Halipulla

February 21st, 2017

IMPORTANT, please notice!

I'm way behind with giving my ratings and I'm very sorry for this! I have more than 200 unread email waiting to be looked at. Yeah, and that's after Gmail has already removed spam and advertising emails. Please be patient, I will rate you all :) If you need my urgent attention please mention that in subject line on your email or PM.

I will keep sending those swaps I'm already in but I think I need a short pause to get my life back together so I can give you all the attention you deserve and IN TIME :) I'm doing my best with all the swaps even with this messy situation, so don't worry about getting just something jammed in to an envelope and sent to you. It's the ratings that are late, swaps will be sent in time :)

Hello!

If you told me to tell just one thing about me it would be that I'm really into cows. Some might say I'm obsessed but it's not like that. I just love cows in every possible way.

It started when I was 16 and went to school for animal care taking and I met some awesome dairy cows. My uncle had had(well, they still have beef cattle) cows but I don't think I ever was in close contact with them. In school, the more I spent time around cows the more I fell in love. I could not believe something so wonderful existed! Later I had to quit school for health reasons. As I could no longer spend my time around real cows I started to get all kinds of cow stuff. At first it was stuffed animals mostly but as the time went on there was more and more stuff I just had to have. When I moved to my first own apartment all my plates, glasses and mugs were somewhat related to cows. I now have quite a lot cow stuff but nothing can come even close the real live ones. I really hope one day I can get healthy enough so I can finish my education and start working with cows.

I like crocheting though I'm not very good at it. I can't read patterns and all must be personally taught to me. I don't mind it and as I know some techniques I can create stuff without actual patterns. I can't make two of exactly the same but I like diversity.

I have carpal tunnel syndrome and sometimes my right hand is rather useless. It affects my crafts and also writing with pen. There are days I can't write more than few words without dropping the pen and stretching my hand and even on my good days I can't write more than one page at a time. For this reason I can't write long letters by hand or it would take days to do so with all the pauses and resting my hand in between.

I love reading. I don't like e-books but I need them to be printed on paper. I have few e-books because they were not available on paper and even though they are extremely interested I have not been able to read them through. It just is not the same!

I also love sending and receiving postcards. Themes I like in postcards are cows(obviously), sighthounds(including podencos), Sealyham terriers, badgers, honey badgers, hedgehogs, skunks, pigs, human rights, erotic cards of women or gay couples(nothing too extreme, like pee or poo), nude women, plus size women, cherry blossom, traditional Japanese buildings and architecture, colours pink and purple and neon colours, Following terrier breeds: Sealyham, Cesky, Scottish, Dandie Dinmont, Skye. In vintage images there often is Westie with Scottie or with Sealyham terrier and that is totally fine.

I don't like following themes: racism, discrimination of any kind, any religion, city views, war, army/military, drugs/alcohol/tobacco, any criminal/illegal stuff, flowers(especially roses) and pictures of dogs other than mentioned above(cartoon style dogs are okay :) ). Oh, and I really really don't like to receive anything with kids or babies on them!

I watch too much TV but at the same time I know I would live totally happy without having it at home. I actually did not have TV at my place before my partner moved in with me. At the time I lived in the same town with my parents so when there was something I just had to see, I went there to watch it. Basically I went to see House MD once a week and that was it.

I live in Finland and I cherish that. On the other hand I have a dream to live abroad a year or so. My favourite abroad to live would be Canada but UK or Ireland would also do. Japan would be amazing place to live but I don't speak Japanese.

I really love sweet treats. In swaps I would be really happy to get a taste of something common or traditional in your country. Even those that foreigners usually think are absolutely bizarre in taste. I like to challenge my taste buds. I have no allergies so you don't need to worry about that. However I don't like the taste of alcohol. So, no food items with alcohol, please. Thanks!

These food items/flavours I like a lot: milk chocolate, white chocolate, coconut, pineapple, berries(not so much as themselves but included to chocolate or other stuff), orange with chocolate. Cashew nuts are my favourite.

Food items/flavours I'm not fan of: Alcohol of any kind, fish and melons. I also don't like peppermint, cherry and watermelon but those are okay to be part of multi-flavour packages as my partner likes them and I don't have to eat those myself :D

I am not politically active nor do I have much interest in that topic. I do vote whenever there is an election to participate but that's about it.

Oh, and I have to mention that I collect abandoned shopping lists. I mean those people have left at the bottom of a shopping basket, missed when supposed to throw to a trash can or otherwise dropped somewhere. I've been doing this for about 2½ years now. I have quite a lot of these and I'm getting better at spotting them and bolder to pick them up. Sometimes they drive my spouse crazy as I'm not the most organized person. I would be so so happy if you happened to find me a shopping list from you local market! Translation for items on it would also be appreciated if not written in English.

