Category: Memes & Asks

My answers to this week’s thefridayfive questions.

1) What is your favorite thing about the winter?

The darkness! My eyes and nerves rest 😀 I also love snow when there’s just the right amount of it when it’s enough minus degrees out (Celcius): it’s thick enough on the ground that it’s good to walk on instead loose on top of the ice, making walking hazardous because it’s slippery. And if there’s enough snow that clearing the roads and parking lots forms snow mountains – well, that’s about the only time children making noise makes me grin, because playing in the snow is lovely 🙂

2) What is your favorite winter sport?

I hate all sports so I never watch them and apart from things like Olympics, never know what’s going on.

3) What is the best winter treat?

Hot chocolate after playing/a nice long walk in thick snow with lots of minus degrees.

4) What is the earliest time in the year it ever snowed where you live?

I can’t remember! My area doesn’t get snow really anymore (global warming), and back in the 80s when we still got really proper winters, I was a kid and didn’t memorize such things! Snow came down when it did, and it did every year.

5) What is the best way to stay warm in the winter?

I’m rather hot blooded, and tend to get over-heated easily so I’m usually lighter dressed compared to most other people, so I’m not the best to answer this. For me it’s always just been regular autumn clothing plus I’d add in one more blouse, or just a bit thicker one. Especially the last 20 years with our no-good, pretend winters I haven’t needed to dress for cold like when I was a kid in the 80s. I’d say dress in layers, so you can shed them as needed both inside and out, have long underwear close to your skin (if it’s too loose it doesn’t warm you) and have good, warm winter boots for your feet. Gloves and a warm hat are needed some of the time too!

Answers to this week’s questions @ thefridayfive

1) What kinds of gifts will you give this holiday season?

The usual: chocolates. I’m poor and can’t spend too much money on gifts so it has to be something I can afford to buy for both my Mom and her SO, and we all think there’s never enough chocolate, so chocolate it is! Sometimes Mom requests a novel or a poetry book, but there’s nothing this year she’d like.

2) What are the best types of presents to give?

I love to give books that have been requested. Because I love reading myself and so do the people who request one from me, I know that a book will be an appreciated gift! After that, I love to give presents that I know are truly needed and wanted, usually of the practical type. In our family it’s totally normal to point out a piece of clothing that one needs, color and size and all, or music cd one wants, and to get that as a present. I’ve been known to ask for a new kettle, or a frying pan, for a present next, or a new pillow (I go through a lot of pillows) and I’m always so happy with them 🙂 I think of my Mom everytime I used that frying pan 🙂

We’ve never given expensive gits, so things like phones or TVs are out. Things like normal priced clothes (nightgowns or a sweater etc.) is as high as we go as a family. I myself don’t want things like jewellery, or TVs as a gift, because I have no use for expensive jewellery and want to choose my own electronics. I assume other people feel the same. I also feel they’re too expensive to buy as gifts, propably because I’ve always been too poor to buy expensive gifts. So practical gifts that I know will be used are my favorite to give.

3) Have you ever given someone a gift as a surprise? Why did you give the gift?

I haven’t as a true gift. I sometimes bring over a new chocolate I found and loved, and want my friend or Mom to taste it, but it’s not really a gift. More like a fun, surprise tasty thing they might like. Or maybe a really pretty flower I saw in the shops. But it’s not a regular thing I do at all.

4) Have you ever received a gift that you didn’t like? How did you respond?

Yeah, when I was a kid in the mid-1980s my Grandma gave me a pale pink sweater! I hated it on sight and couldn’t believe my Grandma hadn’t figured out I hated pink from the fact that I never, ever wore it. I thanked her though because it was polite to do so, then Mom sort of forced me to wear it once or twice when we visited my Grandma. Moved my Mom and I separated our household (I stayed in our apartment, and she moved in with her SO in mid-1990s, I refused to have in my home so Mom took it with her. She wore it like 25 years around home, until it got scrappy enough to throw out. Yeah, that’s pink sweater the only piece of clothing of “mine”, or a gift, I’ve ever hated.

