Cerita Sita

i am not a celebrating-type of person when it comes to new year. i don't like to hang out and i don't like crowds . hehe. but what i do like when it comes to new year is to wish what i want to achieve for next year. i said wish because i don't want to set any target at all. i know what i want but i want to let it flow. being sagittarian makes me not want to leash myself (aka. rebel girl hahaha) for this year, I am truly blessed to be given perfect health . not only for me, but for my son, my husband, and my whole family. i grace health a lot because it is the upmost gift that we often forget how precious it is when we are overtaken by the busy working life. after health comes happiness . i graduated my master. we managed to buy a house. we enjoyed furnishing our house and at the same time saved a tiny bit of our income. Arazki celebrated his first birthday. my parents working, healthy and happy. this is more than i can imagine. alhamdulillah ya Allah. and for 2011? muahah...

Yes, we finally laid our heart in rattan for the dining table . It was a very nice venture - looking at two rattan stores in Bogor and my hunch is that we are not mistaken in choosing our store. At first we hesitated because t he owner just sit behind the table , watching our moves. Just so you know, I am a terrible consumer. I always honor the motto " Konsumen adalah raja . You need us, not we need you" hahaha... *ketawa mangap gede banget*. But then I changed my mind when she (the owner) stood up and, to my surprise, took us around the store , explaining the variety of rattan they use, and offer some bonus for us. Wowww.. now this is what I called a good seller. In the end, because of her promotion, we end up not only ordering dining table for six, but also room partition and two guest chairs , already completed with table and pillows. We also get two bonuses: a "tudung saji" and a hanging lamp. For free. Yay! The total cost is less than 5 million. I think it is w...

happy BESTday Ayah. semoga tambah ganteng, perutnya bisa six pack lagi, tambah rajin beliin istri kepiting saus padang, dan tentunya sayang sama kita-kita :) I love you honey. taken on Dec 3rd. a small surprise from Ibu and Razki for Ayah.

apologies for this unnecessary post (apologies melulu). :) post ini ingin menceritakan betapa dilemanya saya dalam memilih meja makan. suara hati iseng: tuh kan ga penting! suara hati serius: penting itu penting ! as you guys might have known, my husband and I are in the middle of filling in our house. due to many reasons we can't move in the near term so we determine to do at least something to the house. for now, we want to make the house not too empty. we now have our own sofa, TV table, coffee table and console table. now I want dining table. at first I want it to be jati. tapi oh tapi, yesterday we passed by a store which sells furniture out of rattan. yes, rotan. hela hela rotane. sudah sering lewat toko itu sebenarnya and it already tickles my curiosity.but only until yesterday that I asked my husband to pull off the car and visited the store. the store turned out to be very beautiful. it shows various type of furniture of rattan and beautifully designed. it instantly made m...

one of my dear friend, Puput, voiced a very good point about a relation between MMR with genetical autism. this issue started when I said Razki's pediatrician said MMR is fine and the rumor that it can cause autism is a total hoax. but, she (the pediatrician) also said that I have to take a careful look if in our family there has been a record of autism. i can't remember the reason why she said this (sorry put). i guess i have to do a more in-depth research on this. apa hubungannya anak yang membawa bakat autis dengan vaksin MMR? if you know this, please share it with me ya. have a nice weekend!

this might make me look so narcist :P , apologies, but we need to gratitude ourselves once in a while, right? I am profiled in my office Scientific Staff Profile . for me, it is an achievement because for long I have wanted to be a researcher or scientist (the latter is much more difficult though) and now I am on my way there. another achievement this year (again for myself) is for me to be a co-author for one of my office's publication . although I am the last author but it means a lot for me. thanks to my boss who give me the opportunity :) the last one is the one that I favour most, two of my snapshots are selected for my office's publication ! yay! this one makes me happy because i love taking photographs and knowing that one of your shot is displayed in a publication is just.. amazing! :) alhamdulillah, thank you Allah for your super generosity. Hopefully next year we can be better at work and of course, better at family and parenthood.

