End of the year

With the New Year come the resolutions, a pledge to do or be better at something. When the year nearly end most of the time you will look back to your New Year resolution for this year only to realize that not even half of your resolutions were achieved. This will either make you think that either a New Year resolution is worthless or the urge that next year you promise PROMISE to commit to your resolutions.

I myself was not the kind of person that bothers to come up with a resolution each time the year ended. But of course there’s always a hope that I would do something or be better at something … come to think of it, I think it is a resolution LOL! This year … I think there are couples of things that I want to do/achieve

1. Like every other year I promise to do the 5 times a day prayer more religiously and not to miss them
2. Go to at least 1 holiday destination and have a good time
3. Take Baby R for a holiday trip (this could be done parallel to point no. 2)
4. Eat a decent French Cuisine in a nice fancy French restaurant
5. Have 1 day of mind blowing shoe shopping without even have to think about credit card bill
6. Learn how to sew
7. Loose the flabby tummy and shed couple of kilos away – Note to self: have to watch my diet for the sake of Baby R

I think that’s about it for now, I don’t want to promise myself anything to complicated or unreasonable. Just sumtin simple that I know I would be able to do and give me the momentarily satisfaction.

Her first trip

I’ve wanted to take Raysa to see my Grandmas and Grandpas in Blitar since she was born but decided to wait until after she was 3 months old. Finally last long Christmas weekend we took an 8 o’clock flight to Malang (the nearest airport from Blitar). When I arrived at the airport, it was really packed there since it’s the holiday seasons. What I’m pissed off about is that obviously a lot of people in Indonesia don’t seemed to know the idea of queuing … me pushing a stroller obviously cannot do much with people who squeeze themselves in to the queue. Secondly I’m really pissed of at airport management for not providing an easy access for people with baby … hello … no one seemed to care whether the area is packed with people or there’s any baby around, they’re just smoking like there’s no tomorrow.

But … the trip is going uphill from then onward. The flight was only delayed for 30 min at the max (that’s really a good thing here in Indonesia!). The flight was not that bad and Raysa was sleepin all through the flight, she seemed to enjoy it. Except when we touched down she was a bit noisy, cause I think she poo … and she did!

Overall … I kinda enjoy the trip. I met both Grandmas and Grandmas and other extended families. I enjoyed knowing that they’re happy and excited to see Raysa and vice versa she’s also happy meeting her families as well. She rarely sleep when we were there, she spend her days laughing and playing with them.

Another reason why I enjoyed this trip is that I got to eat a lot of nice stuff, from gudeg, pecel punten, nasi goreng, soto Pak Haji and sate kambing Tulung Agung. All the nice beautiful food that I love…

Really … you never knew what you’ve got until its gone. I’ve always take it for granted every time my parents planning a trip to Blitar during the Ied, but this trip I’m really looking forward to it cause I was unable to go to Blitar during the Ied cause Raysa was just 1 months old.

Playin with Baby R

Don’t you just hate Monday … don’t you just wished it’s Friday all over again?

Nenda masih belum pulang dari tripnya sama Uya Desy, tapi Akung udah balik tadi malem but then he left for Bogor on Mon morning and went straight to Malang in the afternoon. He text me before he left to Malang untuk bilang kalau si Akung udah sempet ketemu Raysa pagi” dan begitu liat Akungnya katanya Raysa langsung tengkurep … how cute! Sebelum mandiin Raysa pagi” sempet bongkar” koper si Akung dan ternyata ada beberapa oleh” buat Raysa. Nenda and Akung bought her couple of toys (as seen on the pic). A raincoat jacket with a matching hat – which I’m seriously wondering where and when in the world she’ll be wearing them – ceritanya sih si Akung cita”nya mau bawa Raysa holiday keluar negri kalau udah agak besaran dikit, trus kalau ujan dipakein de jaket ma topinya. Hah? Plis de Pa kalau ujan juga paling Raysanya dibawa masuk kedalem atau dipayungin …. Ha ha ha … imajinasi berlebihan nih Akungnya! Trus ada romper biru with matching hat model joker gitu, wah biru lagi … nanti udah gundul dipakein biru dikirain bayi cowok lagi!

