HANZKY

Since today is the last day, I'm just going to write down the most important information from first!. Mommies Daily and Bodrexin is throwing a blogging competition. The Prize? Three Kate Spade goodies!. If you don't have enough time to write down a full entry today, you can still participate in sending your kids' fingerprints into Bodrexin Facebook page and they will turn it into a batik motif. How cool is that?



Above is pictures of Jehan with her favorite batik skirt, lined with a white tutu that makes her feel like a ballerina. Ballerina in a batik skirt, why not, right? :D. Batik now is no longer associated with the boring brownish color that is worn to formal events. Wherever we turn now, we always see people with colorful and stylish batik clothes that make us even more proud of our traditional heritage.  The people in the industry is getting more and more creative in producing different kind and style of batik. Kids clothing are not an exception, proven by the skirt that Jehan wears in the picture. It's indeed a good and easy way to introduce batik to kids and to make them proudly wear it on a daily basis. They look much better in colorful batik than they do in Spongebob or Dora t-shirt, don't you think?

I bought a few books for (and during) my umrah trip and since it's a spiritual journey, I only bought ones that I can learn more about Islam, its history and way of life. I haven't had much luck when it comes to buying Islamic books. Most of them are hard to understand and the writers seem have their own stance that is too extreme to my perspective. A sure way to make me closed the book and throw it to the trash. Need to pay attention to the author and publisher first before buying one.




Thankfully, the ones I bought recently are truly an enlightenment to one soul. They put emphasize on the beauty of the religion instead of what it prohibits and the punishment ones have to endure in the afterlife. Looking back to my childhood and teenage years, I think I was taught more on what God doesn't like instead of what He likes.

My favorite book is 'Doa Harian' by Quraish Shihab. It's full of essential and practical prayers that relates to our daily life, written in beautiful words yet easy to understand. Some of the prayers never crossed my mind before, I should have been reciting them since a long time ago. The basic/general ones are also included so it's nice to have them all in one book. I read this one cover to cover when I was in Medina and the other one when I was in Mecca. Here are some of the variety of the plea in the book:

"Perlindungan dari kemalasan, dari sifat senang menunda, kejemuan, kekikiran, pemborosan (!), dari hal-hal yang tidak bermanfaat, dari amal yang tidak diterima, dari kalbu yang tidak khusyu, dari kenikmatan duniawi yang menghalangi kebajikan ukhrawi.

Permintaan untuk diberi rasa aman, kelapangan rezeki yang halal, keberhasilan yang diikuti oleh kebahagaian, untuk dimuliakan dengan takwa, dianugerahi dengan hidayah al quran, mental yang indah dan budi pekerti yang luhur, untuk memiliki kerelaan menghadapi ketetapannya, ketulusan dalam beriman, rasa takut yang dihiasi dengan kekaguman terhadapnya.

Kemampuan untuk bekerja yang giat, untuk menikmati segala anugerah dalam batas yang digariskannya, untuk puas dengan yang halal tanpa menyentuh yang haram dan mensyukurinya dalam jalan yang sudah ditentukannya (zakat, infak, dll), untuk merasakan kepuasan setelah usaha dan kerja keras, kesabaran dan keikhlasan saat sedang gagal, dan juga kemampuan untuk bersikap adil baik saat rela maupun marah, sederhana baik saat kaya ataupun miskin, rendah hati dalam ucapan dan perbuatan.

Permohonan untuk menjadikan awal hari sebagai rahmat, pertengahan hari sebagai nikmat dan akhir hari sebagai kehormatan, untuk disempurnakan apa yang kurang, dan untuk menjadikan sebaik-baik usia adalah akhirnya dan sebaik-baik amal kita adalah kesudahannya serta sebaik-baik hari kita adalah hari pertemuan kita dengannya :')."

And one of the ones that strike me the most:


Such a simple yet strong statement that has so many meanings!. A beautiful reminder for me to go easy with the 'sharing' activity in social media.

Trying out this ipad blogging apps, who knows it would help me blog regularly? :D Yea, the same exact wish I blurt out everytime I find a new way of blogging :). Oh well, what else is new?

