The happiness project

Ten good things from today.

1. The good news from Ukraine, where violence has ceased and people are slowly returning to normal life. I’ve heard so many inspirational radio interviews on people who may have suffered significant losses, and yet, they speak with such poetic beauty about their country, their fellow citizens, democracy, truth, human rights and the future. I can’t remember when I last heard a Finnish person speak that way – if ever?
2. Tulip season. Today’s tulips are bright red and there are 15 of them.
3. EU elections are on the way. I may have asked Frank Underwood to come and fix the elections on Twitter, but honestly, I’m really eager to see what happens.
4. Daydreaming. I’m dreaming of taking a year off, moving abroad, focusing on writing, enjoying culture and finding new horizons. I think it’s called the work-life balance, you know, a little more focus on life and less on work?
5. New projects that come your way if you only say yes. Today I was introduced to a project that seems pretty out of the box. It combines climate change, piano music and new technology. Exciting! I’ll keep you posted if (when) something good comes out of it.
6. Spotify’s Sunday stroll playlist. Excellent feel-good music to keep these happy thoughts coming.
7. In less than 30 days Rufus Wainwright will perform in Helsinki.
8. At work, I bumped into a public sector project that has a hilarious abbreviation. Sadly, the wordplay only works in Finnish, but I’m not exaggerating when I say the English counterpart would be the FCUK-project. Yes, really.
9. The fabulous Molla Mills is not only making more Virkkuri-books for us crochet fanatics (books II and III on the way), but she’s also reaching out to the Finnish country branding team, Team Finland, with her fantastically smart crochet initiative: black metal band logos. I’m pretty sure heavy music (or black metal, like in this case) is not the first thing on the official country branding agenda, but let’s face it, Finland is pretty well-known for this type of music.
10. Now I get to go to bed with Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch.

♣ In the meantime: This unnamed saga will never leave the Finnish news cycle, it seems.

♥ Song of the day: Aloe Blacc, The man