Blog: Joy of sunlight in frizzy hair

I pul­led up the last leeks and pars­nips when the soil was al­re­a­dy hard from sub­ze­ro tem­pe­ra­tu­res. I like the ex­ci­te­ment of gro­wing new and dif­fe­rent ve­ge­tab­le spe­cies and not kno­wing when exact­ly to har­vest them, or even kno­wing what I will find in my ve­ge­tab­le patch. I do not mind long and mild fal­ls like the one we have had. I can take my time won­de­ring if I should pull up the ve­ge­tab­les to­day or to­mor­row.

Blog: Consumer habits – are they value-based or dictated by necessity?

Vesa Kum­pu­la’s re­cent post about mo­ney made me pon­der about what mo­ney me­ans to me per­so­nal­ly. I ag­ree with Vesa that mo­ney does not bring hap­pi­ness, but it does make life ea­sier. If mo­ney is tight, we have to choo­se what to spend it on, and we may not be ab­le to con­si­der ot­hers as­pects of con­sump­ti­on, such as how et­hi­cal, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly or du­rab­le our choi­ces are.

Blog: Life-long learning

Our four-ye­ar-old grand­son star­ted presc­hool. Both his pa­rents and his grand­pa­rent wor­ried about his ad­just­ment. Ap­pa­rent­ly, ho­we­ver, eve­ryt­hing went well. He found new friends. The on­ly di­sap­point­ment was that the hand­so­me mi­ni­bus which took him to school for the first few days was la­ter rep­la­ced by an or­di­na­ry car. A cau­se of joy was the pair of trai­ners bought by mom and grand­ma from a se­cond-hand store. They tur­ned out to be the se­cond fas­test in his class.

Blog: Together we are stronger

Face-to-face in­te­rac­ti­on enab­les many sen­so­ry ex­pe­rien­ces that are ne­ver pre­sent in vir­tu­al com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on. The 2022 Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces sta­red my won­der­ful July. It seems my cup has been overf­lo­wing for many days, and I am re­al­ly gra­te­ful for that! The won­der­ful pe­op­le that I met at the Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces made my ext­ro­vert he­art blos­som.

Blog: Songs of praise and tears of joy

If I were as­ked to choo­se one thing that I could do fo­re­ver, it would be an ea­sy choi­ce. I could sing fo­re­ver in the big tent at Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces. I am sure many pe­op­le ag­ree with me. It is so­met­hing one can on­ly ex­pe­rien­ce by being pre­sent in the tent.

Blog: Let us save time

Ef­forts to save time have a long his­to­ry. I per­so­nal­ly re­mem­ber some ways to save time in the 1960s.

Blog: By the river Nile

One sum­mer day, dri­ving home from work, I lis­te­ned to the sum­mer­ti­me ser­vi­ce ra­dio. The spe­a­ker was tal­king about Mo­ses’ birth. As I was lis­te­ning, the story of Mo­ses came ali­ve in my mind and ac­qui­red con­no­ta­ti­ons that I had not pre­vi­ous­ly at­tac­hed to it.

Blog: I see a campfire in my mind

A friend of mine cal­led to­day and in­vi­ted me and my wife to at­tend a camp in De­cem­ber. I was de­ligh­ted! The or­ga­ni­zers had de­ci­ded that one theme for the camp would be “God’s gui­dan­ce in life, at ti­mes of both tri­als and joy”. They had cho­sen to ap­p­ro­ach this theme through pe­op­le’s life sto­ries.

Blog: "Money does no bring happiness, but it makes things easier"

We were vi­si­ting my pa­rents when my son cal­led. He said a guy from the po­wer com­pa­ny had come to switch off elect­ri­ci­ty. I told him to calm down and said I would call the po­wer com­pa­ny and set­t­le the mat­ter.

Blog: Important people

Many of us have va­lu­ab­le hu­man re­la­ti­ons­hips out­si­de our im­me­di­a­te fa­mi­ly. I have such re­la­ti­ons­hips with se­ve­ral pe­op­le. When I was lit­t­le, my grand­fat­her was one of those im­por­tant per­sons, and I spent a lot of time with him. Eve­ry­bo­dy in our fa­mi­ly spoke res­pect­ful­ly and for­mal­ly to him, and I found it stran­ge when some vi­si­tors ad­d­res­sed him with his first name.