Criminal Minds (It is impossible to say how much I love there series!)

Bones

Elementary

Sherlock (BBC)

Numb3rs

How I Met Your Mother

New Girl

House MD

Modern Family

Grey's Anatomy

Glee (only first 3 seasons)

Castle

Grimm (though I've only seen the first season)

Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent

NCIS, NCIS New Orleans

The Big Bang Theory

Friends

Northern Exposure

Dharma & Greg

Will & Grace

Late shows hosted by Conan O'Brian and Stephen Colbert.

Harry Potter

Black Dagger Brotherhood

Twilight (Please do not judge me by this ;) )

I also like reading about psychology, history of mental illnesses and their treatment, books with random facts(such as Freakonomics), animal behaviour(especially dogs and cows), about Japanese, Chinese and Korean culture, memoirs from people surviving from serious difficulties(like holocaust, slavery or North Korea) and many many others.

Poems are important to me yet I have no favourite poet. I read poems in English(both original and translated) but I struggle with old fashioned language. It takes forever trying to get poems written prior to 1900's. That doesn't mean I'm not willing to try, though!

I'm open to suggestions; books, authors, poets, series, you-name-it. I would also love to read something you have written.

I tried to make a list of movies but I could not complete it. I have no ultimate favourites. There are movies that have had a huge influence to my life at that moment but recently there have not been any and it feels weird just to list movies that meant a lot in the past. Just to state my activity of watching movies; I bought a new DVD player in the autumn 2014 and it is still unused in it's box. In that time I have not watched movies on computer either. These days I mostly watch movies shown on TV and living in Finland there really is not too much good or new ones shown.

For me, the world without animals would be a place I could not survive in. This includes both the animals that roam free in the nature and those living with us.

At the moment we have two dogs but in the past I've lived with more dogs, mice, gerbils, cats and a snake.

I didn't get any pets as a kid but I looked after others pets instead. I walked dogs and took some dogs and hamsters/bunnies to live in our house while their owners were out of town. I got my first gerbils at 16-yrs-old after I moved to study and lived in a dorm. At the age of 18 I got my first dog.

Dogs have had their extra special place in my heart for as long as I can remember. The type of dogs I like the most has changed a lot since I was a kid. Back then I liked Labrador retrievers, Rottweilers and Finnish Lapphund(reindeer herder). Now I'm more into terriers and sighthounds.

My n:o 1 breed of dogs is Sealyham Terrier and close second Italian Greyhound.

Other breeds I like a lot: - Cesky Terrier - Scottish Terrier - Skye Terrier - Dandie Dinmont Terrier - All sighthounds (FCI group 10) - Ibizan Podenco - Bloodhound - Coonhound(s) - Russian Black Terrier - Bouvier des Flanders - American Pit Bull Terrier

I don't approve tail docking or ear cropping so please do NOT send me stuff with mutilated dogs. All animals have a right to live their life with natural body parts.

In cats my favourites are Siamese and other Oriental cats. I also like Cornish Rex and hairless cats.

I like farm animals and would love to see/hear of your local landraces or breeds of cow/sheep/pig of your country.

I LOVE raccoons! Anything with raccoons would be lovely. Although I don't want anything made OF raccoons :(

Wild animals I like like like(not in order): badgers, honey badgers, hedgehogs, coatis, rodents(especially mice, rats and elephant shrews), skunks, all kind of foxes, wolverines, otters, beavers, seals, sea lions, squirrels, chipmunks, bisons, buffalos, yaks. These are what came in mind atm but other similar animals most likely will make my day too :D

• I will send my items in time and I assume you will too. Mail is carried Mon-Fri in Finland, not on weekends and not on holidays(such as December 25th and 26th, January 1st, Good Friday)

• I will rate all swaps. It may take a few days but I try to do it as soon as possible. (I won't be offended if you ask where is your rating. I know we all want those quickly.)

• Please note that I live in Finland. It may take a while for letters/postcards/packages to get to you.

• If you do not receive my swap, please PM me before rating so we can solve the case together.

• I try my best to send you a happy swap. If however you find out that my swap is not proper for the swap in question, please PM me so I can re-send.

• You are always welcome to contact me if there is any problems receiving or sending a swap! (or you just want to chat ^^ )

I've been staring this section for about twenty minutes without getting one sentence done. I don't know what to say. I'll just try to write something and get back at this later :) Sorry!

I would like to try make APC's. I had never heard of those before reading term glossary here on S-B but it sounds fun! I just have not found any swaps for those yet o.o I'm open for private swap suggestions too :)

I've been thinking I'd like to try felting but I'm having serious doubts how I would succeed at it.

I'm planning to join a swap for handmade envelopes shortly. I love personal envelopes