Tag: friends

People’s Connections

The last several days were filled with visits and conversations, making me feel very good. Yesterday, Anna and her family visited me, and the highlight of the day was going skating at Millennium Park. I told Nadia a long time ago that I would teach her to skate, and we pretty much did it yesterday! She was able to glide for a bit, and she got the feeling of skating rather than walking on ice. I am sure that next time she is on the skating rink, she will skate on her own.
We also had a short visit to the Art Institue and saw the Neapolitan Creche, and then we came back to my house, and Anna made dinner for everybody. Initially, we didn’t plan to eat at home, but we ended up having lunch and dinner at my house. Lunch was a takeout, and then Anna made an awesome paste dinner. I rarely make pasta for myself because it is challenging to make pasta for one :). So it was all good.

I received two presents with my Saturday mail: one from my very dear friend in Chicago and one from my friends in Ireland.

We haven’t seen each other in person for a while now, and my friend made a collage of several photos of us together
One more ornament – love it!
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My cookies in NYC

www.instagram.com/p/CW9qYEQj-T7j4P1XADoYUiksh9PsR-y0X4OP1Q0/

I Have An Out-Of-Town Guest!

I have a first out-of-town guest who is not a family member! Lena came to visit me from Ann Arbor, and it feels like in the old days, only it is easier now to get to all city attractions. She arrived Friday afternoon, and I started work early in the morning so that I could be done for the day by 3 PM.

After a brief tour of my new place, we headed to the Loop. We went to the Art Institute and saw Obama Portraits and Bisa Butler exhibits; then we went to the Millennium Park for the Classic Broadway concert, and then we strolled the night Riverwalk, and we even had time to have a late-night tea on my balcony!

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For The Last Time…

There were lots of “for the last time” this weekend.

Last time to Palatine Farmer’s Market:

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Christmas In Spring

How would you feel if you would receive a Christmas card which was sent four months ago? Yes, this season, the mail was erratic, to put it mildly. And even though it was three months after Christmas, it touched me. The card is beautiful, and the greetings are thoughtful, and I feel that somebody on the other side of the world was thinking about me.

Friendships In Black & White

Friendships in Black & White

More of Seurasaari

Even though the museum itself is closed in winter, and we could not get inside any of the houses, we enjoyed the walk!

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Seurasaari

Today, I didn’t do any remote work at all, and in the morning, we met with my friend Natasha and her daughter (my goddaughter) Sonechka to take a walk on the island of Seurasaari. It is a huge open-air museum of traditional Finnish architecture, but you can’t enter the dwellings in winter. All you can do is walk around and admire them from the outside, which we gladly did.

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Helsinki Day 2

On Monday, I met with my friend Natasha, and we had a long walk. Let me tell you this: Boris does not like eating outside, and never did. I mean, he really dislikes eating outside. And I always loved it, and my kids love it :). It always surprised me, that in Finland, people love eating outside so much, even in a very cold weather. And they make it fun! I can’t imagine eating outside in Chicago at 10F temperature and not feeling miserable. But yesterday, sitting by the open fire at Regatta, I enjoyed it immensely!

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More Christmas Gifts

Because of predictable slowness of the mail around Christmas and New Year, I received a lot of presents in the days after Christmas. Which made it even more fun – I feel like I have a month worth of Christmas!

My older granddaughter Nadia made these ornaments with her palm print all by herself 🙂

The packager from New Zealand arrived as well. Each Christmas, I feel like this is the coolest thing to receive cookies from the opposite side of the globe! And it’s not just cookies, each year there is something else special!

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