Okay it is not really a garden. More like a space to hang laundry that has never been used forever.

With the AC dispensing water every night, this small space actually grows more plants during the dry season than my again-not-really main garden in front. We have had problem with the air conditioner upstairs mainly because of the climbing plants reached the AC engine.

There is this teenage boy who doesn't speak much and very shy. He is the son of my masseuse. Iluh, my masseuse, told me if I had a garden job for his son to do, he'd be happy to make extra money from it. I hired him once to move the pots from the top of my gate wall. Now I hired him to clean up this space.

I felt happy with the clean solution; something I will never find myself have time to do, or would be willing to do. He felt happy for the extra pocket money. Iluh told me he also gives some to his younger brother and sister from what he earns.

There is nothing better than giving opportunity for a young person to get a taste of having a job and his own money for the first time. I remember how happy I was to get money other than from the allowance money my parents gave me when I was young.

He is a good boy and he will succeed if he keeps up being hardworking.

garden home

9:30 am

Day 70 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that the manager of the villa is very accommodating and helpful."

I suppose it's already his job description to be accommodating and helpful, but I've lived in Bali long enough to have met the so-called managers who simply can't care less.

But Wayan is nothing like that. He's young, polite, helpful and he can do many things, too. As a manager, he's not as diplomatic - as in giving much selling value of this very villa - because he's too honest to the clients (us). But that makes me respect him, despite the so many daily problems we encounter in this new place. Instead of defending the villa for its other good qualities, he admits its shortcomings and tries to fix the problems.

If only the other Balinese/Indonesians were like that. :P

365 grateful days project Bali home

12:53 pm

Day 69 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that Annerie and Laura already left the house when the water problem struck."

Every new place has its own problem, no matter how comfortable it looked the first time you saw it. So does my house. After the leaks in both bedrooms were temporarily closed, now the water was not coming out. We'd find that in the middle of doing dishes, taking a shower and doing some private toilet stuff. Alas, for the latter business since we couldn't help not having it, we'd have to take a pail  - sometimes two or three - of water from the jacuzzi. Hah! If someone ever asked me again what the jacuzzi was for, I'd happily provide them with this fact that it supplied emergency toilet water if your only water source wasn't coming out.

Anyway, it happened in the evening and I was already tired from entertaining my guests this morning and working on my articles afterwards. I just SMS-ed the manager about it and I'll just see what he's going to do about it tomorrow. But it was good that it only happened after the girls left. It would have been so embarrassing if it happened before.

365 grateful days project home

10:01 pm

Day 63 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful to have my retractable clothesline installed."

Even before moving, this retractable clothesline I found at Ace Hardware already attracted me. I thought it was such a good way to hang clothes under the sun without having the big physical look of the clothes dryer. The new house is small and we hardly have any space for storage. I had to give away some big furnitures, paintings and printed canvas photos when we moved. To buy a new clothes dryer that I couldn't store anywhere but at the garden was silly. I mean, the biggest attraction of the house is the garden, why would I want to disgrace it by placing a clothes dryer, right?

So I bought this retractable clothesline. It's simple to use and you can hide it when unused - which is most of the time. I think this is one of the best inventions this decade!

The Retractable Clothesline from Ace Hardware

The nice, helpful manager of the villa helped me install the clothesline. Now I can dry the clothes easily and enjoy the smell of the fresh drying clothes mixed with the freshness of the garden smell. How nice and convenient.

365 grateful days project home

7:05 am

Day 61 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful to be waking up to the sounds of birds and to the magnificent view of rice fields and mountains as I open the bedroom window."

After over 4 years living in Bali, I finally feel like I'm living in Bali. :)

365 grateful days project Bali home

8:19 am

Day 60 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful for my first-ever, most beautiful little garden."

The new house has some nice features that I love... such as the wooden second floor, the thatched-roof style, the smart dining table and the spacious bathroom. But the centre of the attraction is really the garden. I've seen huge gardens with swimming pool, etc. and my garden is far from huge. But then big doesn't always mean beautiful. Big gardens that feel empty suck a lot. But small gardens with careful planning and care make the perfect ones. I'll say no more and just let the pictures speak.

Yeah, I'm that one lucky girl.

365 grateful days project Bali home

5:33 pm

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.

365 grateful days project alcohol Bali home

11:12 pm

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.

365 grateful days project Bali home

6:32 pm

Day 37 of 365 Grateful Days Project:

"I'm grateful to have guests in the house at the time I'm down. They give me a reason not to bury myself with excessive sadness."