Pas mau pergi kerja pagi” sempet bingung juga soalnya R ada lunch meeting, takutnya Baby R agak rewel kalau ditinggalin sama Nanny-nya aja … last Friday sih Raysa ditungguin andungnya, diajakkin ngobrol” terus jadinya nggak rewel malah ketawa” seharian gitu katanya. Akhirnya pas lagi di jalan telpon Bunda Nadia untuk nanya bisa check on Raysa during lunch time atau nggak. Setelah nge-check sama Uncle Sandy-nya akhirnya Bunda Nadianya ke rumah ngecek Raysa jam 2an gitu (Thanks yah Nad!). Dan gak lama setelah itu R udah pulang, jadinya Raysanya seneng deh banyak yang ngajakkin maen. Waktu pulang sayangnya nggak sempet ketemu sama Nadia, karena dia takut udah sore macet dan ujan.

Pulang kerja langsung mandiin Raysa, trus Raysa maen” bentar sama Nanny-nya while I clean myself and get changed. Setelah itu malah Raysa sempet tidur, tapi nggak lama Cuma 30 menitan abis itu maunya maen” aja. Akhirnya ditaruh at Mom and Dad’s bed and she played and fall asleep and played again until 9.30 and finally I moved her to her bed.

Tapi yang parah malem” jam 2 Raysa bangun malah ngajakkin ketawa”, agak” ngantuk gitu sambil minumin Raysa dan ngajakkin becanda akhirnya nggak lama dia tidur. Eh … tapi jam 3 dia bangun lagi … she vomit a little so I changed her … tapi dianya malah ketawa” gituh, ha ha … mungkin dia mau ngerjain Mommynya kali ya. Terus abis itu nggak mau tidur lagi, jadi de nemenin Raysa sampe hampir jam 4 dia keliatannya udah tidur. Ternyata, I got tricked … she wake up again 15 min after that … udah nggak ada tenaga untuk bangun lagi akhirnya dengan terpaksa si Raysa di handover ke Nannynya dulu karena hari ini harus bangun exkstra pagi sebelum pergi ke kantor untuk mandiin Raysa.

Jadilah hari ini saya agak” ngantuk di kantor … ZzzZZzzzz

Holiday Season

These are the days when the rain starts to pour down to earth, the wind breeze blew your face softly and the smell from the morning dew awakens your joyous spirit. As romantic as it sounds but these are also the days when you go to and from work accompanied by ridiculous traffic, occasional flood are seen on most of the road in town and where you have to maneuver your step very carefully from the water pond on the sidewalk.

This is the holiday season!

Since I’m not celebrating Christmas I wouldn’t get pressies, but there’s no wrong in giving yourself pressies for the celebration of a great one year journey as we’ll be leaving 2006 behind soon and welcomes 2007.

Among thousands other things, here are my (make up) wish list for this holiday season:

1. Smashbox - All Access Beauty Must Haves

The set includes my most wanted item Photo Finish Foundation Primer mini and Brow Tech Trio, in addition it also have Cream Eyeliner in black, Soft Lights in Tint for highlighter, Eyeshadow trio in Smashbox.com (gold shimmer, soft pink shimmer, and rich chocolate) and Lipgloss in 35 mm (shimmering peachy copper). Plus a cream eyeliner brush and angled brow. Definitely value for money!

2. Smashbox - Beauty A-Go-Go Palette & Brush Kit

Packed with ten eyeshadow colors in gold shimmer, ivory sheen, champagne shimmer, charcoal sheen, rich gold shimmer, taupe shimmer, plum with gold glitter, and matte black, and four lip glosses with 3 rosy/nude combination and 1 berry color which I really want to try. And ... like other palette it have extra 2 higlithers which in my opinion are not that important. How many higlighters does a girl need anyway?

3. Bare Escentuals - Get Started Kit - Medium Beige/Medium

I'm dyin to try this brand coz one of my CC friends said that it is her HG foundation & powder. I'm kinda hesitant though, cause she also said that its abit tricky applying a mineral foundation. Your skin has to be super fresh, not too dry and not too oily either. BE cosmetics are made of pure crushed minerals from the earth so its friendly to your skin, I wouldn’t expect any breakout from their product. The tagline said it’s makeup so pure you can sleep in it … LOL! However pure they are … I would try not to sleep with my make up on, it’s not good to your skin.

