Let's Have a Check Up!

We do need to check up our health regularly in order to detect any disease symptoms before it's going even worse. It is always better to know earlier whether something is going wrong, so we could do something about it as soon as possible. That is also applied to our financial condition, it is necessary to have a regular check up to ensure that we are financially healthy. So how do you do a financial check up?

Firstly, you need to know how much money you spend monthly or if you don't keep track of your expenses, you could at least make a cash flow budget and try maintaining your monthly expenses so you won't be over budget. I've discussed about how to make a cash flow budget in here and you could also download the cash flow template that I created in here.

You'll see on the cash flow template, I classified the monthly expenses into several categories and we use the categories to define whether we are financially healthy or not. There are 2 main indicators to know how healthy we are, they are saving rate and debt service ratio.

Saving rate is how much saving that you could set aside from the total of your monthly income. Let's say you regularly deposit 5,000 kroner as your monthly savings and if there are leftover money of 1,000 kroner that you don't spend this month then for this current month you have a total of 6,000 kroner savings. Assuming your monthly income is 24,000 kroner then your saving rate would be 25%, which is 6,000 kroner divided by 24,000 kroner. So if you're using the template I provided, you could use the subtotal of saving/installment + monthly cash flow balance (only if the amount is positive) then divide them with the amount of monthly income.

Your financial condition is considered healthy if your saving rate is around 10 - 30%. The more awareness you have towards financial freedom, the larger the number would be, because then you'll have the habit to set aside more money so you could achieve your financial plan sooner. If you are a beginner to this financial planning thing, my recommendation is you set a target how much money that you're willing to save every month and every time you receive your monthly salary, transferred that money to another bank account which you rarely use for daily payments. By separating the money, it prevents you from spending it.

Debt service ratio is the portion of installment that you paid to settle your debt or liabilities from the total of your monthly income. The installments could be arisen if you have a mortgage, lease agreement for buying a vehicle or even for credit cards. For example, you purchase a house with mortgage and it requires you to pay 12,000 kroner monthly to pay off the mortgage, then your debt service ratio would be 50%, which derived from 12,000 kroner divided by 24,000 kroner (your monthly income). This is definitely not healthy! You should maintain the debt service ratio at the maximum of 30%, otherwise you could be burden by the debt and couldn't prepare for your future investment. Even worse you might struggle to pay for the routine expenses.

That's why you should carefully calculate how much debt you can afford before you decided to enter into a credit agreement. I know it is everybody's dream to have their own house but if your income is not enough, it's better to wait for a little while or find a higher paid job before you make a suicidal decision by taking a higher debt service ratio.

I have done the check up for this month and our saving rate is 23% with 0% of debt service ratio. So I guess, we are quite healthy :) How about you? Are you financially healthy enough? Please do share with me if you think you're not healthy financially. Perhaps I could give you some hints how to maintain your monthly expenses in order to have a healthy financial state.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Tell the World of His Love

I've planned writing about this topic since months ago, yet somehow I neglected this idea of my mind. I guess there's always a challenge when you're about to share the blessings from above :) Well, I better started, then.

Perhaps some of you still wondering, how can my husband and I move to Copenhagen. We do still amaze sometimes when realizing that this dream is finally come true. For us, this opportunity is truly a God's gift.  Firstly the idea is come from my husband, actually he was still my boyfriend at that time :) He joined this company with the urge to be hired as management trainee. Unfortunately the management trainee program was discontinued during the period, so he could only take the position in a sales division instead.

One year later, the company created another program which is similar to the previous management trainee program, with slightly different arrangements. The program was opened for all interested employees but there are several tests and interviews to be going through and there would only be 1 employee accepted for the program to represent Indonesia cluster. My husband applied for the program and after several interviews, he eliminated all the other applicants and became the only Indonesian who participated on the program.

Another year went by and he finally graduated from the program. With the previous management trainee program, every graduate can be transferred to another country as an expatriate. Other countries would open a position for each graduate, so they could work there but still maintaining their job in home base. However, the arrangement was different for the new management trainee program. There would be no special position opened for the graduates, so the graduates should apply from the general recruitment channel and compete with other people, who's not necessarily should join the management trainee program. That means a whole lot bigger challenge and competitors if you want to be able to have the expat opportunity.

Yet, we still believe that God's plan is better than ours and somehow we believe that we could make the dream come true if God thinks that this will do us good. My husband was pretty sure that we could move in November 2011. However there was no good news for the jobs he applied until October. He failed on some last interviews as the interviewers chose another more qualified applicants and another interviewer didn't provide any feedback for the result of the interview, and even there was a certain period around October - November where the company froze the hiring in the entire world due to unfavorable business condition. Surely that was quite disappointing us, but all we could do is hang on to our beliefs.

Near the end of November, suddenly my husband was called for an interview from the office in Copenhagen. It was the position that he had been wanted to have, yet he couldn't even remember whether he applied for the exact position or not, since he had been applied to many kind of positions. He gone through several interviews and finally on November 30, 2011, he received a good news that he was accepted for the job. Amazingly, it was just as he wished that it was gonna be on November. Apparently God wants us to wait a little longer, He taught us to be patient and not stop believing in Him.

We were so grateful and even along the journey of preparation to move to Copenhagen, He never abandoned us. He has blessed us with many helps, even in finding the apartment, we really felt that He had prepared this one for us. As we heard that it was quite hard finding an apartment at Copenhagen during those times. But then at the day of apartment searching, the agent took my husband to a really nice apartment, which is quite big with a fairly price that is within our budget. The agent even told my husband that we were very lucky as the advertisement of this apartment just came up few days ago. It was like this one was prepared for us.

I am telling this stories to share about His greatest love to you guys, so you'll know that He truly is an almighty Father, so never stop believing in Him as He has this wonderful plans for your life. And in times of difficulties, just count on Him, He might want you to learn to be patient, to be faithful. As in the end, you will see that His plan is greater and so much better than ours.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

750 Kroner Picnic

After 2 weeks full of sunny days in Copenhagen, the weather change completely this morning. The temperature is down to 12 degrees Celsius and it's all rainy the whole morning till noon. Luckily, my husband and I already had a picnic time yesterday. I have asked for it since month ago but every time we plan to have one, the weather was always not supportive. Then yesterday we finally made it.

