Monthly Archives: February 2010

One thing that I enjoyed during my holidays was the extraordinary delicious food that I had.

Both Jakarta and Melbourne have great food that I can't resist. So turn out, after the Chinese New Year holidays I gained at least another 2 kg! :p

If you also experienced the same problem like me, then you will definitely love what I'm going to write here in my blog.

The easiest way to gain back to your original weight is to exercise and also control your diet.
If it's difficult for you to do to the first one, well at least I'm going to share with you tips on how you can do the 2nd one.

Next time you are looking at a delicious piece of chocolate cake and it's just screaming at you to be eaten. I want you to ask yourself this question: "Am I on diet ?"

Let me share with you what does DIET means to me.

D o

I

E at

T his?

Easy to remember rite? It is very simple. So next time if you're staring at that these cakes, ask yourself, "Do I Eat This?"

Hopefully you know the answer to that question :)

And If you are wondering how can I get my extra 2kg? Well.. these pictures will show you how …

Went to one buffet place at Melbourne, called 'The Volcano", nice ambience and also nice food.

Went to one of my favorite Korean food @ Melbourne city. In my opinion, it taste better than the Korean food that I had in Korea

Best place for Italian Food, Sofia @ Melbourne. The portion is HUGE !!  This is a combo pasta, consist of Carbonara, Risoto and Seafood Marinara

and the Gelato is SUPERB !

Happy and Fully Satisfied

Have you ever felt tired doing so many things in your life?

Have you ever felt that your life is so imbalance? 

Well, we all probably experience that once in a while.

The countless demands on our time and energy can leave us feeling emotionally drained and physically exhausted.

We become imbalance when we give out more than we take in.

Being a woman myself with many different roles, I do experience that. On top of that, as a woman, we have been taught to be givers and receiving seems selfish to us. And because of that, it takes enormous courage to see the value in allowing ourselves to give only that which is reasonable and healthy.

If your life were a bank account, how many daily deposits and withdrawals do you make to and from the account of your mind, body, spirit and feelings? If fact, we all do have a "life account", from which we frequently make too many withdrawals or allow others to withdraw too freely.

In order to have a comfortable "balance" in our lives, we need to deposit abundantly and withdraw only when is needed.  When we overdraw' physically,mentally or spiritually, we "see red"; i.e. we experience frustration, anger, and exhaustion. But when we credit our life's account by setting realistic limits, we have more to give.

Although taking care of ourselves is often difficult to do, it is an excellent investment in the quality of life we want and deserve. By taking the time to nurture ourselves, we ensure that we will not get "overdrawn."

So, wait no more. Start deposit to your Life Account today!

Me, my husband and my lil one @ Hyatt Melbourne, making deposit to our Life Account

First of all I would like to say HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR EVERYONE !!! Gong Xi Fa Cai.  (hope it’s not too late)

Hope this Chinese New Year will bring you shining luck, flourishing prosperity and greater success to everything that you do

I always look forward for Chinese New Year, simply because it is the time where I can go back to my home town (Jakarta) and spend more time with my family there. We often get so wrapped up in the importance of work or other things in life that we sometimes forget about the most important little things.  

This year I had 3 Chinese New Year celebration with my ‘families’: MRO (my own organization, whom I already treated as my own family), my husband’s family, and of course my own one.

Here’s some pictures that I took capturing the memories: 

MRO CNYCelebration @ my place. Getting ready to Lau Yusheng

Huat Ahh !!

Me, my mom, and Vern. Celebrating Chinese New Year's eve @ Jakarta

Welcoming the year of Tiger ! Went to church early in the morning before going for family visitation.

I thanked God for many blessings that He has given over the past few years,

and I asked for even more blessings and breakthru this year. AMEN 

Spending the rest of the Chinese New Year Day 1 at Grandpa's house.
He is 95 years old this year, and yet still very healthy and smart.

Everytime I visit him, he always speak English with me and play his violin for me.
Reminds me of old time when my and my grandpa play classical pieces together (he play his violin while I play my piano)

That's how I spend my Chinese New Year in Jakarta with my family.

And here I am now @ Melbourne, celebrating CNY with my husband family more photos will be uploaded soon..

Happy Tiger Year everyone !

I often say  - Be careful what you think because your thoughts determine your reality.