The package comes with 2 shades of foundation so that you can mix them to ensure your perfect match, bareVitamins Skin Rev-er Upper that acts as a primer, Mineral Veil for a translucent finishing touch and Warmth All Over Face Color which I supposed will act as a bronzer. They also provide you with flawless application brush (kinda looked like a normal brush to me), full coverage kabuki brush (ex kinda brush) and maximum coverage concealer brush. The last brush I’m v interested with, cause applying mineral concealer is as tricky as the foundation, you have to dust lightly but also have to cover the area really well.

4. Urban Decay - Urban Ammo Eye Palette

Nothing special, just another eyeshadow palette with 10 (interesting) shades, they are:Smog (deep coppery bronze), Maui Wowie (sandy sheen), Mildew (shimmering metallic green), Shattered (bright iridescent aquamarine), Oil Slick (black with rainbow glitter), Polyester Bride (sheer white shimmer), Last Call (iridescent plummy purple), Grifter (sparkling pale purple), Chopper (shimmering fawn with glitter), and Sin (light shimmering champagne).

5. Too Faced - The Jewelry Box

Another combination palette for face, eye, cheeks, and lips. Nothing really interesting about the color, it's just that it have everything you need in one package. Eyeshadows, lipglosses, powder, blush, highlighter, eyeliner cake ... you name it!

My best friend's wedding

Taken at Karina's wedding akad on Saturday, 16th of December 2006. She used to sit next to me on 7th grade of junior high. Never really realized how bule she is until I saw her childhood photo on her living room, not a single indo look insight! Well anyway ... I wish you a wonderful life together (",)

Sleeping safely

Who among us hasn’t crept in and leaned over the crib to see the rise and fall of the baby chest? This is a question that I read from an online article, and I myself often do this when Raysa was just newly born. The truth is … I still do this once or twice nowadays. Before I gave birth I heard a lot about SIDS or the terrifying Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, basically it’s a situation where a normal healthy baby suddenly died with no apparent reason. Obviously the horrifying statistics of babies died because of SIDS makes me disturbed even more. I received many advices and read a lot of article on how to put baby to sleep safely. From many of them, here are the basic …

1. Put your baby to sleep on her back.

I know that you supposed to put your baby to sleep on her back, but for the first couple of weeks I usually put Raysa on her side if she was sleeping while I sleep. I’m afraid that she’ll vomit and I couldn’t catch her on time. The point is not to let your baby sleep on her stomach without supervision. But according to the article, once the baby can roll over easily, you can actually let her choose her own sleep position. Alas, I’m still uneasy leaving Raysa to sleep on her stomach unattended whether she likes it or not.

2. Give your baby a smoke-free environment.

Ciggies smoke is a total no no for babies health!

3. Breastfeed your baby.

You may have heard it thousands of times but breast milk have many benefits and it’s the best milk nature can offer. Although Raysa have allergies (genetic that is!), she’s a v healthy baby thanks to the breast milk. BTW, I don’t breastfeed directly cause she’s such an impatient baby plus I’m back to work now.

4. Put your baby on firm mattress.

On the contrary to what we believe, babies are best put on a firm mattress without all the puffy accessories and stuffed toys. This to allow a proper air circulation around the baby’s face..

5. Avoid overheating your baby.

I have no problem at all with this, cause Raysa will starts to cry frantically if the weather is hot. The AC have to be on at all time when she’s sleeping but we set it at a 24 or 26 degrees.

When in Paris

I was so surprised to see Audrey Hepburn’s movie airing on a TV channel this movie. I only saw a bit of it, but I remembered seeing a movie with a similar story line played by Mark Walhberg and Thandie Newton called The Truth about Charlie. After a bit of googling I found out that TTAC was actually a remake of Audrey Hepburn’s movie with Cary Grant called Charade, therefore the similarities.

