Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you’re just a mother.
The next you are all-wise and prehistoric.
Pam Brown
Yes, the news of my little granddaughter’s birth in December 2009 was wonderful and suddenly, i realized that being a Nana is an honour and not only a title but an amazing opportunity to have and to hold!
The role of Nana is a totally brand-new phase in a woman’s life and it takes time to adjust to the elevated position, it means that one must grow in that part and finally, it means that you love the little thing so much that you heart could burst with the love and loving!
I get a new picture of Liana most days into my mobile phone, and when i phone my daughter who lives a hundred miles or so from where i live, Liana wants to join in on the conversation when her mother puts the phone on a loudspeaker. There will be heard most delightful sounds of cooing and joyful babble of a baby, who by all the signs pointing, will be as quiet as her Nana… :)) hehe
It’s such a grand thing to be a mother of a mother – that’s why the world calls her grandmother.
These very moving and so poignant words are taken from a card Becki gave me one year for the Mothers Day in Ireland. I have kept it in my wallet ever since through all these years, through all the countries and places it has travelled with me. Heli gave me a most beautifully worded handwritten letter and a note which have also been doing the same ‘travelling’.
It is one of the greatest privileges in life to be a mum.
NOTICE THIS: that in the wide world there is a mother dying every few seconds – the Unicef article of 2003 states that 1400 mothers die every day because of the complications of the pregnancy and the birth. Here is what the UNICEF says about it all. It is nigh impossible to fathom for us in the west and in the parts of the world where the antenatal and the postnatal care are taken for granted.
That to me is the Pandemic Catastrophe of giant proportions and not the other things at the moment that are marketed for us as such worldwide.
I do feel very strongly for these mothers who die each day, for these babies and other children of these mothers who are left orphans for it was most, most difficult and dangerous for me to have children. Each time I faced the more than the likelihood of a miscarriage during the entire nine months. There was no certainty at all – will there or will there not to be a baby at the end of the pregnancy. It was nerve-racking to the hilt! Then the births – they were the riskiest of all, every time, I and the babies were at each birth face to face with death for both of us.
So, for the mothers – all the mothers in the world –
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!
Tis for now. Riihele xx.
Tomorrow will be my Mothers Day Take 2 for in Ireland it was already celebrated in March and tomorrow it is the Finnish one. Double the prezzies and double the blessings of being an international mum!
On behalf of the female species I just want to say this:
The female of the species in every culture, in every corner of the globe has one hobby, one pastime that is normally very high on the agenda – the shopping. It is not so much of the actual getting of the goods, but to just to be able to look at everything available, to walk about with your friends and have a quality cup of coffee in a cafe with the right ambience. To be at your leisure is the most important factor in the whole equation. Huh? Sounds complicated, this feminine maths and the female logic to the uninitiated, does it? Aahh, tis plain as mud.
I have two daughters who are all grown-up these days, yet still when we get together, we like to go browsing in the stores in whichever country we will meet. It does not necessarily mean that we will buy that much as it is more to get a feel of the locale. It is a culture test of a kind as what is in the stores speaks volumes to the one that is so inclined.
The word ‘therapy’, in Retail Therapy, means in its original language, Greek,
(Greek: heal, cure; treatment; service done tothe sick, a waiting on).
So true. Retail therapy could be said to be a ‘service done to the whole business world and the world economics‘, for tis really mostly the females that keep the retailers on the High Street going. This link has the ‘scientific’ – read: rather on the dull side – explanations on the High Street. Neither do I think that even if the net domain is called HighStreet with tons of stores and goods online that it is equal to the real retail therapy experience! No way.
Now a question
“WHO ARE THESE CONSUMERS that keep the world’s markets going?”
The answer:
LADIES, naiset, DAMEN, femmes, WOMEN, frauen ….
It is a fact universally acknowledged that it is the women in every country who mostly do the shopping and so they are the consumers that these statistics are talking about and whose shopping habits they reflect!
