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In USA

Halloween

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

November 3, 2020

Thor as the Mickey Mouse Wizard in Disney’s Fantasia

How are you guys doing? Did you enjoy the extra hour of sleep this weekend? I’m feeling really great. Lots of energy and feeling productive:)
However, I am so sick and tired of this election now, I can’t wait til it’s over tomorrow! It’s one thing if media wants to puke campaign stuff all over you for a few weeks before the election, but here in America it starts a year, or rather two years before. This whole year has been about the damn election and I’m sick of it. I’ve been avoiding social media the past few weeks cause not only do people post about it and share articles with false info, the apps are filled with reminders. When J took T out this morning he had seen a line going from the church next door to us (voting station there) and all the way to downtown, people will probably stand in line for over two hours. Insane. Why the heck did they not vote before? My husband voted by mail weeks ago, super easy (I can’t vote since I’m not a citizen).

Ok enough about that.

We had no good ideas for what to dress Thor as for Halloween this year. Our building has a competition for the pets and we wanted to join. I ordered a kinda boring costume just few days before, it arrived on time but it was waayy too small (Thor is a tiny dog but it still didn’t fit). So I came up with something in the very very last minute. I put Thor in one of my long sleeves and put J’s Disney hat on him. I’m quite proud of the pictures I took, and also proud of the photoshop edit I did:) This was obviously not a costume T could walk around in, so he had to wear some of his other shirts during the day. Our building had a grab-n-go of treats in the lobby – to avoid trick or treaters coming to peoples doors – this is not the year for any kind of holiday or event celebration, we can all wait one year.
I bought a headband witch hat a few weeks ago. Felt silly to dress up, but this is the one time of year when I like to have fun with makeup, so even if we were just staying home I “dressed up” (only from the neck up  though haha). J was wearing his Svengoolie t-shirt. In the afternoon we watched a favorite movie of mine, “High Spirits”. That movie is so bad that it’s good. I must have watched that movie like 5 times a year as a kid hahah.
Looking on social media I can definitely say that the majority of humans was dressed as the tiger king (like why? that documentary is old by now) and the majority of dogs was dressed as ghosts. At least we picked something creative for T this year.

On Sunday we enjoyed sleeping in and then we walked to the diner next door and picked up some waffles for breakfast. J watched football most of the day while I was housewifing; did some laundry, cleaned the apt, hand-dished (ya, I made that word up), baked an apple pie and cooked us dinner. Also took a quick snoozer in front of the boring football game at one point:) Pretty easy weekend but that fit us well. 

And speaking of nothing, how cool that it was full moon on Halloween/All Saints Day. Also cool that October had a full moon twice, that’s rare. 

Seriously, he’s too damn cute!Both J’s phone and mine always want to create albums called
“cat” when there’s pictures of Thor🤣 So he was my cat on Saturday
I really miss Swedish candy, but boring american candy is ok on Halloween

In Connecticut

SoNo Mall

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

October 29, 2020

This weekend J and I decided to drive to Norwalk and check out the new SoNo Mall. Malls are dying, just like shopping stores in general cause everyone is shopping online these days, so I’m not sure why they felt like building a new one, but it looked nice, seemed pretty big and promising. But there was like nothing there. Half of the building was parking space and inside the mall was mostly just empty space in between stores, the hallways of the mall I mean. But they had some stores that has been closing down in the Stamford mall (everything is dying in our city, both before and during corona). I ended up buying a cozy winter sweater and some basics at HM and two pairs of pants at Zara. The rest of the stores barely had anything in them, like Nordstrom, there was like five pieces of clothing in each corner of this enormous space. The Apple store on the other hand had multiple security guards outside the entrance checking peoples temperature and the line to go in was getting bigger and bigger by the second. The whole mall was kinda empty of people except the apple store. I guess there’s some new phone out now or something.
After a couple of hours we decided to drive down the street and go eat at Colony Pizza. There is one in Stamford and we really like it. Luckily not many people inside and we could sit alone in one corner. Restaurants have got strict rules, costumers have to keep their mask on until the food comes, for example. The pizza was sooo good. After eating we drove another few blocks down and found a super cute area with lots of restaurants with outdoor seating, small shops and art galleries. Last time we explored Norwalk we weren’t that impressed, we didn’t really understand why people talked about it so much, but now when we found this street we understood more. It started to rain so we didn’t stay long but now we know for the future:)

Sidewalk was used for restaurants and their outdoor seating
so they had blocked off for pedestrians to safely walk on the street
When we came home we went for a long walk with Mr Fluff

In Connecticut, New York, Swedish in America

Doesn’t get more FALL than this

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

October 12, 2020

This weekend has been absolute perfect and very fall-ish:) And today it really feels like fall since it’s raining outside and the temperatures dropped a bit. Because it is Columbus Day today (or Indigenous People’s Day), J is only working a half day. We wanted to do something fun with Thor today as well but ya, the weather isn’t exactly puppy-adventure-friendly (Thor doesn’t like the rain). We’ll see what we do, maybe watch Halloween movies and sip apple cider. 

