It's been a while...(PART 02)

Plaza Tunjungan....

This mall is used to be my favorite place for hang-out, either alone or with friends. Alone, I could browse the stores there for hours....without buying anything....hehehe...

It's a nice place, where you could find things in wide-range prices. From cheap ones till the branded ones. And there are many places where you can just buy coffee and snacks and talks for hours with friends.

For some time now....hmmmm, almost a year, I think.....I didn't have any desire to go there. With friends nor being alone.....

Reason 1, it has become too far away for me. Especially as now I work at home, and Plaza Tunjungan is in different district. I live in the West part of my city, and Plaza Tunjungan is at the city central. To go there means I have to go through one big, crowded main road....yikes!!!

Reason 2, as Plaza Tunjungan is also quite famous among my city fellows, find a nice parking place is quite tricky. If I choose to ride my motorcycle (it's quicker and more efficient), I have to park outside, in 5 minutes walking distance to the nearest entrance plus another 3 minutes walking to the mall back-entrance. If I drive my car, then I have to calculate correctly when I should arrive to be able to find a nice parking space. Otherwise, I have drive round and round, up and down the parking building....makes my foot ache and my head dizzy....hahaha...

Reason 3....maybe the biggest one....because once I spent many hours browsing this mall with one of my favorite friends. Those hours were very impressive that I can't walk around the mall without remembering and feeling lost, now we may not meet again.... But I knew that one day I will be able to visit Plaza Tunjungan again...I have to, because after all it's one famous mall in my city....hehehe...

So, here were I....the second day of my Christmas vacation, Dec 26, 2014. My sister wanted to meet someone and then go to cinema watching EXODUS: GODS & KINGS with my other sister, my nephews and me. And she preferred Plaza Tunjungan.....oh, alright, no problem for me....hehehe...

And it was really no problem, since we didn't do much browsing...hahaha...we just sat at the food court, talking while waiting for the movie begin...hehehe... I'm survived!!! And Plaza Tunjungan is still a marvelous place after all...:)

It's been a while...(PART 01)

It's been a while since my last post. My time has been fully occupied by the laundry work. I usually start at 6am and stop all the work at 9pm. I use the time remaining for doing the book-keeping, arranging tomorrow's work and playing game... At the beginning, I used to open my blog and tried to write. But my brain had been already too tired to think, so I just stared at the blank screen.....hehehe...

This year, I has started to work more professionally. It means I take time for vacation. The first vacation I took was on last August, during our big Moslem Holiday, Idul Fitri. I closed my business for a whole week. Most of my regular clients didn't mind, because they also went for vacation themselves....as I said, it was the biggest public holiday here at Indonesia. Of course, after the vacation I was very, very overwhelmed with the laundry volume I had to work on. Apparently, everyone went home bringing all the dirty clothes from their vacation and sent it to me....hahaha.... It had taken me two weeks of hard work before everything was back to the normal pace.

This month, I take another vacation. My laundry business is closed since Dec 25, 2014 till Jan 4, 2015. Originally, I closed the business only till Jan 1. But then I noticed that Jan 3 is also a public holiday. So, I gave my employees vacation till Jan 4. This time, many of my clients surprised....this is quite a long one for them. Well, it is....hehehe...

When I was still an employee, vacation on Christmas and New Year was a dream. Mostly, I only had a half day on Dec 24 and continued till Dec 25 for Christmas, and another half day on Dec 31, continued till Jan 1. So, it had been quite awkward because my family gathered together and I still went to work. So I promised myself, when I have my own business, I will make sure that I'm able to take vacation whenever I want. The first two years I dedicated all of my energy to build my business. I closed the business only on Sundays. This year, with the clients quite so many which I'm no longer able to handle myself, I start to build a professional work-system, as I have to also concern about my employees' welfare. So, I started to take vacation on public holidays.

And this is it.....the Christmas vacation day-2.....hehehe...

Got Struck by DHF

Saturday, 18 May 2013, I still kept active till 5pm. I only worked till midday that day, then met my sister at her new apartment and drove her to the airport. Due to the unusual traffic-jammed, I arrived very late at home and decided not to go to the church that evening like I used to do every Saturday. But I can't go and rest immediately. I had promised to deliver laundry to a client at 8pm.

