I almost can't believe it - this is my 600th post here at Paperiaarre! I'm ridiculously proud of myself at the moment. Back in 2007, when I created this blog (and Paperiaarre), I certainly didn't imagine I'd still be writing here in 2016. I doubt I actually thought about my future past the next year back then.

To celebrate this 600th post milestone I want to share with you the best things I own. You may be aware of my second blog called Emil's featuring black and white photos from Emil's albums. These days there are not one or two but three of Emil's photo albums in my possession! In my other blog I've already shared the contents of the first two albums either page by page or photo by photo, and today I'm adding the last small album there, too.

These albums hold hundreds of old photos from the early decades of last century, taken by Emil, the husband of my great grandaunt Saima (who also is the subject of many of his photos). She passed away a long, long, time before I was even born, but there's this wonderful/odd connection between us. And by connection I mean, I'm just endlessly fascinated by her. She was the sister of my maternal great grandmother, and both of them were skilled at making things by hand, and also at surrounding themselves with most beautiful little things. Saima is the person my mother and grandmother and my aunt told me stories about when I was little. Maybe it was because she had the longest hair on Earth (not true, but just saying...) and I was in the process of trying to beat her record (I didn't - I quit after my hair reached somewhere below my waist and at that stage I wasn't even fully grown myself), and they thought I'd be interested in hearing about the cool old aunt.

The first album is also the largest. It was given to me by my grandmother in 2008, and she hoped I could reuse the leather on the covers on some bookbinding project of mine and maybe toss the rest of the album. She had no idea how little I cared for the scarred and stained leather on the covers and how much I adored the photos inside.

After seeing my Emil's blog enthusiasm, my Aunt P then generously gave me the blue album in 2014 and the tiny floral album last year. The tiny album is a gem - I love the print, and especially how the front cover has faded into a perfect colour scheme. The fabric on the back cover still has the original colours, which admittedly are very pretty, too.

This album has only a handful of photos - I've been told they're from a trip to Porvoo. I couldn't tell, as it's been decades since my last visit there and I'm not that many decades old. I'd love to go back and take some photos there myself. Maybe not ones where I recline gracefully in nature, though; such things are unfortunately very unnatural to me.

Maybe someone a hundred years from now will think of me as the cool great grandaunt. Things considered cool at the moment will be totally lame then, so I suppose I could have a chance...

To end this post I'd now like to thank you, my dear reader, from the bottom of my heart. Blogging would be so boring if you weren't here reading my words and leaving comments.