Eat Pray Love

Aside from the rich and witty writings, turns out this book written by Elizabeth Gilbert herself also has the best insights and the most inspirational sentences. I've already highlighted a few and here's one of them.

Taken from Book One- Italy:
"..when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab on to the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt. This is not selfishness but obligation.

You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."
-Eat Pray Love

Kissessss =D

two months back and two months ahead

wow, it's been two months since i last wrote here.

but hey, who said i would be an industrious blogger?

i'm simply too busy playing with my little kickboxer. (haha i know i'm such a snob)

well i just dropped in to say hi, and maybe let out a tiny anxiety about what i would face in less than 2 months. you know, giving birth. my baby. and everything. justtt a teeny bit.

or maybe not that teeny.

i'm still in this phase of evading any pictures of giving birth from entering my mind. i try not to think about it. not until i really have to. i'm eight months along now, and i still have a few weeks to spare, right.

ok enough about mommy-thingy.

i am in the middle of reading eat pray love by elizabeth gilbert. i'm such a slow reader but so far, i think i kinda like it. i kinda understand her writing style (not that i'm a writer . i wish haha) or maybe i kinda understand elizabeth (the main character) cause she's a true cancer just like myself.

i'm still in book one-italy now, and can barely wait till i get to book three which as you all know happens to capture the beautiful island and tradition of Bali, Indonesia.

oh i'm yawning now. i really should go to bed. i'll see u in the next post!

Kissessss XO

My very personal little nudger

Have I told you that being pregnant is the most wonderful feeling in the whole wide world?

Well I don’t know how it feels yet to be a mom, so I can’t compare it to being a mommy. But I’m confident for those who haven’t felt what it’s like being a mom, being pregnant is the best ever. Period.

Alhamdulillah I’m constantly happy.

Things got impossibly better a month ago. I went to a new obgyn. Again. For the fourth time. Not to mention this was the second hospital I went to. But I like my new obgyn, she’s much more communicative than the previous ones.

I wasn’t supposed to have another ultrasound thing at that appointment, but since this was a new obgyn she had to see my baby firsthand, right. And honestly I loooved it when they did the ultrasound cause I got to SEE my baby, a lovely tiny human inside my tummy, moving, kicking, playing with its hands, dancing, doing arabesque, doing pirouette… Who didn’t get a kick out of that?

Well cutting to the chase, when she was doing the ultrasound thing, checking up on my baby, I let out one single complain about how I still couldn’t feel my baby kicking and I was already 19 weeks and a half which was somewhat equal to 5 months right? Even Mr. D’s cousin who’s in her 16 weeks could feel her baby twitching and moving already. I felt it all right, but it felt only like subtle movement which I could easily misinterpret. It could had been just my too-desperate imaginary mind. And I was a month ahead of her. I should had been in a higher level right? But the obgyn soothed me by saying it was normal and it would happen in the next couple of days.

Next thing I knew, when I was on my way home from the hospital I felt a nudge in my tummy!!!!!

I’d known my baby had been smart but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop marveling at the fact that she-heard-me. She heard me saying that I wanted to feel her nudge and kick. And I couldn’t get over the fact that maybe she wanted to tell me that she was ok, to tell me not to worry, and that she wanted me to feel her too.
This is so overwhelming. Alhamd, I’m so blessed I know....

And oh, I’m itching to tell you something that lighted up my end of July even more. One of my bestfriend had to go on a business trip to none other than Hongkong Disneyland !

I - KNOW!

Who didn’t envy her? Haha. But before you decide to hate her, let me tell you, she deserved every minute of it there, and the best thing of all was she didn’t get me anything from there. She got MY BABY a little something instead! She got her Disney baby vests ! Not only it was her first Disney item, it’s also her first baby item cause following the tradition I hadn’t bought her anything cause she was still 5 months old (actually the tradition says till 7 months, but i think i should've got a gold medal just being able to hold it that long)

Easy to guess, seeing and feeling the mild fabric of those super cute vests, I couldn’t help but want more. Cause it made it all more real. I mean, not that I thought it was just all in my mind but looking at those tiny rompers I could picture there’s a tiny human snuggling in there.

THANK YOU SOO MUCH my dear anonymous bestie ☺ and oh, since I cant help myself, here’s a photo of me with the super tiny rompers =D

Too bad I didn’t get the chance to take a photo of them and this bestie of mine ☹

and oh forgot to mention, that i'm very happy she got the getaway she very much deserved. it was a business trip, but still ! it's Hongkong Disneyland ! haha

on almost the same note, another bestie of mine got my baby a cute little something too. God i have the most wonderful friends.

but her story freaked me out a little bit actually. we were hanging out in some mall, and she just realized that this particular mall had a very nice baby department called Miniapolis. after dinner, she dragged me all the way to this baby section, looking more excited than i was. we didnt go that far, cause as far as we reached the first store on our right she towed me by the hand, barged in, aaaaand she went nuts. she literally got five items in her hands in mere 10 minutes. and as she hurried to the cashier to pay for it all, i panicked. did she really want and NEED to buy those adorable rompers, babygros and super mini dresses with the matching bloomers? i was the only one who was expecting a baby. but YES, she really felt that it was necessary for HER to buy MY BABY those endearing baby stuff.