I came back from my Umrah trip last Monday. Took Tuesday off and went back to work on Wednesday. I havent been back on full speed yet, I'm still trying to recover. Umrah is definetely not a day by the beach. We did a lot of walking and very minimal sleep. I sleep about 4 hours a night in average during our trip. But it was one memorable journey, the one that opens our eyes, heart, mind and soul!. The whole experience was that captivating that Oki insisted we should go back for Hajj in 2 - 3 years time. Amin ya rabbal alamiin :')

What a rare way to spend Thursday night (that feels like a Friday night). I am now sitting in the corner of Starbucks Senayan City, sipping its signature hot chocolate drink while reading The Hermes Temptation book (obviously I'm taking a break from the book for a few minutes to write this post). I had dinner with Oki at Brew House. It was a pizza, onion rings, philly cheese steak and coke kind of dinner. Very healthy. Now he has a meeting and I'm here waiting.

Last week I said to myself that I thought all the craziness would end once Women Wired Weekend was over. But now here I am, working at the office until 11 PM and continued the work at home until 3 in the morning. Oh well. Jehan showed me this drawing of her before I left for work. I was pretty shocked when I saw that because to me, in that first second, the drawing kind of resemble man's private part!. When I asked her what it was, she proudy said that it’s a NAIL POLISH bottle. Phewww!. Us adults, (or maybe it was just me) do see things from different point of view than kids. Our mind has been contaminated by many things, and some times, our worries and fears skewed how we see the world. Some times we see the negatives first instead of the positives. I’ve created a pretty comprehensive family financial plan last year. Fast forward to a year later, I’m kind of lost track with the investment. I don’t know which one performs well, which one needs to be closed and move to other Reksadana that is more promising. I’ve also had a few change of plans that I haven’t implemented and then we’re planning to apply for KPR, so there are quite a lot of changes in our financial situation, so it needs a more serious analysis and planning. We decided to be QM Financial client and last week was our first meeting and already am feeling more relieved. At least that's one less thing to worry about. I can be a perfectionist some times, that I think I can do everything and want to do everything by myself, because I feel that the part where I can learn more and use my brain. Now I learn that some times, I just have to delegate. We should have another meeting tomorrow. We had a big presentation last week and since Vanya was on leave, Syita was the one who had to deliver the presentation. It was the first time for her to present for a new project (usually a report-kind of presentation), and it's for a multinational companya It was amazing she could pull off such a promising presentation on a last minute notice. In fact, she only saw the final powerpoint presentation 2 hours before the appointed time. But she looked very comfortable in that cold meeting room. She explained everything thoroughly. Transition between points and slides were done very smoothly. Very proud of her!. I was especially moved when she explained about Female Daily Network and can actually feel her emotion there :') When I came home last Thursday, I was surprised to see identical suitcases lining up. They are from the travel agent who is arranging our Umrah trip. The lady said it's not fix yet that we can go on the date we want, but I don’t understand why she's already sent us the suitcase, along with the book and the uniform? Anyway, when I looked that, it just registered in me how I long to have this trip. I was almost in tears. Mudah-mudahan diizinkan dan dimudahkan untuk pergi ke sana ya Allah. Jibran loves to play Congklak. He is so excited that in school, the teacher just introduced the game to everyone. He is so proud that (according to him), he is one of the rare who already know about the game and that he, along with other friend, is the best at it :D. We lost the Congklak shells so we used the smaller Lego instead. The kid is pretty good, he understands the strategy and tactical aspects of it :D. But don't worry, I beat him 3-2. Speaking of investment, I was all smiles when I took my latest investment out for a spin last weekend :)))

Today we had a presentation for a pretty big project. I always love the feeling I get after our team delivered a presentation, especially knowing that we've tried our best. Even though most of the time my best is never enough for me.

Anyway, today reminds me of this post that's been sitting on my draft list, written last October after Affi and I had an opportunity to share our story on how we build Female Daily Network. Basically this post is just a compilation of a few things mentioned from that meeting.

----------

"Female Daily Network is actually an already established business, so it cannot be considered as a seed funding because the business is growing, profitable and pretty mature". Wow, it's nice to hear that from someone outside of the company who understands the digital landscape in Indonesia :)

Below are what came out of our mouth, through our heart :)

"Everything we're doing right now is a combination of everything we've been doing all along during school/college days or work experiences prior to this". That means we're meant to be doing this, right? If it's not something we are so passionate about, we won't last the past three years. Money is not even one of the reasons why we're sticking to this.

