Well, like the title says. No matter how minimalist I try to live and how little I want to spend, if there's a cute, poor cat on something -anything-, I want it. Especially if it's hand made in Finland and something useful, too.

2017 was a good year. I'm so blessed having had several good years in a row - plus I do think a bit of an attitude change has helped also. A lot has happened, it's been our (me & hubbys) first full year in Finland, the year we started our business and a year of many ups and downs. I made you a little collage to enjoy, so please do! Click the pics to see the captions.

Happy new year 2018 to all my readers!

Saturday the 29th of April 2017 was a historic day. It's when (as far as we know) the first DIY biogas system in Finland was built, and I was there to make it happen!

Well hello, let me introduce myself! I am Lumia, and I am the entrepreneur and head of the board at my new company Chase & Snow Oy! We (me and husband, the webguru and AD) make functional websites that look good and advertising materials that work for small-to-medium businesses and NGOs. All in all, we're really good at what we do and really excited about the work too!

Happy 2017! I don't know about you, but I don't make resolutions, I make plans for the next year, and one of those plans this year is to participate in and finish the so-called Helmet Reading Challenge. And no, it doesn't mean a helmet like the thing you wear while biking, it's the name of all the libraries of Helsinki and it also means pearls in Finnish!

A week before Christmas me and Nick took the weekend off to head to Koroinen, an association-led culture center in Turku, in order to kickstart the Finnish Permaculture Association. I won't write it all again here, so if you are interested please reat the article at my garden & homestead blog Beyond Buckthorns!