Audit and more dresses

Just finished my ISO audit, and am saved, no non-conformities found and a lot of revision to do.

On other topic, this weekend I had more time to browse on for dresses and found few nice one that I like to own (at least in similar shape and designt).

Manoush, Nancy frill hem dress, very 20ish style if you wear it with side wavy bang. Or very now with waisted belt, I can picture myself in this.

Manoush, Lantern sleeve dress. I like the lantern sleeve trend, it makes my arm look slim. Plus it's in yellow.

Rebecca Taylor, Cactus flower dress. Patterned dress with lantern sleeve? My two favourite in one package.

Tomas Maier, Frill Hem Dress. On a more formal side, with a tube/tank top in different color peeking through the plunging v-neck.

Zac Posen, Polka dot wrap dress. The polka dot print and the draping collar, the waist bow tie and the style in wrap - it all fits together nicely.

Coffee makes me happy

There’s no other better way to start you Monday morning than a perfect cup of coffee.

I leave home earlier than the usual cause my Dad need to be in his office before 8, therefore I had spare time before I need to clock-in to the office. So I decided to go to Starbucks Melawai, I wasn’t sure they were already open at 8 – this is Jakarta, mind you! Surprisingly, they started brewing as early as 7, if you’re being nice they might let you have your coffee couple of minutes before 7!

By 8.15 I was already in my desk at the office spooning the foam from my dry non-fat cappuccino with extra caramel sauce and eating my chocolate croissant. This is good. Life is good from this point of view. Why do I stop taking coffee in the morning? It makes me happy and helps my brain connect all it wires together. During my Uni years, I could not passed the HQ coffee stall on the Melb Central train platform without even parted with my $3.50 for a cup of Hazelnut Latte. I even made friends with the Barista (which makes delicious coffee), turned out he was doing engineering in my university! And I collect all those little swirl stamps so that by the 10th stamps I will get my Tall Latte for free.

Oh rite I just remembered now why I stop buying coffee in the morning, there’s hardly any decent coffee shop that serve coffee early in the morning (except for Starbucks) and conveniently placed within walk distance of my office. Besides, the price a cup of coffee in Starbucks is a killer, with the price of 30k+ a cup, if I keep it up daily, I could be a millionaire by the time I was 50 (okay I’m exaggerating!).

Nevertheless, I started this week in a good foamy way

The dresses that I love

Bottega Venetta, the one ultimate must have dress. It flow so beautifully but, the length, I could have been burried under it. The colour, its soft but yet not a mute.

I forgot from who this one is, but you can find a very similar one from a Bandung designer called Ciel in Debenhams cost at around 500K. I wonder who's behind Ciel?

Floral print shift dress from 3.1 Phillip Lim. Girly flower pattern which fall v flowy bet yet in a loud black and white. Love it! Yet you can found a copy at Ciel. Makes you wonder whether Indonesian designer ever come up with an original that are truly theirs?

Monday Voile dress from Anglomania by Vivienne Westwood. Simple white with a nice cut. Just what I need.

Azzaro, Volume Chiffon Mini dress. I love chiffon, it really flatter my figure!

Two times in a day

Met Mei" twice today for lunch and dinner. We had lunch in Wendy's at Senayan City, its been quite a while since my last junk food meal so I thought Wendy's is appropriate. Still in the hype of italian food, I ordered Spaghetti with extra cheese sauce, love the sauce! Of course, to end the perfect lunch would be a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

After the office hour I met with Mei" again and ate in Bakmi GM, didn't really enjoy my seafood fried rice though. Had Caramel Machiatto in Starbucks afterward (again!). My second cup of coffee for the day, to make it right, I ordered decaf.

Since Mei" and Adi came a bit late I had quite alot of time in my hand to stroll around the beauty dept in Sogo and decided to get a makeover in MAC. My fave MA from PIM is not in PS anymore so I decided to go along with the petit chinese MA and she's quite nice. She shows me all sort of stuff and teach me hot to put on Sable on me. It turned out really good, so decided to buy it. Ok, I felt guilty, I shouldnt have stopped by the MAC counter in the beginning! I even tried the concealer at Shu, and it's really good, creating a major lemming, darn!

I really miss Raysa though, she was asleep when I got home. But when I move her to my bed she's wide awake and happy to see me (am happy to see you too pretty baby!).

Chocolate Melt

Tues - Had a nice lunch with Mei" at Izzi Pizza Mahakam. A bowl of minestrone soup, prawn linguine and a very nice warm chocolate melt with ice cream. Though I still think the chocolate melt in Gran Mahakam/Harvest are much better but I enjoyed lunch. Came home and felt really sick so I decided to pay the doctor a visit. Turned out I had low blood pressure (90/60) and a swollen tonsil.