Bulan Desember adalah bulan yang spesial bagi saya. Bulan ini telah menjadi “tuan rumah” bagi tanggal lahir saya, suami saya, dan tepat satu tahun yang lalu, anak pertama saya. Satu tahun itu pulalah saya menjadi seorang ibu bagi anak saya. Dan proses pembelajaran itu pun dimulai. Fase awal menjadi ibu ini menegangkan dan sekaligus menyenangkan. Menegangkan karena ini pengalaman pertama saya, saya benar-benar tidak tahu apa-apa dan mengingat anak adalah amanah yang harus kita jaga sebaik-baiknya. Menyenangkan karena di sela-sela ketegangan dan ketidak tahuan, saya menemukan ketenangan. Saya mempunyai tempat berlabuh. Ibarat rumah kedua saya, dia adalah The Urban Mama . Kelahiran The Urban Mama kebetulan tidak jauh dengan kelahiran anak saya. Bagi saya ini sungguh momen yang tepat. Selama cuti melahirkan, ketika di rumah hanya ada saya dan anak saya (pada saat itu saya belum punya pengasuh), The Urban Mama dengan setia menemani saya yang kala itu masih sangat sensitif tenta...

hari ini, tahun baru Islam, tahun baru Hijriyah. hari ini juga, anak saya Arazki memasuki tahun yang baru. alhamdulillah, he is now one year old. kehadiran Razki setahun terakhir ini membawa begitu banyak pembelajaran bagi saya. mulai dari detik-detik kelahirannya, saya belajar menahan rasa sakit dan tetap tenang. ketika dia lahir ke dunia, saya belajar untuk memeluknya di dada saya. seiring waktu berjalan, saya belajar setiap detik untuk menjadi ibu yang baik baginya. perjalanan satu tahun ini terus terang tidak mudah. ada saat dimana saya merasa tidak sebaik ibu-ibu yang lain. contoh kecilnya, ketidakmampuan saya memberikan hanya ASI untuk Razki. masa-masa itu adalah masa-masa terberat bagi saya. tetapi kemudian saya pun belajar. belajar untuk menerima ketidakmampuan saya tersebut dan tidak terpuruk di dalamnya. saya belajar ikhlas. saya belajar melihat perkataan dan perbuatan orang lain dari sudut pandang yang lain. dan setelah melewati titik tersebut, segalanya terasa lebih ringan....

my husband and I decided to take a few days off from work . apart from my husband's and my son's closed birthdays, i personally want to re-energize myse lf . although my work place is near from home, my work load is kind of the opposite. last week was stressful since my project was preparing for our first launch event of our new publication and every little problems suddenly arised like zits ! :D anyway, after two days full playing with our son, my husband took me to a Japanese restaurant in Bogor, Midori . I was quite surprised since I know he doesn't really like Japanese. growing up in a very Indonesian tradition, his favourites are more of a fried cassava (singkong goreng bow), buras oncom, and perkedel :) so when he said "lets eat lunch in Midori", i asked him several times if he was positively sure about it. and he simply said "don't worry, i love ramen". which i doubt very much :) and so, there we were sitting in a cozy and relaxing atmosphe...

have I told you before that my favorite number is 3? i like 3 with no particular reason. i just feel my life is surrounded by this number :) and today, my dear husband is turning 33. on 3rd Dec. celebrated by the 3 of us :) amazing. happy birthday husband. i love you more than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow :)

berencana tidak merayakan ultah Arazki. tapi ga tahan juga buat browsing gambar-gambar kue hehehe... nemu dua model mobil yang lucu banget. Razki suka sekali mobil. What do you think? sekarang tinggal cari siapa yang bisa bikinin, hehehe.. ;-)

sometimes I think that my husband and I are such spontaneous persons . we do the unthinkable. well at least for me *takut suami protes* :P and here we do it again. instead of buying a dining table , we end up ordering one TV table, one buffet table (which I called meja belakang sofa) and coffee table. this is probably because up until today, I haven't found a decent dining table which I like. I want a dining table that can capture my heart at first sight. I know I am being perfectionist. but for me, I don't mind paying a bit more as long as I like it. it's worthed . and that was exactly what I felt when I saw our tables (the TV table et al). it looked sooo beautiful. the carpenter said other costumers like our design and almost want to buy them if the carpenter didn't mention that those are ours. Alhamdulillah. too bad i forgot to take pictures of them. the carpenter will deliver it to our house this weekend, I will try to remember to bring my camera and share with y...