I made a shrimp spring roll for the picnic and we planned to buy the best pizza in town, located near the Frederiksberg park, the picnic location that we chose. The sun was shining so bright and the spring roll was ready on time. Everything was seemed fine until when we were on our way to the park, there was a ticket check by these ticket officers, which was rarely happen when you were in a bus. We thought that it was not a problem as my husband already clipped his card and I have this monthly pass that cover the zones for our destination, but then apparently the bus went through another zone which was not covered by monthly pass and we didn't notice that. So the officer fined me 750 kroner as it means I was missing one zone :( That is really sucks as we didn't do that on purpose but the officer wouldn't give any facilitation. Well that surely is one costly learning. My husband made a joke about it and he said that this one was definitely an expensive picnic :-D

It ruined my mood more or less but I tried my best to let go and enjoy our picnic time. The park was lovely though, it is more like a forest instead of a park since there are small rivers, small lake and a lot of trees. There were a lot of people sunbathing in bikinis and shorts at the park and children were playing cheerfully. This is the one activity that I've been longing for when I am in Jakarta, yet we didn't have such beautiful open spaces, so I am really glad that finally I live in a country where you could easily sit around and enjoy the nature without having to go out of town.

I took some pictures of the park. Here they are:

And the last one is our picnic materials, the spring roll is already in our stomach by then so there's no pictures of them :-D

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

From Breakfast to Dessert

Since on weekdays my husband always has breakfast at the office, every time I bought a stack of bread, I could never finish it before the expiry date. Hence I looked for another way to turn the bread from a breakfast dishes into dessert, so my husband can enjoy it after dinner. That way I didn't waste any bread.

As usual I took the recipe from Joy of Baking and modified a little bit. The complete recipe is as follows:

Bread Pudding (for 2 people)

Ingredients:
4 slices of bread, cut into small cubes
4 tablespoon of sultana / raisins.
1 egg
50 grams granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of butter, melted and cooled
240 ml milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes
2. Place the bread cubes and sultana into an 13 cm x 13 cm size aluminum foil tray. I used 2 aluminum foil tray for this recipe.
3. In an electric mixer, beat the egg and sugar on high speed until thick and lemon colored .
4. Add the cinnamon and vanilla extract
5. Add the melted butter and milk to the mixer
6. Pour the custard mixture into the aluminum foil tray over the bread cubes until completely covered.
7. Press down the bread cubes so they are covered with custard.
8. Put the aluminum foil tray into a larger baking dish and fill the baking dish with water so it can work as a water bath, to prevent the bread pudding from burning or drying out.
9. Bake them for about an hour in the oven.
10. Let it cool down before serving.

Here is my bread pudding version:

You could also use apple slices instead of raisins for variations. I love it better when the bread pudding is served cold, so I usually put them into the refrigerator before serving. Then, your bread is now turn into a delicious dessert :)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Experience Brazil in Copenhagen

One thing I love about Copenhagen is this city has various events to offer, from Sakura festival to Jazz festival. This week the city hold a Copenhagen Carnival, the largest festival in Copenhagen to world music. The idea is to imitate the carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where sexy women dance to the Latin and Samba rhythm through the city streets. Apparently, this festival is hold annually at every Pentecost since 1982.

We went to see the parade yesterday. It is pretty exciting to see the women dressed in a sexy costumes, complete with the feather, sequins, lots of colors and even wings, and they danced along to the Samba music played by a group of bands. Even though some say that last year parade is a lot more amazing, I am quite pleased with the parade, despite the crowded and loud musics.

Well I guess pictures could describe better about the carnival parade, so here are some pictures I took.

The mascot

The Dancers' Pose

One Pretty Angel (Yes, she wears wings!)

She dances for me. LOL

The sexy Samba dancer

The extravagant costume

The band

There's a rumor that some men dressed like sexy woman and participate in the dance.
I am quite believe that this one is a guy :-D

Hope you like the pictures!

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Stroller Hunting

I have been searching for a stroller for our baby boy for the past few weeks. Actually we already brought one from Jakarta, a secondhand stroller from my sister. She used the stroller for her two baby boys but she wanted to buy the double stroller so the kids can both sit in the stroller. That's why she gave me her old stroller.

Unfortunately, since the road condition in Copenhagen is mostly bricky, we need a stroller with bigger wheels in order to reduce the bumpy ride, which is quite important, especially for newborn. As you know, having a stroller is very essential when you live in Copenhagen, since you go everywhere walking or taking a bus or train. While in Jakarta, strollers are might only needed when going to the mall or hospital, where the floor is flat.

After searching for the most convenient one, we decided to buy the one manufactured by ABC Design. We chose the Cobra type, a three wheeler wagon, where it already comes with a pram (which can be used from newborn until several months) and a seat unit (to be used when the baby is already being able to sit). This is the pictures of our stroller choice, which are taken from the ABC Design website: http://www.abc-design.de.

The pram

The seat unit

We chose that stroller with many considerations:

1. The stroller should have big wheel, as I said above, to minimize the bump for the baby.
2. The front wheel must be able to swivel and also can be locked when needed to ease the maneuverability.
3. The weight should be not more than 12 kg in total, so I could lift it up by myself when needed.
4. Including a pram and a seat unit so we can use the pram for the first several months and then change it into seat unit when the baby is older.
5. Has a spacious shopping bag and easily folded.

Last but not least, the design and also the black and white color looks very stylish. LOL. In fact, it also comes with a fair price, even though it is still expensive compared to strollers from Indonesia. We have seen and tested the stroller today at one baby shop in Frederiksberg, however they only have one stock left which is a displayed item and the color available is not what we wanted. So we are planning to buy it from online shop in Germany.

Tell me what you think about our stroller choice and perhaps if you experience to have one, you could provide me with a useful review. I, myself, will review this once I buy and test it when carrying my baby :)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Summer is Here!

What a wonderful week in Copenhagen! Since last Sunday, the sun shines so bright and the weather is warm. I ended the week by having a lunch with some girls from the Danish course next to the water canal in Nyhavn. We bought some pizzas and we just sat on the streets, chit-chatting and enjoying the atmosphere.