We should be given a credit for doing such a noble thing to help the world economy in every country. I suggest the NP aka The Noble Prize* in The Retail Therapy for the best candidate searched with the right criteria et cetera. The NP in Retail Therapy could be a section of the NP in the Economics, for example. I have been called Queen of Retail Therapy, but I will tell you that those days are long past & gone! Truly. Seriously, now, do mean it. No joking. Actually. Rii :))
PS.
I do vouch 100 per cent that she had a swell of a time every single second of those 3 hrs and 26 mins, because the RT is a cheer for her and not a chore like tis to him, who is suffering every split-second of those 6 mins, as he dashed into the store & out!! Her money was better spent, I say.
They used to give us a day –it was called International Women’s Day.
In 1975 they gave us a year, the Year of the Woman. Then from 1975 to 1985 they gave us a decade, the Decade of the Woman.
I said at the time, who knows, if we behave they may let us into the whole thing. Well, we didn’t behave and here we are. Bella Abzug (1920-1998)
International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women’s oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. (International Women’s Day online)
In an article entitled ‘International Women’s Day protests highlight violence, inequality’ there is among other things this:
”Calls to end forced marriage, domestic abuse and job discrimination marked International Women’s Day on Saturday as demonstrators took to the streets worldwide.”
And this the advice in North Korea to their ladies:
’Communist North Korea marked International Women’s Day in its own way by urging its women to reject Western fashions and to “set good examples” in their clothes and hairstyles. “Women must set good examples in all fields of culture and custom, including clothes, hairdos and language,” Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of the North’s ruling Korean Workers’ Party, said in an editorial.’
Even this was in the above article: “French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an end to pay inequality between men and women, and pledged to institute financial sanctions to address the problem.” — That’ll be the day, I say, when the pay will be!
If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman. (Margaret Thatcher)
This is what is urged in one of the sites where I got articles for this entry:
”So make a difference, think globally and act locally !! Make everyday International Women’s Day. Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.”
This said as even today — and every single day — thousands of Baby Girls are terminated in the womb of their mothers, just because they are Girls, when the parents wanted boys… So many females have been ‘finished’ that the imbalance ratio on males-females is in millions in certain countries and is increasing alarmingly each day.
…a woman’s first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick.
Carole Lombard
Would you believe that In 1770, the British Parliament passed a law condemning lipstick, stating that “women found guilty of seducing men into matrimony by a cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft.” (Chemical & Engineering News online)
Lipstick is known to have been used around 5000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, when semi-precious jewels were crushed and applied to the lips and occasionally around the eyes. Women in the ancient Indus Valley Civilization applied lipstick to their lips for face decoration. Ancient Egyptians extracted purplish-red dye from fucus-algin, 0.01% iodine, and some bromine mannite, which resulted in serious illness.
Cleopatra had her lipstick made from crushed carmine beetles, which gave a deep red pigment, and ants for a base. Lipsticks with shimmering effects were initially made using a substance found in fish scales called coalescence.
Lipstick started to gain popularity in the 16th century, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who made blood-red lips and stark white faces a fashion statement. By that time, lipstick was made from a blend of beeswax and red stains from plants. During the Second World War, lipstick gained popularity as a result of its use in the movie industry, and it became commonplace for women to apply makeup, or “put their face on”. Wikipedia
“Did you know that we can ingest up to 20kg of lipstick in a lifetime – those synthetic dyes, with lead & aluminum are absorbed into our bodies and sit in our organs and fatty tissue? They cause nausea, headaches, skin problems, fatigue, mood swings, drying and cracking lips, and a condition called cheilitis, dermatitis of the lips, states the Be Well Stay Well site online.
In our factory, we make lipstick.
In our advertising, we sell hope. Peter Nivio Zarlenga
Store lipstick in the fridge, it will last longer.
While buying lipstick never use the tester on your lips. It is very unhygienic.
Apply the tester on fingertips. This is a better option than the back of your hand as it closer than your lips.
