I think I can't keep up !

One can just have enough to do to fill her day, with running around with everyday errands and running a family and a little business, let alone writing two blogs!! . So apologies if I don't update this blog very often. On the other hand though, I will try to write more often on the other blog (www.lollipopbaby.com.au/blog) and consolidate two parts of my life (being a mum and running the business in one story.

So see you there!

Happy Birthday my Lollipop!

I really forgot to mention this in earlier, but Oliver turned two last Friday! We were going to go to the zoo for his birthday but we rescheduled this until next month when grandma comes and visits us in Easter (my hubby's mum always comes during Easter holiday from New South Wales to see Oliver. We did opened some presents for him on his birthday though (lots of books, animal toys, cars, and things that are very noisy!), and went to visit Scott's bestfriend Wodonga (4 hours drive from Melbourne) for the weekend. The boy is a bit oblivious about his special day though :P. Oliver and I tried to bake some cupcakes prior the weekend but it didn't really work *sigh* I am sooo bad in the kitchen!

baking session

Anyway I took the cupcakes to Wodonga, and Antoinette, the hostess whipped her kitchen equipments and put the icing and decorated our cupcakes single handedly within ten minutes (another hand was used to carry her 6 months old - but I should also mention she has 2 older boys). Don't ask me how she does that.


PS. We drove through a lot of areas affected by fire on the way there and back. Gives me goosebumps seeing those ruins :( Very sad.

Weekend snapshot

Lovely picture of our lollipop Oliver and my hubby's bestfriends' son when we visited them in Wodonga for the weekend.

25 (random) things about me

25 Things

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. My real name is not Linda. Holly molly such an ice-breaker! Well it's not like that. My name is Maria Yulinda but I always go by with Linda - since the day I was born. That is what my parents have been calling me all of my life. Though it's not always easy explaining it to people - and sometimes I just can't be bother. In fact I let my now-husband-then-fellow student called me Maria until we started dating.

2. I think I spent too much time studying. I did degrees in International Relations, Marketing and International Business -- only last year I decided that what I really really wanted was to be a graphic designer, so I did another course. Yet when I finished I ended up setting up my own business in baby online shop, specialising in baby t-shirts & onesies with quirky & personalised designs. I do all the designs though. Check it out on http://www.lollipopbaby.com.au (shameless advertising!)

3. My favourite actor is Audrey Hepburn and my favourite movie is My Fair Lady.

4. KFC is my comfort food.

5. I get bored easily. And I am getting a bit bored now....

6. Okay. Focus. I can't hold a tune at all, but my son is the best singer. He started humming twinkle twinkle little star since he was 12 months old. He still can't pull a string of sentence at the age of 23 months but he sings a lot. He opens his mouth the minute he opens his eyes in the morning and closes it when he closes his eyes at night but this note is about me, not about him so -- moving along..

7. I can say "I am sorry, I don't speak (Italian/English/Japanese/Chinese/French/Hebrew) language' in those languages. I said it to an Italian in Rome one night when I was backpacking in Europe, unfortunately he went on and on after that (and no single word was understood by me, since I didn't speak Italian, of course).

8. The most drunk I have been was on New Year's eve 2001. I was in Madrid, at a party of my Spanish friends' friend which I didn't know, passed out on a lounge next to a spew. I have never been drunk like that again in my life. Although it was still the best holiday in my life!

9. I would love to sky-dive and I have been nagging my husband to pay it for me for my birthday/christmas present. He said he'd give me one when he doesn't love me anymore.

10. My current ringtone is 'all the single ladies if you like it you should've put a ring on it o-o-o'

11. When I was quite young I climbed a tree and couldn't come back down.

12. When I was a girl, my hair was so long it reached my waist. I had it cut to bob when I was 13 years old.

13. I taught myself how to create a website -- check it out on http://www.lollipopbaby.com.au (shameless advertising #2)

14. I won the 'social butterfly' award in college.

15. I had my first crush when I was 6 years old.

16. I love my beauty sleep. I still need 9-10 hours sleep every night - doesn't mean I get it these days.

17. I am a coffee snob. My husband and I-- that is. We'd go to a cafe and the coffee has to have a right temperature, right density of milk and right amount of foam. Sounds bad but it's just like someone who doesn't like japanese food or korean food, we just don't like bad coffee.

18. Shamelessly, even though I am a coffee snob, I admit that I can't cook. My secret ingredients are the ready-made-sauces you can get at the supermarket.

19. I used to exercise regularly, at least twice a week.I hadn't really been into it since I was pregnant, but now I am getting back to doing bikram yoga and hoping that it will continue.

20. I love what I am doing but working from home makes me feel lonely sometimes.

21. The first concert I have been to was Jason Donovan. Eeks!

22. My parents live in Indonesia, two of my siblings live in Indonesia, I live in Melbourne, my other brother lives in Sydney and another one lives in Japan. We also have become quite a multicultural family.