I always love love Audrey Hepburn, she’s petite and beautiful and a true definition of the word classy. If I remember correctly she was born from a royal blood family, so classy is already on her blood since the day she was born. I only saw couple of scenes, but in all the scenes she looked gorgeous, as ever! She wore a red knee length coat with a leather gloves when she went to the police station. For dinner she wore – of course – the famous little black dress.

Shirt & Dress

Been seeing a lot of this shirt under dress combo on many designer collections for this season, these particular looks are from Tocca. It actually looked chic and stylish, it give you choice to cover up your sleeveless dresses for office. I’m pretty much bored with the dress and cardi combo. Plus its pretty hard to find a nice decent cardi that can pretty much do justice to your lovely dress. But it took a lot of courage and creativity to be able to pull off this style, and I’m not sure I have one. Not to mention I’m now avoiding layering as much as possible, although I know it’s also big this season. The reason being is my baby excess weight baggage of course! I still love the dress and legging combination though, cause the legging help to elongate my leg if I wear the right heels. Actually legging is nice to wear with flat but unfortunately I need the extra inches that heels will be able to provide.

Making their comeback

Sometime they come back … including fashion trends! So what’s making they’re come back this season?

1. Red

Like Justin said, bring sexy back! What could be sexier than a red kissable lip as seen on Monica Bellucci for Dior Rouge lipstick ad. My choice of drug would be Lancomé Color Fever Gloss in Mercury Rising or MAC Couture lipstick in Red No 5. FYI, I am not discrediting Dior Rouge here, I choose Lancomé simply because I prefer lipgloss over lipstick and Mac cause I’m used to it. Next in line would be the red heels, I always love red heels but never find the perfect one until today. Red heels will sass up your so-called normal attire, it draws attention for those seeking for one. Red colored clothes are also big this season, be it a dress, top or skirts. The key is not to over use the power of red, pick one or two pieces of red and match it with black or white if you’re feeling nationalist.

2. Dresses


My one true love, dresses! The perfect dress can hide imperfection on your body figure and it can also enhance your best part. They have been very nice and forgiving to the baby baggage on my figure. The best choices from this season trends are the wrap, empire cut and mini dresses. The best of wrap absolutely came from the Diane Von Furstenberg collection. The selections of fabric are so beautiful, from a nice printed organdy to a lovely array of chiffon silk. What I particularly love about Diane’s dresses is the long and wide wrap tie that enhances your waist cut, you can team this up with the peep toe shoes that have been making their appearances on almost every shoes store window for a feminine look. Since Diane’s wrap dresses are v exp, what left to do is to go get yourself a copy from your tailor or the next best knock off. The empire cut dresses are especially big this season with the wide waist belt and the minis are very chic with the leggings or a pair of skinny leg jeans. The edgy Marni dresses are still hip as well! I especially love the water color dress; this seller in e-bay is auctioning the dress that I mentioned.

3. Crop Jacket


Remember back in the days when Jackie O is mourning for the JFK assassination? Where she often spotted with the crop jacket and oversized shades? Yeap, the jacket along with the oversized shade are making their comeback. This one is from Zara TRF, I love the vintage inspired prints but doesn’t really like the fabric – I think part of it have jersey element. Topshop also have some nice collections of crop jacket a la Jackie O, but they sell off pretty quick.

Midnite Madness

I finally went to the midnite shopping! Try this and that and finally bought Mattew Williamson jersey dress with a sort of vintage print design and black shirt dress from Oasis. Both of them can hide my fat tummy really well, that's why I love them so much. But Raysa is the lucky girl yesterday, she bagged herself 3 cute dresses and 1 matching top & pants. Just couldnt help myself on not to buy baby dresses ... they're so irressistable.

Christmas treat

I’m seriously goin broke this month! I went out for lunch at SC with Mom and Raysa only to find out that Debenhams is having Midnight Shopping as a Christmas treat for everyone. From 10PM till midnite on 7-10 Dec they’re having a buy 1 get 1 free offer for most of the item on store. An offer that is too hard to be missed!

