Real Summer Vibes, Reno and Hustle
Wow! I cannot believe it's been more than two months since I last time wrote here. I guess time flies when you have million things to do and to think about so I didn't even realise that it's been that long. Maybe it is time for a rewind of what's been happening in our life during this time offline.
"We had big plans for our renovation at the house for the summer but unfortunately we had yet another setback on our path."
May of Change
May was mostly just about recharging batteries after the winter season which obviously wasn’t that busy but still quite tough mentally. So we were just spending time with the dogs, friends and family and planning the future. We had big plans for our renovation at the house for the summer but unfortunately we had yet another setback on our path. The banks didn’t give us any loan to do a proper reno since they thought it's too risky budget-wise for them with an old house like ours. This setback was a bit depressing and that is one of the reasons I didn't feel like writing any blog posts in May. I was so prepared for an intense series of blog posts about the renovation and how cool the house was going to be and it was like someone stole all our dreams. I know that's not the case but that's how it felt like for some time.
For me personally the highlight of the month
was an empowering photoshoot with a talented photographer Pauliina Tähkäpää aka Womankind. I booked the shoot already about a year ago but finally our schedules and plans met and we arranged the shoot when Pauliina was visiting Lapland from the south of Finland.
This photoshoot was most of all a gift from me to myself, to be empowered by my own inner goddess that I've finally started to learn to embrace. Due to my hobbies I have mostly hang out with boys already when I was a teenager and I never really felt like a feminine girl. During the past 7 or 8 years, and honestly during my travels to Indonesia, I've found my own way to express who I am and nowadays I'm quite proud of myself and I feel happy and comfortable in my own skin. So I wanted to have this moment for myself. The shoot turned out to be one of the most memorable experience I've had.
"No matter how awesome and magical winter is I am a child of summer."
Enjoying the Nightless Summer
Can I just tell you how much I love summer? No matter how awesome and magical winter is I am a child of summer. I was born in the Midsummer's day and I live from the Sun. I have so much energy and inspiration do to things and just enjoy the life. The golden light of the nightless nights, warm summer breeze, birds singing, laughter and sparkling love everywhere in the air.
This June I have been blessed to have more
photography gigs. Since all parties and celebrations have been on hold because of the pandemic it has been so nice that the world has opened up a bit and to be able to go and shoot graduation photos and weddings etc. June proved me once again how much I love my work. Capturing the most meaningful moments in people’s life is just wonderful and I feel like my work is really important.
This spring and early summer we have also found more time to spend with our family and friends. One of the highlights was our Midsummer tradition with all of our friends when we gather together to hang out and catch up. It was so good to see people that we didn't see for a long time and have this important tradition alive. In fact, this same tradition was the moment when we got to know each other better with Jussi, four years ago, when we started our life together.
I've been visiting my parents in Kuusamo already twice this summer. I usually don't have time to visit there too many times, especially during the winter months, so it's been nice. Definitely relaxing to get away from the normal everyday life for few days every once in a while even though I love our life and there is no special reason to get away. It is just easier to empty your thoughts and mind from work and all of that in a different environment without the normal daily routines. The second time I was in Kuusamo, which was in Midsummer's weekend, we celebrated my birthday with my parents, ate really well and went golfing twice. And my game wasn't too bad actually. I went stand up paddling (Yay, my mom bought me a SUP board for birthday present!) and swimming at our family summer cottage and saw some relatives.
"This been said we have literally wrapped up our sleeves and started to hustle like crazy."
What's up with the house now?
And then the reno. Like I said it didn't really go as planned after all. With the loan we were supposed to fix the house from the floor to the roof and build an extension with proper bathroom and utility room, build a real kitchen with running water and dishwasher and stuff. Absolutely everything. But no hope. It took few weeks to climb up from the depths of disappointment but we realised that we don't have time for that and that we have no other option available than to move there, no matter what. So we started calculating our money and savings and make a new budget and a new plan what we're gonna do. I'm also beyond grateful for my parents for helping us out a bit. This move that we have been planning and dreaming about for almost 4 years already means everything to us and we just need to make it happen now.
This been said we have literally wrapped up our sleeves and started to hustle like crazy. We decided to do some small facelifts at the house and have the full electricity. We have been working as much as we can to get some extra cash and we have been calling different people and places, running around in hardware stores, surfing online for necessary purchases and going back and forth the house and the old kennel for few weeks now. We have been clearing the area where the new dog lot is gonna come, building dog houses and temporary dog pen elements, tearing down things at the house, painting floors and the old baking oven. And finally this week we had an excavator preparing the dog lot digging the top soil away, making way for the sand and the dog pens. The work has been exciting but also extremely sweaty and exhausting since we have had an extreme heat wave for more than a week now and millions of mosquitos, blackflies, horseflies and other lovely insects bugging us. And yeah, did I mention that the aircon of our car is broken. Yep. But things are happening and it's rewarding to see that with my own eyes!
What's next?
So now that everything has started rolling forward in a good speed and we can see visible things happing at the house and the dog yard I promise to make a post dedicated completely to the reno, before and after stuff and more about the choices we made about the interiors and so on. Next week we will get a dry ice cleansing for the inside walls which means that after that's done we can actually start moving the furniture in! After all, we should move the dogs by the end of the months so there isn’t that much time left. For once I feel like this is going to be our summer and the good karma is on our side. I realised I maybe made a too ambitious plan to post every week so I'm going to honest that I don't know when I have time and energy to write but if you follow my Instagram or subscribe the newsletter you will stay tuned for the new posts. So until the next time!
Life is the best, enjoy!
xx, Inka