Motherhood: Instinctive vs Learning

I've always thought motherhood is an instinctive thing, yet now I know I was wrong. In fact, there's a lot of things I should learn as a first time mother.

Start from the very first basic thing: breastfeeding. Despite of the sucking reflex that comes naturally since the baby was born, as a mother I have to learn how to position the baby so my nipple won't hurt. I also have to learn to manage the milk supply, whether when it is oversupplied or undersupplied.

Another thing that need learning is how to clean the baby, either it is to clean a dirty diaper or wash the baby in a bath tub. I learned how to put a diaper correctly to minimize dirty clothes, how to hold your baby correctly in a bath tub so he won't drown and how to clean the baby thoroughly only with one hand as the other hand should always hold the baby.

The hardest thing I found in learning as a mother is understanding my baby cries. During the first weeks, the only thing that came in mind when I heard him crying is he must be hungry and instinctively I would offer him the breast. Then when he refused to eat I was confused and didn't know how to calm him down with other way instead of nursing, which stressed the baby even more, because all he wanted was just sleeping but me kept putting my breast in his little mouth. LOL.

There was this one time when my baby cried frantically for long hours during the day and didn't want to settle even though I offered him the breast, sang to him and held him. I was so stressful as I had no idea how to calm him down and I was alone at the house. Then I decided to call the doctor and the doctor told me to come to her place, so I put Raphael down so I could change my clothes as I was still in pyjamas. When I came back to pick him up, he slept so peacefully. Apparently all he was trying to say was: "Put me down! I'm trying to sleep!"

At that time I was wondering how my instinct couldn't understand what my own baby wants. That was the time when I decided, there's a lot that I need to learn if I want to be a good mother. So I started to read parenting books and parenting guidance on the internet. Apparently all the type of baby cries and body language are explained in those books. Even though not all babies are the same, but most of the signs are very similar to what my baby does. When I read it, I really wished I prepared for it long before the labor so I could easily guessed what the cry means.

The parenting books I've read so far are: What to Expect the First Year,  Save our Sleep and Secrets of Baby Whisperer. Quick review for each of them is as follows:

What to Expect the First Year
This book is such a dictionary for babies, since the very first day until your baby turns one year. It  helps me a lot to know whether the development of Raphael is according to his age or not. There are lots of information regarding baby basic care and health issues. However since this book is really thick, I've never read the whole book, I used the index to search for the information needed.

Save our Sleep
I bought this book because it was recommended by one of my friend that follow the baby routine that was mentioned in the book. Since I was so desperate with Raphael's sleeping hours, I decided to read this book, hoping that it will improve Raphael's sleep in quality and quantity. The broad idea suggested by the author is to set a strict schedule for your babies for eating and sleeping and a sleep training for babies where you expect your babies to sleep independently, without any props.
I was totally agree with the idea suggested, however when I implemented it, it wasn't as easy as it said. Firstly because your baby is unique individual, whom has different body clock. Especially because of Raphael is a light sleeper and most of the time he slept only 30-45 minutes during the day. As a result, the strict schedule stressed me out even more instead of helping because I couldn't stick to the schedule if for the first morning sleep Raphael didn't sleep as long as it supposed to according to the schedule.
That is the drawback I found with this book, it just tells you what to do without given any clear explanation what to do when we first implement the schedule as more likely your baby would be off schedule.

Secrets of Baby Whisperer
After frustrated about keeping up with the schedule from the previous book, I started to look for other options in order to improve Raphael's sleep. According to the information I found on the internet, many recommends to read this book, which given gentler approach for sleep training. I borrowed the book from local library and very pleased with the content.
Firstly because the author promotes a brilliant idea on how to appreciate your babies. We tend to treat babies without respect, whereas they are all human too, with unique individualities. Therefore the treatment for every babies are different and we can't generalize them. However the author stressed the importance of having a routine for babies, especially a spirited one like Raphael, so he would know what will come during his day. The general idea is to always have eating, activity and sleeping in the same order, everyday, regardless the clock.

As a conclusion, I found that parenting books are necessary to help us learn as first time mother, since taking care of babies is apparently beyond more than instinctive acts. However, every baby is unique and my baby is not the same with the baby said in the text book. That's why I also need to observe and listen to what his needs. Parenting book should help you in learning stuff that you don't know but don't make it as a bible, in which you neglect what is really important, understanding the one who is in front of you, your lovely baby.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Cookie Monster :)

I thought I won't be able to bake again until couple of months later, fortunately Raphael is getting more settled now that I could try new recipe. I've always been a fan of oatmeal cookies, however my mom's recipe is a crispy oatmeal cookies, while I like the thick, chewy and a big rounded kind of cookies. Thus I searched the internet for the perfect recipe and I found this recipe in Smitten Kitchen's blog, which described the cookie exactly as I wanted. I doubled the recipe because the dough can be stored in a fridge, so I could just bake them in oven for other days :)

So here's the recipe, after slightly modified by me:

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
230 gr butter, softened with an electric mixer
250 gr dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
190 gr all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
240 gr oats
240 gr raisin

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla sugar until smooth
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and stir into the butter / sugar mixture.
3. Stir in the oats and raisin with a spatula
4. Chill in the dough into the fridge
5. When cool, scoop the dough onto a baking tray which already covered by baking paper, and put them about 5cm apart.
6. Preheat the oven to 175 celsius, around 10 minutes before you want to bake the cookies. Then bake the cookies for 12 minutes.