happy 23rd my dear sister. sudah 23 tahun but to me you are always my little sister. although we don't talk a lot but i know that we care with each other more than anything. enjoy your 23rd! have an amazing journey! :)

selama hidup saya, bisa dihitung dengan sebelah jari berapa kali saya beruntung menang undian, kuis atau apapun yang sifatnya menggunakan unsur "luck" atau keberuntungan. amat sangat jarang sekali hehehe... tapi alhamdulillah bulan lalu tanpa dinyana, nama saya termasuk dalam pemenang angket salah satu majalah anak di Indonesia. Kebetulan memang sejak membeli majalah tersebut, saya langsung cocok dengan isinya dan menyukai tampilannya. Berikut foto Razki waktu "masa perkenalan" dengan mainan barunya. masih malu-malu :) sekarang, Razki udah bisa slam dunk :) Terima kasih banyak... :) ini sudah pasti rejekinya Razki :)

kembali ke kantor adalah hal yang begitu berat minggu ini untuk saya. sejak pengasuhnya Razki diketahui sakit hari Kamis, otomatis saya bekerja dari rumah hari Jumat sehingga weekend terasa 3 hari bagi saya. dan 3 hari ini adalah salah satu 3 hari terindah. saya mengurus Arazki sepenuhnya, mulai dari bangun tidur hingga menidurkannya. mulai dari mandi, makan, hingga bermain. saya merasa begitu lengkap dan sempurna. Razki begitu dekat dengan saya, fisik maupun hati. sore ini, saya merebahkan diri sebentar di tempat tidur. Razki sedang bermain-main di sebelah saya. tanpa saya sadari dia mendekati saya dan mencium pipi saya. tanpa diminta. saya tersenyum dan dia pun tersenyum. terima kasih banyak sayang. terima kasih karena memberi Ibu kesempatan untuk menjadi Ibumu. I love you more than you can imagine.

when I held Razki's tedak siten, my dear friend Oe lend me a book called The Hunger Games. I almost never visit a bookstore in this last one year and also not give much effort to sit down and read. After having Razki, I spend most of my time with him, apart from going to work. Hunger Games successfully brought back my "appetite" in reading. Hunger Games tells you about a country, Panem, who has a big power in controlling 12 poor districts which surrounding Capitol (the capital name of Panem, if I am not mistaken). Every single year, each districts has to send two children (boy and girl) as a delegate of their district to physically compete in a"battle for life" called Hunger Games . At the beginning, I felt reluctant to continue reading this book because the story is much different than other novels I have read. It described how hard life can be. From hunger where people can only afford to eat trash food, meat from dog, etc. into killing other people just to be...

masih ingat posting saya tentang reksadana? posting saya bercerita tentang keinginan saya mempelajari reksadana lebih jauh, mengetahui apa itu Fortis dan kawan-kawannya. setelah membaca dan meneliti lebih jauh, saya akhirnya memutuskan untuk tidak mencoba reksadana. paling tidak, tidak untuk sekarang. menurut saya, reksadana lebih diarahkan kepada para insan yang memang mempunyai, istilahnya, "duit nganggur". uang ini sudah tidak perlu dialokasikan ke keperluan utama (sehari-hari), keperluan jaga-jaga (sakit, kecelakaan, dll), dan keperluan masa depan (tabungan untuk sekolah, naik haji, anak dll). reksadana ini beyond tabungan. dia adalah investasi. memang tidak semua reksadana beresiko tapi kembali ke hemat saya, reksadana ini kurang greget dimainkan kalau tidak ada resikonya walaupun sedikit. kalau yang tidak beresiko, keuntungannya tidak beda jauh dengan deposito atau tabungan berjangka. sorry, saya bisa salah (secara orang awam banget gitu loh :) tapi perasaan saya belum ...