So, this weekend:
On Saturday we drove to North Salem, NY, for a hike at Mountain Lakes Park. We’ve been there a few times before, I really like this park. We started by going up the mountain first, look at the pretty view and then hike in the forest. We barely met anyone during our 1.5 hour hike; a few bikers passed us and we saw a camouflaged  hunter with a crossbow, and that’s about it. Lots of trees were down and the trails where covered in leaves, if they hadn’t put up the markers on the trees we could have easily lost the trails. At one point we branched off to go find a different trail that led to one of the ponds. J had to carry T since we didn’t know what we were stepping on. The pond was so calm and some trees had changed colors, it looked like a painting. 
Our hike was so lovely, very quiet and peaceful. We could not have picked a better day or time of day to go hiking. 

On our way home we bough coffees and donuts and then just enjoyed the day together. At night we played Yahtzee and for once Jim won the first two rounds, but then I won with epic numbers on the third 🙂 Then it was time to watch Svengoolie and some tarantula movie. I always have a hard time watching these old movies from the 40s-60s, they usually involve animals and they aren’t treated that well in the movies and we all know that they weren’t exactly treating them very nicely behind the scenes back then either. It breaks my heart. 

On Sunday we got up early again. We drove to Easton, CT, and to Silverman’s Farm. I have been searching for pumpkin/apple farms that allows dogs. I found one but then I saw that because of covid we needed to purchase tickets and every weekend was sold out (we also didn’t want to pay). Then J told me that one of the dogs here in Stamford that we know through instagram had posted that they went to this Silverman’s, so we decided to check it out. 
We came an hour after they had opened and there were already plenty of people but still ok for us to visit. We had a great time. There were so many different kinds of pumpkins, some bigger than Thor haha. We didn’t actually buy any pumpkins though, we are not planning on carving this year. Would have been nice maybe to get some for cooking but eh. We got ourselves some yummy treats though. 
It was fun and I think Thor enjoyed it (oh the things we do for our fur babies hahah). We left the farm after 25 minutes and the parking was now full. My friend that I invited to join us couldn’t go in the morning like we wanted to, so they had gone they day before after noon and it was like an ant city she said, they had turned around and gone somewhere else. Now when they say that the virus is air born and can spread pretty far, we don’t want to put ourselves in crowded situations, so we knew we had to go early. Our experience at the farm was great. The picking (blueberries, apples, peaches etc) was over for the season but with a dog it would have pretty hard to enjoy that anyway, so this was perfect.

If we hadn’t gone to the store just a few days before we would have got more veggies and fruit at the farm
.
I had to google why it’s called cider.. In Europe we think of fizzy drinks or drinks with alcohol when we hear the word cider, but here in America that’s called “hard cider” and this type of cider is basically just juice. 
The pie is amazing!

We were so tired for some reason during the rest of the day that we ended up doing absolute nothing. In the evening we watched some newer horror movie that at first seemed promising but then was just annoying, just like all the other so called horror movies. Why can’t anyone make a good scary movie these days? If you know any good movies, please comment on this post, I have yet to find something good. 

Our weekend was amazing, we could not have picked a better weekend to go on adventures with Thor. And if this is our actual last fall up north then I think we have nailed the fall activities by now hahah. 

I hope y’all had an amazing weekend as well and that you got to enjoy the outdoors.
Have an awesome week!

In Stamford

ruff year for Mr Fluff

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

October 5, 2020

Good Morning! I woke up at 4am today and could not fall back to sleep. I listened to maybe 5 different sleep meditations and it did not work. Finally at 7am I fell asleep only to wake up 20 minutes later. My plan was to get up around 6 today but I knew I would be too tired if I actually got out of bed then. Oh well. Maybe I can take a nap later:)

This weekend didn’t turn out the way we had planned but still ended up being a really nice weekend. On Thursday we noticed that Thor didn’t want to eat all day. He doesn’t really like the new food (for his bladder stones) so sometimes it takes him awhile to start eating, but on Thursday he was acting a little strange and didn’t want to eat at all. In the late afternoon after we came inside from a potty break, he threw up on the rug by the couch. Quite large and there was what looked like blood in it but we weren’t sure. This seemed to have helped him though, he ate all his food right away and drank lots of water. T seemed fine now so I wasn’t too worried. But then in the morning when J took him out he had blood in his poop, so J called the vet and we got an appointment an hour later.
We were still not allowed to come inside because of corona rules, so they just grabbed Thor and kept him in there for quite some time. They found a tiny bone (?!) in his stomach that could have caused the blood (no idea what that could be, we haven’t seen him pick anything up outside) but they didn’t seem too worried. He got a shot through his back into his stomach and gave us medication. But, the x-rays showed that his bladder stones looked slightly bigger. We had to collect a urine sample later that day and bring it in and the result showed that his pH was 6. Back in March it was at 8 and meant that we could try new diet and see if it would go away by itself, but now it was a 6 which means that he might need that surgery after all. We don’t want it to turn into an emergency operation so I think we should just go ahead and schedule him in. 
Thor is like his normal self again. He is eating, drinking and has lots of energy, so that’s all good. But ya, the stones is an issue. 