When you chill the dough into the fridge, an hour should be enough to make the cookies thicker. However if you don't want to wait the dough can be baked right away, however the cookies result would be less thick. Since I made the dough at night, I chilled it overnight and apparently the day after the dough is too hard to scoop, so I had to leave it for a while in room temperature before scooping them to the baking tray. I used a soup spoon to scoop the dough as I wanted to make a big rounded cookies, which are about 10 cm of diameter.

So here are my cookies! The taste is perfect, thick and chewy, best served with hot tea during rainy days, yummm!

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Another Year Has Gone By

An anniversary means another year has gone by, yet it seemed like yesterday I was walking down the aisle in the white dress. It's been a year, but sometimes I am still amazed how destiny brought me and my husband together. We've known each other for so long and never crossed in my mind that I would end up with him, and so did he :-D

During the past year, I've witnessed that my choice of Mr. Right is not wrong. He's been a really loving and responsible husband. Especially the last week before our anniversary, he was proven to be a super husband and father. I was sick the whole week and could barely get out of bed, so he was taking care of the house, our baby, me, and at the same time he was still working from home. How super was that? :-D

For some people the anniversary celebration must be extraordinary and festive. For us, it was a simple celebration, a quality time ended with a prayer. Thanking God for each other presence for the past year and pray for His blessing for the next many following years.

And my wish for our marriage? I just simply want to grow old with him :-)

Love,
Indispensable Lady

The Labor Story

It's been 8 weeks since the delivery of my little angel, Alexander Raphael Satriadi, I finally have the time to write the journey of his birth process in this blog. I believe every mother would have their own expectation for the labor. For me, I wished to have a natural birth, water birth if possible, but most important is having a normal delivery instead of C-section.

Monday, July 23  
In the evening, I felt the first contraction which is longer and harder than the usual Braxton Hicks contraction. If you haven't been pregnant, a contraction pain is like a menstrual pain in the lower part of stomach and in your lower back, it's like they've been squeezed, but the pain was gone as the contraction stops.

Tuesday, July 24
Struggled to sleep during the night, I woke up early morning at 2 AM and went to the toilet to have a pee, then I found myself bled a little, which is a sign that the dilation was going to started and I entered the early stage of labor. It was called a bloody show, which is one of the sign of labor. I told my husband and we decided to call the midwife to inform that I was going into labor soon. According to the midwife, I should wait until the contraction interval was less than 5 minutes and each contraction lasted about 1 minute before calling them again. She suggested me to try to have a sleep and drink pain killer if the contraction distracted my sleep.
During the day I managed to deal with the contraction pain by practicing the breathing and relaxation techniques that I learned from the hypno-birthing lesson. I also used a warm pillow to be put in my lower back to help ease the pain. My husband helped me to count the contraction period using a stopwatch during that day. I couldn't cook or do anything during that day, thankfully my mom came to visit from Indonesia, so she covered all the domestic things at home, including cooking.
Since the contractions were not every 5 minutes, the midwife was not suggested us to come to the hospital yet on Tuesday night so I went to another sleepless night because the contractions were getting harder that I couldn't sleep.

Wednesday, July 25
In the morning, I decided to call the midwife again since the pain was unbearable and the interval between each contraction was varied from 4 to 7 minutes. The midwife allowed us to come to the hospital so we went there with taxi. After a very painful checking (she put her fingers in my vagina to check how long was the dilation), she told me that it was only 2 cm of dilation, so she sent me home again. Ouch! That was a really bad news, because it wasn't comfortable to sit on a taxi while you're having regular contractions, plus the taxi fare in Copenhagen is extremely expensive. It took us around 500 kroner (equal to Rp750,000) to take a return trip from home to hospital and vice versa with a taxi :(
The midwife gave me pain killer and a sleeping pill in order to help me sleep during the day as I told her that I hadn't slept for two nights because of the contraction pain. After drinking the medicine, I managed to have some sleep and forgot about the pain for a while. However in the evening around 7 PM, the contractions was quite harder that I couldn't bear it anymore. I decided to call the midwife again and she asked me to come to the hospital again. I went to the hospital with taxi again while hoping that she wouldn't send me home again.
The midwife in-charged at that time was nicer, that she informed me that my dilation is about 3 cm long (I've never known what a long hours it took to dilate just another 1 cm). I was so worried that she would send me home again since the rule is they would keep a patient at the hospital when they're about 4 cm dilated. Luckily she told me that I could stay at the hospital right away. Phew!
She transferred me to another midwife, whom gonna helped me with the labor. The midwife is a really kind and supportive midwife and her attitudes really comforted me going through the night. She brought us to the delivery room, which is quite spacey, clean and have complete facilities, such as own shower room, bath tub, and other labor related equipments. She told me to have a hot shower first and changed my clothes and also tried to have a pee and poo. She actually injected something in the anus area which makes me wants to poo.
After that, she told me that she was going to break my amniotic fluid to fasten the dilation. She took a long needle and pop the amniotic fluid when I had contraction. The contractions were getting really hard after the amniotic fluid was broken. The midwife offered me to use Entonox (Gas and Air) as a pain relief. I breathed in it using a mask. The gas made up of oxygen and nitrogen which has calming effect so it took a little bit of the labor pain. However after the dilation is about 5 cm long, I got so tired dealing with the pain, that I'm afraid I wouldn't have the energy to push when the time is come, therefore I asked for epidural for pain relief. The epidural injection wasn't hurt as bad as people said, or perhaps after experienced the labor pain, there's nothing else can compare to such pain :-D
With the epidural, the contraction pain was really minimum that I could sleep and relax for a while. I spent most of the time during Wednesday night sleeping, collecting energy for the last stage of labor. During the night, the baby's heart beat was quite high. Hence, the second shift midwife should call the doctor to take a blood sample from the baby's head. Fortunately, there's nothing wrong with the baby's blood test. However, I had a fever during the night, even after the midwife gave me Paracetamol, my temperature was still increasing. The midwife decided to give me antibiotic to reduce the fever.

