The Acne Prone Wife

Can we use up our luck, I wonder? (Before we go on, however, we have to believe first that there exists such thing called luck, which I find very handy in overcoming envy). The thing is that sometimes we really, really want and need luck in a dire situation, and we do not get that much-needed luck. At another time, however, we can get very lucky when the situation does not call for such pot of gold by the end of the rainbow. Yesterday I had myself checked at an obgyn to see if there is something wrong with my fertility. Because last year's check showed small infertile eggs and a chocolate cyst, I prayed for luck. Before I got to know the result, an email popped on my yahoo mail (yes, I'm still using yahoo mail, and I promise I'll migrate everything to gmail soon). The email told me that I was the lucky winner of an Internet contest. I was very lucky, indeed. The contest only asked the participants to click on some celebrities. So there I was, the sole winner of clicking the...

Warga negara yang baik membayar pajak. Dan sebagai warga negara Indonesia yang baik, bukankah setiap bulan Maret (akhir Maret, tepatnya) kita semua heboh mengisi SPT (Surat Pemberitahuan) tahun sebelumnya? Di akhir maret tahun ini saya mencoba mengumpulkan SPT saya secara online. Ini adalah fasilitas terbaru dari Direktorat Jenderal Pajak Indonesia. Sweet, right? Tidak perlu repot-repot lagi mengantarkan SPT ke kantor pajak. Dan penghitungannya otomatis asal kita tahu di mana memasukkan angka-angkanya. Untuk menjadi e-filer, istilah keren Wajib Pajak (ini kita) yang melaporkan SPT melalui e-filing, kita harus mendapatkan e-FIN (electronic Filing Identification Number) terlebih dahulu. Nah, e-FIN ini gunanya hanya untuk pertama kali registrasi. Cara registrasi: Masuk ke  https://efiling.pajak.go.id/registras i Isi kolom-kolom  yang diminta: NPWP, EFIN, nomor telepon, alamat email, password Cek email untuk link aktivasi Lalu kita masuk kembali ke laman web efiling ya...

So, finally, I came up with a New Year's Resolution. It is 22 days late, but they say it's better to be late than never, right? Because the purchase of the new house have made me poor having to save enough money each month to pay for the mortgage, I decide that this year's resolution theme is: BE FRUGAL . There is, of course, a lot of ways to be frugal, but for now I'll post this one resolution: This year I'll have to hit pans. Hopefully I will not buy more makeup and skincare thingy because I'll have to focus on hitting pans.  Here are the first items that I promise to use religiously everyday.   1. Clarins White Plus Sea Lily Enriched SPF 20 PA+++ 2. Shiseido Sun Protection Compact Foundation SPF 34 PA+++ in a too big Etude casing 3. Milani Power Blush in Luminous (the dupe of NARS O) 4. Oriflame Tender Care in Almond (the only thing I'd buy from Oriflame) (You can see how important sunscreen is for me. Btw, SPF protects us from UV...

Write down your dream and it will happen. Just kidding. So six months ago I was thinking of moving out our parents' house, and I wrote it here . Who knows that last month the husband and I actually managed to buy a house--with some financial help from the family--. It is an old house and now we're renovating it. Tadaaaa So I wrote down my dream, and it happened. But I don't think they are cause and effect. I believe we managed to buy the house because God is willing to provide what we need. And because we know we need the house, we have made arrangement and careful budget to make it happen. The process of finding the house opened our eyes that the search was led by God. We looked at a couple of houses and nearly made the purchase, but something always happened: the buyer of one house decided to cancel the deal, the certificates of another house was troublesome, etc. I almost gave up. But now when I look back, God "sabotaged" those houses because He ha...

Ini ceritanya Juni 2012. Tahun lalu, saat kami masih terdampar di Dubai. Hari itu kami ke daerah Al Karama dekat Bur Dubai, dan suami mengajak saya jalan-jalan ke salah satu tempat paling keramat untuk warga perantau dari Indonesia: Toko Abeng! Selama berbulan-bulan tinggal di Dubai, saya hanya mendengar gosip-gosip tentang Toko Abeng dari percakapan seperti ini: Ibu 1: Eh gula merah datang loh di Toko Abeng! Ibu 2: Oh yaaaa, ayo buruan kita ke sana sebelum kehabisan. Dan memang, jika tidak cepat-cepat, kami harus menunggu lama sebelum gula merah datang lagi di toko keramat ini. Sebelum benar-benar datang ke Toko Abeng, saya membayangkan toko tersebut besar seperti supermarket. Bayangan saya salah. Ternyata tokonya seuprit Bisa dilihat barang-barang dagangan utama ada berdus-dus adalah Indomie (mie favorit di Dubai. Di supermarket saya sering lihat Indomie diborong orang-orang Emirati, Arab, India, dll), sambal botol (how can we Indonesians live without sambal botol, rig...

Namaku Yen. Kampung halamanku di Kabupaten Berau, tepatnya di ibu kotanya: Tanjung Redeb, yang mungkin saat itu belum pantas disebut kota karena begitu kecilnya. Semua orang Berau saling mengenal berkat ukurannya yang mini dan suasana kampung yang akrab. Kami juga punya Sultan. Kapan-kapan aku akan ceritakan mengenai Sultan dan Pangeran dan Putri di Berau. Huruf A itu Berau. Dekat hidungnya Om Kalimantan. Diklik aja gambarnya supaya besar. Gambar dari Google Maps. Beberapa langkah dari rumahku ada sungai deras mengalir, bersih dan jernih seperti semua sungai di Kalimantan saat pulau besar ini masih pantas disebut paru-paru dunia. Kami anak-anak kecil suka berenang di sana, yang perempuan dengan baju lengkap dan rok lebar yang berfungsi sebagai semi-pelampung. Maklum, mana ada baju renang saat itu. Baju kami saja adalah jahitan Mama sendiri, satu atau dua baju untuk dipakai setahun. Gaya renang kami? Gaya suka-suka dan siap kabur dari sungai jika terlihat ada buaya hendak melin...

I worry. Worry is your heart goes boom boom boom because you are uncertain of things. It makes you want to take a peek into the future, so that you can anticipate things. Or curse things. Your prayer is a prayer of worry and requests as if you don't believe that everything He plans is good. You pray to ask for things, and you forget to listen to Him. Worry is not trusting. You know the Lord holds your future and that future is according to His good, but you just cannot wait. You just do not trust Him. Worry is being attached to things. You cannot say "I have nothing to lose." Because you have many things. I worry. And He told me what to do, that I should learn to let go. It is not easy. But he made it easy, somehow, when my hard disk crashed. Goodbye One Piece, Batman, Naruto, Fairy Tail, and tons of movies. And when I didn't get the house(s) that I wanted, over and over. He said that he had something better in store for me. Warning: "better" for...