Into a new place, call Home~

The past two weeks had been super crazy, both for me and Henki, for different reasons.

We had been in a new place for almost two weeks now (since the 16th of July 2017). It's a place we now call "home" with extra bedroom where we can accommodate family and friends when they are visiting. This is another hobby that I think I inherited from my family. Every Chinese new year, when all the BIG family make the trip back to hometown to visit grandma, there is never short of rooms to accommodate all of those people. House is always designed with extra bedrooms for guests! ALWAYS! I am talking about 30 people visiting for two nights. Of course it is not that luxurious stay where everyone gets a room of their own, it is more like those family stay where everyone cramp together "comfortably". Getting people to stay and "sleep" in your guestrooms is always a competition among the family. Whoever got more guests staying in their house is the "winner". Grandma who is now staying with my third uncle always win! =D

We had been planing to find a new place for a few months, but could only do the search during the weekends, when Henki is available to do other things than work. Until about 3 weeks ago, I made a few appointment by myself during the weekdays and did a viewing of a few houses by myself, taking videos recording of the place and area for Henki to see and calculate the time and distance from the house to Henki's workplace (the last thing I want is to add his exhaustion with the extra miles spent on the road getting home and going to work) Then, I found this one. I texted him "I think I have found it!" He didn't even have the chance to look at the place until the day we have to sign all the paper. It's still renting, by the way.

Never pick them from the tree. Always those which are already on the ground

So, here we are waking up to a room full of light and have been having a super good sleep, not sure it's from the exhaustion or from the different "feng shui" as they said. But yeah... Things are going well so far with the house. The owner (crossing my fingers) is quite flexible and decently nice. Hopefully it carries on til the very end of our contract here. What I love about the house is the garden. I pick up the flowers that fall to the ground everyday and use them to decorate the dining table. The dining table is not properly placed due to the design of the house, but for 2 of us, we are okay with that for now. And the good thing with its current position is that, every morning after Henki goes to work, I will just sit there alone, doing my things accompanied by the nice morning breeze and the green leaves (when we were little mom always asked us to go out and enjoy the blue sky and the green leaves, good for our eyes, she said). I do that everyday now.

"Leftover" chairs from the owner, 

Gonna add a table and it's a nice hangout place in the morning and afternoon

Our bed room is good too. I love the natural lights! Super BRIGHT from early morning to about 6PM when the sun starts to set down. However, the living room is quite hot during the mid day. The only thing that I do not like.

Most of our Lives are not perfect. My life is not!

But I would like to see the good things in each day and be grateful about it. What better right?

Henki has been super busy with work (when was the last time he didn't?). So there are times when I was talking to the people whom I am working with and mentioned about Henki's work that require him to come home late and sometimes to work even during the weekend, the first thing that they ask me is "Does he bring you along during the working weekends? If he isn't, you should be suspicious." It's so low minded. The people don't even know him. Remind myself never to assume bad about people ever again! We never know how one's life is. Take care of your own!

As of me, I would like to learn from Mom. There was one time, when I was still in college, I was always home late. My aunt is super fed up with me, not sure what I am doing out there. She had good intention, she still cared for me. So she called my mom and said all the things that might make my mom worried. Then as you expected, my mom called me. Instead of scolding me, she said to me "I told yi ma (aunt) not to worry about you. I told him that you know what you are doing. You can take care of yourself. I trust you." How WISE! How can I betray that kind of trust, not asking, just trust. I treasure it! Until now!

So now, I would like to do the same with my partner. "Baby, thank you for working so hard out there. Don't let work consume you. Take care of yourself too. Take work as a game, we put our best in it, but still sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. That's the nature of life. Quoting Ajahn Brahm, When you can't do anything, do nothing. When you know you can do something, give everything you have got! I trust you and I love you."

That's pretty much about the past month.

I can't wait for September to come! I said "Wakes me up when September starts!" :)

New Hope,

Lin ^^

Henki & Linda's Second Quarter of 2017

It's 10:56 and I have done cooking a dish for tonight, It's the Bak Kut Teh. I have also got paper marked and lunch prepared. What a productive morning. =D

Today woke up early, as Henki has officially starting his "budgeting" months, it's gonna be crazy for him for the next two to three months. Hang on, Baby! This too will pass, it always does. a minute at a time, an hour at a time, then one day at a time.

So, although I have not been writing much on this blog, the least that I could do is to keep up the quarterly "report".