If you haven't heard about Nyhavn, try to google about it and the pictures might attract you to go there. Somehow, I never brought my camera every time I went there and the weather is good. Unlucky enough, I guess. By the way, Nyhavn is one of the main tourist attraction in Copenhagen. It is a canal where there are big boats and house boats park and along the side of the canal there are various colored of buildings, which creates a picturesque view.

There are lots of restaurants and cafes in Nyhavn, and during summer, they place the tables outside so people could enjoy the lovely weather while eating. You could also hear some of the streets musician, playing jazz and other music genres on the streets. Can you imagine how amazing the atmosphere there? For me, it is the place where it really feels that I am in Europe :-D

Since it is a tourism spot, the price of the foods in the restaurants located in Nyhavn are also relatively high. So you have a cheaper option by bringing some take away foods and beers, then just sit on the street side, by the water. Do not worry as lots of people are doing it, so you won't get a strange gaze doing so :)

Hopefully I have the chance to take pictures of Nyhavn before summer is ended, then I'll share the photos with you, here in my blog :)

PS: If you happen visiting Nyhavn, don't forget to try the delicious ice cream with churros at a shop called Rajissimo.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Preparing for Labor

As I entered the 31 weeks of pregnancy, I started to gain information as much as I could about what will happen in labor and what I should prepare for it. Unfortunately, the hospital in Copenhagen don't have the antenatal classes for first time mother, like we have back there in Jakarta. They only hold a class where the midwife tells you about what will happen in the labor and things you should be aware of beforehand. My general practitioner assigned me to deliver the baby in Hvidovre Hospital but when I asked the midwife and doctors in the hospital, they said that the hospital only has the birth classes in Danish.

Then a friend told me that she was going to attend an English birth class preparation, which was held by her assigned hospital. So we decided to join the class with her and her husband. The midwife basically explained about what are the stages in normal delivery, what is the symptoms, what we should do in every stages and what complications need a caesar section or induction.

As we all know, the procedure of labor in Denmark is quite different than in Indonesia. In our hometown, when the water broke or the contraction is starting to occur, pregnant mother is sent directly to the hospital and stay overnight until the labor is finished. While in here, they tend to avoid keeping the mother too long in the birth unit. Hence, if everything is normal, they wouldn't ask you to stay at the hospital before the dilation is about 4 cm. They might even ask you to come to the hospital so they could check the baby's position and heartbeat and they check the amniotic fluid and the dilation, but then you would be sent home again and you are asked to come again the next morning. It sounds scary, right? But according to the midwife, because the mother would feel more relax if she stays at home than in the hospital.

The midwife also informs that if the amniotic fluid turns yellow or green, it is completely normal so we don't have to be stressed out and it doesn't mean a C-section is necessary to run as soon as possible, which is quite contrary with the situation I heard in hospital in Indonesia. However, if the amniotic fluid already changes color, they will definitely monitor the baby's condition regularly and we should stay at hospital by then.

The hospital facilitates many ways of delivery also, where we could ask for any of them when the first stage is started. You could have water birth, standing birth and normal birth. Perhaps you may already know about the water birth and normal birth, but standing birth is something new for me. I have read that standing position helps the baby to come out easier because there are no pressure to the perineum and the birth canal is wider than if you are in a sitting position.

Personally, I am interested in having a water birth, as it is more natural and known to be less painful. The warm water relax the body and also helps you to move around and also creates a less dramatical changes to the baby, which in consequence makes the baby more calm and serene. However, we still need to gain more information regarding the water birth in the hospital and the water birth is only possible when there is nothing wrong with the baby and myself during the first stages of labor.

Hopefully, everything is going smoothly so I could have the water birth or at least a normal delivery. Few more weeks to go, there are mixed feelings of excitement and nervous, I just couldn't wait to welcome our baby boy to the world. Pregnancy is surely an amazing journey for me and I'm pretty sure the labor experience would also be remarkable. Will definitely keep you updated with the progress :)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

The Power of Mind

The past three days I've been going back and forth to the hospital since it is so hard to arrange an appointment with hospital in Denmark. They asked me to come on Monday to have the ultra scanning and on Tuesday to have consultation with doctor about the ultra scanning result and also have a urine test. Unfortunately yesterday they detected glucose in my urine, so they need me to do the glucose test on the next day. 

I was so anxious, knowing that I have to fast the night before the test until they took the test because I have the gastric problem. Based on previous experiences with fasting, I will end up sick as my gastric  discomfort relapsed. It's kinda stressed me out a little bit, because I don't want to harm the baby and am also worried what the test result would be. In consequence, the mind pressure weakened my body.

Then my wise husband came to the rescue. He reminded me that it is all coming from my own mind. The fear of not being able to stand the hunger, can be erased by substitute it with a positive mind. So the whole night after the fasting period started, I continuously told myself that I could bear the hunger and I will succeed in fasting in order to have accurate glucose test result. Even though I still feel a little bit hungry when I woke up at night and in the morning, but I still could manage to finish the fasting and my stomach is not hurt that much.

That's makes me realize, the mind is really have great power to control our body and emotion. When your mind is full with negativity and fear, the body will react to a condition that you're feared of and also it brings negative emotion. Perhaps that's what also happen in the birth labor. When you fear the pain, the pain will hurt even more. But if you accept that the pain is something normal during labor and your mind keep telling your body that you will be able to bear the pain, then you will be more calm and comfortable facing the labor. Hopefully I can practice this when my time comes :)

And a little bit information about the glucose test process in here, firstly we were given a glucose drink, which contains lots of sugar. It didn't taste that bad, but after you drink it, you'll feel super thirsty so you'll have to drink water afterwards. Then they asked you to wait for two hours and you should be relaxed while waiting, not spending too much energy, yet you couldn't fall asleep. After that they will take your blood from ear and run the test. This is new for me as usually, they took blood from your finger. Apparently it felt less painful than if the blood is taken from finger. If your glucose level is less than 8.9, then nothing is wrong with you. Thank God, mine is 7,5 so it is considered normal.