Lipstick can be used as blush, but do not use blush as lipstick.
When you are to the last bit of your favorite lipstick scrape out the last bits with an orange stick and mix it with lip-gloss or vaseline and use it.
To prevent lipstick from sticking to the glass you are drinking from, discreetly lick the edge of the glass before touching your lips to it.
If your lipstick has broken, the just light a match under the broken part of a while, when the lipstick melts a little then put it back on the base. Then swivel down the lipstick and put it in the fridge, uncovered for about 5 minutes.
Beauty is being in harmony with what you are.
Peter Nivio Zarlenga
Tis for now and a grand week for ye. Rii
The photo — taken by Rii — is me lipstick, by the way.
Wikipedia defines knitting as “a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth. Knitting consists of loops called stitches pulled through each other. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can be passed through them.”
We had to learn knitting at schools in Finland from very early ages it being compulsory; I do have to admit that my ’products’ at that time were the most sorry sights ever! Really. What I managed to produce after much sweat ’n toil was one mitten, one sock instead of pairs of the same as required, a whirly-twirly scarf that looked like waves, and so on; you get the picture, for I absolutely disliked handicrafts then. That we had a sour teacher on the subject who did not like me, did not help either, it must be said.
Then years later I moved to Sweden where the girls were very partial to knitting and sewing — surprise, surprise!! as the reputation of the Swedish females would bring to one’s mind something totally different interests, eh?! — I learned to love the knitting, sewing et al. And from then on I have been doing my own patterns and whatnot, I absolutely love knitting nowadays.
Ireland, had I in my mind’s eye painted as, THE land of great yarns with the numbers of sheep the land has grazing in the fields, but when I reached the shores of the Emerald Isle, the selection was minuscule and pitiful to the ultimate as far as a variety of yarn was concerned. Sure, the meat of the mutton et al was and is ab fab over there, but as I said…The Irish, of course, are spectacularly gifted at spinning the verbal yarn, that is well-known world over.
It is funny as in ha-ha! to see that when the males want to ‘beat’ the women in females’ own games aka in cooking, etc., and even knitting — even though, Ezer Weizman said this: ‘Honey, have you ever seen a man knitting socks? ’ — they quickly become super celebrities as is Kaffe Fassett. What a brilliant name for kaffe in Swedish means coffee, by the way, and the beverage of choice in knitting sessions many a time. Here is what I found about KF on the net:
”Kaffe Fassett is known as the U.K’s King of Colour and Design – for interior and garden decoration, needlepoint, knitting and mosaic designs; also for his award-winning 1998 Chelsea Flower Show garden. Now he is designing sets and costumes for the Royal Shakespeare Company. His books include magnificent examples of tapestry, knitwear, painting, patchwork, fabrics and the latest mosaics, but the emphasis has to be on his original and daring use of colour.
Born in San Francisco, Kaffe Fassett’s earliest influences were the beauty and colour of his mother’s garden. In 1964 he moved to England and gardens are still what he loves most.” (Radio National Australia)
Great chefs carry their sets of knives, able artists carry their brush sets, and serious knitters have their knitting needle cases!
Stitch ‘n Bitchis a brilliant book of 258 pages on all things as per title; seriously, it seems like a handy guide to everybody who wants to have a fun and comprehensive reference on this grand pastime.
This is an absolutely hysterically funny video about knitting made by sharp-witted Finns:
”No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”
Edvard Munch
Tis for now, Rii — who finds that knitting eases the frazzled nerves very much indeed!!
This luxury pair of gloves for the discerning housewives fits the bill spot-on, methinks! The hands belong to my Baby Daughter, by the way. GO GIRL!!
This very chic Chick doing the dishes and the clearing up is my Little Baby Girl. I say, one must dress up properly with one’s pearls, rings, and fur to do even the most menial of tasks, as one must not let the standards ever to drop. Becki – my Big Girl took the picture.
