Christmas tiiiiime is neeeearrrr...!

I've been ready for Christmas for over a week now!
My presents are wrapped, cards are written, and I've been playing Christmas music and movies almost nonstop. I love it. :)

Here's what my house looks like now...


Here's my little Christmas corner.

This is my little sitting area, where the roof used to open.

No camera flash makes it look cozier. :)

My tree in the corner

There's some Christmas joy, and a delicious - smelling candle, on my table.

This is to keep the hope alive and burning this Christmas in my house. :)

Cards, past and present, grace the front of my stairwell, along w/ more presents!

King Ramayana is gazing down at the miniature, bamboo Nativity that I bought in April in Jakarta.

(A softer photo touch, minus the flash)

Aren't they cuuuute???? :-D


This weekend is when we have 2 performances for A Christmas Carol. Guess which drama director is NOT ready for this??? :-/

Photos to come!

A Princess Party!

Dear Everyone,

As evidenced by my lack of blog postings for the month of October, I've had no earth-shattering news to blog about on here. Nothing majorly fun or important happened in October - not even Halloween festivities. :( (Maybe next year!)

I'm on my 4th of 5 days of holiday time for Idul Adha. I've been home for all of it - except for the two times I went to the grocery store - and it's been bliss! I've been playing Christmas music nonstop, decorating my house for Christmas, and sleeping in every morning. (Which means, til 7:30 or so, but that counts for me!)

On Saturday night, I took a break from my solitude and hosted a princess party for Cara and Lydia. I was inspired to do this when I went to Malaysia back in August and had seen a fairy cupcake mix on the shelf, and it made me wish I had little girls to make them with, so I bought the mix with the princess party idea in mind.

The girls went ALL OUT in their costumes!

(Their parents don't let them celebrate Halloween, and I didn't get to celebrate it this year, so it was a much - needed excuse for all of us to get dressed up!)

Smiling prettily!






















Soooo pretty!



































































We made fairy cupcakes (with purple, edible glitter!),








































...blew bubbles...

















...and were just generally silly!

















My finest hour. :-P












Cara and Lydia also took turns being a photographer with my camera.

This is one of the few good (i.e. centered) photos they took. :-P





























They liked playing with my Wii, even though they couldn't figure out any of the games.

Updated pics of my house

It's finally Fall!

This is how I've decorated my house for Fall, and here are some updated photos of my home.


Here's my holiday display desk, featuring my beautiful, ceramic, batik leaf that I bought last year and several cards that I've received over the past few years. :)

Here's my little seating area, where the roof used to open.

On the table is an expensive candle that I splurged on at Ace Hardware. It's a combination of 3 delicious Fall scents that lasts forever and helps eliminate rat smells in my house. :-/

My dining area

The brown Indian wrap on the left is one that I bought in Penang last month.

My living room, minus some furniture that Marie took back to her house that I'd been borrowing from Lis and Elise for the last 2 years.

It's a sunny day in my living room!

It's a sunny day in my backyard! :)

(The rainy season hasn't begun yet. Yay!)

Pak Mohammed does a great job of cultivating my backyard and keeping the grass short to thwart away snakes and rats.

I'm not sure what he's growing here...peppers?

The back of my house.

Here are my lovely bamboo wind chimes!
p.s. If anyone back home wants some, I know where to buy them, so just let me know if you'd like some as Christmas presents!

Some girly fun at Sagoo!

Last Friday night, I went out to eat with my Indonesian girlfriends, Detty and Tiwi.

We ate at a new restaurant at the mall in Bogor that we always go to.


It was like an Indonesian Cracker Barrel. It was decorated in a combination of antique Indonesian/Chinese patterns, and it had photographs of old-time things.

This guy was posted at the entrance and was watching us eat. Creeeepyyyy...

Here's a woman browsing the handicraft toys at the entrance of the store.

Some crazy decor

I'm not sure why there are so many birdcages here in Asia. People like to keep birds as pets here often, maybe for a future snack...??? :-P

Part of the seating area

A close-up view of the scrapbooked walls

The oh-so-Chinese seating decor that's oh-so-hideous!
(I was feeling a bit nauseated by the end of our meal b/c the decor was oh-so-overwhelming!)

The tiny baskets are rice baskets.

Tiwi, Detty and me

Don't you LOVE our (hideous) theme shirts that we wear on Fridays? Gag!
I feel like we should be on "Sesame Street" as Cookie Monster wannabes or something...

This is an old-fashioned way of saying "Selamat Datang"/"Welcome".

Detty and the Prosperity Girl :)

This was my meal - nasi goreng ayam, tidak pedas (chicken fried rice, not spicy)...

...and this was Detty's meal - funky French fries and weird-looking sausages.

Eating, drinking, and being merry in Penang!

I'm back from Malaysia!

Josh, Brenna and I got home safely and efficiently yesterday, and we're glad to be home, even though we had a great time in Penang. It was SOOO HOT there, so we're very glad to be back, where the air is cooler and where we have air-conditioning in our living rooms.
(Our friend we visited did NOT!)

Josh and Brenna have a college friend named Jodi who lives in Penang, Malaysia, and teaches at Dalat International School. Brenna and I stayed in Jodi's apartment, and Josh stayed with one of Jodi's guy friends in his apartment.

We had a great time exploring and chillaxing, so I hope you enjoy the photos!
(I divided them into groupings b/c there are tons of pics.)

This was our first morning in Penang, on Friday. Jodi had to go to work and had given us only brief instructions on how to find a food court for breakfast, so Josh and Brenna and I spent much time wandering around looking for it.

We still look very hot and tired here, but we're being fed - thus, the smiles.



This is lame, but we ate at Chili's 3 times, due to Josh and Brenna's cravings for real burgers and spinach and artichoke dip. I was more excited about the chocolate, molten lava cake, since "cake" in Indonesia isn't anything like the real stuff.


Josh, Brenna and I hung out with several of Jodi's friends throughout the week while she worked.

Here we are: Josh, Alfred (Heather's visiting friend), me, Brenna, and Heather, who's a dorm supervisor at Jodi's school, and who earned her Master's at Taylor a few years ago - small world!

In Asia, you can eat in a myriad of places, especially outdoors, since the weather's usually conducive for this. You can find some outdoor restaurants, and you can also find open - air food courts. (The ones I've been to in Malaysia and Singapore are cleaner and less run-down than the ones in Indonesia.)

We ate at this commonplace food court...

...and at a beach stall. (No beach background, though - sorry!)









I often drank this sugar cane + water chestnut juice for breakfast.

On this day, I also bought a mooncake, since I'm missing out on the Mooncake Festival that I was able to be a part of in Singapore last year. However, this mooncake was drier and seemed more disgusting than I remembered, probably b/c it was packaged instead of freshly made.









Josh and I went to the food stalls every morning for breakfast, b/c Brenna always slept in too late to come and Jodi was at work and had NO food for breakfast.

He and I usually ate Indian breakfast food and drank some sort of juice or iced coffee.





This is what he's eating - roti canai with some Indian curries.














This is something called a dosa, or an Indian pancake.

















Jodi lives extremely close to many great things, such as her school, the beach, and this Indian restaurant.













I'm very happy with my Indian masala tea, even though it was tea instead of chai! :-P


















One day, we made BLTs for lunch. It's hard to find bacon in Indonesia, so we were very excited about this, as you can tell by Brenna's face!