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

A Little Reminder of Bali

Couple of days ago, I'm helping a friend to plan a holiday to Bali. I listed down the must visit places, beaches and of course the recommended culinary spots. Since I have passion for traveling and I also have arranged itineraries in Bali for my previous trips, when she asked me about which places I recommend, I excitedly offered her a help to plan the trip.

Yet, when I was planning her trip, I am a little bit jealous of her as I also want to go to Bali! Writing down those stunning private beaches, interesting places and delicious foods to eat, makes me drooling to go there, as well. Sigh. Another thing reminded me of Bali is the milk pie, one of Bali's famous souvenir. There are many suppliers of milk pie in Bali, recently. However the pioneer and for me is the best, is the one with brand "Enaaak." Since the pie is very famous, you should order it beforehand, or you won't get any, the address and phone is as follows:

Jl. Nangka, Gang. Nuri No. 14
Denpasar, Bali
081-337-557-888 / 0361-784-2073

Well, since I obviously can not go to Bali to buy one of those pie, I decided to make one with the recipe given by a friend. Here is the complete recipe, in case you want to try to make one:

Milk Pie (30 pies)

Note: For the pie, please refer to my fruit tartlet recipe post: The SweeTarts.

Filling Ingredients:
200 ml condensed milk
200 ml water
2 eggs
2 tablespoon of corn starch
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Method:

1. Mix the condensed milk, vanilla extract and corn starch with a spatula
2. Add the eggs one at a time and stir well
3. Add water to the mixture until the mixture is smooth.
4. Remove the nearly baked tartlet from the oven (just until a slight brown color appeared) and fill the tartlet with the filling.
5. Bake again in the oven (180 degree Celsius) for about 20 minutes or until the filling is risen a little bit.
6. Remove the pie from the tins and your milk pie is ready to eat.

When you make the filling, you will notice that the mixture is too watery. It is completely fine, because the water prevents the filling from hardening, as we want to have a soft and smooth custard. When I baked my first batch, I didn't add the water as I thought the mixture is already sloppy, however after I have them bake, the custard is not as soft as expected. Then I fixed the filling for the next batch and the custard is softer.

As a review of the recipe, the taste is good, the pie is crunchy enough (due to twice baking of the tartlet), nonetheless, it still didn't taste the same as the one from Bali. Hmm..I wonder why? The color also not as yellowish as the milk pie sold in Bali. Anyone has a better recipe for this pie?

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

I'm (NOT) a Polyglot

As I've told you in my earlier post, the Danish course started this morning and I found that I struggled in class as sometimes I still didn't understand what the topic is about and teacher already pointed us one by one, asking a question in Danish and we have to replied back. Yeah, I definitely am a slow starter. Surprisingly, others seem finely catch up with the lesson. At least, they could reply fast when they were pointed. Based on my observation, most of them have Danish parents or boy/girlfriends or fiancee, so they are already familiar with the basic conversation. Others who come from Germany, also have the advantage, since the word in Danish is quite similar to their language.

I don't know for sure, if it was my brain that rotten or I am simply just not good at learning languages. However, it is still exciting though, having the opportunity to learn a new language and I won't give up. I will study harder and practice a lot in order to catch up with the rest of the class. Fortunately, we could download an audio files from the internet, where we could learn the correct pronunciation, so I could practice them at home :)

Anyway, the weather in Copenhagen has been super warm since yesterday. It's amazing how weather could change people moods. I am feeling happy just knowing that I could only use one layer of clothes when going outside, instead of 3 layers. LOL. Since the weather is too good to be missed out, my husband and I decided to spend time at the park, located near our apartment. Apparently, the park was full with family and kids who sunbathing and playing and individuals who simply just enjoying the rarely bright sun :)

Here are some photos from the park, taken by us.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Utilize the Leftover

When you cook rice only for two people, sometimes there is some left and you are too full to finish them up. I used to make them into fried rice for breakfast, but it might be boring eating fried rice too often. Then I found this recipe from Martha Stewart's website, which utilize the leftover rice to make a delicious hot rice breakfast drink.

The first time I read about it, I thought it sound disgusting, how come you're making a drink from leftover rice. And that's also what my husband and others think when I told them about this recipe :-D However, we'll never know until we give it a go, right? So this morning, I tested the recipe and it actually tasted pretty good and the good thing is you would get a full stomach only by drinking one glass of it. Ask my husband if you don't believe me :-D 

Here is the result of the hot rice breakfast drink:

Wondering about the recipe? Let me share it here.

Hot Rice Breakfast Drink (2 cups)

Ingredients:

Leftover rice (portion of 1 person)

Milk

Honey / Sugar

Cinnamon

Method:

1. Put the leftover rice into a saucepan
2. Add milk until the rice is soaked.
3. Add honey / sugar, according to your taste. I used 4 tablespoon of sugar.
4. Add cinnamon
5. Stir the mixture until boiling. Keep stirring regularly before the mixture is boiled to avoid the milk from caramelized.
6. Just when it started to boil. Turn off the heat and pour the mixture into a blender.
7. Blend the mixture until smooth.
8. Pour into a cup and you could sprinkle the top with more cinnamon.

Enjoy your delicious breakfast drink :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady 

Flea Market Junkie

Most women love bargain! We always feel good when we could find great findings with such a cheap price. Especially in Denmark, where almost everything sold at the stores is relatively expensive. That's why I love flea market! It's a place where you could find great and useful stuffs with such a great deal. I found it exciting to see someone's trashes could be someone else's treasure at a flea market.

One thing I noticed recently, in Denmark, flea market is everywhere! They even have this website, where you could see the flea market schedule around Denmark. I've checked out some of the flea markets here and mostly they sell clothes, books and kids toys. Some others sell vintage stuffs. I even saw one that sell remote controls and handphone chargers, the seller displays them on the floor, where everything is piled up in such a mess.

Usually I rarely buy anything from flea market, I just love to watch what stuffs they are selling and enjoy the atmosphere. Weird, huh? However, last Friday, a friend told me that her friend is going to leave Copenhagen and she wants to sell some of her stuffs. She asked me to join her to check out the flea market at her friend's house. So I went there with her and 2 other friends.

