Stairs

Day 12: stairs

Liebster Award!

Chloe at Curious Ramblings nominated me for the Liebster award. Thanks Chloe!! :)



Now, the fun part. Answering the questions. :D

1. How has your week been?

Very moving. 

Literally. Lots of moving. We moved houses. The fun part, however, was I got to put stuff into and organize and decorate my room.

It is actually very fun to rearrange stuff in a different room. 

Annnnd there's the first blog appearance of my "Ecua-door", there.  

And, of course, my favoritest books. :D

That also brings me to my photo a day thing. I haven't been doing that lately. Whoops. Anyway, my next one is:

Where I ate breakfast. Over looking the lake at our new rental.

2. How long have you been blogging?

My first blog was for my really cool English class, if that counts. My first assigned post on that was September 10th, 2013. But I began blogging for fun on Star-Spangled Sisu just a couple months ago.

3. What is the strangest thing you've ever done?

Uh...I really don't know. Really. I have no idea. Sorry...once I ate a couple worms just to see what they tasted like??

4. The Disney princess you've always secretly wanted to be?

Hmm. I'm not much of a Disnerd at all, but I guess when I was younger I liked Pocahontas.

5. Describe yourself in one word!

I'm going to have to go with enthusiastic. Most of the time. Haha, it really depends.

6. How did you come up with the title of your blog?

I just chucked it down without thinking about it too much. But I guess I really like the idea of sisu, and I wish it could be more applied to me. And I'm American, so I don't know...it just kind of happened. :D

7. If you had to choose between pumpkin bread or lemon bread which would it be?

Lemon bread.

8. Do you remember dates or names better?

Names all the way! Just ask someone about my weird middle name obsession. I remember names.

9. Books or movies?

I'm biased, since I don't really watch movies, so I'm gonna have to go with books. :D BUT, one thing I'll often take over the book?

The audio book! Love audio books.

10. Have you ever traveled out of the US?

Only to Canada.

11. Where is your happy place?

Hmm. I don't really have a "place", physically or geographically. I just kind of wander. Whether it's down the lovely rambling dirt roads at the old house...

...or walking circles around the kitchen table, (which, by the way, bothers half of my family to pieces.) I just like to wander around.

11 Random Facts About Me:
1. I really love stories. Tell me a story, and you are my friend.
2. I play the cello, and a little violin.
3. Little kids and old people are my favorites.
4. Math is not my friend.
5. I really like having projects.
6. I've always really liked school.
7. I like to stay up late.
8. I want to become a really good photographer someday. But I have no interest in a business. Just for fun.
9. I nearly always use my middle initial.
10. I most normally write in cursive.
11. I like mysteries.

Thanks again Chloe for the nomination!! It was fun. :)

I would just like to nominate 2 blogs:

Jenae at Deep in the Heartland

and Sasha at Amazing Pictures.

You guys: Link to the blog that nominated you. Answer the 8 questions. List the 9 facts about yourself. Nominate some bloggers with less than 200 followers. Let them know they're nominated. Have fun!

Alright, now the hard part. Making up questions.

1. What's your favorite school subject?
2. Where would be your dream place to live?
3. What have you read lately?
4. What do you wish was for supper today?
5. Make a 5 word sentence that describes your day.
6. Cheese, cake, or cheesecake?
7. Name a favorite fictional character and why they're your favorite.
8. Why did you start your blog?

3 of Life's Greatest Truths

1.

(via pinterest)

A song, a flower, a word, a child.

2.

(via pinterest)

3. 

(via pinterest)

Bonus Truth: 

(photo via pinterest) 

Sisu, Nisu, & Sauna: FinnFest 2014

My dear friend Teresa and I got to head down to the Twin Cities today to attend the final day of FinnFest 2014:D

It was pretty cool to be able to just overhear people speaking in Finnish everywhere we went & listen to the Finnish accents.

There was a LOT of different things to see.

Some Teresa feets:

Here's the term referred to in my blog's name :D

Annnd, my shirt I got:

One of my favorite parts was visiting the booth of a woman from my church. She's an artist, and she was sharing her art at FinnFest. Anyway, she made these little "touching stones" that she was giving out. She shook up the jar of these objects and had you choose one at random. They each had a word on them, and it was a sort of "word chooses the person" type of idea. The word you choose is then "your word".

I got "joy". It's a good reminder for me. I really like it. Teresa got "toivo", or in English, "hope".

Then, on our way home, we went to one of the best places ever:

FinnStyle! :D And, there I got a new bag!! A new Marimekko bag, guys! Plus, it was on sale for FinnFest! :D

There's my dear, old, worn, green Marimekko bag. You can tell it has been quite loved. :)

And, my new one! :D I thought I was going to get red, but then I found this. I like it a lot. It feels so new!!

I'm excited to begin using my new bag, and retire my green one from several long years of good service. :)

Beginning Quiet Time

A couple days ago, I read this post on one of my favorite blogs, Curious Ramblings. It's "Ways To Change Up Your Quiet Time", and it has some really good stuff. I've never had a quiet time as Chloe describes in her post, but hey, never too late to start, right? ;) So, I got some inspiration and started it myself. I took her suggestion of reading three chapters per day, because it sounds simple & manageable. (And yes, it seems to be the perfect length, thus far.)
 
So, here's my quiet time essentials.

 

 I have:

• My green spiral bound notebook
• A new(!) black spiral bound notebook
• A pen
• A highlighter
• My timer for 30 minutes (I'm allowed to go over, of course ;) )
• (Not pictured, but always, my ever-present green Marimekko bag that made it into this post.)
• And, of course...

My Bible:)

The timer for 30 minutes is really important for me, but probably not for others. If I didn't have that timer for 30 minutes, I wouldn't be able to concentrate at all. That's how I work with studying, too. Commit to a half hour, then a break. And so on. :)

It's been really interesting.  I love how I don't have to do it at a certain time; I don't work well with set routines. I can do it whenever. :) I've been recording my thoughts, too. I'm not brave enough to share anything, but God is certainly showing me a lot through this, so far. Quiet time is quite a wonderful practice to have.

Backyard Camping

The 4th annual Nikula family camping trip in the backyard!

"You don't need to go far, or have much, to have a good time."

I really liked canoeing with two of my nieces and one of my nephews, and lots of other stuff, too.

We played capture the flag...

Went swimming...

Took some pictures...

Baptized my baby niece...

Made memory book pages, and reminisced on previous camping years...(You know the camping was good when even the pretty-much-teenage nephew pulled out some poetry on his page!)

...and just generally had a great time :D

It was good.