my father is turning 58 today. alhamdulillah although more wrinkles here and there, more grey hair here and there, he is healthy and happy. happy birthday Ayah! wish you health all the way through. I love you and I will always be your little girl :)

this is my current favourite photo (thank you Nunu) I realized we (husband and me) don't have a decent romantic picture together since our pre-wedding shots :) Almost 2 years of marriage. it's a roller coaster and the coaster is still moving, but the journey is enjoyable and yet priceless . thanks husband. picture taken by: Januarti Sinarra Tjajadi

iseng surfing malam-malam membawa saya ke satu website namanya Etsy . Alamatnya saya dapatkan dari blognya Alaya , one of my favourite blog. Saya langsung jatuh cinta melihat website ini dan jatuh cinta kembali ketika melihat desain ruangan bayi ini . I looove all single details of this room. Awalnya saya kira gambar cherry blossom atau bunga sakura ini adalah lukisan, ternyata semacam stiker yang ditempelkan di dinding dan bisa dipindah-pindah (removable). It is sooo cute, it makes want to have a baby girl (hahahaha...). Come by and take a look, you'll love to turn each "page" of this site.

my smiling baby boy is turning 11 months today. a little bit of pilek can't even hide his smile. he smiles every morning he wakes up. he smiles every time he goes out of his room and meet his grand parents. he smiles when he rides on Ayah's motorbike. he smiles when Tari (my sister) starts to read him stories. he smiles when I start to make funny faces. he smiles when we start to sing "Satu..Satu" (and even jumping!) he smiles a lot. he smiles my life. be healthy baby boy. we love you always.

kalau ingat tupai , jadi ingat pepatah "sepandai-pandainya tupai melompat, akhirnya jatuh juga." it happens to me now. setelah setahun tidak sakit, akhirnya saya ambruk juga . tepatnya dua hari yang lalu. akhirnya saya cuti sakit kemarin dan hari ini. kemarin saya benar-benar ambruk. totally can't do anything. demam , masuk angin, dan tidak bisa makan. sedih rasanya berada begitu dekat dengan Arazki tapi tidak dapat sering-sering bermain karena saya harus tidur. tapi hari ini alhamdulillah badan saya sudah mulai membaik , saya sudah bisa membuka email kembali (ya saya memang bandel) dan bisa menonton TV kembali. yang terutama, saya bisa kembali bermain dengan Arazki. :) be healthy everybody. there is no use having lots of money, high position, or people honoring you if you don't honor your health. it's the best gift from Allah SWT. picture by: Jacqueline Veissid

last weekend was wonderful. we finally have the sofa , and.. it looks exactly as I imagined. i t is now one of my personal heaven :) the sofa is so comfortable, it is hard to stand up once you sit on it. Alhamdulillah. My father and mother heart it a lot, they want to order a sofa too! :) For those who are interested, we made it in Janel's, Bantar Kemang. Highly recommended. from one dream to another. our next project is dining table. We (well, actually me) had a hard time deciding which comes first. Dining table, coffee table, work table or TV set. I want it all *krauuuk, bite me* :D but then the most reasonable one is, off course, to have a dining table first. if possible . if we have the budget. *lirik suami* so now it is time for me to venture around websites, looking for the most suitable dining table. the one that can directly capture my heart :) wish us luck!!

masih ingatkah cerita kami berburu sofa ? :) Alhamdulillah, akhirnya kami menemukan tempat yang tepat untuk memesan sofa. Ya, kami memutuskan untuk tidak membeli sofa dalam bentuk jadi tapi merancang desainnya sendiri. prosesnya bagi saya begitu menyenangkan . mulai dari melihat-lihat katalog IKEA (yes, i am a fans of IKEA), keluar masuk berbagai toko furniture di Bogor, melihat berbagai macam sofa, mencoba mendudukinya, memilih model dan baha nnya yang mana saya perlu berkali-kali diyakinkan suami bahwa apa yang kami pilih tidak salah (iya, saya sangat peragu) dan hingga yang terakhir kami lakukan hari ini adalah menguji keempukannya :) gosh, we are going to have a sofa. ini kira-kira bentuk sofa kami ketika kami mengunjungi pabriknya. can you guess how it will look in the end? : )

my boss asked me if I am currently writing a paper and needs mentoring. i had a long time answering this . not because the question is difficult. i directly know that the answer is no, i am not writing any scientific papers at the time being. the reason i didn't promptly answer is because i have a huge interest in writing but i don't know WHAT to write. all i write in my daily life is writing blog and write emails :) i don't want to sound like complaining but thinking on what topic to write especially for scientific matters, for me it requires a special time where i don't do anything else in the office which is, for now, impossible . i am drowning in emails and manage project i hardly have time to contemplate for research ideas. but then i realized if i keep waiting for the right time to think, i will never think! so then i am promising to myself starting today (yes, today and crossing my fingers tight) i will start to read one paper/articles/book chapter per day. l...

happy happy joy joy! 2 months to go, and your age will not started with an "M" anymore but with a "Y" :) hugs and kisses my baby boy.