Thursday, July 26
Very early morning, I dilated 9 cm but the progress to a complete dilation seemed like forever that the midwife need to inject stimulation to fasten the contraction. After a while, I felt the urge to push and entered the second stage of labor: pushing. My cervix was fully dilated and the midwife instructed me to push whenever I felt the contraction. The pushing technique was actually taking a deep breath and pushing while holding your breath. I tried to push as hard as possible however the baby's head apparently wrongly positioned around my pelvis so each time I pushed, the baby moved 1 step out but then when I took breath the baby moved 1 step backwards. The midwife asked me to try different position, by kneeling over a cushion and hold my body with my elbow. The position was quite hard and after a while, my elbow started to numb and reduce my power to push. Hence, I asked whether I could change to normal position.
After a while trying to push, the midwife told me that she needed to call her supervisor and all of a sudden there are 6 other people rushed into the room. One of them introduced herself as a obgyn and she informed me that she needed to use a vacuum to help the baby out and if the effort was not succeeded they need to do a C-section. My heart broke hearing the news as I have struggled so far and not ready to give up for a C-section. I told my husband to say a pray and we whispered silently to the baby to help the process.
With the combination of pushing and painful vacuum process finally the doctor managed to take the baby out and it was such a magical feeling when I could finally hold him on my chest. He was so little and so fragile. His body was really warm and wet with blood but his innocent eyes starred at me. I gave him kiss and said a pray for him, thanking God for giving us this little angel. My husband then cut the baby's umbilical cord.
The labor stage wasn't over, I still needed to push one more time to deliver the placenta. There was big relief after the placenta was out from my uterus.

And that was surely a very long labor :)

Welcome to the world, little boy :)

My advice to the pregnant mothers out there, everything in labor is so unpredictable and beyond control, so don't put so much stress on yourself in preparing one, it's better to prepare yourself with the parenting stuff. If I could do it all over again, I would prefer to read more parenting books than pregnancy books during pregnancy :-D

xoxo,
Indispensable Lady

Homemade Birthday Gift

It's been a few days since my last post, was busy preparing the coming soon baby and other stuff. Today's post is about a birthday I gave recently to my friend, Sarita, who has a really nice blog about gifting, visit her blog here. Since she has huge thing about gift, I wanted to give her something that really special, so I had thoughts about my gift a week before her birthday and I came up with a homemade birthday gift idea.

As the title said, I wanted the gift to be made by myself, including the packaging, so I decided to make chocolate truffle for the birthday gift and I sticked toothpick with alphabetical flags that says "Happy Birthday Sarita!" Then I made the packaging with a cereal box, covered it with gift paper and I added a handmade origami ribbon for accessories. Well, actually I made them in the reverse order as I made the box first, then the flags and the last thing is the chocolate truffle :-D

Here is the box that I made:

At first I browsed for a gift box template that we can download for free from the internet, unfortunately my printer couldn't afford to print in a larger scale than A4 paper and all the templates are too small if I printed them on A4 paper. Then I found the cereal box and I thought I could make a gift box from it. Thankfully it was a success on the first attempt, because I happened to have only one cereal box :-D The hardest part is the fact that I don't have a ruler at home, so I measured everything by heart or using a small note book.

I learned how to make the origami ribbon from the tutorial in this blog. Believe me it looks complicated at first, but then once you tried it, it's not that hard.

For the flags, I designed them with Adobe Photoshop then printed them on a paper and cut through the shapes. After that I sticked the flags to the toothpicks. Here is the result:

As usual, I used the recipe of Joy of Baking to make the chocolate truffle. You could find the recipe here. To make chocolate truffle is really easy, however I've got to tell you that it's a very messy job when shaping the ball and cover it with cocoa powder. I guarantee that you'll have chocolate all over your hands and clothes :-D Here is my chocolate truffle:

I made two types of topping, the left one is using cocoa powder and the next one is using coco crunch that I've crushed into small parts. I was quite worried that the chocolate truffle would be melted on the way I delivered the gift to her. Apparently, they are quite steady and Sarita said that they were good. Yeay! I could see that she was quite happy receiving my gift, so mission is accomplished :-)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

PS: I didn't take picture of the chocolate truffle sticked with the flagged toothpick because I was too worry that leaving the chocolate truffle in a room temperature during photo shoot would melt the chocolate. But well you'll get my idea, right? :)

Express Your True Self

Some researches say that people personality is determined by genetics and couldn't completely change along with ages. In my opinion, the older people are, most tend to be more wiser and secure about themselves, and in consequence they would feel more freedom to express the 'real' personality of themselves once they are older. This 'real' personality might be completely different than the one we 'fake' to others when we were insecure. At least, that's what I feel about myself.

I could recalled back in the days when I was still a teenager, there were lots of pressure to be likable and cool. As seen and witnessed by many, in school, the peer pressure is so huge that kids are trying so hard to blend and afraid to be different from the crowd, unless they want to be called geek or nerd. I remembered being one of those kids. I used to use "Aku-Kamu" instead of "Gua-Elu" in conversation, because I was being told that "Gua-Elu" is kinda rude when I was in elementary school. However when I went to junior high school, everybody used it and I felt like only geek and conservative kids used "Aku-Kamu", so I tried so hard to change it into "Gua-Elu" when I talked to others. It's silly how even the smallest habit such that one should be changed just because I was too afraid to be different, right?