On Saturday we had invited our friends to go to a pumpkin/apple farm but since Thor was feeling so crappy before, we canceled. So we had a slow morning at home. Around noon J and I went to the rooftop. Our building decided to host an Oktoberfest for everyone. We had to sign up for a time slot (so that there wouldn’t be too much people at the same time), wear masks and practice social distance. They had beer, snacks and hotdogs. I ate two of the vegan hotdogs and they were so good! We sat up there for awhile, the sun was really nice and warm. 

In the afternoon we took Thor for a walk over to the Orthodox church a block away where they host a Greek Festival every year. No rides or games outside or activities inside this year, only the food, but that’s the only reason why we come anyway:) I got a falafel, J got gyro and then we ordered loukoumades fresh out of the fryer. The food was not that great this year, my falafel was missing the tzatziki and hummus and J’s gyro was drenched in sliced tomato which he doesn’t like. Oh well. After that we watched the new Mulan movie.

On Sunday we were all tired so we ended up sleeping in til 10 am!! Because it was Cinnamon Bun Day I told Jim to go pick up coffee and a coffee roll at Donut Delight. Their coffee cake is the closest thing to a cinnamon bun around here, unless I bake it myself. While still sipping my coffee, my sister called on facetime. Soon I noticed it was already 1pm and I had promised to call my mom on facetime before it was too late. So from one call to another. We only talked for twenty minutes and then J and I went for a walked around downtown with Thor. We dropped him off at home and went out again to go eat the Mexican place. We sat outside at first but the wind got too cold so we moved inside to a table away from the rest of the restaurant. I absolutely love their guacamole and salsa so I always order extra:) 
Back home it was time for football. I spent my evening upstairs on my computer planning out this week.

Hope y’all had an amazing weekend!

In Connecticut

October!

Author Fanny SuraPosted on Leave a comment

October 1, 2020

It is already October!! This year, oh my, it is so strange, feels like it was March a second ago. Every year I hate to admit to myself that I love the fall season. And it’s all thanks to that I moved to NYC because I used to not enjoy this season at all. It is just so pretty out here. Connecticut and New York are beautiful during the fall with all the trees changing color. The best of all is that it stays warmer for a longer time here. This year it has gotten cold earlier but that can change again. In my country they started to wear jackets and possibly hats and gloves depending on where they live probably over a month ago, and I wouldn’t be surprises if they have snow within the next month. This is hopefully our last cold fall/winter (I seem to say that every year but now I really believe it is) and I am actually kinda looking forward to it. Not the cold and the snow of course, but the change in seasons. When we move south we wont have that (can’t wait!!).  And I look forward to wearing all my different sweaters, snuggle up under blankets watching scary movies, light some candles and enjoy many cups of tea. 

Time really does fly by quickly though, especially a year like this. Everything is just weird this year. It started to look a little better this summer it seemed like but now, countries are talking about another lock down because people are idiots and can’t follow rules (just look at the Swedish people, they are all out traveling in Europe or having big school parties, how dumb can you be, why can’t they wait one year?)

And what have we done since my last update. Same same, nothing nothing. There isn’t exactly a lot of safe things to do during a pandemic. But I have some wishes for this month:
* I would like to spend a day on Manhattan before a possible lock down – which scares me a little but NYC is so nice in October
* I found a few pumpkin patches/apple picking farms less than an hour from here and I want to invite our friends to come meet us there, it seems like a safer activity to enjoy together
* Of course I would like to go hiking in different parks before it gets too cold
* It would be nice to go on that mini road trip that we canceled twice but I don’t think we end up doing that
What other outdoor activities can you do during fall? 

Random pics from the past two weeks:

We went for a walk downtown to look at this years summer art in the city,
they had already taken some down though
I’ve done some restorative yogaOur dishwasher broke so we went out to eat 🙂

This is such a cute video ♥
I went for a walk on the “cute street”. Whenever I get to that street I put my headphones away so that I can enjoy the sounds of nature and pay more attention to wildlife (lots of deer, chipmunks and squirrels there)

Thor got a haircut on Sept 25. His coat has lost the black color over the past few months so she didn’t cut too much and she wants him to go back in a month to get a hair treatment. He might have lost his color forever, but we are trying our best to get it back (could be caused by his diet for bladder stones which might have less nutrition, or it could be from that the groomer we tried in February (and will never ever use again) misunderstood us and shaved him – poms are not supposed to get those short haircuts! We have gone to the beach – Cove Island
My sister often calls me up for facetime. Here my niece Mila and I are dancing together haha
If you’ve been a tourist in NYC you might know about the store Century21. This store, like so many other companies, recently went bankrupt. So J and I decided last weekend to go check it out (there’s a store in Yonkers, NY). We came when they opened and to our surprise there was an hour long line to get in!! Crazy like we are, we waited. Social distance was practiced and everyone was wearing a mask. And what did we buy? I got the three items above plus a blouse, J got underwear. Hahaha, such waste of time, but now we got to say goodbye to that store:)
Yesterday, Thor and I went for a long walk in Scalzi Park by us.
Wind was colder but the sun was really nice. Fall is definitely approaching.