Monday, November 10, 2014

Benefit of Journaling N Week In Recap



Mixit Blue Flower Earrings • jcpenney • $12.00
Sterling Silver Yellow Plated (Nickel Free)Children?s Flower Earring with White & Yellow Enamel • Ice.com • $50.00
Nakamol Mixed-Metal Beaded Cuff, Punch • Nakamol • $31.50
Cara Accessories Beaded Cuff • Cara Accessories • $18.00
Bouquet of Flowers Necklace • Ily Couture • $36.00
East Lion Corp./Qupid Strawberry Scones Heel • $44.99
MICHAEL Michael Kors 'Jet Set' East/West Saffiano Leather Tote • MICHAEL Michael Kors • $268.00
Angela & Roi Sunday Tote & Shoulder by Angela & Roi • Angela • $142.00
Jil Sander Skirt • Jil Sander • $50.00
Missoni Vintage Check skirt • Missoni • $107.80
Rancho Estancia Southwest Stripe Shirt - 3/4 Sleeve (For Women) • $15.95
Tahari ASL Tahari by Arthur S. Levine® Cropped Jacket • Tahari by Arthur S. Levine • $94.98


Some time I ago, I listed down my Easter resolutions, and one of them is incorporating our family journal into the Style N Season blog. Over the years of blogging and blogwalking and YouTube surfing, I realized how much I enjoy reading and watching “A Day in The Life” posts/videos. There is something fun and refreshing and inspiring to see how other women and families spend their day – not the “Keeping Up With Whoever” reality show type - , but just regular, ordinary people. It could be something very simple like what they eat, how they decorate a room, what they buy at the grocery store, simple tricks and trips in cleaning and organizing, their girls’ night out, the children birthday party, their morning coffee and devotion time. The everyday things that make daily life and routine so calm and peaceful and ordinary yet extraordinary at the same time.
Then I thought, why not doing the same thing with Style N Season? I don’t have enough patience nor dedication to write too many things – as much as I admire those productive bloggers who posts four or five posts per week - , but I’ve been writing Week in Recap posts eversince, almost every week, and you Friends seem to like it almost as much as I do!
Now, writing Week in Recap is somehow a more personal way of blogging, and I have reaped lots of benefits from doing so. Allow me to share what it has been doing for me since I started in April.
I am documenting family life and memories
Who doesn’t love Laura Ingalls’ Little House series? Or The Diary of Anne Frank? People have been documenting their everyday lives in family records, journal, scrapbook, diary, letter, and many other forms since the dawn of civilization. Anthropologists have found “record” in the form of wall paintings in caves that dated back from thousands of years ago.
I don’t know whether the family journal that I write will be beneficial or interesting for any future generation like my children or grandchildren, but it sure is beneficial for me! I love to be able to look back at my posts and read what I and my family went through in any particular week: a family engagement party, a funeral, a birthday party, new things that I bought for myself or for my family, how I decorated my living room for Fall, date nights, lunch with friends, how my son grew, etc. It’s comforting to know that everything is documented here in this blog. (I need to regularly save my blog, of course, just in case)
Surprisingly I have received numerous positive and encouraging comments from you Friends for my week in recap posts, and I’m so thrilled that other people than myself care enough to read those posts. However, I mainly write the posts for myself, and if my children are curious about how their parents lived. ^__^ I don’t think even my own husband is interested to read my blog!

It’s so much fun to write!
Writing week-in-recap is so fun, at least to me. You get to see at the pictures of the previous week and remembered all the things that was happening in accordance to the pictures, then you put them all down in writing.

I’m not the crafty type who can create beautiful scrapbook. I’m not dedicated enough to make YouTube vlogs daily, weekly, or even monthly. The only thing I know I can commit myself to is writing. I’ve been writing journals and diaries for years since I was a little girl of seven years old. I started by documenting what I did everyday and any particular occasions and happenings for that day. I didn’t decorate my journal like a scrapbook, it’s just purely writing, but I always try to get my hand on the prettiest notebooks I can find to write my diary in, and using my best penmanship. I remember my very first journal: a lovely blue notebook with pastel colored pages and a very pretty picture at the cover of blue and green mountains, a mirror-like lake with beautiful swans swim lazily in the serene waters. Over the years I had numerous lovely agendas to write my diary, but my writing changed. I no longer documented my life, I documented my feelings and thoughts, and the turbulence that usually happened in teen and early twenty years of age. Now that I have Style N Season, I can channel all those things mentioned above, as well as pictures and my joy for fashion, into one incorporated blog/fashion journal/personal diary/family journal. Yayy!!

A tool of reflection

We cannot turn back time. Life can only be lived forward. Unfortunately, it can only be understood, backward. How many times have we been in a situation when we were thinking “Oh, Lord, why is this happening to me?”; then a month of a year later you looked back and your realized that it was meant to be? That have you not in that particular situation, you wouldn’t have grown so much, or being the person that you are now?