As time goes by, my perspective started to change eventually and I am more confident about expressing my true self. Funnily, as opposed to whom I was, now I'm proud to be unique and stand out from the crowd. I could define and show the world my real personality better and stand up for what I believe in. I guess having the secure feelings of who I really am, creates more freedom to express myself in any aspects, even in style, creativity and even in attitude. 

For style, I love simplicity and pureness and it shows in my wardrobe, accessories and even home decorations. Most of them are in white, light blue or pastel colors. Most people like the style that represents bold statement and boost luxury or elegance, but I prefer something that look modest and pure, because it represents my personality best.

Yes, I love white and blue simple outfit!

The same preference applied to my signature style in creative works in photography. I love to create a high key photos compared to low key photos. For information, high key pictures are tend to be bright, lack of shadows and contrast and it creates happy and cheerful mood, while low key pictures are the ones that more dramatic, mysterious and gothic. However, many people loves the low key pictures because they attract more attention easily compared to the high key pictures for the dramatic reason. Yet, this is my preference and I don't produce pictures just because I want them to be likable by many.

My High Key Photography Signature Portfolio

While in attitude, most of the time, I have this calm and serene personality, which unfortunately makes me sometimes uncomfortable when I am being around loud and noisy people. However I am also open to others and caring, especially to my close friends. Being an aquarius girl, also makes me independent in some way, which means I could enjoy my time alone as much as I enjoy being around with friends. I guess having interests in various kind of things (photography, traveling, writing, crafts, financial planning and stocks trading) makes me have a lot of things to do during my 'me' time. Nonetheless, people who don't know me well might think I'm a quiet, shy and loner person. Well, they could judge me anything, but this is just who I am :)

I'm even calmer during pregnancy :)

Being able to represent your personality in things that you wear or use is quite important to boost self esteem. At least when you're wearing or using something that represent yourself, you'll feel more comfortable and in consequence it will boost your confidence level. I believe it is one source of channel to express your true self to the world. Recently, you don't only have fashion to present your style, but also gadget, since most people are carrying gadgets with them everywhere nowadays. 

So what is smarter than having a gadget that matches your personality? I really think that it is a smart campaign from Sony Vaio to produce a gadget that can help people express their personality. Recently, Sony just launched Sony Vaio E14P Series, which have five type of personalities: The Extreme Power Spirit, Cool Leading Intellectual, The Precious Romantic Sensual, The Pure and Clear and Heritage Treasure Modern Vintage.

Reading the above long intro about myself, I guess you could easily determine which one of the above type that suits me best. Yep, it's The Pure and Clear! Just looking at the color and design I have fallen in love with this laptop. The combination of white and blue color and also the simple and chic design is really ME! I would love to have one for my daily notebook that I could easily carry everywhere, it's not just useful but also look stylish too!

Picture is taken from: Female Daily

So, no more be afraid to express your true self! If anyone judge you for being different, just say this to them with proud: Because it's me! It's who I am :)


Cheers,
Indispensable Lady


Notes:
For more info on Sony Vaio E14P Series, visit:
http://femaledaily.com/becauseitsme/ or http://www.sony.co.id/productcategory/it-personal-computer

Finger Food!

Who doesn't love finger food? I remembered one finger food I love to eat back home was bruschetta from Pizza Hut. In my early trimester pregnancy, I was craving for it however I cannot eat the one that sold in Pizza Hut because it contains pineapple and I don't eat pineapple during pregnancy. That's why I decided to make my own bruschetta.

After searching for the recipe on internet, I couldn't find the perfect recipe, so I modified by my own according to my taste :) Here is the recipe:

Bruschetta
Made about 15 slices of french bread

Ingredients:
French bread, cut into slices, about 1 cm thickness
1 large Sausage, cut into small pieces (or you could use smoke beef / ham)
white onion, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/3 part of tomato, remove the pulp (the wet part), cut into small cubes
3 tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of tomato sauce
2 teaspoon of condensed milk
cheddar cheese for topping

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 150 degree Celcius.
2. Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan, add white onion and stir until fragrant
3. Add the sausage to the sauce pan, stir until cooked
4. In a separate bowl, mix the mayonnaise, lemon juice, tomato sauce and condensed milk together. Taste and add the ingredients to get the taste as you like (more sweet or more sour)
5. Add the tomato cubes, sausage and white onion to the mixture and mix them well with a spoon.
6. Put a spoonful of the mixture on top of the bread and spread the cheddar on top of it.
7. Bake for about 15 minutes with 150 degree Celcius, if the edge of the bread is not crispy enough, bake again for another 5 - 10 minutes.

I noticed that the middle part of the bread was not crispy, so perhaps if you like the whole bread to be crispy, you should bake the bread first before putting the topping. The taste is very similar to the one sold in Pizza Hut, except for the missing pineapple, so I'm pretty satisfied with them :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

No Remote Control

I have a friend who don't believe so much in God because he thought that what happen in his life is totally under his control. His success is achieved because he worked so hard and committed to his job and his happiness is truly depends on what he has done instead of given by someone greater than his power. Of course I can't dictate a friend to have the same faith as mine, however I surely could disagree to his perception.