The truth is I only enjoy having guests at my place only very occasionally. Last year there were so many guests coming that I felt that my privacy was intruded very, very extensively. I had no time for myself, I couldn't be free in my own house, I couldn't concentrate 100% at work (which is at home, by the way) since the guests would demand attention every now and then, and I also think it was one of the many reasons why Vincent and I grew apart at that time.

But this time is different. Yes, I pulled myself away from everyone when I heard the terrible news about Zwartje, I didn't get out for dinner or simply socialise with the guests, I stopped worrying about what my client would think about the web designs I proposed to them that day, and I just sank my face in the pillow and wet it all over. The next morning I was still shaking and couldn't exactly face people. But a call from my mother changed it a little.

One of my biggest worries was my mum. Zwartje was her real best friend. He was the closest she could ever get with anyone after my father died in 1997. I was wondering how it could sadden her when it already saddened me as such. Yes, she sounded very sad on the phone. But she also sounded as if she accepted the fact. She actually sounded grateful that she had had Zwartje for all this time - instead of sounding miserable how she could go on with life without him. It calmed me down in a way.

Then when the guests - a couple one of who is related to Vincent - came back from their surfing activity, I managed to sit down with them for hours on the couch. As usual, I always feel the need to entertain guests because really that's the way it should be. If you dare to host, you should be ready to entertain. Anyway, it was uneasy at first because I had such a mixed mood. But after half an hour I managed to gather myself and I could even pop a smile. I was surprised with my own discovery, but pleased anyway. By the end of the evening, I felt much better (perhaps also because of the delicious nasi padang we ate for dinner).

I am blessed. Even during my darkest time.

365 grateful days project family friends home

10:47 am

This year has been going so well in terms of what I do, how I do and how I like it! Relationship is going waaaay much better than last year. Vincent doesn't go out at nights too much anymore and instead spends time with me in the evening. I'm doing more photography than writing (though writing is still going on but it is not the major part of my income so far. And with all the positive moods and doing the things that I like doing, I feel like having more quality life!

That includes having muffins and a big cup of green tea in the morning.

That includes allowing Vincent to buy Wii (he has wanted to buy Wii since he moved here, but I was not in agreement before when we needed to save up for other things in life). Now with the Wii here, I sometimes play my Fitness Wii and do Yoga or other types of exercises. Vincent invited Jerome last weekend to play Wii and they were sooo funny. Of course Vincent won almost everything since he was the real gamer. But then again, even I won against Jerome in Mario Kart.

That also includes taking/making photos everyday, whatever theme it is. I try to stick into one certain project at a time, but it has been proven a challenge with my ever so fluctuating interests. And my interest at the moment is to combine photography and my favourite quotes so that they look and feel more meaningful as you can see some in my previous post. This is another one that I want to share with you.

This post could be summarized in one sentence: I'm happy. :)

--
My Etsy shop

Bali home photography quotes

12:21 pm

I have had too many ups and downs this year. More than once I thought that I couldn't work things out, that things were getting out of hands, and that I was unhappy.

And I was never unhappy since I recovered from my hardest period after my dad died in 1997.

I am looking around me now... at the best ammenities that surround me, at the spacious house with the lovely gadgets that fill it in, at the bamboo tree next to the huge window in my living room where the birds chirp happily, at the man who I trust to love me. They are all that I ever wanted. But ironically I feel lonely anyway.

I do have friends. But this year has treated us so badly that none of us could be more positive than the others to at least influence our mood to a better one (except Carol, but she was just passing by, the Morrocan deserted life has her). I saw them brokenhearted. I saw myself brokenhearted. Their lives were sort of falling apart, while mine was hanging on a tight rope.

When things were getting slightly better, there was always something that stood in the way to ruin it. It has been an endless, annoying, tiring emotional journey.

And I am still here... because in a rather strange way, I believe if I can survive this year, next year there will be a great reward waiting for me and the people around me.

So yes, unlike the other Decembers I have ever had so far (not even the December of the year when my father died), I am not looking forward to the festivities and the funs. Because somehow I know it won't be fun.

I just can't wait to get over the month and get to 2011.

Bali family home love life

5:55 am

Pets never stayed alive for a long time in my house, I wonder why. There were already two stray animals that we picked up, took care of until they were healthy and happy, and not long after they reached the contentment, they died. I didn't write about this before because I always cried my eyes out every time my babies were taken away from me. But now I am revealing it.

Geisha

She was a little kitten Vincent found at his office. At first I was against the idea of keeping her because A. I was not used to cats, thanks to my mom's phobia of cats, B. I tried to save baby cats 3 times, none survived (mainly because they were too little, only a few days old, C. I didn't want to get attached to an animal where I doubted I would always be in Bali.

Geisha when we first adopted her, so tiny with her super big eyes and ears

But Vincent won. He would have to clean the cat litters as a part of the agreement and I could deal with the food.