5) Would you rather give someone a gift or receive a gift? Why?

I’d rather both give *and* receive. I’m not used to giving or receiving gifts without it going both ways, it’d feel weird. I’m usually poor enough that receiving one means I’ll have a little more money left for other things that month (or soonish) if it were something I’d spend money on myself anyway at some point.

An old set of questions from  the friday five @ Dreamwidth. Image from Pixabay.

Have you hydrated appropriately?

I slept most of the day due to having insomia again last night, so I haven’t yet, no. Need to remember to drink more before going to sleep!

What are your feelings on fizzy water (LaCroix and similar)?

I like it when there’s some added vitamins and taste but don’t care for the natural flavor. The cheap shop brand ones are a lot cheaper than Sprite or Coca-Cola so I like to buy them sometimes. I always drink 1,5 litres as during the prep for colonoscopy along with other clear liquids, for this purpose I always choose the lemon taste because Moviprep (the actual prep medication) tastes vaquely of lemon and after about a decade of that, I’ve come to associate vaque lemon taste with the prep and don’t want to ruin other flavors by starting to associate them with the awful prep. When I buy for fun, I like get strawberry or blackberry flavor.

Is there a particular holiday-associated beverage you like?

I love sima (mead) which is drank on/around May Day here in Finland, but sadly my Crohn’s Disease doesn’t like it so it depends on it whether I can have, and how much. Before I got Crohn’s, I used to make two batches of 4 litres because I loved it so. I also like glögi (glogg or mulled wine) which is a hot beverage drank around Christmas; it usually contains alcohol but I drink the non-alcohol version.

Do you have a fancy coffee or tea order? (possibly only for special occasions?)

Well, the only coffee things I drink are the cold Frezza drinks and I have done so only the last maybe 2 years?? I usually buy some everytime I go grocery shopping – it’s actually something I should try to do less. I used to hate everything even lightly coffee flavored – too bitter. My number one favorite is the Frezza Mocca Choco Loco (https://www.paulig.fi/kahvit/frezza/frezza-mocca) which is a chocolate flavored one. My other favorite is the Frezza Latte Silky Milky, which is a latte (https://www.paulig.fi/kahvit/frezza/frezza-latte). I’d like to try some flavored coffees sometimes, but I hate the regular coffees, don’t know anything about anything and so don’t know what to ask for in a cafe. My friends/family either don’t drink coffee at all, or only the regular one with maybe cream so they’re not of help at all.

Do you only drink hot beverages when it is cold outside? Why or why not?

I actually only drink hot beverages when I am cold, or have a sore throat – the weather outside doesn’t matter! I tend to run hot, and used to get too hot very easily (this has somewhat changed after the 2014 hospital stay, propably because my normal body temperature dropped from 37 Celsius to 35,6 Celsius for some reason during/after that health crisis) and because of that I’ve never really liked to eat hot food or drinks. Until about 4 years ago, I never ever drank anything hot unless I had the flu and a sore throat (so not even every year) and only ate 4-5 hot meals a week. Now I eat hot meals most days, and drink hot drinks when I’m feeling cold which varies from a couple of times during autumn and winter months to every day for weeks or even months depending whatever my body decides to feel. I’ve actually had to buy an electric kettle and take up drinking tea because I’m cold so often!

Snagged from this week’s the friday five @ Dreamwidth. Image from Pixabay.

1) What did you plant?

Nothing, I don’t care about having plants and besides I’ve tried; they always die (partly due to my ignorance, partly due to the soil and either because too much sun or not enough, depending on the year) so it’s a waste of money and effort as far as I’m concerned.

2) What was your favorite summer food?

Ice cream!

3) What song will remind you of this summer?

Nothing.

4) What was your favorite body of water to be in?

My shower.

5) What’s been your favorite outfit?

My stay-at-home uniform: a beach dress. Found a new one last year, and it’s so lovely and light that I bought three others of the same series, but with different colors and patterns. The only good thing about heat waves and summer!