For me, what happen in my life is beyond my control. I could plan and predict, but still the end result is subjected to God's will. I used to be the kind of person who trust God but didn't surrender completely to him. I used to have everything I needed or wanted that I didn't really care about what God really wants me to do. However as life goes by, I learned that not everything that I wanted is good for me and would be given to me. And when I forced it to happen even though God had told me several times to several channels that it wasn't what I needed, it made me frustrated and unhappy. In contrary, when we surrender to what God's will, you'll be more open to other alternate things and chances, instead of pushing and punishing yourself to hard. 

I could say that with such kind of faith, I feel grateful easily. It makes me see all the blessings I have received more clearly and if I counted all of them, they are too many! That shows how good God is to me. In the end, I am more happy than I was before. Happiness is not so hard to find, after all.

I believe there are some who disagree with my way of thinking, they might say if everybody thinks the same as I do, people would be lazy, they won't work hard because they know that no matter what they do, if God don't want them to be successful, they won't turn into one. That sounds pathetic, actually. Of course, we can't just sit down and do nothing, we still need to have plans for our future and give the best that we could to our job or duty. However there are some points when you need to know when to surrender and let God do the rest. It's only a matter about balancing the effort and the faith.

There's a really good old song that reflect best of this blog post:

I Surrender

by Geoff Bullock

You're softening my heart
To the knowledge of Your love
And opening my eyes
You light the way

To love You
Words alone cannot express
All the hope that You have placed
Within me
In between each heartbeat, Lord
I surrender

I surrender to You
I surrender to You
Everything I am and ever hope to be
I surrender to You

You gently pick me up
Wash me with your love
And opening my ears
You speak the Word

Healing
Releasing all the hurts and fears
By the hope that You have placed
Within me
In between each heartbeat, Lord
I surrender

I surrender to You
I surrender to You
Everything I am and ever hope to be
I surrender to You

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Summer Sweet Treats

My most favorite fruit is strawberry and luckily summer is the strawberry season! We bought lots of strawberry and often make strawberry juice for late night snacks during this summer. Last week I'm thinking to make cake with strawberry just to vary the usage of strawberry and I came up with an idea to make butter cake with strawberry and cream as the topping. So I mixed up some recipes to make the cake.

Butter Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
120 gr butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
150 gr granulated sugar
2 eggs
200 gr flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
150 ml milk

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180 degree Celcius
2. Sift the flour and baking powder all together
3. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until soften and white with a mixer
4. Add eggs to the mixture and beat them well
5. Add flour and milk alternately
6. Pour into the muffin mould (3/4 part only to avoid over expansion)
7. Bake for about 30 minutes

Topping Recipe

Ingredients:

1. Heavy cream

2. Powdered sugar

3. Cut strawberries

Method

1. Beat the heavy cream and powdered sugar until reach stiff peak
2. With a spoon, put the cream on top of the cake
3. Put the strawberry on top of the cream

Here's the result:

What I love about this cake recipe is it only need 2 eggs, whereas in most cake recipe you need at least 5 eggs. I didn't mention the exact measurement for the topping cream because I only made for 12 cake, so it depends on how much cake do you make.

Happy baking!

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

How About Some Tips?

Still continuing the latest post about Maternity Photo Shoot, I would like to give some tips for doing your own maternity photo shoot (without professional photographer, I mean).

First, determine which kind of maternity photos that you would like to have, the elegant and classic type or the natural and fun type. Just browse them through the internet, there are lots of portfolios from professional photographers who do maternity photos nowadays. I was looking at Pinterest for getting some ideas, and I think some of them are very creative and unusual. Save the photos that you like so you could 'cheat' for inspiration of pose during the photo shoot when you run out of inspirations. Yes, it happens a lot to me when doing the photo shoot that I don't know what to do next because I was running out of ideas.


Next is preparing the properties. I love doing photo shoot with properties, even when I shot for pre-wedding photos, because the properties help the model to pose and could be the thing that makes the photo more unique and pop up. For my last photo shoot, I just made the properties (the "Special Gift" sign, "It's a Boy" sign and the alphabetical cubes) with Adobe Photoshop, had them print and sticked them to a card stock. They cost me nothing :) 


On the day of photo shoot, prepared the clothes that you would like to wear, I preferred to wear white shirts or tank top and a legging as they will show more of your pregnancy shapes. Some of the pictures I found on the internet only use sheets to cover the body. I thought wearing silky or thin sheets makes the pregnant woman looks elegant in the picture. Too bad I didn't have one :-(

Don't forget to do your hair and make up as natural as possible. I believed all pregnant woman has this pregnancy glow that makes them pretty without having too much make up on. I didn't use any make up in my photo shoot as I normally don't use any in my daily life :) However, since most pregnant woman have stretch marks on their belly, perhaps you could cover the marks with foundation. I just realized that I could do this trick, just after the photo shoot. Before, I was wondering why does every photo on the internet show flawless belly, while mine looks such a mess with the red marks all over it :-D Well, since its too late for me, perhaps you could try the tips when you have your maternity photo shoot for better result :-D

Then all you have to do is begging your husband to take your photos or even better if you could have a friend to take it for both of you so your husband could also pose with you. I would love to have the picture where my husband kiss my tummy. Unfortunately we didn't have the tripod that is strong enough to hold the heavy camera and I was too exhausted during the photo shoot to arrange the photo with a timer.

One last thing, have fun and just stop anytime you feel tired during the photo shoot :)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Maternity Photoshoot

Last weekend, my husband and I did our own maternity photo shoot. I had looked for several inspirations for the photo shoot on the web and I decided to make some properties so the photo shoot could be more exciting and unique. We decided to do the photo shoot in our apartment, that way I would feel more comfortable and confidence and it was so much easier to change clothes and prepare the properties if we did it in our own home.