"On a personal level, we believe we still have to learn and improve more. But we're two very determined individuals. We realize that passion will only get us so far if it's not equipped with humility and integrity"

"We both are product of stepping out of the comfort zone. Affi left her well paid corporate career in a prestigious company and Hani left her American dream life, to create our own path and build our own dream"

"This is not a lifestyle business, and this is not just a part of us. This is us"

"We dream big, we want to be like ibu Pia Alisjahbana or Ibu Martha Tilaar of our generation. We want to have our own little business empire. We want to build something we can pass on to the next generation"

"Our team is very special because they are consist of people who are a long time member of Female Daily forum. They are people who believe in us, and they see Female Daily Network as a place to channel their passion".

"We deliver awesome contents and often asked to be contributor for International publication"

"We want to focus on our strength and build solid eco-system for the industry"

----

There are a few more notes but that's consist of what we're going to do in the near future. Don't think it's time to share them here.

I remember that day wasn't easy. It was a day before Affi left for London and Aluf was having a fever and cough. The day before, I did a three hour test for an institution so I couldn't focus on the presentation. We received the final file from a graphic designer we hired at 5 PM and it was a mess! There were 66 slides while we only had 15 minutes to present. Lesson learned: never ever outsource your presentation! I also had a class until 9 o'clock that night. I got home at 9:40, took Jehan to bed, read her a book..and went back to my laptop after changing my clothes. I didn't even had a chance to eat dinner or wash my face. I re-do the powerpoint presentation and worked on it until 3:30 in the morning! And in between that, Jehan woke up twice and threw up all over the bed :(.

See, there's nothing fancy about being an entrepreneur and a mom...but I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Just realized we didn't take picture from that day. Arrggh!

Affi's tweet on that day:

Nothing good comes easy so I'll be ready for whatever today may bring. Happy Friday, everyone!


My grandma's ring, energy muse bracelet, alligator cuff - weird combo but I need all my lucky charms!

Mine the next day:

Soccer mom for the day. But waking up early on Saturday morning is not that bad when you end the work week with a bang :)

-----------

Just part of the journey we have to go through :)

• This was in March 2006 during Missouri Valley Tournament, the road to NCAA
• Of course we won the tournament :)
• Guess who wears that Afro wig?
• Yes, we were (or he was) that crazy!
• The back of Oki shirt says SO.ILL (for Southern Illinois)
• I miss college basketball
• I miss supporting for my dawgs
• I miss being in a stadium filled with maroons
• I miss singing Star Spangled Banner with thousands of people
• I miss screaming my lungs out and jumping in delight whenever we scored
• I miss being fanatical about something and wear it on my sleeve
• I miss the energy
• I miss the road trip to watch the game
• I miss watching the game on my living room while having King & I or Dominos take out
• I miss everything about it
• I know, this post is supposed to be wordless (WW stands for wordless wednesday)
• So I guess I must end it now

Yupe, just like expected, it's getting harder and harder to sit down and write a blog post. It truly needs a discipline to set a side some 20-30 minutes of my time for some serious blogging sessions. I found that, the busier I am, the faster the days gone by and the more time I wonder where did the time go? What did I do? How did I feel? How come I didn't remember many details about that moment? I always feel a sharp pang in my heart when I look at pictures of Jehan when she was much smaller and I don't seem to remember the milestones and moments. It's different with Jibran where I was a stay at home mom throughout the first 4.5 years of his life.

So, in an attempt to document my days in a more systematical manner, I create this weekly roundup where I post every Monday (and today is what? -__-) on what's happening, or the highlight of that past week, with pictures and a little story.

As a soccer mom, there are many times where I start my Saturday morning at the soccer/futsal field, especially when Jib had a tournament or a friendly match. Last Saturday was a friendly match with Jibran's cousin school that is located near my in law house. Since his cousin was also playing, we spent quite a long time at the school because we had to wait for different teams. My in laws were there too. After that, we went to 7-11 to drench our thirst with a cold cup of slurpee!. Then we lounged around at my in laws' house. Later on that day, we went to Citos to see Nopai as a mom guest at Scotch Brite event, followed by a little chit-chat with Vanya & Richoz at Dome.