Wed – Skip work and must stay in bed the whole day. Kind of not a v nice day, inclining towards a mild depression. Of course I cannot kiss kiss Baby R which I cannot help every time I’m around her cause she’s just too cute so I have to restrained myself from her so the virus will not be transferred to her. But I did enjoy the Ugly Betty marathon on DVD, Betty Suarez was hilarious and Daniel Maede is oh so cute! Can't wait for the new episode!

Thurs (today) – Another lunch with Mei” cause somehow I’m 35K short on my CC payment. Bakerzin is great as usual, had oxtail pizza and warm chocolate melt for dessert. Compared to the one in Izzi, I prefer the Izzi one cause this one is too bitter. BTW YouTube is down! Cannot download the Heroes preview (Sobh!)

Is she goin to die?

Seriously! Is mer goin to die? Honestly, I dont think she will. Not that I know this for certain but because ... come on ... the show is called Grey's Anatomy for a reason rite? I dont think they will kill the main character (whose name are used for the show title), it will be ridiculous if they do that.

I certainly cannot do anything to feed my curiousity at the moment, cause sadly Star TV still aired the 2nd Season and not even close to the superbowl 3 episode yet. The (pirated) DVD is not out yet. In the meantime, my daily obsession is to check out the official site and YouTube for any interesting previews and footages.

While searching for the next episode preview of Grey's Anatomy (Titled Some Kind of Miracle), I came across this clip depicting Mer/Der relationship accompanied by an excellent song.

Monthly visit

Its time for Baby R monthly visit to the doctor. I have to pushed back the appointment couple of days cause Jakarta has been in chaos due to the flood which started in the beginning of the months. I was kind of reluctant to take her to the hospital cause there's so many virus in the air because of the flood (of course!). Unfortunately the doctor was late and there were many sick children today in the hospital which give me the paranoia. So me and mom was having a turn to take Baby R for a walk away from the sick kids. The last thing that she need at the moment is cathing one of the virus.

She seemed to enjoyed the visit to the doctor though, cause there's a lot of kids that she can played with. She was being really friendly and keep smilling to everyone, even to the doctor, although she did cried a bit when the doctor give her the prevnar shot. But that was only for a couple of seconds, and after that she was smilling to the doctor and being all nice to him.

Afterwards we take her to Senayan City, cause we need to buy her bath soap and shampoo. She's so happy, she cannot stop turning her head around. Maybe she's kind of bored being locked up in the house for the past couple of weeks (once again due to the flood). The only problem is that she doesnt want to stop, she will cried out loud if we stop pushing her pram. That baby ...

Pink and Green

Gemma Ward is the face for the new line from Beaute de Kose called Esprique Precious. She looked extra stunning, espescially on the third look. Love the green eyeshadow and pink liner combination.

5 Months

Happy 5th months birthday to my pretty baby girl Raysa.

She's a pro in sucking her thumb now, in fact, she will just put anyone's hand that is availble freely in front of her into her mouth. She love to put her toys into her mouth, I guess it's because she's going to grow some tooth soon.

Raysa also love touching her feet, that, I believe is hereditary.

Quarter life

Today, the 4th of February is my 25th birthday celebrated by the arrival of the flooding season. Does this means when people ask how old I am I will have to start to be misterious and answer it with mid 20s instead of the number 25? Does that means when the 25th year of my life ended and move to the 26th I will have to start to used the late 20s? And does it also means when I'm having problems and gone through a rough time in my life I could have just blame it on the quarter life crisis?

Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit (only a tad bit, nothing more!).

Happy birthday mommy

I dream of Sephora

Last nite I was walking to a department store with a floor full of cosmetics brand, everywhere I turn there were endless eyeliner, shadow, lipstick and all sort of stuff that makes me ga-ga. The sales attendants were all friendly and offer me free make over and teach me how to apply their product in a professional way.

Then I realized this could not be rite, there’s no place in this always-out-of-cosmetic-product town that is as heavenly as that.

Oh it must have been a dream …

Then I wake up and come to an agreement, that it is a dream.

Guity pleasure

I am guilty of; 1. a new purple printed zara dress as seen on Dian Sastro when hosting who wants to be a millionaire first episode; 2. a nude croc pumps which I couldnt help not to buy it because it have such a beautiful sleek heels and yes I still remember I should have been in a shoe diet; 3. a mustard yellow racer back which will go very well with my Inoui ID mustard yellow eyeshadow; 4. Raysa's grey velvet dress which I knew she will outgrew the dress very fast but I know she will look extra cute wearing it; 5. Raysa's white tee with a golden baby girl print in it which fit well with this season splash of gold theme.

I felt horribly guilty but, oh well, I couldn't help myself to feel happy of my purchase.

Facelift

I've been slaving myself to make sure that this baby get its long awaited new look by mid of February that I didnt have time to update my blog.