Over time, I developed such a closeness to Geisha even after she scratched my skin a hundred times. She was taken to a vet and Vincent spent a lot of money and time, and attention to make her flea-free and healthy again like below.

Active and healthy, as well as furniture destroyer

Until one day she was attacked by a black cat three times her size and died less than 24 hours after she was attacked. Both Vincent and I regretted that we did not take her right away to the vet after the attack, but we didn't find any open wound and thought she would be okay. Later on we suspected it might have been the snake who killed her. She ran away from the black cat to a little hole inside my pump compartment where my neighbour saw a big snake there.

We had such a hard time because of the loss.

Piment

Piment was a Balinese puppy that one day out of the blue appeared at my porch. It was in mid August if I am not mistaken. Vincent gave him some water and a piece of bacon, but we had to leave to a party when we found him, so we just decided that we would adopt the dog if he was still there when we came back.

And he was.

I named him Piment (means chilli in French) because I just liked the word piment. And he was so thin like chilli. But unlike the other stray dogs, this Balinese puppy was quiet (compared to the others) and only barked when he saw a stranger or (God forbid) a snake.

Piment

He seemed to understand what I said to him and even without a proper obedient training, he was already naturally obedient! I took him to the beach one day, put him inside a basket covered with his sleeping cushion and towel as I was riding my motorbike, and he wouldn't even budge or try to commit suicide by neurotically jumping out of it when the engine started (like any other unschooled dogs might). No. He just quietly waited while I drove slowly to the beach.

Piment, sitting quietly in the basket

Not long after, Vincent bought him a leash and a nice collar that I used only when we went for a walk or run at the beach. Yes, run. Me who never jogged and never wished to. I had a totally different perspective about running when I went with Piment. Suddenly it had more meaning than before and felt like playing rather than doing sport.

But the fun didn't stay long. Again, after I called a vet and Piment got his first shot to help eliminate his fleas, after he gained much weight with the nutritious food I gave him every day, after he looked very happy to be with us and satisfied enough by only staying outside or just resting his head on my foot while I was working, a fucking stupid car had to hit him and run. My neighbour knocked almost in the middle of the night to tell us about it. I was hysterical when I saw him lying on the side of the street, not moving actively like how he usually was and not breathing with his eyes and mouth open. His flea collar was cut and sat not far from his body. Vincent was very mad and swore that we would never take a pet again as long as we still lived in this country. Me... I was just devastated.

Piment's last visit to the beach - two days before the accident.

Maybe it is a wise move - not to adopt a pet. If every time an animal we love - a member of our family - has to die tragically, it is just too much to bear.

Bali home pets

5:01 pm

I am actually far from the proper description of being a superstitious person. But the last so many happenings in the past 3 months were way too overwhelming for me not to become superstitious.

Let's recap it.

• On the 4th of March, a thief broke in to my house by breaking one of the windows on the first floor. I suspected that it happened when I was at home because whoever had this evil doing did not climb upstairs and steal more valuable things like laptops, surround speaker or my precious camera and lenses. Things missing were my purse that had only about Rp 300,000 (but it meant a lot to me!) and my very important papers, a mobile phone that I bought 2 years ago which cost Rp 500,000 that I suspect wouldn't be worth more than Rp 250,000 now and even the coins my maid collected and saved on the dining table that we reserved for parking fees. It was not a big robbery but it still made me paranoid in case these thieves dared to do more on their second visit. I keep a knife under my bed ever since.
• Not long after, I went to Fabio's place for lunch and parked my motorcycle in front of his house. When I was about to leave, I saw one of the mirrors was gone and the other one was left half unscrewed.
• I suffered from lymphadenitis, an infection on the lymph (Bahasa Indonesia: Kelenjar getah bening) right on the left side of my bikini line. It first felt like I had a very small lump far inside my skin that I could only feel by pressing the surface of the skin hard. In one week, it got bigger and another small lump appeared on the right side of my bikini line. In two weeks, it got so big that naked eyes could see that there was a lump under my panties. One night I had a terribly high fever and I hallucinated that I saw my father. I thought it was very serious so I took myself to an international clinic in Bali, SOS, and got diagnosed that I had this lymphadenitis. The doctor immediately ran a blood check on me to know if it had spread to other parts of my body. Lymphadenitis appeares to be a relatively curable infection IF treatment is early. A few days late, I may have developed a cancer. I couldn't walk properly for 3 days afterwards.
• I had never had allergies of any kind before and I was always proud of that. But it just so had to happen that the antibiotics that the doctor gave me was rejected by my body. There were red rashes all over my right face and I felt so terrible. I went back to the clinic and was given another type of antibiotics. I just had to remember that next time if a doctor wants to prescribe me an antibiotic I should tell him/or that I am allergic to Penicillin. That is weird. I am pretty sure I was given penicillin before and I was okay.

