First Day

Fingers crossed things will stay the same that I can barely wait for the next day to come and the next workload to roll.

Super grateful.

Ha, you have no idea how fulfilling that is. Plus, it pays the bills, need I say more? ;)

Ideal Saturday Night

Thanks to the 11k km between Lu and me (therefore making staying in binge-watching on Homeland is impossible to do), I get to spend so much time on the weekends with family and friends, but my fave is when I'm just alone with this lady. Tonight we prepped frozen meat and ate it with Gandy bread from yesterday, burger/sandwich-style, something we used to do a lot when I was little. It brought back all the happy memories growing up thinking she was the best mom ever. Guess what? She still is.

Oh and according to this generator, she had me when she was 7.

Even God Takes A Break

Yesterday we went to Tante Cynthia's annual Eid open house luncheon.

Friends who wear same color........ stay together?

Judging by the smile, I'm not my mom's daughter

Later on the day, we did some serious damage at Transmart Carrefour.

A haul: toiletries and office supplies for me

They are having crazy discounts on kitchen utensils at the moment

Today is a lovely half day out driving around the city with family after lunch.

Nasi goreng with eggs, beef patties, and smoked beef by yours truly

My second fave seasonal burger after the Peri Peri Chicken one

Minimal makeup for the last three days:

  

And finally, time to address the elephant in the room.

Yes, I did miss putting something up yesterday, but day 7 is *the* rest day, right? Right? ;)

End of Ramadan

Laugh Headache

On The Voice, Gwen Stefani has something called smile headache. In Tanjung family, we have something called laugh headache. I seriously would get headache from spending just a little bit more time with my laughing companions.

Straight Onto The Bucket List

A week ago my favorite YouTuber posted this video on his channel, which is a montage of his sponsored trip to Montana, adventuring through in a classic 1973 VW camper van, capturing the breath-taking beauty with a drone. Sick shots.

I personally am not the biggest fan of color correcting as done by Sam, but he and Louis were the dream team. The footages were insane! For the captures that aren't hefty in edits, check out his daily vlog from here up to the round-up.

Perfect Outlier

"Everything in moderation, including moderation," said the Wilde; outliers are good to have every now and then.

Barely sleeping thanks to the super intense Germany-Italy fighting for a spot in the semifinal (which resulted in an ideal outcome, just not the process), I gotta get moving anyway for 9.30 service where Bapa would be singing with his choir. A luncheon to follow was very lovely too: everyone was in a good mood and that put me also in a good mood. Before I took my nap, Luis made time to FaceTime Video; I pretty much slept the entire afternoon under his spell. Alternating between Austrian Grand Prix and Lopez-Kyrgios match (the eye candy eventually lost but the scenery was beautiful, to say the least), we were cooking these humongous lobsters Om Atmo brought us from his recent regular trip to the eastern part of Indonesia. Bless that guy and his family.

Gotta love the intricate details! Cooked in ginger chunks and a few powders and glazed with homemade butter sauce, dinner was beyond amazing! Nesa popped in a bit to grab the birthday prezzie and the rest of us went out to run some errands and get ice creams. 

Challenging days are to come, but for the time being, I love, love, love this perfect outlier of a day and more.

Avec Moi et Ma Chérie

Since Nesa's birthday, June 21, was a weekday, we had to delay the celebration until today. After a few hours shopping at Grand Indonesia, we headed to Avec Moi, the chosen restaurant; however, the reservation was at 6 and we arrived there way earlier, so we looked around and found Tanamera, a coffee shop a couple of doors down.

I was really thrilled to get together with Galih after so long! With her being pretty as always, I hope we can look past that one hair across my forehead. How embarrassing. *rolls eyes* The short visit to Tanamera was lovely and one hour was enough to work up our appetite. At 6, our table was ready, but we were directed to the one below the staircase, causing the shadow to darken up the already dim lightings. We tried asking to be moved to another table, also for 4, but the waiter said it wasn't possible; they weren't allowed to do that. Personally I couldn't see what could be the problem since the other tables (of 4) were still empty, but whatever.

Bacon linguine carbonara for Nesa (top left), seabass grenobloise with pilat rice for me (top right), and prawn spaghetti marinara for Galih (bottom). Everything was super scrumptious that we were curious on how the desserts would taste like.

Neither the orange souffle (left) nor valrhona chocolate fondant (right) was too sweet; just perfect. Finishing up the meals with those lovely desserts made the dinner nothing but impeccable. We started off on the wrong foot, but all in all, I would definitely go back to this restaurant.

According to Nesa, Galih's eyebrows were crying for help, haha, so she took us to Kota Kasablanka to get those brows done. We wanted to shop some more after that but the mall was INSANELY swarmed! Eid is four days away so I knew it wasn't going to be empty, but not that full! We didn't get to give Nesa a birthday cake, so another meet up is in order. Besides, it wasn't until I fished for my keys in my handbag that I realized I haven't given Nesa her birthday present. What a genius!

Take Two

It's the first of July here in Indonesia. I've had my fair share being on the more adventurous side and we shall see now if being normal pans out, well, better. For the past week I've finally bid my startup farewell (the ideas and business failed but the lifelong lesson is not taken for granted), forwent an SOE offer which I had to wait 4 months for (no idea who takes that long for a management trainee recruitment process), and signed a contract with a company which I initially didn't apply to but I now stand behind 100%. Fingers crossed this is the right decision.