But ... thank god its Friday, so I can go home and not to think of work for the next 2 days and spend my time with Baby R.

My new hairdo part II

Did I mentioned that I love my new hairstyle? Well I love it even more after I washed it for the first time! Not having much of a free time at home, I dont have the luxury of blow drying my hair and style it in a proper way. What I did was just let the hair dried naturally, if it end up like a hair disaster ... so be it! I prefer to spend my time playin with Baby R then putting so much time in styling my hair.

Miraculously the hair turns out to be fine. As if in normal fine! I do not look like someone who just got hit by a bus, it looked just fine!

So for the second time I will say I’m loving my new hair very much, cause I don’t have to put much effort in it.

Where the road take us

I would never guess that this week I would met so many old friends. I hardly have time to see my friends from Melb for the past 1 year, every time they invite me to a gathering I was not able to come cause the nausea from my pregnancy has taken control of my life (at that time).

It all started with a text messages from an anonymous number which turned out to be Sid’s, asking me to join the other to see Teh Riri who’s just given birth to a handsome baby boy Hilmi. Me being spontaneous said that I would love to go and will meet Sid in PIM on Sun morning.

I saw so many people there, there were Sid & Ranie, Agung STW and wife; Teguh, Dahlia and baby Yoda; Andi, Dara and little Sofie; and the last to come Dimas. When I arrived, Hilmi and Yoda were sleepin on their baby chair and Sofie was playing with her Mom, the whole scene looked like a daycare center. I swear I was laughing on my head thinking how greatly our live have changed. From a careless student with no burden on their shoulder to a responsible adult … we have become an adult now ….

Too bad I didn’t bring Raysa with me, she would have loved seeing all the other kids.

And today I saw my ex-roomies, it’s been ages since I saw her. I really missed her … that girl … yeah that same girl who used to talk to herself aloud, she’s gonna be a mommy soon. Am soooo happy with the good news.

BTW me and Nitski is planning to catch up with each other and ask the other mommies to come and join us.

My new hairdo

Nothing really important! But I just cut my hair today! I'm so nervous and excited at the same time. I havent had a hair shorter than my shoulder ever since I started uni and I always love long hair cause I can let them loose for the normal days, or bobby pinned them if I felt lazy, curl them when I’m feeling more adventurous and sexy or straightened them for a more sleek elegant look. You would never go wrong with a long hair!

But today … I cut them short jut right on my shoulder. I started to loose so much hair because of nursing, I don’t know the exact reason, but people say it’s because of nursing. So not ready for a baldy head I half-heartedly decided to cut them.

I went to Shunji in PIM 2 hoping that the Singaporean stylist that looked like Najip Ali would be there ( I seriously don’t trust anyone to cut my hair short, I’m paranoid!), apparently the guy already went back to Singapore! Oh my god … the horror! I let the other stylist cut my hair, and thank god it turned out really good. I loved it! The cut is slightly bob, but not Dian Sastro bob cut, cause I don’t want to be trapped in the Dian Sastro trend and I specifically said to the stylist I don’t want the Dian Sastro cut. Plus it would took me extra effort to style my hair in the morning to make it looked decent if I cut it in her style. It had volume cause the stylish cut the layered really nicely! I had some side fringe as well, which makes my face looked skinnier (and younger). Am really happy with it! Plus this new guy cost only half of the Najip Ali guy charge! Its good for my hair and good for my wallet as well.

The whole process took almost one and a half hour, cause after the stylish cut my hair then there’s this other guy who blow dried my hair, and after the other guy finished blow drying my hair then the stylish refined his work and retouch my root end and blow dried my hair once again. I especially love the chair where they washed my hair, it had this thing that massages your back. Unfortunately the process of hair washing does not last for more than 10 minutes!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that this year would be better than the previous year. Of course nothing gonna beat the experience of having Raysa last year, but on all other things I would hope for a better year.

Actually there’s nothing extra EXTRA special about New Year ’s Day, but (I heard on a radio talkshow) that new year is psychologically a perfect moment to open a brand new page on your brand new book. Act as if you’re going to write a new book containing 365 pages that each pages will be written as the days passed by. Each morning you will write a page of new story on your new 365 pages long book. If you’ve decided that you write that you’re going to be happy today, then be happy today, don’t let others (the metromini/bikes/bajaj driver or anyone else) ruin the day. Isn’t it such an optimistic view on seeing the New Year ’s Day?

Sometimes we need an extra something to empower ourselves to change for the better. Of course New Year is only one of them, there’s still birthday, Idul Fitri, etc.

The moral is …. Change is good!

Btw I love that the New Year fall on Sun so that I have Mon off from work, therefore I have extra day playing with Raysa at home.

Fly me to the moon mommy

Raysa with her red bunny

Milk, milk, Please! Will work for milk!

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