Happy happy joy joy

It´s annoyingly important to seek happiness these days. More important is to be content and do things you like. This may sound really obvious but do people practise what they preach? And why are there so many obligations in life? As the Finnish saying has it: in this life only dying and paying taxes are obligatory!

Also, in the words of Steve Jobs who just passed away, life is too short to be doing something you don´t enjoy. It´s pretty straight-forward, and true. But still I know many people who do things just because “they´re supposed to” or because they don´t have the courage to change things. You go to the gym because it´s a healthy hobby even if it bores you to death. You maintain unsatisfying friendships because you´ve been friends forever. You´re stuck with your job because you don´t have any other education...

It may be hard to find your true passion in working life, let alone to make drastic changes. Yet I still think here in rich western countries we have a lot of choice and freedom and the society helps us in many ways. The worst thing that can happen isn´t normally very fatal. Of course the society would rather we graduate quickly and work all our lives effectively. That doesn´t sound very humane to me. The notorious “system” doesn´t support soft values like freedom and happiness.

It´s useful try to imagine how you would feel when you´re very old. What kind of things do you look back at? What do you regret? I like to tell myself at the moment of decision making: do whatever you would regret the least!

In other words, if you feel in your heart/guts/stomach that something better awaits, trust your instinct! Even the craziest ideas can come true if you put some thought and effort to it. Homer Simpson said: Trying is the first step towards failure. But it might aswell be a step towards success.

When you find something you truly enjoy, you don´t even have time to long for something better. Slight changes can always be made but everyday life should be atleast satisfactory. Happiness is its by-product. It´s a passing moment; autumn light through curtains, smell of fresh coffee or touch of a hand. Joy can bubble and burst or maybe it just sits inside your chest like a cooing dove (easy there, Shakespeare!). Did you ever feel that way because you bought something nice? I didn´t think so. Happiness is something more profound and inexplicable. Like someone said: Ask yourself if you are happy and you become unhappy. (Sorry for my quote diarrhoea!)

I know some fool-proof tricks to feel happy. It might not work for everyone but just try unless you´re busy realizing your real calling in life...

• learn new skills and develop yourself
• be out in the nature
• see beautiful pictures and movies
• create something beautiful yourself
• listen to good music (I mean really listening)
• play games and win from time to time ;)
• joke, fool around and laugh out loud (LOL)
• have crush on someone
• make fantastic food out of good ingredients
• get excited
• plan a trip
• be close to other humans, hug and smooch :*
• be close to animals e.g. stroke cats
• help others, volunteer
• smile for no reason (yes, you will look like an idiot)
• grow herbs or other plants
• set a goal and achieve it
• ...

Super shopping !!!

It looks like this blog is quickly turning into a health food blog. It´s something I´m really enthusiastic about, have been for quite a while, so maybe it should be the theme of this website. But... I like my freedom of writing about whatever feels interesting at differend times. 

I just want to share my first ever purchase from iHerb with you! This webshop is pretty amazing and the prices won´t make you gasp. iHerb has a lot of groceries, natural beauty products, superfoods, organic food, diet supplements... you name it! No, no one paid for me to say this...  

 

 

Greetings from Ameeerica

It took two weeks full of anticipation for this lovely parcel to arrive. ImmunePunch and the shampoo were just free samples. Haven´t tried them yet. Would´ve been nice to receive that ImmunePunch a few weeks earlier though...

There´s raw cacao powder full of good stuff as it says on the bag. It´s completely differend from ordinary cacao powder because this one is literally raw and it hasn´t been processed or heated in high temperatures which is exactly why it´s full of superb nutrients.

There´s green tea with mandarin, orange, ginseng and jasmine. There´s raw honey with bee propolis and pollen the taste of which just blows me away! It´s malty, it´s rich and you can tell by the taste that it´s something very very special.

The chocolate by Chocolove is long gone but I savoured every single piece of it... It was 55% dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt. While browsing on iHerb I instantly fell in love with this consept of the chocolate bar being a "love letter". Every wrapping even has a love poem inside! The whole product is just excellent through and through. This particular flavour was fantastic and the salt gives it a perfect twist. Other flavour are equally appealing: Dark Orange, Chili Cherry, Peppermint etc. This is what chocolate is supposed to taste like! Milk chocolate is not chocolate, I say...;)

Check it yourself, these items are not as expensive as they may sound. Easy way to get some proper food or e.g. vitamin supplements for the dark season.

I now walk into the wild

Dear readers! I got better after exactly seven days of flue! The minute I felt like all the phlegm had left my wind pipe, I got up from my sickbed and went out to the forest. There´s so much good stuff out there and I´m getting more and more interested in it. During the past week I´ve been getting down on my knees and collecting some seriously healthy wild food.

Blackberry (karhunvatukka)

These vitamin bombs don´t grow on my home latitudes so I´m really thrilled to find them here in southern Norway. It took me a while to figure that only the very ripe ones are sweet. It´s not enough that the berry is black: it must also be soft(ish) and come off easily. On my first berry trip I was so greedy that I pulled out some berries with force. Obviously, they were too bitter. Blackberry grows near to the ground so it´s not always easy to spot it. But once you do, there´s a whole lot of them! The branches are thorny, though, which makes things a bit inconvenient.

Still more to come.

Nettle (nokkonen)

Everyone knows this annoyingly stinging plant that grows just about everywhere. The best season for collecting nettle is spring when the leaves are still small. Later in summer you can collest the upper leaves. Nettle is incredibly nutritious with e.g. five times more vitamin C than the orange! It´s pretty much like spinach but nutritional values are far better. Use it for soups, pancakes, stir fries etc.

At this time of the year I didn´t find that much nice looking leaves but I managed to make some food. I quickly boiled the nettle, squeezed it dry, chopped it and mixed it with butter and garlic. Dead easy and lovely tasting nettle spread was done.

Rose hip, blackberries and homemade nettle spread.

Rose hip (ruusunmarja)

This berry I know nothing about. It´s fairly unknown as alimentary product. What I know is that when I in primary school tasted a fresh one it made me throw up. So I didn´t give a thought to this berry untill now.

However, this is another superb vitamin supply that is easily found. The plant is of course rose so the berry can come in many differend forms. It´s also high on vitamin C and can therefore prevent cold, apart from other superfood qualities. I wanted to dry them and use as tea. A downside is that it´s hell of a lot of work to split every single berry and deseed them! Maybe that´s why nobody uses rose hip.

Collect orange ones rather than the very ripe, scarlet red ones. When the berry is overly ripe it´s really mushy and difficult to handle. I´ll tell you later how the tea tastes once I finish with drying.

...

If price is what modern people are most interested in, I don´t see why more people don´t go out and collect food from the nature. It´s free and as healthy as it gets. But I suppose it´s just easier to buy whatever the local supermarket offers. And of course, nobody advertises nettle and how cool and sexy it is to eat it...

Nature is fundamentally pure and free of chemicals, preservatives etc. By using wild plants from your surroundings you´re not contributing any questionable business or transport from overseas. You can know exactly where you´re food comes from and what´s more, what it really is. I want to know because I only settle for the best food. No need to explain why.

Happy autumn!