I saw this very beautiful picture of Shanty's wedding ceremony in her Twitter (@shanty78) and I fell in love with it. It was naturally beautiful. I love all about Shanti , her dress, her flowers, her smile. It is just perfect. Dear Shanty, I hope you will have the same beautiful ever after life, just like this picture :) Link: http://plixi.com/p/48985969

this is Arazki when he is angry. even when he is in this mode, i can't love him less :)

my husband gave me a very useful link about tedak siten , written by Lucky I. Ismail. please read it. In Javanese, tedak means to step . siten means soil or dirt . It is actually a bit late for Razki to do tedak siten, it should have been done when he was 7 months or 7 x 35 days . Nevertheless, we thought we would do this as a simple ceremony and will be attended by our close families only. this should be more like a family gathering after Lebaran instead of highlighting the "adat" thing. it is just for fun :) more stories about Razki's tedak siten in the next two weeks. doakan semoga lancar dan menyenangkan ya :)

husband just said there are only two good reksadana in Indonesia, Fortis and Schroeder. is this true? what do you think? my homework this week. :)

i s the hottest trend in town , well, at least for me :D i am preparing my son's tedhak siten ( acara turun tan ah di dalam kebudayaan Jawa) and I want to give Razki's cousins and uncles (yes, some of his uncles are still toddlers :D) a souvenir. i had the idea to give cupcake for them because of my dear cousin, Mama Pipit. She gave Razki a very cute Barney cupcake at Diajeng 2nd birthday, her second daughter. from there i start to explore all vendors who sell cupcakes. and guess what i always amazed with their creation. so cute and so beautiful I not dare eat . one of the proven talented cupcake-maker is this (click!) . not only cupcake, she is able to make all sort of unique and awesome cakes. back to my son's upcoming event, i have decided to use the same vendor as Mama Pipits. i will let you know what kind of cupcake i ordered once i have it on my hand :) have a nice weekend peeps!

on what i call bank world. all about it. blunt. I can't even explain the difference of finance, monetary, and banking . hahaha, and yet i have a husband who works in this kind of world. yes you can laugh loud at me :) anyway, another worse example of how blind i am is i don't understand how the bank works . to be more specific i am curious on how they able to gain profit, how they "play" with their client and nasabah (what do you say nasabah in English?)'s money. can somebody tell me where i can get this information? it tickles me a lot to know further and not look too stupid in front of my dear banker friends (this goes to you, icha and puput ) :) i raised this because this morning i went to the bank. a short story about my visit to the bank. i finally can spare some of our income (hubby & me) to be deposited in the bank. and i finally managed to open an account special for my son's education. i think it was called tabungan or asuransi pendidikan ? so fro...

akhirnya, setelah penantian yang begitu lama (lebay), saya berhasil menyempatkan diri pergi ke salon untuk luluran. salon langganan saya adalah Rengganis. entah kenapa saya merasa cocok dengan salon khusus wanita ini. mungkin selain karena isinya perempuan semua dimana anatomi tubuh udah tau sama tau, kita bisa lebih vulgar disini. vulgar dalam artian, bisa ke kamar mandi cuma berbekal kemben aja, rambut pakai shower cap dan ga pake sandal alias nyeker hehehe. dan satu hal yang saya senang dari Rengganis adalah pelayanan perawatannya. seperti tadi siang, total perawatan saya adalah selama 3.5 jam! alhamdulillah dapat mbak-mbak yang pijitannya mantap. setelah lebih dari 1 tahun tidak dipijit, begitu dipijit lagi badan rasanya langsung rileks dan ngantuk (ini sih karena kebluk). proses pijit memijitnya memakan waktu kira-kira 1.5 jam. jangan kaget kalau di Rengganis bagian tubuh yang paling intim (seperti bokong dan payudara) ditawarkan untuk dipijit pula. tapi jangan khawatir, bila anda...