe it now, that he was actually guilty. I have seen the court documents which in my opinion do not prove that he had committed said crime. And I can say that I know enough about him to not believe that he could do that kind of thing.

Basically when it comes to things like that I take them surprisingly easily. What ever my partner has done in their past has been in their past and it can't be changed. People can, however, change and what really matters is who my partner is now.

So, I can say that it did not affect to our relationship in any way, it was other stuff that eventually killed our marriage.

Let Me Introduce You... Mrs. Wonderful!

Some of you already know it through Facebook, those of you who didn't know: Yes, you read it right! We are now officially Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful. ^^

It was a very small, but beautiful, ceremony last Friday, just the two of us, the registrar and two witnesses from the magistrate.

To the shock and awe of everyone who know me I took Husband's surname after my vows of *never* taking my husband's name... but my brain told differently.
We had discussed my surname when we got engaged and I was SO keeping my maiden name, until I noticed at work that I was continuously about >this< close to sign things with Husband's surname... and then, one day after coming home from work I told Him that it seems that I am taking His surname anyway (and it is much more convenient if we look at the bigger picture (and much more rare in here than my maiden name *grin*)).

This also leads to shocking revelation of us having been engaged to be married since 29th of March last year until last Friday, and I didn't tell you (ok, some of you did kind of knew)! Shame on me. *grin*

It's funny how I remember almost nothing about the ceremony itself, but am still aware that when the registrar asked Husband will He take me as His wedded wife He said most beautiful things ever - simple yes would have been extremely beautiful in that situation, but He took it further. I was all smiling yello, wobbling and smiling, and my answer was simply "Absolutely yes!".

Gosh, it was SO wonderful.

And for some reason it seems to me that getting married really improved our relationship in so many ways. Funny, but great - apparently there is better form of great and we just have gotten into it. Which I do not oppose at all, just keep wondering how sweet life can be sometimes.

Writer's Block: Another sleepless night

Let's say that I used to suffer from insomnia as I do no count one or two days of not being able to sleep well/ long enough as insomnia anymore.

I have always had somewhat odd sleeping rhythm, which probably runs in the family, and it took me years before I actually realised that it is not normal, or let's say preferred.

For me sleeping medication does not work how it should work so it has not been an option since the first and only time I tried such remedy: within two weeks I couldn't sleep even with the next-to-overdose dosage which made my insomnia even worse. After some time I decided to go cold turkey (even the doctor who prescribed me with them said they do not cause any side effects or any addiction - like I believed anyone?) and practically stayed awake for one week with only very short nap (we are talking anything up to 45 minutes or so here) every night before the medicine left the building.

I have "suffered" insomnia even after that, it happens to me for reason or tenth: latest periods of insomnia were when Mr. Wonderful was in Spain. Since then I have had two nights when I had difficulties to fall asleep, but those were caused by hurting ankle (I was told yesterday that it takes six weeks for it to heal properly) and overdose of paracetamol (1500mg/day whereas you are allowed to take 3000mg/day, but my body is little different..).

I don't know are they much of remedies, but what has helped me to get sleep have been the following things:

1. Black Adder, seasons I-IV
2. Rooibos
3. Yes, Minister; seasons I-III
4. Yes, Prime Minister; seasons I-II
5. The Men from the Ministry, Finnish version
6. Music

Honestly.

To certain extent insomnia is a matter of attitude and habit, in other words I have noticed it gets easier to live with the older I get. I can go to work without sleeping at all during the night and nobody notices (it's good to be naturally confused ).
The main thing with insomnia is not to stress too much about it, no matter how harsh it sounds.

Writer's Block: Kids or child-free?

1. First of all I, being blue meanie and everything, find the term "choose to have children" disturbing as whether you have children or not in the end is basically something you can not choose (as you never know are you physically able to have them even if you want them, right? Nor you can prevent yourself getting pregnant/ making someone pregnant by "accident" as that does happen - it also happens that people don't notice things early etc., you get my point).
   Personally I see children as an extremely precious gift and I wish and pray to have them.

   I realized that I would do anything to have children when I was 18 and got PCOS diagnose and the doctor basically told me that PCOS women can't get pregnant naturally, or any other way (neither of them true) - before that I had never even thought about having or not having children (like I never actually thought of getting married before I was proposed when I was 19 - my ex and I were engaged, but I never thought that I would marry him some day. I guess you could say now that it tells more than I would like to admit about my subconscious mind back then *grin*).

2. Honestly... IF you are in a relationship you do NOT decide something like that yourself. Basically such thing should, in an adult relationship, be decided as early in the relationship as possible by both parties.

   When it comes to us it was obvious for both of us from the beginning of things that we want to have children and this was therefore decided before we even got into a relationship.

Writer's Block: Raining cats or dogs?

My regular readers know it already, but I would say that I am 99,9% cat person and 0,01% dog person.

I have met some nice (and non-smelly) dogs during my life, I was especially fond of ex-husband's sister's dog: he was kind, he did not smell like so many dogs do (sorry dog people, but they do) and he was a dog-sized dog (not too small, not too big).

Dan and I watched after The Dog at one point for a week and I really enjoyed it. Though, it was rather I who watched after The Dog, took him to his walks and everything. At that point I was doing night shifts and even I was extremely annoyed with Dan not waking up in the morning (it was 9 am when I got home and he was sound asleep... even when I tried to wake him up to take The Dog out and let me sleep (note that he was not working (actually he hasn't actually worked a day in his life even now, as far as I know))) and taking The Dog out I enjoyed immensely those long morning walks with it.