After several hours trying to create good maternity photos, finally here are the results:

Special Gift from God

Welcoming Baby Rafa

Big Belly vs Tiny Shoes! :)

The Props!

Soon to Be Mommy

Kiss for My Little Boy

Playing with Origami Ribbon

Please do tell me what you think by posting on the comment box, I'm excited to know your comments about those photos :)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

PS: All photos above are taken by hubby and the concept is by me, yes we're a good combo :-p

After Second Attempt

After several months started cooking, I realized that I cook Chinese food more often than cooking Indonesian food. The reason is simple, it is so much easier and less ingredients cooking Chinese food. However, recently I was craving more for Indonesian food, which then I decided to make Siomay Bandung.

My first attempt was a disaster, the result was too thick instead of chewy, it tasted more like meatballs than siomay, even though the peanut sauce was perfect. On my second attempt, I used more tapioca starch and egg white and the siomay turned to be more chewy than the previous one. However since I used more minced chicken rather than the prawn, the taste was better the first one. I guess I should do a third attempt before getting the perfect siomay :-D

I used the recipe from Master Chef Indonesia, the recipe is as follows:

Siomay Bandung (10 pcs)

Ingredients:

Siomay

125 gr minced chicken

50 gr prawn, sliced into small pieces

2.5 tablespoon of tapioca starch

1/2 tablespoon of flour (I omitted this in my second attempt)

1/2 tablespoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1/2 teaspoon of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil

10 sheets of dumpling pastry

1 egg

1 carrot, grated

Peanut Sauce

2 tablespoon of peanut butter (I used the chunky one)

1 red chili

1/2 tablespoon of dried shrimp

2 shallots

2 lime leaves

1 garlic clove

brown sugar, as necessary

salt

water

Method:

Siomay

1. Mix all the ingredients except the dumpling pastry and carrot
2. Put the mixture inside the dumpling pastry with a spoon and wrap it.
3. Sprinkle the carrot on the top
4. Steam for about 15 minutes, until well cooked

Peanut Sauce

1. Stir fry garlic, shallot and red chilli
2. Crush them with a blender along with dried shrimp, peanut butter, brown sugar, salt and water
3. Stir fry the mixture and the lime leaves until smells nice
4. Add sweet soya sauce and ketchup, according to taste.

For the siomay mixture I added the tapioca starch and egg white until the mixture is not too thick to get more chewy result, so I didn't stick to the measurement in the above recipe.

Here's the result:

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

The Last Month

Today is the first day of the week where my daily routine is changed again. After the past few weeks my days are filled with Danish lesson and doing homework, finally I've completed and passed the module 1. Even though the teacher actually told me that I could come for the next module and stop if my time for labor is coming, I preferred to continue the next module in the upcoming year. It's quite sad though to drop the lesson since the classmates are so nice and the class is quite interesting in some way. However, with the due date approaching, I've started to experience the pregnancy side effect, which makes me think that it's a good idea to spare some time to rest and prepare for labor.

In my early third trimester, I was quite lucky since I didn't feel any kind of pregnancy side effect. I still feel as healthy as in my second trimester, perhaps sometimes I feel tired during the day, but it can be managed by taking a one hour nap. However, since I was entering the 36 weeks of pregnancy (the ninth month), my feet are swollen and sometimes the swell is making me feel uncomfortable and imbalance. Lately, I also have joint pains in my fingers. These side effects obviously affect my activities, I dropped things easily because of the joint paint in my hands and I couldn't sit or stand too long otherwise the swollen feet are getting worse.

Based on what I read on the internet, it was normal to have swollen feet during pregnancy and there are some ways that I could do to soothe the swelling:

1. Reducing salt intake
2. Drink more water
3. Place the feet higher than the heart level when lying in bed
4. Do not sit or stand too long, try to lie down every 15 minutes
5. Do not where tight pants or socks
6. Wear comfortable shoes
7. Put the feet in a cold water for a while

For me its kind of hard to reduce the salt intake since I considered that I've never put too much salt in my food, while removing salt entirely from the cooking would resulted in tasteless dishes. What I've done is counting the number of glass of water that I drink everyday, it should be 8 glasses at the minimum, and I also put the feet up whenever lying down and shower the feet with cold water whenever possible.

The joint pains in fingers are actually called Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and most women experience this during pregnancy. It most likely caused by the fluid retention and swelling that occurs during the pregnancy. What we could do to relieve the pain are as follows:

1. Do frequent hand stretching. Pulling the arms over the head helps to ease the pain.
2. Do not sleep on your hands. Use a pillow to prop up your arms
3. Shake your hands and wrist out frequently
4. Shower hands in cold water

Well, even though these side effects are uncomfortable, fortunately they said that these will be gone after the delivery, which is one more month to go. I considered myself lucky since many women experienced these in the early period of pregnancy. I started doing yoga for pregnancy today to help relax my body and prepare my body for labor.

Wish me luck,

Indispensable Lady

DIY: Wedding

Planning a wedding for a girl must be an exciting thing to do, especially when we could decide whatever we want to make the whole wedding reflects our personality. I was talking to my friend, Joy, the American girl from my Danish lesson class, about her plans for her wedding next year. As I just found out from the baby shower party, that she's so crafty, I believed she must want to have a DIY (Do It Yourself) wedding, at least for the decoration and accessories. Apparently it is true, she said that she already planned to make her flower bouquet and table centre piece on her own. Even just hearing her plan makes me feel so excited and I really want to help her, if she allows me, of course :-D

I could recall during my preparation for wedding, I browsed a lot to American and Australian's wedding websites where they feature the real American and Australian wedding and most of them have the DIY wedding. It's so lovely to see the handmade decorations or wedding stationeries, and I believe the satisfaction is beyond ordinary when you could make something for your own wedding. Unfortunately, it is impossible to have DIY wedding for my wedding, since the guests that were invited was nearly reached 2000 people, so it's kinda impossible to make so many wedding stationeries or decorate such a big place on my own.