The house apparently is full with boxes and books and as usual, I need time to adjust myself in such a chaos, LOL. At first, the clutter stunned me while the other friends already start the book hunting excitedly. However after a while, I got used to eat and start to sort some stuffs, until I found this shelf insert, which I've told you about in my post: Organizing Your Kitchen. I planned to buy it on IKEA but haven't got the time to go there. It is sold for DKK29 in IKEA, and Heather, the seller was willing to sell it for DKK10. Yippie! She had two shelf inserts, so I bought the two of them.

Another finding is two wooden bake trays, I saw them on her cabinet and when I asked Heather, she said she planned to sell those as well for DKK10 for both trays. I plan to use the tray for placing fruits in my kitchen. Surprisingly, when I took out the trays, they still has store label attached, so they have never been used by her. Wow, definitely a great finding!

I also bought a Danish lesson book, written in English. My friend found it in Heather's book rack and gave it to me, knowing that I will learn Danish soon. When I told Heather that I want to buy the book, she told me that actually the book is coming with a CD, so she searched the CD for me and so I got the CD and the book for another DKK10. Yeay!

Actually I am interested to buy some of her cooking books. However I realized that it might be too heavy for me to carry all the above stuffs, as we need to walk quite far from Heather's house back to the nearest station. So I decided to round out my shopping and paid DKK40 to Heather then left feeling satisfied for the treasures I found :) If you are curios, let me share the picture of my all findings:

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

PS: Special thanks to Eva, who brought me to this flea market :)

30 Minutes Recipe

Cooking can be time consuming sometimes. Without you realize, you spent hours at the kitchen just to make one dish and you absolutely ran out of time for doing other things. That is why I am a big fan of 'little cooking time' recipe. One of the recipe I found very easy and practical is this Hongkong Steamed Fish. I usually use a steamer with timer, which helps me a lot in preparing the dish. This is the look of my steamer:

The complete recipe is as follows:

Hongkong Steamed Fish (for 2 persons)

Ingredients:

2 pcs Pangasius Fish Fillet

lemon

2 garlic cloves

ginger, thin sliced, about 3 cm long (see picture)

scallion, thin sliced, about 3 cm long (see picture)

coriander leaves

1 tbsp of vegetable oil

1 tbsp of sesame oil

80 ml of soya sauce

40 ml of hot water

2 tbsp of sugar

Methods:

1. Clean the fish and squeeze the lemon over the fish. Steam the fish in a steamer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, throw away the water left in the steamer. Leave it while you're preparing other ingredients.
2. Chop the garlic, and slice the ginger and scallion.
3. In a bowl, dissolve sugar with hot water and add the soya sauce to the bowl.
4. Heat a pan and add the vegetable oil and sesame oil, stir fry the garlic until fragrant. Put the garlic and the oil into the steamer, as well as the soya sauce mixture.
5. Garnish the top of the fish with the ginger and scallion and steam again all the ingredients for 15 minutes. 
6. Before serving, garnish the top of the fish with coriander leaves (or you can put the coriander leaves in the steamer, as well).

Voila! Your dish is ready within 30 minutes :) This is the result of the steamed fish. Apologize for the bad presentation, but I can assure you, it tastes as good as the one served at chinese restaurant :-p

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Never Too Cool for School

Next Monday I'm gonna start the Danish lesson and I feel a little bit nervous yet a little bit excited, knowing that I'm going to learn something new. As long as I remembered, I'm not very good at learning new language. I studied Japanese at high school as we had to take one language for extra curricular and I chose Japanese. Yet, I couldn't remember every single writing in Japanese and the sentence I could remember is only how we say what our name is. Sigh.

Nonetheless, I always have the curiosity to learn new stuffs so it brings some of excitement, as well. Based on my experiences, when learning something, I notice that I am a slow starter, yet I am a quick learner once I got the logic or the complete idea. So hopefully, I could catch up more quickly with the lesson and could use Danish in practice.

Another thing I realized lately is when it comes to learning process, I hardly be able to learn autodidact. I am definitely not a self taught person. I prefer to have a teacher or take courses to help me learn faster. Perhaps that is why I have taken so many courses, such as English lesson, piano lesson, guitar lesson, violin lesson, physics, photography course and even a tennis lesson. LOL. If I look back now, it's amazing to see how many lessons I've ever joined :-D

Then this thought popped up in my mind, I want to challenge myself that I want to try to learn something autodidact successfully. Recently I have this big urge to understand the technical analysis of stock trading. I already have read some books and articles about it, but when it comes to practice, I still don't get the whole idea how to read the bullish or bearish signal, how to pick the right stock, determine the timing and amount to entry and to sell stocks. There are a lot of training of technical analysis in Jakarta, which the investment fee is quite expensive, however since I am far away here, I can not join any. So I think this is really good opportunity to dare myself, could I succeed in learning the materials by myself.

Well, sometimes people tend to underestimate themselves, thinking they aren't be able to do things. Yet when the pressure comes, they are pushed to a higher level and when they look back, they will be amazed seeing that they are capable to do things they never thought. So, this is me, pushing myself to another different level and I promise to you readers, this time I will learn this new stuff autodidact and I'm gonna succeed. Just wait for my updates, perhaps in a couple of months or years :-)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Dream Kitchen

Do you have a dream kitchen? I do!

If I have my own house, I want to have a spacious kitchen near big glass window so the sun could brighten the room in the morning. The design should be minimalist with the combination of white and wooden colored table. Another important element is the kitchen cabinet should have many drawers and shelves to keep all the kitchen utensils away from the countertop as I don't like a messy countertop. It would be wonderful to also have a freestanding kitchen island where I could do some works, especially when baking and perhaps having a breakfast.

As requested by a friend, I will post the photo of my kitchen in current apartment. It's not as I imagined, however it is at least close to what my dream kitchen would be. The things I love about it is:

1. The design
The kitchen was designed with minimalist concept, with the combination of white color cabinets and wooden worktops. It is exactly as I dreamed. And since it is an open kitchen, it is quite spacious.