But, still I am a cat person, which probably explains why I had four of them not-so-long-ago.
Why? Cats are usually very neat, relaxed and don't demand long walks three times a day even if there is the worst snow storm out there. They are also annoyingly sweet with their bouts of jumping on walls and wanting to be petted at that very moment when you have something important to do.
Cats are loyal thinkers, who don't demand too much of you (usually - and Her Highness was Siamese so she does not count) and love you in their own personal, yet devoted ways.

Life is never boring with cats in the house.

I am not a roommate type anyway so I wouldn't consider someone who doesn't like cats as a roommate. Basically my fondness of being on my own if I am not in a relationship has kept me from that problem.

When it comes to partner... Well, I admit that cats moved away when Mr. Wonderful moved here even I had swore to myself that no man comes between me and my cats... Well, basically He didn't, boys still seems to like me:

(
This was taken when I was tending the boys when my mom was at her cabin in the end of February - admittedly it was bit difficult to tend the cats properly with sprained ankle)

I wouldn't say that He doesn't like cats, He is just not used to have animals living in the house. This is, I would say, the biggest cultural difference, to this date, we have actually confronted.

Are any of you surprised when I tell that I haven't been able to sleep too well?

Good, neither am I.

Are any of you surprised that because of this I also managed to break the frame of my glasses? Yes, ouch. (Admittedly they are old: 7-8 years for all-plastic frame is quite well, I would say.)
Luckily we have super glue: it doesn't look pretty, but I am able to see before our visit to Helsinki and maybe even during the time when I am waiting for new glasses (thank G-d for el cheapo optician chains, with luck new ones are only 29€).

My mom could have said this!

"When you meet someone who can cook and do housework don't hesitate a minute: marry him!"
-- Unknown

(And I am lucky to have such a gem in my life. ^^)

Talking of housework, this ankle thing has given a completely new meaning to word accomplish: plain hoovering most of the apartment and wiping living room floor feels like a huge achievement.
And The Ankle Thing also gives a great reason to sprawl on the sofa for ages after doing something: must not strain my poor ankle too much.

Too bad I got addicted to Harry Potter books again so I have been reading the series through instead of stitching...

\o/

His plane lands on Saturday 6 am.

I just hope and pray that the current strike affecting transportation and logistics doesn't affect airports too badly...

(strangeglitter , your comment was deleted by mistake - who would have imagined that you can delete the actual comment from your inbox when trying to just remove the notification message from the inbox? O.o)

 

Writer's Block: Marital license

 

Marrige licence does indeed have an expiration date, at least in my neck of woods (4 months), whereas marriage certificate doesn't. (I am aware that this is a tomato vs. tomato thing, but still... you know that I am pedantic when I feel like it.)

Taking that we are really talking of marriage certificate, that piece of paper you are given when getting married (opposed to the licence which, at least in here, is written after non-impediment check and (in non-dominational weddings) given to the registrar (or to the couple to be given to the registrar upon marrying) - without that piece of paper you are not able to marry) my personal opinion is: absolutely not.

Despite being divorced I do firmly believe that you get married for a lifetime and if my fiance would ever suggest periodic marriage contract I would frown and run away fast. (Though this is completely theoretic as we share views about marriage.)

It is possible that that kind of contracts are suitable or at least acceptable to some people I find even thought of such a setting too stressful for my person and degrading the institution of marriage.
As I see it periodic marriage contract is basically saying that divorce is always an option and that it is likely for the marriage to end. Why work for something you can end within X months anyway? What if you are just having a bad phase in your relationship when the renewal date is and you decide not to renew your marriage even it had all the makings for a happy, lifelong committment?

Marriage does take much more than just love and in my opinion periodic marriage would just base on the idea of love and nothing else. And the difficult thing here is that love fluctuates: there are days when you really don't have that loving feeling, but after a while you can be like two newlyweds. Love is a form of energy and sometimes its batteries needs to be recharged.

I could also say that I do not believe in divorce... I am not holier than thou, I have divorced and I have never been ashamed of that (even many people still find it odd that I am "this young" and already divorced - guess how it was when I was still 25 and recent divorcee *grin*), but when I got married (at the age of 19) I was in for if for a lifetime, but being young and stupid marrying another young and stupid who was unwilling to grow up and lacked consistency there eventually was no other option for me then. It was either that or dying young out of stress. And I wanted to give my possible children a good father, not one of those I had.

So, in case it wasn't clear: I do not think that there should be expiration or renewal date in your marriage certificate.

 

Writer's Block: My word

Stephen King!

'Nuff said.

Writer's Block: Ten years to the day

 

Let's say that I don't expect anything, but I hope, wish and pray that we, Mr. Wonderful and myself, are happily married, have been blessed with children, He has a good job (or rather His own business as that is what He really wants) and live normal family life in where ever we live.

 

This is actually in some terms very current topic as we found out yesterday that my local magistrate has given us wrong information last year regarding those infamous documents.
We found it out as He called me and said He has the documents (at this point I was deliriously happy that He is finally coming home), asked me to call there and double check with the magistrate... and we found out that some incompetent dimwit hasn't told everything to us and the person I spoke yesterday thought that it is completely our fault, because we should apparently know things better than they do. (You simply can't ask the right questions if someone, a professional, does not ask those questions from you first and let you know how all eventualities affect to everything.)

And I should therefore make some phone calls today - and being the mean bitch I am I will also call another magistrate in the vicinity and ask about the same topic from them as I am not too confident about the local one giving any correct information any more... I wonder why.

ETA: I am not very surprised, though very relieved. I called the Other Magistrate (too much Harry Potter, yes) and they said that the first info we got from local magistrate was accurate, so no need for tons of other papers.

I could almost have the courage to say that He is returning home soon if I wasn't too afraid of "painting devils on walls". G-d willing He will be back soon.