As clocks went by during the waiting time, the temperature of my body slightly arose. Ok, I thought, it must be too fatigue.....so, I took an analgesic pill. When I delivered her laundry, my client also commented that I looked not well enough. That's alright, I told her, I just need a good sleep during weekend...... I should know better...hehehe...

Sunday morning, I woke up still with a rather high fever. The usual analgesic pill I took didn't help too much and I didn't dare to take too many that kind of medicine. My head can't handle the hangover it causes.....hehehe... So, I just stayed home all day and rest, hoped that my temperature would go down. It did on the evening.

Two days fever had left me quite weak, so I decided not to go work on Monday. I just hoped that another day of resting would make me ready to face the world again on Tuesday. Alas, as the day went by, my temperature was back running high again. Made Mom worried and forced me to check my blood to the nearby laboratory on Tuesday morning. The result : my thrombocyte count was only 107,000 from normally above 150,000.....I was positively DHF!

What is DHF? It's Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, usually is caused by a virus from a certain mosquito's' bites. What kind of mosquito? It's called Aedes aegypti. So, it is quite normal, I guess, if the doctor and my visitors asked where I was bitten by those mosquitoes....at home or at work? I think I got them more confused when I said that unlikely there were any mosquitoes at those places.....hehehe... It's true, nevertheless....hehehe....

Anyway, that DHF attack made me had to stay at the hospital for one week, and at some point made my doctor quite panic because my thrombocyte count decreased very rapidly till only 14,000. At that level, I could have nosebleeds or shock. I got neither...hehehe... Even that normal sign of DHF, the blood spots in the skin, appeared on my feet only after the thrombocyte count increased. My doctor said jokingly that maybe the extra fat in my body was the one that had helped me to keep strong.....and I agreed....hehehe...

When I was finally allowed to go home, I think I left something more than just my illness at the hospital. Till now, I still don't know what things had been lost. After three days rest at home, I struggled to get back on the road, back to the old routine....both work and my own business. I preferred it, rather than continuously thinking about the lost things....hehehe...

Very much thanks for my sister who had decided to go home and accompany me during my stay at the hospital. And I hope God bless my Mom who had driven me to and from hospital, and also taken care my laundry business while I was unavailable. I love you all....:)....and the Little One too, of course......:)

Fight and Fight.....

It's been so long since I posted any update of my life. The biggest reason is, I'm still trying hard to keep up with my growing laundry business.

 

Lately, the pick-up, delivery and preliminary proccess of laundry has keep me awake till midnight. Then, early in the morning I have to wake up to continue the second proccess - cleaning and drying. At the moment, there's only two days free of delivery - Wednesdays and Sundays. During those days (either on afternoons or all day of Sundays), I used to help in ironing for some special clients.

 

When a friend wants to hang out with me, I need to plan everything very carefully......I guess it had really made my friends very frustating with me......hehehehhee..... But, no, not only my friends. Even my nephew is sometimes very dissappointed.....hehehe....especially times like this, when school day is out and he's bored staying at home.

 

The biggest news at the moment is, that finally I found my courage and hand-in my resignation to the office. I gave two months notice to my boss to find my replacement. Shouldn't be that difficult, I'm not that unique......hehehehhe.....

 

In Memoriam of Imelda Fridajanti

Frida's Latest Picture (posted on Facebook by March 7)

On Wednesday morning, March 13 while browsing my friends' status on Facebook, my eyes caught a comment in a friend's status. The person wished a Rest-in-Peace for my friend. What??? I opened the whole posting and read from up to bottom. It was said that my friend - Imelda Fridajanti - had an accident while rafting on the previous day and passed away on 4pm in the afternoon. It shocked me, because I still read her posting on Facebook two days before....

Imelda Fridajanti was an old friend from my junior high school. We shared the same class during the first two years. I didn't remember many of my classmates on the junior high school. Frida - that's what we used to call her - was one of the very few I remembered. We separated during the third year. Then I went to a different school for the senior years, while she continued at the same school.