However, I managed to make something for my wedding and I'm so happy about them. At least there are some small parts of my wedding that I made it by myself. The first one is the flower balls to be carried by my bridesmaids and flower girl. I learned how to make flower ball from my aunt who has a florist business. At first, it's kind of hard to make a ball from blocks floral foam (I didn't buy floral foam balls as they are more expensive), but I was getting better after the forth floral foam :-D The hardest part is inserting the ribbon through the ball since there's a chance of breaking the ball when I inserted the ribbon with a thick wire. After that I just sticked the artificial flowers to the foam ball with a glue. Here is the result of my flower ball for my wedding:

Photo courtesy of Indigosix Photoworks

Another thing I made is the "Just Married" banner for golf car decorations. We planned to end the wedding party by leaving the party with the golf cart since we had the wedding party in a golf club. However since the idea is unusual from the tradition in Indonesia wedding party (the bride and groom should stay at the stage until all the guests are finished shaking hands and congratulate us), we couldn't do it. But we still did it anyway after all the guests are leaving the party for photo documentation purposes only, and thankfully it was still fun :) So here is the banner that I made, I designed the banner using Adobe Photoshop and had it printed on a art carton in a local printing service. Then I just cut the banner following the shapes and had them hang with a string.

Photo courtesy of Indigosix Photoworks

So, what crafty stuffs did or will you make for your wedding? Don't forget to tell me what you think about my DIY wedding accessories! :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

PS: I forgot to bring the complete photo CD to Copenhagen when I moved, so I couldn't post the picture of flower ball and the banner on its own. I just took the above photos from Indigosix Photoworks facebook page, instead.

Capturing the Innocence

I always love kids, somehow there's something about their innocence and cuteness that attracts me to play around with them. Before I was moving to Denmark, I planned to make a kids photography career and eventually I had two customers for a start. 

It's not that easy though photographing kids because they tend to move around a lot and you cannot dictate them to pose. Well, I don't like to ask them to pose either during photo shoot, since the expression won't be natural if they are posing. However, it needs extra effort to have good candid photos because you need to keep up with their energy and also their happy and joyful moments tend not to last longer so you need to quickly capture the good moments.

Here are several tips for photographing kids:

1. Be friend with them first. It is important that they feel secure with having you around before you point the camera in front of them, unless they would just keep turning their face away from you.
2. Give them something to play with or engage them in any kind of activities so they would have the good time with themselves and show their natural expressions.
3. It's better to have their moms and/or dads hanging around both of you because the kids would feel more comfortable when knowing that their beloved ones are around. Parents can also help in entertaining and watching the kids while you're busy taking their pictures.
4. Since they will move around a lot, you should master the technique of managing the light or you could use the AV program for practical reason. Therefore you could concentrate on having the right angle, the right moment and the right composition without worrying to much with the quality of light.
5. Kids love to touch your camera, so allow them to see their pictures in the camera display, they are more excited to make cute poses afterwards. However don't let them hold it by themselves since there's big chances that they will drop it :-D

I haven't done much kids photography recently, hopefully after my delivery I could spend more time taking photos of my son and other kids. Would be happy if any of you would like to be my next customer in Denmark :-D

These are several of my kids photography portfolio. 

Hope you like it!

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Indonesian Snack: Tempe Mendoan

Sometimes I miss living in Indonesia because you'll easily find delicious hawker foods in such a cheap price. I remembered I went a couple of times to go jogging in Gelora Bung Karno, a huge sport centre in central Jakarta, and we always finished the jogging by buying the Tempe Mendoan in a hawker stall nearby. 

Since there is no one selling snacks like that in here, I tried to make them by myself for today's snack. They were tasted as I expected, even though I still couldn't manage to cut the Tempe in very thin slices like the one the hawker's sold. For you who haven't tried Tempe Mendoan, the taste is salty and savory; and you can dip them with sweet soya sauce and bird chili cut or peanut sauce. The one I made today is using chili peanut sauce as dipping. 

Here's is my version of Tempe Mendoan:

The recipe is as follow:

Tempe Mendoan (for about 10 pcs)

Ingredients:

100 gr tempe, sliced into thin wide pieces

1/2 stems of scallion, cut into small pieces

50 gr rice flour

1/2 tablespoon flour

50 ml water

oil

1 garlic cloves

1/2 pc of shallot or a little bit of red onion

1/2 teaspoon coriander

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 tablespoon salt

Method:

1. Crush and mix the garlic cloves, shallot, coriander, pepper and salt in a mortar until all the ingredients are smooth.
2. Add the rice flour and regular flour to the mortar
3. Add half of the water, mix until well combined, if the batter is too thick, add more water. I prefer the batter a little bit thick to create more texture to the tempe.
4. Add scallion to the batter and mix them well.
5. Dip tempe into the batter until the batter cover all of its surface
6. Deep fried the tempe, but remove them from pan before they are turn crunchy.