• Our kitten, Geisha, was the next to be sick. She was weak for 2 weeks and became not greedy anymore as she was always known to be. Vincent finally took her to a vet and after a week, she got better and active again (read: naughty). That did not last very long. One morning, I had a tukang to fix my broken waterheater and she got out to eat the grass. I let her do that while I was busy with the tukang. Then I heard a cat howl that did not belong to Geisha so I checked it out. A black cat that was three times her size was threatening her. Vincent came out and tried to hush away the black cat. And only when he did that, the cat attacked Geisha and bit her back. Geisha was terrified and ran and hid inside the compartment that kept our water pump. She was sleeping the whole day that day and died less than 24 hours after the attack. I blamed myself for being a bad mother and not protecting her from that evil cat. We wept for 2 weeks until...
• Vincent lost his passport and KITAS blue book - 2 very important papers for every expat in Indonesia. We looked around the house literally everywhere. We even removed the furnitures to see if they somehow fell down. Nothing. My maid helped to look for it every where but they just disappeared. I had terrible nightmares for days where Geisha alwas appeared in the beginning or the end of the dream and the rest was spent on forcing my unconscious brain to remember and think where these papers could be. These dreams did nothing good but giving me revelations of other things that had gone missing: my red CDMA phone and the certificate of my ring. The mornings when I woke up all sweaty, I would get up and looked for these things that I saw were missing in my dreams, and they were indeed gone. I went to look for my actual ring, and it was still there. It was only the papers that disappeared.
• I formerly did not speak much to my neighbours next door. But the one on my right side just approached me and said that someone was trying to break his window - same MO like when my house was broken in. The next day he came to me again saying that there was this large 2 meter cobra that got into his kitchen at midnight. Not long after the neighbour on my left knocked my door and said that she saw a huge snake crossing the path in front of my house and then hiding in my water pump compartment. And also that she caught two men wearing helmets trying to break her window too. I never really saw the actual snake maybe because I don't have a garden like they do. But the story from Karen freaked me out. Now we were thinking that maybe Geisha did not die from the black cat's bite, but maybe from the snake's. Think about it: would your kitten die from a cat's bite in less than 24 hours without any open wounds?

Anyway, Vincent has been so much under pressure since if he did not do anything about the papers right away, his arse is on the line and he can be kicked out of the country soon. That means my arse is also on the line. And there was still the dispute of his sister's villa in Canggu that never seemed to end and he had to take care of everything because he was the only one residing in Bali that they could ask help from. He wouldn't normally complain about it, but with all the things that are in his hands now, he really does not need anymore burden.

Lately I have been thinking if it was the house. I can hardly remember any single good thing that happened to us since we moved to this new house in January. There have been pains and more pains. And unlike the rule of wheel of life that I believe, all these bad things happened in only a short time. I really, really can't help being superstitious after all these. Maybe it was an exaggeration. Maybe I just need someone or something to blame. Maybe it was just the effect of watching too much TV Series Supernatural. But I need an explanation, logical or otherwise, why we had these in our life when before, things were always looking good even in bad moments.

I am still stressed out and just recently started to pray again to God. But whether it is superstition or not, I am definitely moving to another house next year. I'll start hunting for houses again next month.

Bali family home

11:03 am

I'm terrible at gardening. I mean I never bothered to try. Just to imagine how dirty my hands would set me off in the very first thought of gardening.

But my new place is too big and dark and dull without plants. So I bought a pot of beautiful fresh yellow chrysanthemums last month. I was happy for 2 weeks, but I got reckless. I forgot to water the chrysanthemums for 3 days and they soon were looking like they were dying. I saw 2 buds that were becoming grey and I immediately tried to save them. I threw away the dying/died clumps of the chrysanthemum so that the soil could provide maximum nutrition for the buds. And I forced myself to water them everyday. I think I saved them. For now.

Then I thought maybe I didn't have a chemistry with flowers. So I bought three more pots of green plants (with no flower). One took a week to dry up and look dying. But the other two are going strong. [Yay!]

So since I had died plants some of which I threw away, that means I had unused soil. Once when I was cooking, I saw that my garlic was running bad. And the brilliant me came up with this genius idea, not to throw the garlic away, but to put it inside the unused soil to grow.

I watered it everyday and in three days I could already see the bud sprouting out of the ground. I was soooo.... excited to see it! This one worked!! I'll see if it stays alive one more week, and I may plant some seeds of chili, onion, lime etc! This way I don't need to go to Carrefour anymore to buy these kinds of ingredients!

home

9:57 am