23. Is it only 23? Aren't we there yet?

24. I thought Prince William was gorgeous, until he turned 20 and started to look like his father.

25. I have been enjoying wasting my time on this. I love procrastinating!

"the invitation"

I was a bit grumpy this weekend but this beautiful poem "the invitation' by Oriah Mountain Dreamer puts me into perspective.

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

O Come All Ye Faithful

I am 'lulling' people to sign up for Lollipop Baby newsletter. Starting next month I am going to start randomly throwing some project freebies in our newsletters that you can download and print and use . Most of them would be related to babies, such as gift tags, party invitations, etc, given the nature of Lollipop Baby business. Here is a little teaser on what is going to be in the newsletter next month.

If you like it and would like to get a high resolution pdf of these postcards which you can print and send to your favourite people, you can sign up by clicking here. Don't forget to let your friends know as well!

There are some new baby t-shirts and onesies design on www.lollipopbaby.com.au -- please come and visit!

Happy Valentine's day!

Hope your day tomorrow is full of love, lots of kisses and hugs! Please spread the love on Valentine's day and release your positive energy. We all are in need for that.

Make a Smilebox greeting

I was crying in the car this afternoon listening to a montage which a radio put together for the bushfire appeal. People have been calling on phone in their studio all day to pledge money for helping the people affected by the disaster and all those who have been touched by it. They called on behalf of their companies, their organisations, their families, their kids (because when something like this happened, you realised how precious they are)...
Some people called to say thank you for the generosity and that we didn't know how much it meant for them.
Some other people called, crying - telling the audience that the weekend was the worst weekend of their life, and that they saw everything they had disappeared before their eyes - their home, their cars, their family...


My heart just goes out to them. And all the beautiful heroes out there and so many of us who are offering their hands to help. We just don't know how precious our lives are until you get a wake-up-call like it.

Grumpy

Oliver and I must have gotten up on the wrong side of bed today . It's one of those day when I just want to stay curl up in my bed instead of running after Oliver trying to 1) change nappy 2) put clean t-shirt on 3)put his shoes on etc etc.

He just got very quirky behaviours, that boy is! For one, now if we are going out, he gets very very worked out about it and runs around the house when I try to do all the above. He loves to go out and my theory why he runs around the house naked (and big loud whinge comes with that activity) is that he just can't wait to go out. And the more I chase him the more whinge comes out because obviously, instead of opening the door and step out the house, mum is wasting time by chasing me around!!!

These days he tires me more. His energy just makes me feel so tired. And so old.

In or out?

It's very hot in Melbourne today (and for the rest of the week -- 40 degrees days are coming!). We stayed home all day mainly because the air conditioner in my car is not working -- I just couldn't do that to Oliver. Whenever we went out in hot days he always came home sweating his face off sitting in the back seat.

I exhausted all my parenting skills and creativity by the time my husband got home. Funny enough. I remember reading something somewhere only last week about there are two types of parents. One who likes to go out with their children because they think it's a hard work to keep them amused for the whole 10 hours their children up, and one who likes to stay home - and happy to stay home and keep their children busy at home.

I never really thought about it but I think I must be fallen in the first category. Before Oliver was born, I used to get bored all the time if I have to stay home. I love going out. I love seeing things. Even if I ended up just going to the mall to kill time.

Then Oliver came along. And it is so much easier to stay home sometimes. Not having to worry about what snacks to bring, or try to work around his mealtimes and naptimes. Nor have to worry about keep him well behave and not running off the street when we are going for a walk or pulling things on the shelves at the shops.

But the problem with that is, off course, trying to keep him happy and content for the whole day. I found that if I stayed home all day, I started ignoring him by doing my work at the computer. Having only set up my online business, I spend so much time in front of the computer - I always try to steal some time to work when he's up, although he doesn't always let me.

So that's why we go out. When we are at the park or at the music class or any other activities, I am all his. No distraction. No computer (I can't really work with him around anyway), no dishes to wash, no clothes to dry (yay! I like this arangement *cheeky smile*)

And he is happy. And I am happy too because I don't steal my time with him. And he'd go to sleep happily. And then I can sit here and work on my computer. Or facebooking. Or blogging for that matter.

Have a look at my works on www.lollipopbaby.com.au

O at the park

...and we're back!!

After about ehmm six months of a little glitch, we're back in business (meaning I am back in doing the blog!)

I am blaming it to, of course, motherhood and a growing toddler and growing needs (and growing tantrums I should add).

Over the past year I've finished my graphic design course and proudly started my own business. After months of works in designing the website, it's gone online 'officially' early this month on http://www.lollipopbaby.com.au

Lollipop Baby label offers baby t-shirts and onesies with quirky and personalised designs. As I was telling people I'd like to think of my designs as 'sweet and colourful' as lollipops yet funny and quirky as our babies can be from time to time.
I was having so much fun designing these designs and hoping everyone else woud find them exciting too! *finger crossed*.

As with Oliver, he is growing like a speedy bullet. He's a delight with his cheeky attitude and antiques, and there isn't any dull moment with him. Here's a sneak preview!