Seriously! I’m goin insane, I already have a long list on what to buy just by browsing the store today. Am totally goin to have the ruffle shirt dress from Oasis maybe in red or blue. The shirt dress from Red Herring is tempting as well, so does the one from Warehouse … am contemplating on all the possibilities that lies before my eyes! There’s this one dress from Betty Jackson Black that caught my eyes, but it’s too pricey by Indonesian salary standard … if you know what I mean! They have Guess shoes as well at the buy 1 get 1 offer, unfortunately they only stock the carrie pump in leopard print, I'm lookin for the black or white one.

Ok that’s it for today … let’s see what I successfully bag by the end of tomorrow. If I can go out at all tomorrow …

3 months mark

Another month has passed … and today Raysa is 3 months old. She was still sleeping when I left for work. I carried her before I left and tried to wake her up, but she’s being an arrogant baby and only opened her eyes for a couple of seconds to check the situation and when she saw me carrying her she went back to sleep. I keep bugging her but she won’t wake up. But when I said that mommy is going for work, just then and there she opened her eyes …

She’s so cute …

Nowadays when she fell asleep during the evening there’s no way that you could wake her up from her sleep. She would just stretch and changed her position when I tickled her. She would often wake up 3 in the morning and insisting mommy to wake up and play with her or else she would shout her “aah” and “uuh” that sort of trying to call your name. When she didn’t get the attention that she wanted she will cry, but I sort of can tell her so-called attention seeking cry. As soon as you talk and play with her, she will giggle again.

She’s totally an attention seeker

Oversize-ly Sassy

One of these days I should find my self a sassy oversize bag like in the picture. Gosh … nowadays when I left for the office I’m carrying a lot of stuff with me. Especially if I don’t have time to prep myself at home, I have to carry all of my make-up with me and all other thing that I don’t have time to do at home. Not to mentioned the cooler box, baby bottle, pumping machine and 3 bottle of milk for me. Now I’m stuck carrying a paper bag to fit all of my stuff. Sometimes I even throw most of the things into my poor little hand bag. Maybe one day I would have to bag a sleeping bag to overcome the midday fatigue at the office ... LOL!

You know what? I think it took some serious talent to be able to translate from one language to another, from instance from English to Indonesia or vice versa. Being an Indonesian that speaks fluent English doesn’t make an instant English-Indonesian translator. Seriously! Even my besties that speaks English v fluently and have a perfect grammar still insist that translating is the most challenging task ever. Even when practice makes your skill perfect but she still believes that if you don’t have the needed talent you ain’t gonna nail it!

In a way you have to split your brain into two sections, one of them would be the English-Indonesian section and the other would be the Indonesian-English section. Each word will have a representation for one another. You cannot think that they’re two separate entities. Seriously! It’s hard!

Like yesterday when I have to translate sumtin and I came across the word livelihood, and I was thinking really hard till my brain sweating to find the Indonesian word … in the end I just couldn’t find the perfect word although being an English word themselves I already grasp the meaning of livelihood.

Lack of sleep

Last nite I couldn’t go to sleep, maybe it’s the coffee or maybe it’s because today is my first day at work. It’s really hard to say goodbye to Raysa this morning, she was still sleeping on her swinging chair when I kissed her goodbye. I missed her today … I wonder what she’s doin now?

Adopted Friend

I accidentally ran into a friend of mine today in PIM 2. He said that he’s kind of surprised to see me there cause just seconds before he ran into me he tried to call me on my mobile just to say hello. He was one of those types of “adopted friend”, the friend of your best friend that you often met and without realizing it you suddenly become a friend with each other. You started to refer to his/her not as “a friend of my friend” anymore but as “a friend of mine”. The perfect friend to go C&C with, and to laugh and whine about the roads and turns that you take on your life, about the wedding plan (we’re both planning to wed at that time), about shit happening with your jobs, about your future expectation and about nonsense.

Last time I saw him was at a besties’ b’day a year ago in October and that was the last time we go out for a C&C. We we’re both newly wed and he was announcing the good news that his wife is pregnant. Congratulation is in order of course … and that was the last time I saw him until today!

I was pushing Raysa’s pram when I saw him … and we laugh at the whole situation that not so long ago we we’re C&C-ing together and bitching about life and now we we’re all in baby land.

So what’s happening with your life my friend? Maybe we can go out for a C next time without the other C :)