Day 59 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that we've managed to move to the new house today, despite the terrible, terrible hangover."

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope the year 2012 brings you lots of happiness and success in whatever you do. :)

Second of all, who in their right mind thinks that moving to a new house right on the first day of the year is a good idea?

US. Vincent, especially, but also me for agreeing to it. And of course, we were so damn wrong.


But the timing couldn't have been worse. We just arrived from our travel just a few days before we had to move. And if we'd have stayed longer in the previous house, we'd have been charged daily rate. So for the New Year's eve this year, we planned not to party. We planned not to go home early in the morning like we usually did. We planned not to drink too much to celebrate it. We wanted to be sober and excited as we entered our new beautiful house. After all, we were all tired - Vincent from the jetlag and me from packing things into the so many boxes.

But none of the plans worked out. Naturally. Greg called to invite us to have a small celebration at his place with one other couple. Vincent said we would just go there, have one drink and go to celebrate New Year's eve on our own, just the two of us. That never happened. :P

Don't get me wrong, it was a nice gathering with nice people. I enjoyed it very much. However, when we went home at 3 (still earlier than usual), we were absolutely drunk. And dead. And nobody heard the moving guys ringing the bell at 11 AM. They tried to call me three times and I only answered the last ring. Then it rained.really.really.hard.

It must have been a sign.

Vincent was so sick he couldn't get up. So we asked the guys to come back later when the rain stopped.
They did go, except that when I felt better at around 2, they refused to come back because they were out enjoying the New Year's holiday. Perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

My maid called another moving company, and we were lucky to get one that worked on 1 January. We agreed on a price, which was a lot more expensive than our previous guys, but we just couldn't wait until we could be in the new place.

It was drizzling during the move, Vincent and I were both sick, we arrived at the new house and the manager wasn't around to open the door and give us the key to the gate. We couldn't even get into our own new house! Yes, you can laugh now.

So.... we were stranded outside of the villa for at least half an hour, or maybe it was an hour, until someone handed in the key. Alas, the loading and unloading process only finished at around 8 PM.

We thought we were dying. And starving. So Vincent wanted to order some pizza. I was ready with my phone to order it until...

"What's our address?" I asked him.
"Shit. I don't know," he said.

And after half an hour waiting for the SMS reply from the owner of the villa about the address, Vincent gave up and said, "I'll find something to take away."

Dinner was at 10.
Day 58 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that we will be moving to a better place TOMORROW."

It's a busy day today. We're preparing for our big moving day tomorrow to a new better place in Umalas. It's only 10 minutes ride from our present house and the building itself is smaller than the one we are living at the moment, but it's got a beautiful, beautiful garden. And jacuzzi. In the garden. Yay!

We decided to rent this house - or villa, as it claims to be - long time ago after our trip to Sidemen (remember my birthday and diving trip?) We compared the house we were staying in Sidemen with the one we were living in Seminyak. The Sidemen house was also a much smaller house, but all around it was so green and peaceful and lovely - not very surprising since it's located at a very strategic spot by the foot of the moutain. Of course it would have been too much to expect that there would be many places in Kerobokan that had such an excellent view. But really, a garden would have been enough. Also we thought it would have been a better place for Mouche the cat. She never really had a chance to explore outdoor world. And she will never now. :(

Anyway, it's still exciting to be moving out of this house. There had been more pain than laughter taking place in here, and both Vincent and I could use a little more spark in life. The new place is expensive for our budget but I hope and think it'll be worth every penny.

Here's a YouTube video Vincent found on the house we will be moving to tomorrow.

Day 57 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that Vincent is back."

These past two weeks felt like two months. Time went by sooooo slowly. But nothing matters anymore. He's here.

Day 56 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful to have such a nice new haircut today."

Do you remember when I had my hair dyed RED 2 months ago? I looked like this.


I knew I should have had a new haircut to go with the fashion red colour, but I was already too excited to even make that attempt. The hairdresser told me that it would stay red for 2 months, then it would turn copper. He was correct. Starting from early this month it changed to copper, and still looked good on me. I was planning to have a haircut to match it.

Today, I thought it was the right time to do it. Vincent is coming back from France tomorrow and I want to look different. So I went to my favourite hair salon and had my hair changed to this.


Nice, eh? You can't really see my highlight there because I was using one of instagram's filters but you have an idea of the new hairstyle.

Now I'm definitely ready to welcome Mr Boyfriend back! Yay!
Day 55 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that I get my fast internet back!"


You simply don't know what you miss before it's gone. I was working while I was in Surabaya for Christmas and my brother nicely lent me his modem and internet line. But oh how slow it was! Apparently he didn't have the same internet connection as he did in July. This time, browsing for one single web page took forever. Very frustrating when you had deadlines waiting.


Anyway, back in Bali and at home, back to fast internet. Life is awesome again.
Day 54 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful to be back in Bali after the Borneo and Christmas trip to Surabaya."

I had great time during the Borneo trip and the short Christmas one to my mom's in Surabaya. I spent the whole time coughing madly and no matter how many cough syrup bottles and other meds that I took, I never seemed to get better. And for the first time in life, I threw up every time the cough attacked. Yet, every moment of this holiday mattered. Borneo took my mind away a little bit of the unfortunate event we had with our kitty and my family kept me busy with their incredibly idiotic jokes and rude Surabayan-style madness. Kabuki, the only pet left in my family after Zwartje and Mouche passed away, looked healthy though his fur was falling off. Note to self: get a vet check him for any skin disease.
Kabuki, Zwartje's son
A giant fly digging into the ground for, I don't know, lying its eggs?
This is not a macro picture. The photo is sharp as it is because it was.simply.the.biggest.fly. I've ever seen in life.
The holiday would have been perfect if Vincent had been with me. But it wasn't bad at all, either. Anyway, it still feels nice to be back home.
Day 53 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that the year is almost over."

It would actually have been a very good year if Mouche hadn't died. It crushed me to pieces as my baby got diagnosed for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) at the very late stage of her sudden intestinal infection. I never even knew before that AIDS attacked cats, too. Or any other animals for that matter. It would sound like another excuse for stopping the blog for a while... but I wouldn't joke about death.

However, I'm back blogging. Hopefully to write the things that I can be grateful of these past weeks when I didn't blog.