Showing all posts tagged home sweet home

In DIY and Artsy-Craftsy, Life on the Equator

Life Update: Bedroom Makeover & Houseplants Fever

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Life Update: Bedroom Makeover & Houseplants Fever

Hello!

A lot has happened since the last time I was here. Most of the time I was occupied by office workloads, but there were also exciting times where I got to explore new hobbies and interest – which you’d have noticed from the title of this post, and I will share in a bit as well.

We’ll get to the fun and colourful part in a jiffy, but before that, I kind of wanted to share the more *depressing* part of these past couple months as well. Only as a reminder that behind all these pretty pictures you’ll see in a bit, I didn’t always have good days. My working hours, for example, have practically doubled – which is thanks to the combination of my crappy time management, my perfectionism, and the increasing workload. I also skipped so many French classes and didn’t continue to B1 level since I didn’t even have time to study for the final exam. I bought a piano keyboard and planned to learn how to play it but it has been three months since it’s only sitting awkwardly in my bedroom, since I do not have the time to learn. I don’t exercise, the amount of times I’ve left the house since March (even to convenience shops) is countable by fingers, and I haven’t met A or any of my friends since March. It’s stressful, but I’m hanging on. Oftentimes by a thread, but at least it’s not torn apart (yet).

Like many of us, I’ve been searching for a coping mechanism amidst these insane times. Especially one that is doable from the comfort of my own home. And like many people out there, the answer is: houseplants!

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In Days in Edmonton, DIY and Artsy-Craftsy, Life on the Equator

Recollections of Sanctuary

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Recollections of Sanctuary

Ever since I took my first office gig in Jakarta last year, I’ve been moving across a couple of temporary housings in the city. “Kostan” is what we call those accommodations here in Indonesia, which is basically almost like a mix of a dormitory (but not only for students) and shared house (although some of them don’t quite look like a house, especially since some of them are not equipped with parking lot, living room, laundry facilities, or even a kitchen).

Funnily enough, none of them ever felt quite as “comfortable” as an actual place to relax and unwind by the end of the day for me. Although in the context of proper beddings, furniture, and facilities which help me to fulfil my basic needs of a shelter, they are indeed physically comfortable. It’s just that none of them ever feels like a “safe haven” that I would gladly spend a whole week inside, unlike some of my previous temporary bedrooms. (I was even almost gone mad the first two weeks of WFH and quarantine, before I decided to stay with my family in Bandung instead.)

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In Days in Edmonton, Playlist

If my current life were a TV series, these would be the theme songs:

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If my current life were a TV series, these would be the theme songs:

Sometimes when I was casually strolling on the rustic sidewalk on one of those days back in the Fall, particularly early in the day when the daybreak just rose, or later when the yellow shades of afternoon just turned gold and the evening breeze began to nudge my cheeks, I imagined if I had actually been living in a TV series. (And all this messed up reality is actually just a fake show, ha! Well, I wish.) There would be a camera shooting from one side of my moving feet, then another one from the tip of my right eye which was staring straight onto the avenue, and another one just across my lips that were mumbling some lyrics that I remembered from these songs.

The story begins when a girl feels like she’s misplaced in this small town, and she struggles to find a circle where she really fits in, without feeling like she has to try all the time.

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In Days in Edmonton, Impulsive Writing