2. Lots of cabinets
The kitchen has lots of cabinets to put all the utensils away from the countertop.

However it only has small spaces countertops, so when I cook, all the countertops will be full with bowls and pans. Even when I want to bake, I have to move the rice cooker first so I could have more space. Well, it means I definitely need a freestanding kitchen island, right? :-p

So here is the picture of my kitchen:

What do you think?

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Good News!

I'm not gonna write much today as it's getting late now and my laptop was boycotted by hubby as he just bought this new Diablo 3, a computer game which has been waited for years. I couldn't help but excited seeing him so thrilled getting this long awaited game. Yeah, boys will always be boys :-D

However, I received two good news today from my two best friends. One of them will be getting married soon this year and another one just being in a relationship with a person that he really wants so I feel very happy for both of them :) I know their stories, how the struggling and the obstacle they've been through to arrive at this stage, so it's really a bundle of joy to witness how the fight is finally worth. Hopefully my ears and advices during the struggle are helpful and encouraging. 

Love is in the air. And for those of you who's been in the fight for love, don't give up and keep fighting cause love is definitely worthy :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Strawberry Cream Puff

We had a potluck last weekend at our apartment and one of the guest brought fresh strawberries, which plenty of them still left at the end of the day. Then I started to think what I was gonna make with the leftover strawberries. I already made strawberry milkshake yesterday and we still had some more strawberries left.

I searched for a delicious recipe in my favorite baking website, Joy of Baking, and I found an interesting recipe of this cream puff, in which I could add the strawberries to the cream. So here is the recipe:

Strawberry Cream Puff
(Makes 9 puffs with diameter approximately 5cm)

Ingredients:
Pastry
65 gr all purpose flour
1/2 tsp granulated white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
57 gr unsalted butter
120 ml water
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Glaze
1 egg, lightly beaten

Cream Filling
240 ml heavy whipped cream (35-40% butterfat)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 tbsp granulated white sugar
3 pcs of large strawberries

Garnish
Powdered sugar

Methods:
Pastry

1. Prepare and weight all ingredients.
2. Preheat the oven to 200 Celcius for 15 minutes.
3. Place a baking sheet on a pan.
4. In a bowl, sift of whisk together the flour, sugar and salt.
5. Place butter and water in a saucepan, over medium high heat until it boils. Make sure the butter melts before the water boils to reduce the amount of evaporation.
6. Remove from the heat and add the flour mixture all at once and stir until combine.
7. Return the sauce pan to the heat and stir constantly about 1 - 2 minutes until the dough comes away from the sides of the pan and form a thick smooth ball.
8. Put the dough to electric mixer and beat to low speed about 1 minute to release the steam from the dough.
9. Once the dough is lukewarm, start adding 3/4 portion of the eggs and continue to mix until you have a smooth thick paste (dough will fall from a spoon in thick ribbon). If your dough still too thick, add the rest of the eggs.
10. Spoon the dough onto baking sheets, spacing about 5 cm apart, try making a round form with the spoon.
11.  With a pastry brush, gently brush the top of the dough with lightly beaten egg.
12. Bake for 15 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 180 Celcius for another 30 - 35 minutes or until the shells have nice amber color and almost dry inside.
13. If you open the puff and find moist dough inside, cut the puff in a half, turn the oven off and put back the puff to the oven with the door slightly ajar.

Cream Filling

1. In a mixing bowl, place the whipped cream, vanilla extract and sugar, and stir to combine.
2. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and put the bowl and whisker in the refrigerator to chill them up for at least 15 minutes.
3. When chilled, whip the cream until reach stiff peaks form
4. Chop the strawberries into small cuts and combine them to the cream.

Before serving, fill the puffs with the cream and garnish the top of the puffs with powdered sugar.

Here is the result of my strawberry cream puff:

It's not 100% perfect as the puff should be more crispy and I guessed I didn't whisk the cream long enough as the cream still a little bit sloppy, as I'm afraid that the cream will be lumpy if I over beat the cream. Apparently the trick to check whether the cream has reached its stiff peak is if you lift up the beaters from the mixing bowl, the peak should stand straight up and if you tilt the bowl, the mixture should not slide around. However, it tastes good and looks really tempting on the picture after all, so next time I'll just need to make sure not repeating the mistakes :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Finding Passion, Finding Happiness

If I should mention one book that changed my life, I would definitely refer to the book written by Rene Suhardono, a career coach in Jakarta, which titled "Your Job is Not Your Career." The first thing I remembered written in the book is the very basic question: Are you happy with your life?

It was about a year ago when I found the book and I stumbled on that question. I knew I had a great job and I actually love the job and the challenges. What I was not happy with is the overloaded work and the insane working hours. That made me realized I didn't enjoy doing it anymore, I lost the excitement and passion. And at the end, it made me unhappy and unsatisfied with my life as I have very limited time for other things I love doing.

The book basically encourages people to find the passion of your life, something that you enjoy the most. It says that you're supposed to be passionate about your own job in order to be happy and have a meaningful life. That's when my searching of passion was begun because I do want to be happy with my life.

There are many ways you could do to find your passion. One of them is follow what your heart tells you, and that's what I do when I chose to quit my job. It was not easy at first, especially trying to conceive my parents that this is what I need to do to pursue my happiness, as I didn't use to take such unusual action. Being unemployed after all the years spent in that "big" company, also a really big change for me. I still felt awkward when people asked where I work, as before I could answer the question with pride and while it might be strange for most people if I explained why I chose not to work for a while.

Meanwhile, during my reflection period, I tried to maximize my time doing all the things I always want to do but never had enough time, one of them was taking a photography lesson. I've always wanted to join after graduation, but then I was accepted in that company and haven't had the time to fulfill it. I realized I really enjoy my time during photo session, especially when we have to be creative and think out of the box to create outstanding photos.

The book also suggests us to try as many new things as possible to find passion, as you might have more than one passion in your life. I do know that I have passion to help people, and in order to help others, I have to use the ability that I am good at, which according to my background, is dealing with numbers. That's why I decided to join a financial plan training, even though the training fee is quite costly, I believe it would give me a comprehensive knowledge how to make a financial plan, so I could share it to others in need. It really is a joy when I could enlighten my friends and relatives after a consultation or discussion, so they could be more aware with their future financial plan.