Can you believe that half of 2017 is GONE! What have we used it for all this while?

 

Work
For me, the 3 months since April, nothing has happened much, as usual. My ex-colleague and now-friend had moved to Bali with her husband and her 2 year old boy. And as she finds things to "do" in Bali, we agree to start something small. If everything goes smoothly, we will start somewhere in August or September. It is something for kids, I am going back to where I started (not a bad thing). I thought I have lost the passion towards it, as I do research and read more and imagine how it will be, I actually got excited. Is it really my passion or is it just my character that got easily "excited and passionate" about almost anything that I am thrown at. Anyway, whatever it is that's just me doing the best that I can.

Company training is still on going now, the classes have gone quite well, I think. I have a bit of downtime towards the end of June as it was Lebaran and Bali is packed with people who are travelling from Java island and also it's the Australian school break. Thus, the island is crowded, so do the hotels and restaurants. And because they are understaff, the class is postponed and there I have my break.

Last month I have quit teaching the college students for various reasons, and the major one is that so that I can make time to focus on something else.

I also signed a very short contract to help a spa centre in Bali monitoring their listings on Chinese websites. Something that I can do from home, in between cooking and cleaning the house. It is only a 4 months contract, as I requested, to see if I am still into this thing. It's been almost a month. I am still  hanging on despite the very irritating issue in "accessing" the Chinese website from Indonesia as well as a bit of company politics that they share with me, that if I am given an option care not to know.

Henki's work is FOREVER busy. He is under staff. He is in charge in Sales and Marketing but he is basically the Revenue Director too. That's the problem with big company, they exploit their worker to save cost (or whatever reason they have), demands a lot and giving so little. If we were ever be a business owner (finger cross), I hope we can be a better version of "leader". *Fingercrossed. Oh yeah, I am very hopeful.

Play/Food
We don't play much. >.< However, we enjoyed one another companion most of the time. There are times that we got bored too, of course, but many-many times we don't.

Within three months we only made it once to the beach. There I lost my dearest goggles and hit quite hard by the wave. Thus, due to much rest that Henki needs after all the hardwork during the weekdays, our play is normally food. =D

There are a few memorable weekend "culinary" experience that we had. One of them is at the Tony Roma's. I intended to write about it but find no time til now. The food is excellent, no doubt, considering the price. Hahaha.. What impressed us that night is that how "passionate" the staff seems like. It was someone birthday, so I guessed the girlfriend ordered a cake, the staff, 6-8 of them came out singing the birthday song, NOT the classic birthday song, where before the song ends, the singers' voice normally getting softer and softer. Hahaha. This is their version. I can't remember the tune, but I remember the feeling that I got from that song. It's very jolly! Then, it is not only one song, before the cake "reached" the table, there was another song. And what best is that the staff wasn't only singing, but some of them are playing a simple music instruments to accompany that song too...

And that's not the only best, a staff came out with Polaroid camera and took a picture of the couple with the cake and gave them the picture. And still, that's not it, another staff came out with a deck of card and entertained the couple n their table with simple magic trick. Imagine that! If you are not anti-social, I think you will find this experience memorable.

What impress us is not the 'entertainment', but how Tony Roma's manage to hire those staff that are very skillful and talented and passionate. That's just great!

Bad Month for anything Electronic
This month was bad for our phones (both of our iPhone got into the water). Mine still functions without any "treatment", Henki's dead, so he got it fixed. Then, my laptop started to make so much sound, but still functions well. So I am backing up files on Google Drive and Henki's laptop so that whenever it is dead on me, I am ready for it. *Finger crossed. Then, the car has broken down a few times. The car was "healthy" until we decided to get it "maintained" in an independent automobile repair shop. But after the maintenance, the car broke down 3-4 times before we called the Kia service center and get the necessary fixed. The car functions well now. Ahh.. these things really get me at times. However, as all things, these too will pass. :)

Life in General
The past three months was great. Oh yeah, End of April I was down for about a week with dengue fever, but I have recovered from it. Voila! Other than that, both of us have been quite healthy and happy. I hope I speak for him too =D

Someone said to me "You look so happy in Bali". I said "I can choose to complain about all things that are not going well, things that I am disappointing at, things that I wish for and don't get and dwell in all those negativity, but I won't. I choose another way of living, to be happy."

Of course, at times I "slip" and feel miserable too, but I don't let it get too far, too long, because it doesn't do me any good. So why continue to "slip" right?

加油
Love,
Lin ^ ^