Oh What A Week

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Oh What A Week
  • Calgary went nuts from 28oC yesterday to 2oC and snowing today, continuing with the craziest rain I’ve ever witnessed in Canada by far which has been ongoing endlessly for the past 7 hours. I brought no jacket from Edmonton because it was a frickin’ burning 25oC when I left the city, so today I had my first experience of running in the midst of a heavy rain of 2oC trying to reach home.
  • I randomly went to Google Maps street view only to view my house back at home. Darn I miss people and my comfy upstairs bedroom with a view. (And all those beautiful small showers next to the washroom’s toilets.)
  • Impulsively bought two planters of tropical plants.. Because we got lots of those back home. I think I just need to be convinced how close I am actually to home.. Although it involves buying two planters in Calgary which means I’d have to carry them all the way to Edmonton.
  • Just yesterday I spent literally one crazy burning hour after shopping groceries in Safeway, to confusedly look for a Western Union agent that Google says should be around a half km-ish outside Safeway, only to figure out that the place is actually INSIDE Safeway all this time. Time is money, and my sweats are even more.
  • Been missing home more than ever. Thinking of purchasing a flight ticket to Jakarta, but the thought of my thesis haunts all the time. Should I or shouldn’t I?
  • I’m getting way more skeptical towards people who often fake their opinions by saying, “I’m so happy for you!” “I’m so excited for this!” while all humans of all races in the world know that those things they refer to are actually just as ordinary as white girls wearing Lululemon leggings. Basic.
  • I woke up two hours late today, and figured out that the reason was that I was dreaming about my old friends, we were hanging out playing some childhood traditional games in a place that looked very much like my neighborhood back home. So I thought maybe it was actually my unconscious self who told myself not to wake up because the dream was literally better than the reality.
  • Being homesick actually lands me to a new goal: working as a lecturer in my past university (ITB). So that I could stay home with my family in Bandung, while probably with some luck Ade will successfully make it to ITB as well so Bunda, Ade, and I could actually go to work and come home together every single day. Care for an amen?
  • Found lots of interesting quote about homesickness today. I shared some of them on the other post, but here’s another one that goes as my favourite: “I never realize how much I like being home unless I’ve been somewhere different for awhile,” from the movie Juno.
  • Care to keep a little secret? This has been the song I listen to the most this year, lol.
In Days in Edmonton, Overcasted Mind

Pneumonia

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Pneumonia

Just yesterday, I just got recovered from one and a half week of pneumonia. This was only the second time I got sick in Edmonton. The first was a pretty mild and casual cold, but this one is the kind of a pretty serious one.

I remember spending so much on Uber just to get to the clinic, then do an x-ray, go to the pharmacies, and buy some expensive nutrition supplies just because I didn’t even have the strength to cook myself some basic food. I tried Advil for the first time, finally figured out why its name appears in lots of Hollywood movies if it’s not because of its amazing powerful effects.

Those times make me nothing but realize that being away from home sucks big time.

I talked with Bunda on the phone while she was fully awake at 2AM-ish until morning, trying to make sure that her only daughter is staying alive on the other side of the world. That daughter that had never been sick alone before, especially when it comes to high fever that lasted for a week. I almost sent myself to the emergency room because noone was even able to take care of me; I couldn’t get myself food, my bedroom was a complete mess of quarantine of virus, I didn’t dare to touch the water for anything other than brushing teeth, I couldn’t even drink it. Walking downstairs to get myself glasses of strange-flavored tea and water with lemon or honey felt like such real huge struggles. And Bunda kept texting me 24/7 to make sure that I, at least, was staying alive.

There was no typical chicken porridge that Ayah always bought me whenever I was forced to lie in bed due to catching cold or fever. There was only some ugly-tasted instant chicken soup I forced myself to make, just because I couldn’t even stand for any longer than 15 seconds, let alone cook. He wasn’t there to prepare and clean a bucket of water that I’ve always used to vomit the accumulating mucus in my throat. I did it myself, while dragging myself to the bathroom back and forth, trying not to pass out somewhere in-between. No home cooked spinach porridge or chicken soup, no going to the usual dr. Rahayu with Ayah, no Ayah or Bunda changing my damped and unsterile pillow case and linens.

There was only me and my damped eyes, realizing how sad it is to have to suffer the bad days of your life without the ones who would able to help you get through them. Thinking, “How could my friends already get married by this age? I got pneumonia and I really couldn’t think how I would not die without the help of my parents. I don’t think a husband would be of enough use.”

I wish I were sentimental enough to have the courage to tell them how much I cherish their presence, how much I’d like to be home by their sides at the very moment, how much I need their constant supplies of never-ending blessings.

“O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they have nourished me when I was young.”