Today I would like to share with you another thing – Be careful what you put into life is because you will eventually get it back.

Yup ! that is actually one of my personal beliefs, i.e. What you reap is what you sow. 

Here's a good story to illustrate my message.

A successful businessman was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

One man, named Jim, like the others received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Every day, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by — still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however. He just kept watering and fertilizing the soil – he so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection. Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot.

But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach: it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right.

He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful — in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"

When the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot, he ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!"

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed, so Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer! His name is Jim!"

Jim couldn't believe it — he couldn't even grow his seed.

"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said.

Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead – it was not possible for them to grow.

All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!"

If you plant honesty, you will reap trust

If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

If you plant openness, you will reap intimacy.

If you plant patience, you will reap improvements.

If you plant faith in God, you will reap a harvest

But

If you plant dishonesty, you will reap distrust.

If you plant selfishness, you will reap loneliness.

If you plant sin, you will reap guilt.

So be careful what you plant now, It will determine what you will reap tomorrow, The seeds you now scatter, Will make life worse or better. Yes, someday, you will enjoy the fruits, or you will pay for the choices you plant today.

Start planting good seeds today !

1 more week before Valentine's day. Are you already in the mood for love? :) 

Having married for 5 years, I understand that it's not only just love that keeps the marriage going. Our efforts in making sure the marriage work is as important.

No one falls in love by choice, it is by CHANCE.
No one stays in love by chance, it is by WORK.
And no one falls out of love by chance, it is by CHOICE.

So I would like to dedicate this post to all the married woman out there.
10 tips on how to really LOVE your husband

1. Build your husband's self confidence and motivate him to action by letting him know you need him and appreciate him

2. Trust your husband. He needs to know you believe he wants the best for you and he is doing his best in the marriage. When you are open and receptive to what he has to offer, you fulfill his need for love. In turn, he loves back.

3. Romance in marriage doesn't just happen. You can make it happen by your attention, desire thoughts, and actions.

4. Pay attention when your husband talks to you. Turn off or put away any distractions. Look him in the eye and give him feedback. An inexpensive but extremely valuable gift !

5. Admire your husband. Give him thanks, approval, and appreciation. He'll feel secure in your admiration and want to continue to meet your needs.

6. Silent is not always golden, especially between husband and wife. Ask your husband if he'd like to set aside time just to talk.

7. Understand that expressing your anger is not necessarily bad. It's how you express anger that makes the difference.

8. Remember that in a  marriage the question is not so much about who is right, but what is right for the marriage.

9. Tell your husband on a regular basis: "I love you more than yesterday"

10. "Marriage is not so much finding the right person as it is being the right person." Are you the wife you wanted to be when you married? If not, it's still possible to become that woman.

Hope the 10 tips above will add more love into your marriage life

I feel proud to be a woman.

One of the main thing that I believe women are generally better than a man is the ability to multi-task. There are many women out there who have successfully mastered the art of balancing many different roles i.e. career-woman, homemaker, wife, girlfriend, daughter, mother, boss, etc. They are really an inspiration.

For me, I am fortunate that I had the opportunities to embark on many different roles in my life. Mostly I experienced it in my twenties. I've spent the first 3 years in my twenties finding my life purpose and also finding my life partner =) shortly after that I took another role as an Entrepreneur. Being young, and being female at that time surely it wasn't an easy task to do.  But despite all the limitation that I had, I managed to pull it through,

Do I feel proud about my achivement? You bet I am !  But to tell you the truth, My biggest sense of achievement happened when when I took up another role about 2 years ago.  The role of a mother. 

I think the best part of being a woman is that we share the ability to create life. How amazing is that !
I consider motherhood the biggest blessing for any woman. It is definitely a huge responsibility, and many times I have to sacrifice my sleeping time and my personal time, but it's definitely worth doing.

Being a woman also means that I can dress up, wear my high heels and feel good about myself. Compare to male, I believe we have more choices in making ourselves look great. We can wear pants or skirts or shorts or long flowing dresses or sandals or boots or whatever else that suit us. Our wardrobe has no boundaries

Life as a woman is meaningful, fun, challenging, exciting and rewarding.

So if anyone ever ask me, "If I can turn back time and choose, would I want to be born as a man or woman?" Definitely a woman.