A Simple Gal's Journal: The Blue Birthday Diva!



Hello, Friends!

Do you know there are some weeks that feel like they go on forever, and there are some weeks that feel like they passed by in the speed of light? Well, the later one was last week for me!

I did mention in last week to do list here that I planned to make one meatless dinner per week for me and Hubby. The easiest, of course, is salad. I mean, how difficult it is to make a salad? A friend of mine who happened to work as a chef at a five-star hotel in London told me, that what you need to do to make a SIMPLE great salad is just the following steps:

1. Laddle a spoon of balsamic vinegar and olive oil onto a plate, a pich of salt and pepper to taste.
2. Throw in some greens, like romaine, spinach, cucumber, whatever you like.
3. Throw in some reds, like tomatoes, apples, whatever you like or have in the fridge.
4. Add some whites, like hardboiled eggs or shredded meat.
5. Add some yellows, like cheese or croutons, pretzels, nuts, or even crumbs of crackers in my case, since it's the only thing I had.
6. Add anything else you like: sausages, grapes, if you happen to have or want them.
7. Stir. Enjoy. Add some carbs if you have to have carb like me. I used boiled potatoes with some salt to taste. I added a tiny dollop of mayo too, for the potatoes.



This is my very simple lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, egg, and potato salad, with a bit of cracker crumbs to add a bit of texture. It's fresh, healthy, crunchy, and cheap. Hubby loved it, and though I'm not a big veggie lover, I ate it, too. ^_^

I found some great stuff from the sale bin when I did my biweekly grocery shopping. The first is these bathrobes with cute bear appliques. They come in cheerful pink and yellow, and they have been marked down from 18 dollars to only three dollars a piece. I snatched two, since my old bathrobe has disintegrated and lost colors from many years of usage. I loved that old tosca bathrobe with swan appliques ot mine, but I also realize it's no longer suitable to wear, so I cut it up into pieces, and use the scraps for cleaning rags.

I also found these cute hard books for toddlers. I have had books for more advanced reader give to Michael as gifts, but he only have a few basic books. It's so difficult to find good children's book in Indonesian language, most of them them are in English, so I got these for my son. He loves books and storytime with Mommy!

May is my birthday month. I'm turning 36 this month, so last weekend we went to Plaza Indonesia, my favorite mall, to celebrate with Sunday family/birthday/Mother's Day brunch. The day was a very special day, because it was the first birthday AND also international's Mother's Day that we celebrate as a complete family. Last year, I only celebrated with Hubby since Michael was too young. Hubby wanted me to dress up, so I took out to wear this new cobalt blue little number that I bought last week after gym especially for this occassion. 

Hahaha! What do you think of this picture? I think the husband-day-care-center thing, and my Hubby's expression, was hillarious!

My son looked so happy, he ate up all his lunch, and he laughed with Mommy and Daddy and rode his first choo-choo train at the mall with Mommy. It was a happy time. Precious memory that I will cherish forever.

Back home, in the late afternoon, we had a walk to the park and Michael met an adorable four-legged friend named Chester! Awwwwww... My son loves animals. I am, too, a dog lover, so I'm happy that he's not afraid of dogs.

Last week's to do list:

• Reread, learn and contemplate on The Book of James. I did James 4, even wrote a post on my contemplation here.
• List point of interests to visit in Part 1 and 2 of our upcoming vacation.
• Coming up with final layout with architect for renovation project. 90% done.
• Reorganize my purse collection and clean out the bags I no longer want to have. I got rid of four bags, and gave away another two, so six in total.
• Read one chapter of Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and Chapter 1 of Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". (the one chapter I read last week was the Prologue, kind of introduction for the book, which is extremely interesting, but quite long).
• Updating our family's filing system that I created where I keep all the scanned versions of our important documents, such as birth certificates, so just in case something happens to the original hardcopy, we will still have the softcopy version. 
• Start preparing one healthy meatless family dinner per week. We don't eat meat all the time, - I mean, who would eat meat for breakfast - but starting this week, we will intentionally start eating one home-made, meatless, dinner per week.

This week's to do list:

• Reread, learn and contemplate on The Book of James, James 3.
• Read one chapter of Karen Stolz' "World of Pies".
• Read Chapter 3 of Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle".
• List point of interests to visit in Part 1 and 2 of our upcoming vacation.
• Download visa application for our upcoming holiday.
• Pick up migration form for my cell phone plan migration.
• Call my bank to check about credit card expiration date.
• Finalize house plan with architect.
• Reorganize my closet and clean out the clothes I no longer want.
• Organize rosary prayer for my neighborhood's Catholic community, which will be conducted at my house this week.
• Reorganize bedroom with new furniture.
• Meet my girlfriends for lunch.
• Top up the family investment plan.
• Transfer scholarship money for underprivileged children program.

I've been so busy lately, I didn't find enough quiet time to seriously read Robert Kiyosasaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad", which as light reading as it is for financial book, needs a little bit of concentration, so I decided to postpone reading it until after my vacation. That's why it's no longer on my to-do-list.