We met again on 2009, 22 years after separated, thanks to Facebook. It was quite surprising that she still remembered me. After that, we kept in touch through Facebook. She liked to post interesting status, that invited her friends to give opinion and sometimes debated...hehehe...

During these last four years, I only met her once. She came to my office during one of her busy day. After that, many times she had invited me to come along in small reunions with other classmates. But I was never able to attend. Firstly, because it was always in a wrong time. Secondly - maybe the biggest reason - because I didn't remember any of other guests. It surely will make me very awkward and feel very out of place....hehehe...

Now, Frida is no longer here anymore. I will miss reading her postings on Facebook. One of her friend mentioned that we had lost a valuable friend, who always actively invited her old friends to reconnect. Farewell, my friend, hope we'll meet again in the next life.....

Life without TV

image source : dreamstime.com

Until last month, I had a quite ancient 16" color TV in my bedroom. It used to belong to my late grandmother who had died more than 10 years ago.... Very old TV, huh? hihihi... Nevertheless, that TV had become my entertainment at the end of my days. Not frequently, though. I used to watch movies on TV after 9pm or on weekends and holidays, when I'm not too lazy and sleepy...hehehe...

Last December, just before Christmas, my TV suddenly couldn't be turned on. Due to the holiday and the family outing plan, it stayed broken till after New Year. It was the first time after soooo many years that I spent New Year's Eve downstairs with my family and shared the TV there....hehehe... Quite annoying, actually. I preferred watching box-office movies, while my sister and Mom wanted to watch a music concert in other TV stations. So, we kept changing channel during commercials break, and made me lost the ending of an interesting movie (that I had already forgotten what the title was....hehehe...)

After New Year, Mom had the TV repaired. But this time, I didn't have enough time and energy to watch TV. My laundry business has been growing bigger and bigger, and I struggled to keep up with the heavy schedule between my formal working hours and the informal ones. At least twice a week, I go to bed not sooner than 10pm and have to wake up again at 4.30 next morning. So, when the TV was broken again a week after being repaired, I . Of course it also means I didn't keep up with latest news and gossips....hehehe... My only source is Mom and Sunday Newspaper (if I have time to read it...hehehe...)

Last week, due to her moving from a boarding room to an apartment, my sister (who knew about my broken TV) sent her old TV home. She preferred to buy a new, slimmer TV to fit in with the small space of her apartment. So, I got the family 21" TV to replace my old one, while the 32" flat-screen TV from my sister is being put in the living room.

Until now, I still rarely turn on the 21" TV. But every time I sit on my bed and look at the TV just across my bed, I'm always amazed about how bigger it is....makes my bedroom feels so crowded....hihihi.... I plan to move the TV to the upstairs living room as soon as I could re-arrange the furniture there. That way, it won't be look that big and my Little One could watch TV without messing up my bedroom....:P...

Gasses in My Stomach

During the last two months, I'd been twice struck by gastritis. The first one was on December, I kind of expected it, because I was just under a long stress.....four months of working alone on 4 different projects with a tight deadline each. Nevertheless, I was also a little surprised when it attacked me. All of my works were already behind me for a week, so I was just enjoying lazy moments at work.There was no usual signs of discomfort like before. I still ate normally, till suddenly I got a stomachache on Sunday night, just before I planned to go to bed. In the end, I was unable to sleep at all and couldn't report to work on Monday morning. Made quite a havoc at the office, too....hihihi....since my boss had received an invitation for a follow-up meeting with a client....hehehe...

The recovery took a long time. I think mostly because I pushed myself back to work the very next day. Plus, there were several new customers for my laundry business. It means I couldn't have enough rest as much as my body need it. At least, two times a week I have a very looooong day, start at 5am and won't end before 10pm. Sometimes, the moment I reach home from work, I will depart again to deliver the laundries. No time to rest, not even for a little snack. And that's when the second struck came by.....

Last month, I was down again from gastritis. Thankfully, this time it attacked on Saturday. Of course, it means I spent the weekend feeling sick....hihihi...so much waste....hihihi.. It was almost three weeks ago, and  I still feel not 100% recovered till now. At the positive side, the last two months I had lost weight more than a year cycling....hahahaha...