Writing week in recap posts means that I will reflect back to what was going on in the previous week. Just like journaling. Well, perhaps not deep reflection, but I would look back, then I comprehend more of what was really going on, what the implication is, and what I have learned from it, if any. For example, Hubby was jumpy and nervous during his birthday week, and now when I looked back, I was more aware why he acted like that, because all the mournings that were going on with this family that week. It was so easy to overlook things when you were so busy rushing around and right in the middle of it. That week I was planning, helping out, preparing, that I forgot to “feel” my man’s misery. With all the hard work I did of trying to be a good wife, I forgot one essential thing of just being there emotionally.

Appreciate moments of life, big and small

Some people said that bloggers and vloggers could be annoying because they are not there in the moment, they continually snap pictures and record everything, but they do not really present, they’re too busy making materials for posts and vlogs. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. Anything excessive is unhealthy!

On the contrary, to me snapping pictures but not making a big deal out of it, makes me able to appreciate moments and life more. Since starting weekly recap, I have learned to see beauty in every moment and walk of life, no matter how small. Not just the highlights, but also the mundane, everyday, ordinary, daily things. Small indulgements and rituals like my morning chocolate milk, a new pair of ballet flats, lunch with coworkers, rays on afternoon sun on the corner of Michael’s crib, the cheerful colors of orchid arrangement on the reception table. When you take pictures, you notice things that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Extra boost to live a more meaningful, productive, happy life

It’s pretty obvious. When you know that you are going to write weekly recap on a regular basis, you would want to have something to write about, whether it is big or small. Most likely I want to write positive, interesting, encouraging things, not the other around. So I am more mindful about what I will pour my time and energy to the week. I deliberately want to live a happy life so I can write about happy things. Also, writing a weekly to-do-list at the end of the post for all the world to see motivates me to really doing them so I can check things off by the end of the week. I cannot write weekly recap if I have nothing’s going on and just let the weeks flew by! When you feel like someone is watching, even if no one is interested to read my weekly recap, I tend to…well, behave. Haha!

Mind you, I haven’t turned into a robot. I do let the weeks flew by sometimes, but as I said, I learned to see the beauty in the ordinary. It’s not some reality show, it’s just journaling. ^__^

“Teach us to count our days aright,

that we may gain wisdom of heart.”

(Psalm 90:12)


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Monday, November 3, 2014

Week(end) in Recap: Hubby's Post Birthday Party

Hello, Friends!
 
Last week went like a storm, I didn't even have proper pictures of what my week was like, but I do have lots and lots of pictures from previous weekend, because it was the day dedicated for my husband's post birthday party!
 
If you read my previous Week in Recap post, you would have known that Hubby's birthday was also the day his Aunt was being cremated, so it was not a day to be festive for our family. Also, in respect of tradition, none of us could attend his cousin's wedding because we are still in mourning, so instead, he invited his parents, younger brother and sister, and his sister's boyfriend, for a simple dinner party at our home on Saturday evening. He also invited two of his aunts, but they could not come since they were out of town visiting Aunt Marie who is having chemoteraphy treatment to fight cancer.
 
 
Let's say that the day was very busy and very fun. We started early in the morning to Hubby's friend's son open house, to celebrate his son's circumcision. I didn't take pictures, but it was a festive event. The host family set up tents with chairs and tables full of  delicious food on the front yard. People were coming and going, congratulating the boy as well as the parents. We came a little bit early, so we had plenty of time to chat with the host. More and more people came then, so Hubby helped the host erected another tent, then we decided to leave. As part of tradition and respect to the hostess, we have to carry some food home with us. It shows that we enjoy the food very much that we just have to eat some more at home. Of course you are not to do that if the hostess does not offer, but in this case the host and hostess insisted, so we gladly took home some of the yummy food that the kind hostess wrapped for us.
 
 
Then we made a stop at Angke, a Chinese restaurant famous for its family-style food, to order some food for tonight's party. The weather was scortchingly hot so that we decided to stop at the coffee shop nearby, called Coffee Tree, to have some sweet treats. Hubby had some iced lychee and coffee and his favorite tiramisu cake. I am not a coffee drinker, so iced chocolate it was for me!
 
 
Coffee Tree is a family establishment, and it was apparent on the weekends, since we could see that all family members helped out at the shop. They sell numerous kinds of coffeebeans, as well. If you want some, you just pick your choice of beans, then they will grind the coffee for you and package the ground product into an aluminium bag. It's an interesting process to see all of these steps. As you might know, I appreciate everything that has ceremonial feeling or patina of time and ritual to it.
 