Up till now, I'm still on the search of finding my other passions. Who knows if one of them someday turns into a real career? The important thing is if you ask me now, am I happy with my life? I could confidently answer, yes! Having a freedom to do things you enjoy doing surely change people feelings and attitude towards life.

I don't encourage you to quit your job recklessly, but if you are not happy with your life because you are not satisfied with your job. Take a time to think what are the things you love to do, the things you enjoy the most. Since when you love what you're doing, you'll pour your heart 100% to it and surely a good result will be achieved. And if you haven't figured out what your passion is, do things unusual, try things you've never tried before, as it will open you to new excitements and perhaps one of them might be your passion.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

1,000 Blog Hits Giveaway

Viewing my blog this morning and I'm super happy as my blog reached 1,000 hits less than a month! Yeay!! Super thank you to all readers! I have promised to myself, if the blog hits reached 1,000 in a month, I would prepare a giveaway and surely I have something special for you readers.

It's a cash flow budget template to help you make the cash flow as I've mentioned earlier in the post "Big Spender vs Big Saver". Read it first by clicking the link, if you haven't, to give you a complete idea why having a personal budgeted cash flow is important. Basically, this is an Excel format, where you can input your income and expenses in the white colored cells, and the rest of the counts will be calculated automatically. If there is a type of expense that is not applicable to you, just put zero (0) on the blank cell.

You could download the file here: Cash Flow Budgeting Template


I wish it is useful for you guys, as I used the same format to make cash flow budget and also to monitor the actual expenses. If you find any difficulties filling the form, just drop a comment here and I will help you to go through it.


And before I ended the post, I would like to say a warmest congratulation for my twin sister! She's getting married today in Jakarta and sadly I couldn't be there for her. However I believe she knows that my prayer and heart will always be with her. I'm so happy for her!!! These are some of her pre-wedding photos that I took in New Zealand. Wish her a very happy marriage ahead :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Sixth Sense

I believe every people are gifted with a sixth sense, perhaps not a greater one like being able to see ghost or seeing the future. However, we must once or more have felt when something wrong is going to happen or we already predict that certain things would happen. That's what I felt when leaving house today, I don't what will happen but I have bad feeling that something might go wrong.

This morning my husband and I had to go to the embassy and had to rush to the hospital to meet a mid wive afterwards. The embassy is quite far from the hospital and we've never been to both places so I'm a little bit worried that we might not arrive on time for the appointment. At first everything was doing fine, we arrived on time at the bus stop that driven towards the embassy. However as we didn't print the journey plan, we didn't know how many more stops our destination was, while there was no screen nor announcement regarding the name of the next bus stop at the bus. Then, we managed to find a brochure in the bus, showing every stops passed by the bus.

Apparently, the brochure was not updated, as we got off the bus, we just realized that the bus stop name is different that where we supposed to stop. Hence, we need to walk along more miles in order to arrive at the embassy. By that time, we still thought, well it's alright, we still arrived on time at the embassy. Fortunately everything went smoothly at the embassy and we could leave timely to catch another bus to go the hospital.

Another problem incurred after we hopped off from the bus, we stopped at the right station, but then according to the direction that we wrote, we should be walk straight and then turn right, but as we walked around the block, we couldn't find the hospital. While we decided to go back to the station, we met some guy and we asked him where the hospital is. He showed us that the hospital is actually located just before the bus stop. We didn't see it because instead of turning back, we were going forward.

After we managed to find the hospital, we looked for the mid wife centre. According to the letter from the hospital, the mid wife centre is located at room number 9. We arrived at the room number 9 and we went through an automatic door and entered the room. Inside, there is a door connecting to the mid wife centre, but apparently it was locked and there was a message notified that we should enter the room from the room door number 10. It means we should go through the automatic door again. I stood in front of the automatic door and it wouldn't open. My husband tried other doors and checked the stairs for a way out but there is none. We got stuck in that room and nobody's there.

I was quite worried as we would miss the appointment schedule. I have tried to call the mid wife centre number, but the answering machine was in Danish, that I couldn't understand a single word. Finally my husband pressed the emergency button located near the door, and the door opened so we managed to get out from the room. If I remembered it now, I couldn't help laughing at the silly situation :-D Now I know the reason why I have such bad feeling since morning.

Have you ever had an experience with a sixth sense before?

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Kitchen Essential

Today's post is especially dedicated to a friend who will get married soon this year and she requested me to write more about daily dishes recipes so she could try to cook them after married. Yeah, we're Indonesian ladies rarely cook at home, as we live with parents and have maids to do the kitchen job :-D I will combine the recipe with a product review, though. And just to be clear, this is purely a review from a customer perspective, of course I don't sell the product, but if you want to know where I bought it, you surely could ask me here :)

I noticed that few months ago, I am looking for recommendation of type of kitchen appliances as I want to buy them for my kitchen in Copenhagen. I've searched them through the internet, but couldn't find any clear and comprehensive review. Therefore I got a little bit confused when going to the store and should do the research myself through asking the sales assistant, which is a little bit time consuming and you wouldn't know if what the sales person said is true or just a marketing speech. So here I am, trying to help you, who might be in the similar situation, providing the review from a customer point of view.

The first product I am going to review here is rice cooker. This is an essential one for me, I even brought this in my baggage, instead of putting this in container, as I have to eat rice in order to have a full stomach. This one is from Yong Ma, Korea. The type of product is Magic Com and the series number is MC-1100. Here is mine:

What I love most about it is the small size, which is suitable for my husband and me. The maximum capacity is only 3 cup of rice or equal to 0,7 liters. I usually only cook 1 cup of rice for both of us so the size of the pot is perfect for us. Another point I consider excellent is the inner pot has black coating technology which make it non-sticky pot. Sometimes when we cook only small portion of rice, in most rice cooker, we often find the rice stick to the pot, which would be hard to clean. However, it never happens with this rice cooker. So I'm pretty satisfied with the cooking result.

The products is completed with accessories such as: scoop, measuring cup and steam pot. The measuring cup is also match to the measuring of water written in the inner pot. In the picture below, you would see that the inner pot has a water measurement, which helps you determine how much water should be pour into the pot based on the amount of rice.