Twice got sick by the same illness alerted me. Something needed to change, because I had no time to get sick. Now, I always make sure that there's some snacks ready in the car during the delivery day, so I won't get suffered from having late dinner or none at all. I'm also supported by some antacid pills for a while. I hope those two will help to keep the gasses in my stomach happy and calm down....:)

Review on 2012 (Part 3): Starting My Own Business

After did a thorough discussion with Mom and my sister, finally in the middle of year 2012 Mom and I braved ourselves to open a laundry. Well, actually it was I who needed to be brave...hehehe... 

It was a good friend of mine who moved into an apartment nearby which gave a big push to my decision. And of course the stars supported it....hihihi... They said that 2012 was a good time for my kind to open a business and it would be better something that related to water....THERE!!!...hihihi... Somehow, I felt that God had heard my plea and answered non-directly of course...(typical...hihihi...)

So, for almost six months now, I pick-up and deliver laundry to the apartment twice a week in the evenings. It's still quite overwhelming and need a hard discipline to pump up my energy till late nights.

At first, I thought that I had to get at least 30 customers before I resigned from my present job and fully involved into this laundry business. Because till now, it's still my Mom who does most of the jobs, like pre-washing, operating the washing machine, and supervising the ironing. I needed 30 customers to balance with my present salary.

But after three months doing the business, I could see that 30 customers is too high to achieve in a year....since I hope that I will be able to resign at least at the end of 2013.... Also, I could see that even having three regular customers at the time, sometimes the job was quite overwhelming. Several times, I had to help ironing the clothes after I was home from my regular job. So, I recalculated and decided that if God is willing to entrust me with 10 regular customers, then I'll hand in my resignation.

At the moment, my laundry business have 4 regular customers, and in the past two weeks we just got 2 new customers. Already SIX customers!!! I'm so ecstaticII! I really hope that my birthday wish will become true on 2013: to be financially independent....so help me, God....!

Review on 2012 (Part 2) : LEAVE THE YOUTH CHOIR

I'd joined the Catholic Church Choir in my parish since 1988....when I was still in the senior high school. At the moment, my parish was still very young and there was no youth community. The choir was builted to facilitate the young ages, so we could have at least one regular activity to meet and unite every week. At the moment, our choir didn't have a name. We simply was called St. Aloysius Gonzaga Youth Choir.

 

I had been through too many managerial changes while I was still an active member in this choir. And not just managerial. There was many changes in our members, too... Moving out of our parish because of the new job or living places, got married or even have a child.... Yes, our youth choir was no longer purely for single, unmarried youth. We became so solid, that marriage couldn't stop us getting together and training our voice.

 

This year, after suffering for a lack of active members for some time, the management finally was able to persuade the newer youth generation to join the choir which is now called AG Voice (AG is a shortened from Aloysius Gonzaga, our parish's name). These new members are averagely half of my age....makes me one of two eldest members in the choir...hehehe... The other one is also the long-time member like me. We're both the first generation of the choir....hehehe...

 

In the mid-year, the management conducted a change-over. At the time, I was almost a life-time songs coordinator. I handled the task since 1990.....22 years!!! So many times I asked each new management to find my replacement, but no one wanted the job....[sigh!]. In my point of view, it's a simple task. You just have to prepare and organize the songs for each assignment, make sure there's enough copies for each member, and file those songs.

 

Anyway, this time I insisted the management to also replace me. I just started my own business which for a while only runs in the evenings, makes me super-duper tired to attend any choir practices. Of course, I didn't say my real reason to them. I just said that it really, really didn't fair to left me behind one more time....hehehe.. So, finally there is one new blood who agree to takeover my task...hurrrrayyy...!!! And started the heavy job for me to compile all of those songs in my house in containers, ready to ship out to its new home.

 

Slowly but sure, I started to backout from the choir. I didn't join their weekend retreat out of town. Didn't attend wedding choirs on Saturdays. And finally skipped practices. At first, I only told them that I had something to do that evening. One week became two weeks, became one month and finally I decided not to join in this Christmas duty. Success!!!!!

