Good grief I am exhausted from today.

We drove up north a bit looking at a few plots of land for our new cabin. It was something like a 6 hour round trip driving. Way longer than we expected. We met some new friends along the way though, like a little hopping bird that just would not understand that we were forced to keep following it on the road as it ran something of a bird marathon in front of us (we rolled slowly along behind it). There was also that puppy that kept attacking our Mini One? Yep, it too knew our car was too small to be anything but a toy.

The plot we saw was beautiful. Sandy beach, birches, meadow with tall grass, big open lake. We’ll see, but I’m getting excited about finding the right place! It was a very Finnish afternoon as we were promptly invited to have coffee at the plot owners house (and even some vendace soup he’d just made!) Oh Finland and your coffee socialization.

So we left at 10 am in the morning and we got back at 8 pm. Needless to say I have a terrible headache from the day and from staying up until 3 yesterday finishing projects.

Today I took it easy and made two things relatively quickly. One was this lady cut out of paper, sipping a cocktail, and the other was me, sipping a cocktail.
I made a Finnish twist on the cosmopolitan, substituting lingonberry (a tart Northern relative of the cranberry) liquor and adding a dash of raspberry soda.

the Rural (a Finnish cosmopolitan)

2.5 cl Finlandia vodka
2 cl lingonberry liquor
1/2 lime
dash of raspberry soda

Mix ingredients over ice, strain into chilled glass rimmed in sugar and garnished with lime and strawberry.