it got into a pretty long battle. me - furtively drooling over those unspeakable rompers - trying to make her see sense that she didn't need to buy them cause i knew already she loved my baby very much, her - obviously worshipping those darling rompers - rambling on about how darling they were. and oh, the saleslady, watching us with amused face.

so i let out my ultimatum. i told her that i would be mad if she made the purchase.

god forbid her to take me seriously :( but finally, she gave in and agreed on buying only ONE (there was no way she would go out of the store without one

so, here's a picture of her with the romper she finally picked.


again, THANK YOU SOO MUCH my dear bestie. si gemes and i love youuuu beautiful aunties :*

bestfriend in disguise

Do you realize that there are some things in life that feel strange but natural at the same time? That are extremely frightening but somehow we cant live without them? That sometimes we try so much to avoid yet they’re inevitable, like the need to breathe to keep ourselves alive, so you don’t have the convenience to choose otherwise?

You’re right, one of them is change.

One minute you put on your red-white elementary uniform to go to school and the next you slip on the first blouse you can reach in your walk-in to go to college (not that I have my own walk-in). One minute your mother is there escorting you to the dentist to get your baby tooth out and the next minute, there you are in the obgyn waiting room flicking through a book titled Sembilan Bulan yang Menakjubkan studiously. One minute you’re feeling absolutely fine and the next you feel the need to throw up every chance you get.

I know change is inevitable and we humans are used to it. Nothing new about it. And I wouldn’t even bring this topic up if not for the fact that these changes I’m going through now is affecting the life of a tiny person I love unconditionally whose life depends on me twenty four hours a day.

So these are the most recent changes in me:
1. My appetite.
It seems like it changes as often as I change my panties. Back when everything was normal, I lovedddd pasta. And I could never survive without snacks. Chips, muffin, yoghurt, crackers, you name it.
Recently I prefer Indonesian food. And my appetite for snacks is limited to those healthy snacks like fruits (thank God even though still in my tummy my baby already knows what kind of snack is better for her. Unlike her mom, huh)
And oh, my appetite has never been this big before. Cute baby, it seems like she’s constantly hungry.

2. My routine trivia.
I dab this certain cream with “smoothing out stretch mark cream” written in bold on the front, on certain parts of my body twice a day now. Got it from Mothercare. But I’m new in all this, so if any of you got better cream suggestion, would you be a dear and let me know what it is? Thanks :D

3. My wardrobe.
I literally am running out of clothes. Well I was a size S. Or XS. So basically my wardrobe consists of body fitted simple dresses. And you can see a lot of black in my closet. But now they simply no longer accommodate my growing tummy.
Of course for pregnant mommies, jeans are out of question right. And I still don’t have the guts to buy those maternity jeans cause somehow I feel like it confirms the fact that I’m going to be an IBU-IBU ☹ (ibu-ibu and mommy are two different things in my dictionary)
So this leaves me with close to zero to wear.

4. My music
I listen to compilations for pregnant mommies and Mozart at least for an hour every day. It’s refreshing actually – if you don’t hear the same songs over and over again for the past weeks, every single day haha. Maybe I should get some Bachs now?

There are still several numbers but I don’t think I need to write it all down here otherwise it’s going to be a very long post.

So Rrr yes. It doesn’t take a genius to see that I AM carrying. ☺ I’m 18-months pregnant now. It’s amazing and unbelievable. I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept sometimes. It’s just mind-boggling. Sometimes I giggle just looking at my growing tummy and picturing there’s a tiny baby snuggling in there. Nuts, I know. But hey, who can help it?

Alhamdulillah I’m loving these changes in me and the biggest part of it is because I get to do that for and with this new little person I’m so smitten with. This makes me euphoric most of the time even though these changes are all very strange and overwhelming for me.

Hey actually, we encounter these kinds of changes every day. Not exactly the same I know, but with the same magnitude. It can be the change with you now doing so well at work, with you being apart from your boyfriend who you used to see every day several months before, with you being a wedded wife and so on. Well you get the picture.

Change IS our bestfriend. So it would be best to treat her with love, respect, it would be wise to never ever take her for granted. So she will never turn her back on you. ☹ instead she’ll encourage you to grow up and give broader views that never occurred to you before. You can never appreciate how good things get if you haven’t felt what it’s like being so down you want to scream and run and be reincarnated as a whole new person, right?

Completely famished

Holy. God. Am unbearably starrrving.

Am now utilizing the full extent of my hearing, trying to hear the purr of Mr. D’s car when it pulls over outside (he said he was bringing home some pecel leles). I’m positive I can’t afford to wait till the car’s safe in the carport. I’m gonna have to go out, open the gate myself, bang the car window till he rolls it down and ask fiercely for the pecel.

So far, no luck.

Normally I wouldn’t even budge hearing the name of the food. What kind of people would name a food “pecel” anyway? It doesn’t sound appealing in any way. Add that with the image that pops in your head when you think of the word “lele”.