 

Finally, I'm able to leave the choir, with no regrets at all. Someone is finally doing my old task. The new generation of choir has a good numbers of member and good voice quality...more than mine, I think....:)... One nice accomplishment of mine on 2012....:)

 

After on duty for Holy Saturday 2012

 

Review on 2012 (Part 1): SAD NEWS

Each time closing to the end of every year, I notice that there is an increasing number of people passing away. Either because of age or illness or natural disaster. We - that's my family - call it as The Calculation of Year End. When my own Dad passes away on November 2009, we remembered it and quietly took a humour in it.

 

This year, however, I received two sad news from my friends who lost their fathers. Last week, Stardust sent me a sms that her father passed away suddenly. This morning I read Mbak Fida's blog about the passing away of his father after being hospitalized for some time. So close to Christmas.....a uniquely family time...I can only hope that they will be strong enough to keep on moving and live, because I know they are strong persons....

 

 

 

 

The After-effect of Fever

I rarely surrender to any illness. Well, mostly I only suffer from an allergic to any weather-changes, or gastroenteritis. And I always try to get ahead from any signs of illness. Why? Because I have too many things to be done....no time to get sick...hihihi....so exaggerated, huh? hihihi....

 

Anyway, there's one aspect of illness I hate at the most. It's called FEVER.

I know that fever is actually a good sign. It means my antibody is active and fight hard to kill any germs that attack my body. Trouble is, while I could stay up and fully functional although I suffer from a bad cough for 3 months, once I'm struck by a fever, I lost all of energy I have in a mere of hour. And it won't stop there....

 

Once I get a fever, it means I need to take a medicine to help me get over it soon and back to my feet (and my daily activities....hihihi....). Oh, sure it will help me getting through the fever attack. I could sleep. The soreness all over my body will disappear. And in a mere hours, my temperature will get down to normal again....

When the fever leaves my body, it also take away my strength. As soon as I could stand still and no longer feel happy just stay in bed, I will immediately back to work. While I'm very eager to depart, twenty minutes driving to the office will rob my entire energy, and I will reach the office feeling very weak and shaking. Well, that's not a big problem....I could steal a nap whenever I need....hihihi...and there's hot drink I could take to boost my energy.

The big problem after I got a fever is sleeping. While I could sleep during the fever attack, the first night afterwards I will unable to sleep. Why? Because I get nightmare. In that dream, I always feel like being watched or chased. But I can't runaway, sometimes I even feel like sucked up into emptiness. Sometimes I succeed to runaway very fast, till I fly away like a balloon (now I know how the loose-balloon feels...hihihi...). It wakes me up and keeps recurring no matter how strong I will my brain to close and stop the nightmares. So I will feel unrefreshed next morning. Added to the very limited energy I have, it's quite a hard struggle to stay focus during the working hours and driving home afterwards.

How long will it go on? Usually till the next weekend, when I have time enough to rest my mind and sleep all day. See, one day fever, and I need a week to convalescence.. A wasting time indeed....hihihi....

 

Fallen Ill on Weekend

My body have a peculiar habit: only to get sick on vacations.... Not happened automatically, of course...hehehe.... I used to train my brain to take control what should be happened on my body at certain times. That way, I could minimize any damages, especially on critical and most important moments. Of course, sometimes it also ruined my vacation....who wants to stay on bed while you have the whole day to have fun? Uh, wait a minute...stay on bed all day is also fun...hahahaha....

Last week, the third week of November 2012 was a busy time for me. Plus, there was an extra vacation in the middle of the week. On Monday, I had a feeling that was something wrong in my body. Finally three months under the extreme heat of our dry season had begun to affect me. Too many iced waters, sleep under AC or fan turned on at maximum speed combined with less of quality sleep at night.

Fine - I thought - let's go back and drink more hot waters, instead iced ones. I don't have time to fall ill on this week, there are so many things to be done....so I thought.

On Wednesday, I felt a PMS coming over. Usually it was no problem for me. But maybe because my condition was slightly under the usual form, I felt that I need to take an antacid as a precaution. And everything run smoothly as planned...