Isn’t it just hilarious to that these kind of posh washing-up gloves were made or even thought of?!! I like them. Well done, Heli. Keep it up!
Although there are many trial marriages… there is no such thing as a trial child. (Gail Sheehy)
Giving birth is compared to running a full marathon. Maybe, as I have never heard this before by anybody, but could it not be said that, the baby who is trying to be born also is running her/his own mini-marathon! I really do think that it is so. It does require so very much energy and stamina to bring it about for both the mother and the child. It was in the antenatal classes in Ireland that this fact about the marathon for the mother was told to us by our trainer, who was a midwife and a mother of six. Here is a link to the Baby University.com. Yes, there is such a thing! The baby with the mortar board on his head looks absolutely cute & clever.
The one thing that the newly-baked mama herself is in great need of more than nearly anything else is one’s own mum in fact. This is the time that she needs the most assurance and advice – that she is doing the right thing with this little totally helpless creature. Things like: what to do in times of crisis – yes, one needs one’s own mama more than any other time in one’s life! My Mum died very young, just three months before my first daughter was born, actually. My paternal Granny had died ten days before my mum, so there was a double funeral for them in Finland which I could not make because I had had the risk of miscarriage for the entire nine months and was not allowed to fly. Then the obstetrician gave me permission a week later after the funeral had been to fly over to Finland. The year after my Mom and Granny had died while I was expecting my second daughter, my younger brother was killed in a traffic accident in Finland which made it all so much tougher. I associate giving new life with death, in fact because of this.
I do not take having the girls in any way for granted because the ‘road’ to have them was paved with unbelievable obstacles all the way; even at the delivery there were never the guarantee that they and I would come out of it all in tact and alive! Not once. I gave birth to a dead baby and that ranks as the saddest of the saddest things that have happened to me, ever. I would have loved to have sons as well, but them I lost in miscarriages.
It is a funny as odd thing that one gets these repeated false labour alarms and then they reverse in the last minute and stop completely, but then when the real thing comes, it comes with a bang and there is no turning back. So when the birth got really going, I had to make my way to the Rotunda Hospital because the waters had broken – the oldest maternity hospital in the world for it was founded in 1745. Such an apt name for a maternity hospital, methinks. One goes in rather rotund and comes out lean. The delivery itself would not get going the right way so I was put into an annex in the hospital where there was a whole bunch of all the social classes in a jumbled mix and I was attached to a drip with hormone Oxytocin* – that is supposed to speed up the delivery. Sounds snobbish to talk about the ‘classes’ but it is so. Yes indeed, the class division system in Ireland is very well and alive, in every way: hospitals, housing, education – you name it!!
The mixture was a colourful circus as anything: the one mum that I do remember very clearly is this one who was just about to give birth – finally – and to be rolled into the delivery room, when her sister and mother came in with the ‘glinkety-glinkety’ sounding bags into the ward at the non-visiting hours of the day and said to the poor thing while giving a hefty slap on the back of her, even though she was already doubled-up with the sheer agony and pain:
“Have you produced anything yet? We came to celebrate!!”
She could not reply them at all. Don’t remember what the nurses said to them but out they eventually were ushered out by the staff.
When my agony finally came to an end after a day and a half – I said to himself straight after the delivery that:
‘Funny, that the music has just been put on?!’
‘Oh no’, said he, ‘it has been on the whole time!’
I had not heard a thing until the very end of the end! So – the music is not there to soothe the nerves of the mamas but the papas & the staff!
“Now the thing about having a baby –
and I can’t be the first person to have noticed this –
is that thereafter you have it.”
(Jean Kerr)
Tis for now. Riihele – in the reminiscing mode. xx
* the word ‘oxytocin’ is from the Greek word ‘oxutokia’ meaning ‘sudden delivery’ (as oxy- =sharpness and tokos = ‘childbirth’) Well, it sure caused the birthing to be sharp, don’t know so much about the ‘sudden’ as it was an age before the Baby finally popped out!!
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