Do you see the mustache and everything?

I know.

But recently I eat everything people shove in my plate.

God! How could someone eats ordinarily one day (I mean like normal people), and turns to a carnivore the next? Am munching on smoke beef cheese stick trying to ease the hunger. Doesn’t work very much. Crunch crunch. Thank you.

Sorry I just can’t concentrate on anything. It’s crazy I know. It’s just “hungry” right?

God I better find other ways to sulk rather than ruin other people’s mood. I know I know, this is why they invented blog in the first place. But I should just go calm my self down.

He asked me to make a scrapbook

Ok, that seems like a harmless enough request that wouldn’t hurt anyone….
Except for me.

I’ve never been known for my skilled craftsmanship. Call me old fashioned but as far as I know scrapbook entails a lot of gluing or stapling, creative writings, exact memories of passed events, and of course decent handwriting so that the scrapbook would not hurt the eyes to read. The very basic problem is unlike my craftsmanship, my handwriting is quite popular!..for being barely legible. So you see, this isn’t exactly something that brings the corners of my lips voluntarily up to a smile.
But this request is given by the most important person in my life. And he has some good points. You see he and I did a nice trip to eight European countries a few weeks ago and unlike him, it was the first time I ever set my feet on European land and it had been aaaaages since I had had a decent get away.

I mean. Aaaaaages.

I was practically grinning for the rest of the day he first told me we were going to do this.

So just maybe, I was supposed to be the one who came up with the idea of making the memory alive out of it, keeping every memento we got there, every bus and train ticket, every boarding pass and every free pass to casinos (actually we got only one hehe). But turned out it’s the other way around. He was all about keeping all of those and making sure they did not end up in some trashcan in red light district (cause he saw I was eyeing those trashcans furtively. come on, seriously who could blame me?).

And I, I tell you I can do just fine with photos. And it’s not like we didn’t take an abundance of photos there. And let me tell you a secret, he was supportive about uploading them all to my facebook account.

Like THAT doesn’t take a hell lot of time haha.

Soo I think my resolution to this scrapbook thingy would be to renegotiate things with him. If I can manage to upload all the eight albums containing the eight countries, I’m off the responsibility to make the scrapbook (don’t tell him this cause he doesn’t check his facebook account meticulously, but I’ve already uploaded seven albums out of eight cause it’s much easier to upload photos with flock than to glue or staple them in stiff papers right). So it isn’t a very bad deal for me, huh ;) just fervently imagine in my head that he will go along with this. The movies say that usually works. Still for me, fingers crossed.

Oh ok, maybe I confused you a little by telling you he this or he that without bothering to tell you who the hell is this he. Rr not to reveal my marital status bluntly here, but as it happens I’m married ☺ to this guy who I would never have thought in a million years would be My Mister Man. But sometimes life has its own way of telling that you have been walking on the wrong street all this time. *cringe*

So yes, this aforementioned mister is my rr my spouse. It might seem weird but I never get a kick out of referring him as my “husband”. I mean I know he is, I’m blessed that he is, and I love him with all my life but I don’t think I’d ever get used to using that forbidden “h” word. I scratched that already from my vocabulary (it’s temporary. I promise).

And I’m still 21 for God’s sake! So that might explain the aversion to that particular word. You can't decide when and why you love someone indefinitely. You just cant help it. Sometimes it's just plain cruel, I know. But thank God you will always have the control over what you do and you dont like. This "h" word for instance, is in the top ten of my current not-a-very-big-fan-of list. Don’t blame me if I’m too young for that word. Hm!

Now since this mister is literally a part of me and plays a massive role in my life consequently he has a huge deal in the content of my blog post too right? So there’s no point in keeping him in the shadow much longer. His name is Dharma, but let’s just call him Mr D for now ok? Here I attach a picture of us ☺ to put a face to the name.


Rr guess I was rambling, wasn’t I ? Well then thanx for helping me finding the solution to the scrapbook thingy. And maybe someday I will tell you about the Europe trip in another post (No promise though. We went to eight countries, and judging by my short-term memory I’d hardly remember all of the details in each country we visited). So as I told you, MAYBE when I’m in the mood for it, I will rack my brain to remember and write it here. Or maybe not.

Either way, see you soon in the next post! :D
Kisseeesss

My very first blog post

‘Hi’ sounds like a normal enough greeting right? So there, HI YOU. I’m embarrassed to tell you that I’m a newbie here in blog-ville. The new kid on the block. So please make me feel welcome and don’t be ruthless with me =D

For starters, I want to warn you beforehand.
As much as I want this blog to be nice for you to read, I am fully aware that I am not that good of a writer. So try not to make a face when you read stupid words or sentences and try not to cringe over silly unnecessary posts, ok. Don’t tell me I didn’t try to warn you =D

Wow what a blogger I am. It’s only my first blog post and I already tell you what to do. Hahaha
But if by any chance you decide to sit tight and be a merciful person by reading this, be prepared to receive the widest and cutest grin from me. Does that sound like a good incentive? ……... No? haha well anyway,

I think I’m cozy enough here thus I’ll see you around ;)
Kissessss =D