On Saturday, as usual when on vacations, I prefer to eat light and fresh food, like salads. The extreme heat that day made me reluctant to eat anything else. So, for lunch and dinner I just had one of  Indonesian salad called asinan. It's consisted of tofu, potatoes, bean sprouts covered with mixture sauce of crushed peanut and vinegar. It's quite refreshing for a hot day. Too bad, I can't show the picture of it, because I practically ate the most of it....hehehe....

And that was the trigger of my suffer. Everything was still okay till midnight. I was still up, playing online games when suddenly I felt a very bad stomachache. I couldn't sleep at all, spent every two hours going to the bathroom, felt there were so many gasses playing around in my abdominal. On Sunday morning, I couldn't keep stay up for long.... And in the afternoon I developed a slight fever. Fortunately, after that the antacid I took finally worked. But I had already lost so many energy, that I had to skip work on Monday...made a havoc in the office....hehehehe....

Have I already been fit again today? That's still a big question.....hehehe... I have been back to work since yesterday, still not on 100% good condition. But still I need to go, there are so many things waiting for my attention...and so many chaos stories, too....[sigh!]... I'm still having trouble to sleep these last two nights....the after-effect of my illness... My body insists to take its own time to heal, apparently....hahaha...

Running Away

These days, my hours has been filled with many problems, many confrontations. 

At the workplace, business has been stalled. I guess it's typically of many businesses lately. It needs a new blood to survive and for a chance to grow bigger. And to do that, it would need new equipments and - more important - new hiring workers. Unfortunately, the owner refuse to spend any money for that, but it never stops him for demanding a bigger and bigger income every time.

At home, I have to deal with an almost teenager who frequently head to head with his elderly grandma. Small matters could become a very big row. I try to keep calm and patient, but it also makes a fire deep inside me flare up and I can feel it's ready to explode anytime....

Sometimes, when I'm feeling so tired, I wish that I could leave everything behind for a while and go for a holiday. Just me. In a five star hotel, with a cable TV and good food. What will I do? Just spend all day on the bed....:P...sleeping, watching CSI and How I Met Your Mother.

Then, I thought the afterwards. After the short holiday, I have to come back home, back to the routinity, back to all of the problems..... Yikes!!!!

It seems running away won't solve my problems....only dry out my saving account...

It would be much better to face them, and try to solve it step by step, one by one. And hoping that during the stressful way, I will encounter some delightful detours that makes my heartache and tiredness is worthwhile....:)

My First Rainbow Cake

Ever since it was launched by one bakery in my town, I've been dying to taste it. Its colorful layers (well, it is rainbow cake, so it should be colorful like rainbow, right? hihihi....) was really tempting.

After months and months dreaming and imagining, finally I found it while shopping at Carrefour, one of hypermarkets in my town. I bought two pieces of it with different topping, and ate one of them while waiting for my sister's flight.

How did it taste? The first one I ate was quite nice. Maybe because I ate it immediately after it got out from freezer. Well, it was rather too sweet for my taste. Not the bread, but the cream between the layers...it was too sugary.

The second one was kept in the refrigerator for days, before I decided to eat it. Of course, it had become quite hard and almost tasteless....hihihi....

Never mind, I know now the taste of a Rainbow Cake. It won't haunt me anymore....hihihi....

1000 days after Dad's Passaway

 

My dad had passed away on November 27, 2009.....a thousand days ago... on age 74 years after been ill for so long and spent most of the last year of his life in and out of hospital.

 

Sadly, I barely have any sweet memories with him. Why? Because we didn't spent too many times as family while he still alived and we're still young children. He was a Navy officer, and spent most of his active duties on the seas. When he had retired, we were already teenagers and young adults with our own busy daily activities and ring of friends. I, for instance, didn't know how to stay long and keep talking with him about our days. Most of times, I just said hi, good morning and I have to go [somewhere].

 

Even when the other siblings of mine had gotten out from home - because of marriage or work out of town - made me the only child still lived with my parents, I couldn't get any closer to him. I simply couldn't find any common grounds to easily talk with him.

 

Once, before his passaway, while I was stopping by at the hospital to give something Mom needed, out of the blue he invited me to sit beside him for a while. I refused him, firstly because my time was very limited, I had to depart to my work ASAP. Secondly, because I was scared he would talk the way people near death talking....asking for something I wasn't ready to answer, requesting for something I wasn't sure to be able to do. Have I regretted for refusing his final request? Hmmm....no, I don't think so....I'm just curious about what things he wanted to say to me....but it really doesn't matter to me....:)

 

On August 21, 2012 evening, we gave a special mass for him. It's part of Javanese tradition. These last three years, we had carefully planned our activities in accordance with the remembrance days for Dad's passaway. Seven days after his passaway, 100 days after, a year after, two years after. This year is the final ritual. After the mass and after cleaned the house and put everything back to its original place, Mom said to us - her children - : "It is all done. From now on, it's time to step forward and make a new living."

 

And so it is.... Mom and I start to concentrate in building our new baby business - it's a laundry business. It is not as though we will forget Dad, because there's still Mom that I think will always reminds me of him. After all, how else am I here, breathing and living, without  Dad? hehehe...

 

So, Dad, I hope you are listening up there. Rest in peace, Dad. Don't worry, we're okay here, and will try to keep on okay....:)... Sail on, Dad.....

 

Birthday's Wishlist on 2012

Last year, I made a thanksgiving note for each of nine days prior to my birthday.

This year, I had decided to make a wish-list instead. Like last year, I put them up as a status on my FB wall one by one everyday. And here they are :

#1: And There were None (Agatha Christie) - Indonesian version or Twilight - original version or City of Bones - original version

#2: an android cellphone with big key pads

#3: to be financially independent by next year

#4: visit Lake Toba and its Samosir Island 

#5: Visit Tana Toraja

#6: winning a hundred million jackpot and tax free

#7: to own a chain of refurbished old colonial houses

#8: able to take a holiday anytime anywhere

#9: share a birthday dinner with a certain twin someday....;)

They said that life is begun at 40. So here I am, finally found the courage to plant the foundation and take a first step forward. I hope Life will be so generous to me, to encourage me to keep on trying and making my dreams come true.....

Happy birthday to me

Happy birthday to me

Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to me!!!

PS: ummmm....anyone is willing to grant me one of the wish-list above? hihihi....

While Waiting in Line

Doraemon with the bamboo-copter

One day, while waiting for the regular bus on her way home, my sister put up this status in her Facebook: "....wish I could fly..."

When I read her status, a thought came into my mind... What if there were many other people wished the same at the same time? Meet a traffic jammed or wait for a never-come-bus...gets frustrated and then yells in Doraemon's way: "Bamboo-copterrrr......!!!!" Off you go and fly with a kind of helicopter blades on the top of your head..... Trouble is, you won't be alone..... You look in front of you, there are many other people start to go up the sky - just like you. You look back, the same thing happens there, too. And in no time at all, you'll get stuck in the same traffic jammed...only this time on the sky.....haizzzzzzz.....

Then I looked for another alternative. Again a thought came into my mind...maybe it should be better to wish having a magical skill like a genie. Just blink!!!...next, you'll be where you wanna be....

And - once again - a wicked thought came into my mind. What if there are other people wish the same??? An image came into my mind...... You blink and disappear, then out of no where : "Bangggg....!!!!" You just collided your head with another person who did the same magical "blink"...... Hihihi, not a safe way either....hihihi... 

So, for any of you who's standing in line for something and wishing for a short-cut, please think that there are maybe other persons who wish the same. Imagine what chaos will appear for the result. Hopefully, you'll end up laughing, entertained by your own imagination and suddenly find that you're next in line..... Oh, how fast the time has flown.....hihihi...

Strawberries!!!

Taken with a Sony Ericcson J108i Cedar

A week ago, while I fought against the flu bug who tried to infiltrate my health, suddenly I was longing for a taste of strawberries. My eyes kept searching along the fruit stalls at a market I passed on my way to work. But all I saw were mangoes, melons, oranges, paw-paws....no strawberries. Hmmmm, I thought, maybe the season had already past for it. The alternative was, buying a fresh juice.....but fresh juices without ice was too heavy for me, and ice was not good for my health at the time. It would weaken my defense against the flu bug...hehehe...

Yesterday morning, suddenly I saw a fruit stall sold strawberries in mini packages. Unfortunately, I couldn't pull over, as I was in the middle of a busy road and my time was rather limited. So, this morning I decided to try looking for the stall again. I found it and the strawberries was still available....furthermore, I had a chance to stop and buy it...yay!!! I bought two mini boxes, each contained 15-20 strawberries. I planned to open and share one box with my colleagues at the office, and bring home the other one.

At the office, I got another surprise. A colleague who had a leave yesterday brought me a box of strawberries, too....hehehe... She saw it while visiting some place and remembered that I had hunted for it for days. So, she bought it for me...hehehe...

So, today I have 3 boxes of strawberries in my hand. I had opened the one from my colleague, ate some of it as a snack...hihihi... Can't be too much, as a friend reminded me, I have to be careful with my stomach while savor it...hehehe... It tasted yummy!!!!

Nightmares

Image source: beembe.com

Everyone has a bad dream sometimes while sleeping. Sometimes, this bad dream could happen more than once, makes it a reccurence nightmare for the person. Below are two of some recurrence nightmares I've experienced :

1) Back to college year

I really hate this kind of dream. Usually it started with me mounting a very high stairs and walking a very long corridor. Then, suddenly I was in a studio class with many drawing desks around. At the time, usually my sane brain reminded the other side of my brain that I had finished my college years, so there was no reason at all for me suferring the pressure all over again. And I woke up startledly.....

2) Couldn't find any decent bathroom

This is the most reccurence nightmare I have. In this kind of dream, usually I badly needed to be hurry to go somewhere, so I needed to take shower or just go to a toilet. Problem is, I always had difficulties to locate a nearest bathroom. Either there was always something that prevent me to go and find it, or I had to search till the end of a corridor. The next problem is, the bathroom I found always sooooo small, dark and not clean at all.

Whenever I had this nightmare, my sane brain had to work extra hard to wake me up. Usually, I woke up very tired.....and in need to go to the bathroom....hihihi...to ensure myself that it was only in my dream, that I have a spacey and clean enough bathroom in real world....hihihi....

See, there's always a part of my brain that always wake me up from any nightmares. When a bad dream become too strong, there's always a voice that telling me that it's just a dream, that I should wake up to cut the dream short. Hihihi....I think I'm very blessed with a very good guardian angel that watches over me 26 hours a day.....hihihi... I don't think I deserve it, but thank you, God...very much....

"Me" Time

image source : crashtestmommy.net

How many of you dream of a time for pampering yourself? A time where there's none will disturb you in doing something you like... A moment when time in this world may stop for a while...

If I list all of my daily activities, you may think that I am a very busy person....well, many of my friends thought so....hehehe... First of all, I have my job which I could describe generally as an administrative assistant. At home, I help my elderly Mom managing our home and taking care The Little One. As a social person, I belong to a youth catholic choir in my parish, that holds a weekly practice every Tuesday night at 8-10pm. On weekends, I spend most of the time doing my laundry, cleaning the house and shopping for the next week. So, when do I have my Me-Time?

Will you laugh if I say that my Me-Time mostly is whenever I'm at work? Hehehe...but it's true! Most of my working time, I spend it alone in the office. My colleagues usually work outside, either at a project or in our nursery. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that I work at a landscape contractor that also has an indoor plants nursery. So, usually in the morning, we all come into the office to talk about our schedule for today. Then, at the least on 9am, my colleagues depart to each schedule and I'll be left alone to do my tasks in my own time.... If there aren't anymore (urgently) to be done, then I do anything else to fill my time until the closing time....reading books, blogging, watching DVDs, playing games....or sleeping....hehehe....

Even when I'm ill, I prefer to report on duty, whenever my health allows me to stand up, of course....hehehe... Because whenever I'm absent from work, my cellphone won't stop ringing, either my colleagues or the boss keeps asking this or that. Apparently, everyone is stuck in the office. The incredible thing is, the moment I report on duty, they all will disappear from the office and I will be left alone again.....haizzzzzz....