 
These are the machines that they use at the shop.
 
 
 
 
Hubby picked the flying fox kind from Papua. Indonesia has a lot of areas producing coffee, and every area procude different kind of coffee bean, with different aroma and different taste. 
 
 
On the bag, it was explained that the coffee was finely ground. You can ask for coarse and medium, too.
 
 
Hubby didn't have birthday cake nor candle, so I stuck a spoon right in the middle of the tiramisu cake and we pretend that it was a candle. Make a wish! ^__^
 
 
This is what Michael wore for the evening. It was another Kompeni Batik from Cirebon area, my Mom handsewn the shirt for him. The material was leftover from the shirt that Mom made for Hubby. Michael has a little shirt similar to Mommy's batik, and another shirt similar to Daddy's!
 
These pictures are a little bit blurry, but they are my favorite pictures of the evening!
See? Father and son dressed alike. ^__^
 
These were what we ordered for the dinner party. We also ordered fried chicken, but it had not arrived yet when the picture was taken. We had birthday fried noodles with pigeon eggs that symbolize birth and longevity, tofu, squid, pork, crab dish, and the fried chicken dish. We also served home made beans cooked with garlic. Delicious!
 
 
My husband's family love to to drink wine, so I assembled this wine, snack and coffee station using a little cart that was a parcel cart I received last year. After the party, Michael used it as his toy pushing cart! The basket was also a parcel container. I almost don't buy containers of any kinds, because I know that I can get all these pretty ones for free from office parcels that we received at the office and the girls usually share at work.
 
 
Michael and young Grandma!! Hubby is the eldest child and he is younger than me, while I'm the youngest child, so my Mom is much older than his Mom. ^__^
 
 
Michael with aunt and uncle! These are Hubby's younger siblings.
 
 
My mother in law brought a huge cardboard box, filled to the brim with fruit! She said that her neighborhood grocery store had a sale on fresh produce and she bought so much that she wanted to give us some for our daily fruit and veggie smoothies, as well as for Michael. Look how full the fridge was from all those fruits, and these were only some of them! Thanks, Mama!
 

We also had ice cream. Now, a tip. If you want to throw a casual dinner party, and you want to serve ice cream, just buy them in individual cups like these. They came with spoons already, and the guests can just practically throw everything to the trash can after eating. No washing required! No extra ice cream spoons to prepare!
 
Thank you for coming, Mama, Papa, little brother and sister! Also for Dito, whom we already consider as family. ^__^
 
 
Last week's to do list:


  • Read and contemplate on Philippians 4 about "Live in Concord" and "Joy and Peace".
  • Read Chapter 9-12 of Beverly Lewis' The Sacrifice, a story of an Amish family. Sad to say that I have lost interest in reading this book. Perhaps I will continue sometime in the future.
  • Read Chapter 8 of Kitami Masao's "The Swordless Samurai: Friends and Family", a historical story of how a Japanese "warrior" who could not fight rose into power and unified all of Japan with his power of mind, interpersonal skills, and shrewdness.
  • Start reading Elizabeth Berg's "Open House", a book about how a woman copes after her husband walked away from her. It's a Book Oprah's Club's choice and I cannot wait to start! Finished the book. Regret to say that what started as a promising good story turned downhill by the end of the pages. I will not recommend this book.
  • Renovation project week 9: putting up ceiling and inner windowsills. The local authority had finally pulished our permit last week. Hooray!!
  • Updating iTunes on my laptop, so I can upload files from my iPhone.
  • Fix the plumbing of my wash bashin in the dining room.
  • Fix the plumbing of main bedroom's bathroom.
  • Write one fashion blog post. And then I lost it. Duh. But I have rewritten it, ready to be published next Monday.
  • Pay utility bills.
  • Organize family and project budget.
  • Scan 2013 tax files.
  • Taking up yoga again.

Next week's to do list:

  • Start to read and contemplate on Hebrews part of the Bible.
  • Start to read one new book.
  • Read Chapter 8 of Kitami Masao's "The Swordless Samurai: Friends and Family", a historical story of how a Japanese "warrior" who could not fight rose into power and unified all of Japan with his power of mind, interpersonal skills, and shrewdness.
  • Renovation project week 10: putting concrete for the 2,5th floor, putting in plumbing system and door frames.
  • Updating iTunes on my laptop, so I can upload files from my iPhone.
  • Fix the broken dining chair and Michael's nursery window latch.
  • Laundry old dolls.
  • Grocery shopping.
  • Organize the main bedroom fridge and top of the fridge.
  • Organize the coffee station corner.
  • Organize my personal facebook pictures.
  • DIY: decoupage two book cases from used A4 paper cardboard boxes.
  • Saskia's wedding.
  • Visit next neighborhood park with Michael and Hubby on Saturday.

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