Monday, May 19, 2014

A Beautiful Birthday Week (Week In Recap N To Do List)

Hello, Friends!
  
Last week was another hectic week for me, but it was a fun and joyful one, also!
Two girls from my team had been formalized as permanent employee, and they treated the main members of the team out to lunch at a nearby restaurant called Rumah Putih, which means The White House. It's a vintage house with antiques furnitures, pretty chandelier, beautiful inner garden with swimming pool, which the owner had turned into a restaurant and cafe. Here is our picture by the pool after lunch. Thank you for inviting me and congratulations, Elfrida and Lisa!



A coworker just delivered her second baby, a baby boy named Golden. What a name, right! I sent her a care package for Mommy and Baby. For the Baby I got him some baby clothes. Considering that this is her second baby, I thought she would have had enought toys and stuff, but clothes will always be useful. Also, I sent some little things that I thought the mother can use:
  • A pretty purple nursing dress in flower pattern.
  • A small bottle of fresh orange-scented shower gel from Body Shop. I remember that after my baby was born, I didn't have much time to primp or fuss about myself, but I definitely take shower! Sweet smelling shower gel is a little luxury that even the busiest woman can enjoy.
  • A pack of ready-to-use eye mask, to help with the lack of sleep.
  • A cute hair scrunchie. A new mommy always need something pretty to tie her hair back so it won't get in the way.
  • A baby picture frame for the USG picture or baby picture.
Congratulations, Erna and Hendra!


Online shopping is now booming in Indonesia, and Hubby also caught the olshop bug. After several success in finding great items with cheaper price online, he was pretty much hooked to online shopping I had to tell him to stop buying new pants and shoes just because they are cheaper than in brick and mortar stores! Haha!
  

I just want to include this message from Hubby that he sent last week for my birthday. Isn't it sweet?


My birthday was over the weekend, so imagine my surprise, and delight, to come to the office on Monday morning and found all these beautifully wrapped presents on my desk! The picture only show some of them, I received several more later on. It was so sweet of my coworkers to remember my birthday and shower me with so much love and attention. I feel so blessed and thankful to have such wonderful team! It really made my day. But I didn't know it will only get better and better throughout the day, and the best is yet to come...


Throughout the day, not only gifts that kept coming in, but surprise birthday cakes, too! First, I got a cheesecake tart from my personal bank. Then I got a huge chocolate cake from my team. Then someone else sent me a delicious picnic roll. Late in the afternoon, the biggest cake of all came: this gigantic, gorgeous, colorful, fruit cake! My oh my! My team was like: "No more cake, please!" I shared most of them with other department, and also with security personnels to show my appreciation that they work 24/7 to watch over the building where we work in. I know that it's their job and they got paid to do what they do, but still, I want to show that I appreciate what they do everyday. Besides, don't you just love it if someone else show appreciation for what you do, even if you know you're supposed to do it anyway?
  

It's a tradition here in Indonesia that when you are the birthday girl or boy, you can expect gifts from your friends, but you also are expected to treat your friends with something. It could be something as simple as buying a cake for them, or some snacks, pizza, it can be something more over the top such as holding an extravagant, lavish event with live music and performance and sumptuous five course dinner in a five-star hotel ballroom.

For my birthday this year, I decided to treat the main members of my team, about twelve people, to lunch at a rather-expensive-yet-still-worth-it Chinese restaurant called Duck King, located at the mall not far from my office. I basically let my team to order anything they want out of the menu: grilled duck, various dim sum, softshelled crab, shrimp in mayo, etc. Look at the table here, full with bounty. Looking at the happy faces and radiant atmosphere, I felt so happy and blessed, to be surrounded by these wonderful people, wonderful coworkers and subordinates, my lovely team.



 The surprise went on and on all day, with all the presents and cakes kept pouring in. It was nuts! It felt fabulous! I felt fabulous! And happy. And lucky. And thankful.
I worked until late that day, so Hubby arrived home before I did. When I reached home, Hubby disappeared to the kitchen and came out, to present this beautiful bouquet of pink roses for me! I was really really surprised! Happily surprised. Hubby never got me flowers before, not once. So this one felt very special!

But the surprise didn't end there. He proceeded telling me that the original plan was, my team had worked out a surprise birthday lunch for me, where they also invited Hubby to come all the way from his office to attend the event. Well, well, well! If only I knew! Naturally, the plan failed to materialize, because I had already invited them to lunch first, before they got a chance to throw the surprise birthday lunch! The flowers had already been ordered, so my team sent it over to my home, so that Hubby can still give them to me, minus the surprise party!

Finding out that my team cared so much about me, that they took the pain and care in planning a surprise party for me, totally made my day! If I was happy before, I became emotionally touched now. I have the most wonderful team in the whole world! I felt humbly blessed, grateful, thankful. I felt loved and cared. And I was glad that invited them first, because I am very thankful to them. The lunch was the least I could do to express my gratitude and a way to say thank you for their kind gesture and thoughtfulness. It's OK that the party didn't happen, it's the thought that counts. I am so blessed, indeed. So very blessed. Thank you, Lord.




And finally, I had the last birthday celebration of the year with my girlfriends, Inti and Inne. We all came from different yet somehow similar background. We came from different cities. We all are Indonesian Chinese from a well-to-do families. Inne is the eldest child, Inti a middle child, I'm the youngest child, though I'm the oldest of the trio. We all went to school overseas: Inti in Canada, Inne in the UK, me in the US. We all live alone as single women. We have different look, different personalities, different fashion sense, yet we mix and mingle well. When we meet, it's a mix of Indonesian and English language for conversation!

We went to have some pork knuckles in a German restaurant called Paulaner, then did some shopping in Forever21. The sad news is, Inti will be leaving for Canada for a year in July. Several years ago, it was Inne who moved back to her hometown, but then she came back to Jakarta. Now it's Inti's turn to leave for Canada. Both Inne and I hope she'll be coming back, and she intends to come back, unless she meets a potential husband there, of course! Haha! Best of luck to you, Inti!



On the weekend my new bedroom furnitures finally came. Yayyy!! Thus, it was a very busy weekend assembling the furniture and major reorganizing project in our bedroom, which will last for the next two weeks or more, I imagine. At the moment clothes, our DVD collection, and all my things are still strewn all over the bed in our spare bedroom, because the assembling is not finished yet so I cannot yet start reorganizing them in my new wardrobe closet.

Last 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.
Next week's to do list:

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5 comments:

a joyful noise said...

What a festive birthday and cake and more cake. Your team and co-workers love and appreciate you. It was lovely you could meet with your two friends before they leave for Canada. Thank you for sharing your wonderful post with us here at “Tell Me a Story.” At: http://letmetelluastory.blogspot.com/

May 21, 2014 at 4:42 AM
Jody Lee Collins said...

Hello! we are 'neighbors' this week at Laura Boggess 'Playdates'. You have quite a busy life there in your corner of the world. Thank you for sharing.

May 21, 2014 at 7:18 AM
Pamela said...

How I loved reading this! You are blessed with many friends--made my heart smile. What a lovely tradition to treat your friends on your birthday. I'd love to adopt that as mine.

Joyfully,
Pamela

May 26, 2014 at 3:24 AM
Janis Cox said...

What a celebration. We don't celebrate much on our birthdays but we have family gatherings instead. No matter how we share the love of family God is pleased when we share our love with others.
Blessings to you,
Janis

May 27, 2014 at 1:10 AM
Nicole said...

What a lovely celebration! Thank you for sharing at the Growing In Grace Link-Up!

May 27, 2014 at 10:20 PM

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