And The Winner Is

Before moving to the new house, I have shared with you the home appliances I intended to buy here. In the end, these are the things that made it into our home.

It turns out that we did not need to purchase a new microwave since my mother-in-law gave us one as a gift. This saves us a lot. (Thanks, Mom!) I like the white color it brings in front of our brick wall although this is actually an old model. You can tell from the turn knob.

So far we do not have a problem with this baby. We use it only to warm our meal. 

As for the rice cooker, you know I really dislike how most home appliances look here. They look as if they are all made from plastic. The flowery pattern and the bright color just does not meet my taste. I have narrowed down my choices and already decided where I will but it from based on the above table. I changed my mind once I found this one.

http://www.starcosmosgroup.com
(I think the manufacturer should improve their product image, seriously)

Since I do not need any fancy feature and I dislike any pattern on my home appliances, this seems to be the perfect choice. It does what a magic com should, it cooks rice and it keeps them warm. That's it. No fuss.

I intended to buy it on-line but in the end, due to my procrastinating habit, I ended up buying this baby from one of our local supermarket. One online shop is running out of stock, the other has two weeks delivery time. Price difference is around IDR 85,000

Cook or warm, that simple

Excuse the 'blah' image, I tried to fancy it up a bit, but somehow it just did not work

We have not yet buy either kettle nor toaster. I am now considering whether or not we need the kettle since these days I cannot see any kettle features that may benefit us. Toaster will probably serves us better. 

What do you think? 

Moving In..

Okay I have to admit, the three months maternity leave did not go as I planned. Trying to catch up on my Project Life? I did not even print any of the photos. Planning the next birthday party for my babies? Have not thought about it since the beginning of my leave. Designing and decorating for the new house? We moved hastily with the project still on-going on the first floor, leaving me overwhelmed with the task of cleaning and moving our belongings in.

My Project Life binder and all my scrapbooking supplies, jammed in their new place, unpacked and just sitting there

So the plan I scribbled for Richelle's Project Life and for this blog is just going to be another complementary image in this blog. Ironically, if you see the image below, I have the intention to put the title of 'If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail' for one of my post. I think in my case it is more appropriate to change it into 'I Succeeded to Plan but Fail Nonetheless'

Although it does not score big in Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, I will definitely consider moving house as one of the most stressful life event. It may not apply to single people, but with baby and toddler, I think I was overwhelmed. Still am, perhaps. 

I do feel better now I have the time to write this post. I even feel better to be able to move photos from my camera. Such a rare thing a me-time is these days.

Tomorrow I am planning to take photos of the chaos around the house and maybe, if Baby No.1 has mercy on me, I will be able to list down the projects I need to tackle. 

Good night, everyone. 

This is Where We're Gonna Dine

I am giddy excited to see the progress of our new home. My adoration and respect for my dear husband to finally completed our new house. He is the sole designer and project manager and I proudly say he finance the project on his own.

Remember that brick wall I showed you in my first post. Now it is considerably 90% complete along with the floor and ceiling. 

Our future dining room, captured from the living room. Love, love, love the brick wall along with the pendant light and the black door at the back. Please excuse the mat and tools rack on the right, working is still under progress

The brick wall for dining room backdrop. The pendant light was a nice feature and give a homey ambiance to the cold brick

The brick wall goes all the way to the wall on the second floor. My husband applied clear coating to sealed the brick wall surface.

Again, excuse the poor quality of the images since we took them around 10 PM. The place is quite a mess during the day since there are still a few workers working on the house. By taking the images at night, my husband would like to show me the ambiance with the lights on which if I imagined correctly, he has done a remarkable job and we are so proud of him.

Another thing I would like show are the details on the black door at the back and the kitchen at the right side of the dining room. But then again, they alone each deserves a different post themselves.

Sneak peek of the upcoming post, my love on our back door and kitchen

Baby Richelle's Pink Owl

As I have posted earlier here, we have to plan what are we going to give our relatives and friends when Baby No. 2 turns 1 month. Although there is a traditional standard to what were supposed to be give, we choose a more functional gift, something that can be use for quite sometime.

With Baby No. 1, we gave a medium-sized white towel with pink ballerina shoes embroidery. My sister-in-law's friend made these for us. 

The white towel covered in pink tulle fabric with pink ribbons on top 

A white towel with pink ballerina shoes with Baby No.1's name on top

For Baby No. 2, I thought I had the luxury of choosing a wide range of souvenirs. It turned out I underestimate the product lead time. I thought I can get small souvenirs like these

Unfortunately, either the site does not ship internationally, or the shipping and taxes cost more that the items itself, or the product lead time plus the estimated delivery date takes more than 30 days, I found myself considering our local resources. 

I surfed the net high and low and I found this:

I contacted them by email and following up by Blackberry and this nice young lady named Nini guided me through the whole process of ordering. The fact that ones I was interested in takes one month to assemble due to the availability of the boxes leads me to a pink owl theme Nini has designed for the souvenir. It consist of a mug and a fancy owl packaging.

Honestly I have to say I love the way these babies look. They are just lovely for a one-month-celebration. And Nini perhaps already made my life easier by setting the theme for Richelle's first birthday next year. Don't you think it is just lovely if Richelle's first birthday theme matches her one month celebration gift? 

A Little Change of Plan

I have posted earlier the water dispenser I wish to purchase and the comparison I made. You can read it here. 

Last night my husband assessed our inventory and we realized that we already have two units of fridge. The new one certainly goes to the kitchen and the old one goes to the second floor. We have not yet determined whether we wanted to put the old fridge in the kids room or we want to have it in ours. We bought that fridge right after I gave birth to my eldest daughter. Its main purpose is to store my expressed milk and after 6 months, I also store the baby food there too. 

Anyway, I am preparing to buy a smaller unit of water dispenser and this is the comparison I made so far. 

The table has more items because I found that there were more option from local brand with a very reasonable price for top loading water dispenser. I actually would like to compare more than what I already put in the table but I don't want to confuse myself in the end so I settle with these five options. Can you guess which one I am aiming for?

And Today I Decided to Buy This

When you deal with domestic helpers, it is no wonder that you will face some silly domestic conflict. Mine starts a couple of days ago and in order to settle this ridiculous matter, today I bring home this baby.

www.philips.co.my - Philips HD1172

Again, this is a buying with impulse, because I need it right away and we were happen to be going to a mall where they have an electronic & appliances store. 

I bought it merely because the others looks too colorful for my taste and it looks like they were all made of plastic. This one has a graphite plastic handle which made the total look is forgivable. I bought it for IDR 220,500

www.philips.co.my - Philips HD1172

If you check to this site, the product feature is described as follows:

Easy gliding on all fabrics

• Non-stick sole-plate coating - The soleplate of your Philips iron is coated with a special non-stick layer for good gliding performance on all fabrics.

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Reaches into tricky areas

• Button groove speeds up ironing along buttons and seams - The button groove makes ironing along buttons and seams fast and easy.
• Pointed tip for ironing tricky areas - The uniquely pointed tip allows you to iron even the hardest to reach areas.

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Full control

• Iron temperature-ready light - Indicator light goes off when the required ironing temperature has been reached.

When I was in the store trying to make up my mind, the other one I was also considering is one from Electrolux. 

www.electrolux.co.id - EDI 120

This one is cheaper IDR 204,000 but I really cannot get over the blue plastic plate which is not any better from the rest of the iron the store is displaying. Even the steam iron which cost double from the one I bought comes in those plastic look. These household manufacturers better come up with a better product design in the future, don't you think?

Colorful plastic  dry iron, I can not get over the look. Seriously?

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.