For the peanut sauce, I used this recipe:

Chili Peanut Sauce

Ingredients:

1 tbsp of peanut butter (I used the crunchy type)

1 red chili

1 bird chili

1 garlic clove

1 shallot

salt

brown sugar

lime leaves

oil

water

sweet soya sauce

lemon

Method:

1. Crush and mix the red chili, garlic clove, shallot, brown sugar and salt in a mortar.
2. Add the peanut butter and mix them well
3. Stir fry them in a sauce pan with a little bit of oil
4. Add the lime leaves
5. Add water as necessary (to get the appropriate thickness)
6. Remove from sauce pan and add sweet soya sauce and lemon until you get the taste as expected. If the peanut sauce is too thick, you can always add hot water to lighten it.

Good luck trying!

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

My First Ever Baby Shower

I've been skipping writing blog these couple of days and it's because the Danish lesson was approaching its end and we had some test last Monday that I got too busy and too tired to write for the past few days. Now that I've already past the test (yeay!) and the lesson would be over soon this week, I could write regularly as usual.

Yesterday was such a perfect day, that I could done the test quite successfully in the morning while in the afternoon, one of my American friend from the Danish lesson was arranging a baby shower for me (yeah, that's very sweet of her!). So when I arrived at her house with two other friends, I was so surprise as she decorated the house and prepared everything so perfectly. I only saw baby shower party on TV as we don't have such thing in Indonesia, so that was quite amazing to me, she and her fiancee even baked a cake for this party. Awesome, isn't it?

Here are some examples of the decoration.

The funny part is that she told us that her fiancee is a very neat person and he loves to have designer furnitures but then all the lamps and rooms were full with swirling ribbons all over them :-D I imagined how shocked he would be when he got home and saw all the massive decorations attached to his furnitures.

Well basically we just hanged around, had chit-chats and ate finger foods the whole afternoon, but it was fun indeed! Since we are all girls and we're around the same age so we had so much stuff to talk about. Apparently they brought me some presents for the baby and I always excited receiving gifts! They asked me to open the gifts and look what I've got! I looooove all of the gifts! They are all so cute and thoughtful. So I was coming home with a bigger smile on my face and a bigger bag of course :-D

And these are all the sweet girls that came to celebrate my baby shower.

From left to right: Joy (the girl who arranged the baby shower!), Irene, Me, Sarita, Sidra, Fransiska and Astrid. Joy and Irene are from America, Sarita is from India, Sidra and Fransiska are from Germany and Astrid is from France. Yeah, we are from all around the world! :)

And these are all the presents that I received!

The painting is from Sarita, she loves to paint and she painted the baby boy's name. My husband and I love it! We planned to put it in the baby's room once we managed to have one. The brown knitted sweater is from Joy and she made it herself. I am still amazed how she is so crafty and talented because the knitted sweater is looked like the one sold in a store instead of handmade. The knitted shoes is from Astrid. The great part about the gift is I just saw these shoes in a store, right before we came to Joy's house and I was willing to buy so badly since they are so cute and I haven't bought any baby shoes but then I was still thinking about it since we have spent too much this month, so when I opened the present and found this in one of them I am so happy. The hippo baby clothes is from Sidra, these are too cute, especially the hat with the ears. Definitely gonna put this for Baby Rafa to wear when he's out from the hospital :-)

Very happy and thankful that I have such a caring new friends! Surely will miss them all once the Danish class is over :)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Do What You Love

One of the still life object I took from the lesson and got compliment from Mr. Darwis :-D

My love for photography was started when I was in university. I joined a photography club and started to learn how to operate camera and the photography techniques since then. For me, photography is a channel to express creativity. I have always wanted to contribute something to the creative industries and admired those who can inspired others with their creativity, however haven't found a channel that suits me best to express my ideas. I've learned how to draw, how to play musical instruments, how to design stuff with multimedia software; but still I feel like I'm not good at all of them. While through photography, I could express my creativity while still putting my thew in the pictures.

In my early years learning photography, I loved taking pictures of landscape. I guess most of newbie in photography must have gone through this stage. If I could recall, perhaps its because when you found a good scenery, you don't need anything else to make a stunning picture. Therefore it is easier for you to get compliment from others and when you received the compliments, you'll feel better about your skill and somehow it motivates you to keep taking pictures of another amazing scenery.

But then when I know more about the importance of having a concept before taking pictures, landscape photography is not that exciting anymore. In landscape photography, all you need is a good weather, a good timing, a good composition and good technical skill in managing the light in your camera. Perhaps if I travelled alone and have unlimited time, taking photos of landscape could be exciting, since I could have time to plan the photo concept and wait for the right moment. However since most of my traveling time are with families or friends, it's kind of impossible to actualize the idea.

Then I stepped into a higher new stage when I had the chance to learn photography through a formal photography course, in Darwis Triadi School of Photography. They taught us from the very basic techniques and provide us with several genres of photography, such as: still life, architecture, model, landscape etc. From the lesson I realized that I have greater interest in still life photography compared to other genres. The 'love' for still life photography is reflected in my portfolio and even my course friends and Darwis himself agreed that the creativity is shown when I photographing still life objects, while for the other type of objects I couldn't get the best of them. For example when I have to photograph a model and architectural objects, I couldn't feel the same excitement like when I photograph still life objects, and my brain was suddenly kind of stuck that I couldn't think of any concept to make the pictures more alive and interesting. Based on the experience, I realized that the 'love' factor is surely impacted the end result.

I know that we can't be good in everything we do, but my point is when we're doing something we love, a greater and better result would more likely to achieve than when we're doing something we don't love. I know that I'm also not that good in photography, I am far away from being a professional photographer, but the satisfaction when I could take a photo that express my creativity and the appreciation received from others, that is something that motivates me to keep photographing and pursuing the dream to become a pro.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady