At the end of Confinement

I am following the Chinese tradition of 'zuo yuezi' which literally means sitting the month. According to this site, it is the month where after childbirth, women are not allowed to leave their homes, take a bath, wash their hair, exposed themselves to cold water, cold temperatures and wind, or ingest ice water or 'cold' food (raw vegetables, salads, or fruits). Having losing blood after delivery, women are in cold stage therefore they need to consume 'hot' food to restore balance, like chicken, ginger, Chinese wine, or soup.

At the end of sitting the month, on the 30th day, comes the first important event for the newly born baby, the one month celebration. According to this site, during the celebration, families give relatives and friends gifts which usually includes red-dyed eggs. They are chosen because eggs are the symbol of changing process of life and their round shape is the symbol of harmonious and happy life. Red is the sign of happiness in Chinese culture. Relatives and friends will give presents in return which include things that the child will use like foods, daily materials, gold or silver wares. The most common present is ang pau which is money that is wrapped in a piece of red paper.

Rachel and Richelle receives their gifts before their one month celebration. It is a custom here that relatives and friends come to visit right after the baby was born and they bring the babies gifts like one mentioned above.

Gift me more!

I want to have these wrapping paper in Richelle's baby book as memorabilia, so I cut the better areas where wrinkles the least

Wrapping papers, already cut into small sizes to fir Project Life pockets

This one is a favorite, we love love love shopping in this store, mommy's heaven!

You can guess which store I'm talking about from that infamous little lady logo

What's inside the box

Do my husband's friend mistaken Richelle for a boy? What an odd choice for baby girl gift!

Now the hard part will be determining what we should give for our relatives and friends. Although I have my choices, it seems that it is possible that we are not getting them exactly on the Richelle's one month celebration. Another flunk on my site, duh! Stay tune and get the chance to see my choices of souvenirs.

A Little Organizing on the Way

This week, Richelle is due to her first doctor appointment after being released from the hospital as a perfectly healthy newborn. This month, big sister Rachel is also due for her immunization. Although Rachel and I have been a loyal customer for one of the most well-known women-and-children hospital chain, due to some uncomfortable situations we encountered during my stay in one of their hospitals for Richelle's labor, my husband and I decided that it is best that we change to a hospital that can cater our need more. 

I wish I had my camera with me when we visited the hospital of our choice for the first time. Excuse my lack of energy, I was only a week post-partum that day and I cannot imagine carrying my camera with me along with both girls. 

It was also come to my attention that our medical records need re-arrangement. I mean, the medical record books have been lying in the bedside table drawer all the time along with some transaction receipts. 

Although it is better to have the arrangement once we settled in our new house (everything seems postponed until the house ready, doesn't it) I think I will start with a baby step of determining the system I will use for keeping the medical files of the baby. 

So I turn to one of my favorite site here to find me a guidance. Toni of A Bowl full of Lemons keeps her family medical records in a filing system along with financial, house, automotive, and other documents as follows:

http://www.abowlfulloflemons.net/2013/06/filing-system-organization.html

Because I want to discuss about the medical records only, I put how Toni divide the red 'zone' as follows:

Red Category - Medical & Pets
- Paid doctor bills
- Benefit summaries (Not sure if we have one here nor do I understand what it means)
- One medical folder for each family member
- Prescription
- Vision
- Dental
- Vet
- One folder for each pet

I understand that there is not any single rule on how you are supposed to organize your medical records. You have to customize to meet you and your family needs and we have to remember that every member of the family has specific needs.

So I think this is how I am going to categorize our medical records :

- One big folder or filing box to gather all our family documents
- Each family member has their own folder which we are going to have four folders:
(1). Daddy
(2). Mommy
(3). Rachel
(4). Richelle
- Each folders has four sub-folders:
(1). Medical records 
(2). Medical bills
(3). All prescription drug information
(4). Test result (if any)

 Although I like the way it looks in Toni's post, we cannot find the same nor the similar products here. So I will browse around should I find products here with similar function and appealing looks for our medical records. 

Until next time.

Blush - Title Page

So I finally started Richelle's Project Life album. Since I only bought the mini kit of`Project Life Baby Edition, I am trying to use other product in the title page. 

I already put the title page with the products shown above 

But then I did not get the chance to finish until that night I had the time to scribble and make sketches for Project Life and I come to this idea of having solid color paper and black and white photos of Richelle in the title and ending page.

Since I am still within my 40-days-of-rest after giving birth to Richelle, I'm not allowed to go out of the house. Therefore, it may be a while for me to post the actual title and ending page. I think I will go straight to the third-closest mall from the house because I need to print out the photos and I also am planning to get a new chipboard letter stickers for each month title.

Looking forward to the end of this month.

Upcoming Appliances

Still in the subject of house appliances, from this site I still have to purchase the following items :

II. Counter-top Appliances and Accessories

www.shutterstock.com

1. Toaster or toaster oven

2. Mixer

3. Coffee maker

4. Kettle

I find the list is not really applicable since I do believe we can use rice cooker (or magic jar or magic com as you may call it) more than we use toaster.

I really dislike the look of rice cooker and its kind, with the flower or the ornament along the appliances body. I settle with one in a bold color if we cannot get anything in white or stainless steel finish.

And as we hardly ever use mixer, we might as well buy a kettle first before buying a mixer or a coffee maker.

So I come up with a new list that is more suitable to our needs and budget, which are :

1. Rice cooker / magic jar / magic com

www.aroma-housewares.com - Aroma 20-Cup Digital Rice Cooker & Food Steamer

P.S I have no idea where to but an Aroma house ware in Jakarta, I put the image above because the item looks good. Why can't the local brand here make one looks like that? Or the very least, having a worthy product photography.

For purchasing this items, I'm preparing the following table:

My guidelines in buying rice cooker / magic com, sources mentioned above

2. Kettle 

www.electrolux.co.id - Electric Kettle EEK 3100

image source www.phillips.co.id

3. Microwave

Price source mentioned above, image source from each brand (www.sharp-indonesia.com & www.panasonic.com)

I think there is a pretty good chance I am going to buy all my necessities to one of the price source mentioned above because it has the best bargain

4. Toaster (if budget permits)

I know that sometimes images from each brand or manufacturer do not represent the real items since they may have photoshop-ed the image to make it look more appealing. Hey, they have to make a sell, right? How can I not wanting something like this in our kitchen :

www.uncrate.com - The Egg & Muffin Toaster 

I will skip the small appliances like cooking implements, kitchen utensils and tools, tableware, and bake-ware, and goes straight to :

III. Floor Care and Cleaning Items

1. Vacuum cleaner

When we found bumps on baby Rachel, we suspected there was bugs, mites, dust, you name it, all those nasty things on our spring bed. My husband settled for this vacuum :

www.raycop-europe.com

Although I was not familiar with the brand, when they claim that they are the first anti-bacterial cleaner that kills between 93.5% to 99% viruses and bacteria, well, I'm sold. Anything to protect your baby's skin, right. 

This vacuum is hand-held, thus make it quite difficult to cleanse other than mattresses, pillows, and upholstered furniture. Should we find spare in our budget, I would like to have this baby :

www.newsroom.electrolux.com

I have seen my in-law uses this baby and I find it quite helpful. I have read the review in Amazon where most people find the battery disappointing. Like I said, only if we have spare budget.

2. Broom and dustpan

3. Floor mop, scrub pail, scrub brush, and cleaning rags

For the last two items, I think I just go with whatever products available. What is important though is how we are going to keep them nice and tidy like this : 

I'm terribly sorry I forget where I download the above image. I saved it to my IPad and totally forget to take note. Please confirm should the image has copyright

And for the small cleaning items, the following images of cleaning caddy should be very inspiring.

http://www.abowlfulloflemons.net

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com

Wish me luck on the new house, guys!

Coming Soon

Just like any owner of a new house, we are now trying to furnish ours. My husband already bought us some appliances like water heater, kitchen hob and its exhaust, and some other things that I don't even think I have seen yet. But I'm pretty certain that we still have a few items we need to purchase before we can actually run a household.

Since we're on a budget, I think we need to learn what is the basic home appliances we need to have so we can prioritize our purchase. I googled around and find this list from this website.

I. Major appliances 

1. Refrigerator
2. Stove or cooking range
3. Microwave
4. Laundry appliances

I opt to leave out the last two appliances which are freezer, which buying a separate freezer from a refrigerator is really not an option for us and dishwasher, which is not commonly used here. 

Here are what we bought for now :

www.samsung.com - Samsung Refrigerator RT32FARCDSA

We bought the fridge because my husband like the recessed handle and he thinks that the price still fit our budget. I personally think that I was not ready to spend that much on a fridge but since we are going to locate this fridge in a place that is noticeable from all angle in the first floor of our house, my husband, who happens to be the interior designer of our house (deh) consider that this is an appropriate choice. The recessed handle does make the fridge look more modern with its smooth metal graphite finish. 

www.samsung.com - Samsung Refrigerator RT32FARCDSA

With that baby, comes along this one :

www.electrolux.co.id - Electrolux Washing Machines EWT704S

I wish I can tell you guys that I have done deep research on those two products and both that we have purchased are the ones I see fit to our requirements and budget. No, I did not do any research at all before purchasing those two babies. For something that is considerably costly, I think I should have done better. 

That is why for my next purchase of home appliances, I made this table like this one :

Comparison table for buying guide 

Hopefully I will have the time and energy to make such comparison for other purchase we are planning to make for our house.