Did you see there are stripes with number 1 until 3? That is the measurement of water, so if you put 1 cup of rice (measured using measurement cup), then you just need to feel the pot with water up to the number 1 limit. You don't have to predict anymore whether you pour the right amount of water and in consequence, you will get perfect cooked rice :) It is very easy, especially if you want to teach your husband who never cook rice with a rice cooker before. LOL.

The picture of the other accessories (scoop, measuring cup and steam pot) that I've mentioned above is as follows:

With the steam pot, you could steam cold food, such as dimsum or perhaps leftover rice from yesterday. You just need to fill the inner pot with 2 cups of water and put the food in the steam pot and push the cook button. Voila! the food will be hot and ready to eat in a few minutes. Ow and the best thing is, I bought this for only Rp169,000, it is very cheap for a product with quality, right?

Besides for making white rice, I have tried making Hainan Chicken Rice with this rice cooker. The result was perfect and it tasted good. So here is the recipe:

Hainan Chicken Rice (for 1 person):

Ingredients:
1 cup of rice
1 piece of chicken drumstick
2 slice of ginger
2 cloves of garlic, 1 clove is smashed, 1 clove is chopped into small slices
1/2 cup of onion, slice into small pieces
1/4 tsp of pepper
1/2 tbsp of sesame oil
1 tbsp of soya sauce

Method:

1. Boil 2 cups of water and heat the chicken drumsticks to make chicken stock. Add the smashed garlic and 1 slice of ginger into the sauce pan.
2. Heat a pan, add the sesame oil. When hot, add onions, garlic and ginger, stir fry until it smells good, then add the soya sauce and pepper.
3. Wash the rice and put the rice into the inner pot of the rice cooker, add the stir fry mixture, chicken and chicken stock into the inner pot, as well. Ensure the chicken stock liquid is reached the 1 cup measurement of water, as stated on the inner pot.
4. Push the cook button of the rice cooker and wait until the cook indicator turn off and change into warm.

It's very simple dish and you could add vegetables, such as carrot, into the inner pot, if you like. Just eat the dish with the soya sauce and coriander leaves.

Hope you'll find it useful!

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Let's Do the Counting!

I received an email from a friend today asking about how to calculate how much money you should invest monthly if you want to have a certain amount in the future for your kids education fee. The calculation is actually derived from the basic concept of time value of money. Are you familiar with the concept? I've mentioned about the time value of money concept in the post: Financial Goal, but let me elaborate the concept with examples on this post.

I started with an example of one simple financial goal, i.e. you want buy a house with current value of Rp3,000,000,000 in the next 12 years. Assuming the inflation rate for property is 10% per year and the target return from investment is 15% per year.

The steps to calculate how much money you should invest monthly is as follows:

1. Determine the future value of the house in the next 12 years.
    With Excel, you can input the formula as follows:
    = FV(inflation rate, number of period, , current value)
    = FV(10%,12,,-3,000,000,000)
    Which resulted in: 9,415,285,130.
    The logic is as follows: if the house is valued 3 billion at the moment, with 10% of inflation rate, in the
    next 12 years, the value would be 9,415,285,130.

2. Determine the money you should invest regularly each month in order to have 9,4 billion in the next 12
    years, assuming you invest the money in a product which gives a return of 15% per year.
    In Excel, you can input the following formula:
    = PMT(target return/month, number of period in months, , - future value)
    = PMT(15%/12, 12x12, , -9,415,285,130)
    The result would be 23,620,763.

If you notice I put a blank in between two commas in the formula (", ,"), it is because the character is not suitable for the calculation we want to achieve. Hence we just leave it blank.

Now let us compare how much money we should save if we didn't have any investment and use savings instead. In order to achieve 9,4 billion in the next 12 years, we should save 65,383,925 per month, which is resulted from 9,4 billion divided by 144 months (equal to 12 years of savings). We could see that there is huge difference if we use investment instead of savings. Up to this stage, do you start considering whether your money is already put in the right place?

Another thing I would like to emphasize is the importance of the time to start investing. The sooner you start to invest, the lower amount you should regularly invest. Let's elaborate with the same example, however we shorten the period of financial goal into 5 years. Using the same formula as explained above, if we changed the number of period into 5 years, the future value of the house would be 4,831,530,000, which is lower than the future value of the house in 10 years. However, how about the money to be invested regularly? Using the second formula, we changed the number of period of months into 60 months (equal to 5 years) and the future value into 4,8 billions, the result would be 54,547,636, which is a lot higher than our previous calculation, 23,6 millions. Hence, we can conclude that the longer time difference between the financial goal and the day you start to invest, the smaller money you need to set aside. That's why it is very important to start your financial planning now.

Well, I hope my explanation is clear enough and not confusing you. You could use the same formula to calculate any other financial goal, if you already understand the logic. Please do ask if you have further questions or confusion regarding my explanation, I'll be happy to assist.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

PS: The assumption of inflation rate and target return should always be checked to the market to obtain reliable result.

The SweeTarts

This is my all time favorite dessert and my mom often made one at home. Nothing can beat the crunchiness and the combination of sweet custard and sour fruits. Can you guess what I'm referring to?
Yeps, it is fruit tartlet! I tried making the fruit tartlet yesterday and now I'm sharing you the result and of course I include my mom's recipe here so you could try making them. Enjoy!

My Fruit Tartlet Result

Fruit Tartlet Recipe

Ingredients:

- For the tarts:
125 gr butter
50 gr sugar
240 gr flour
2 egg yolks
1/4 tbsp vanilla extract

- For the custard:
450 cc milk
50 gr flour
100 gr sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter
50 cc rum
2 egg yolks

Method:

- For the tarts:

1. Mix the butter and sugar until the colors turn white with electric mixer
2. Whisk in the vanilla extract and the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition
3. Add shifted flour and stir it well.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius for 15 minutes.
5. Butter the tartlet tins
6. Place 1 tablespoon of the dough to each tins, ensure that the dough place on the tin is not too thick.
7. With a fork, poke the base of the dough (docking) to prevent dough from puffing up during baking.
8. Put the tart tins into the oven and bake for another 15 - 20 minutes.
9. Pull out the tartlet from the tins when cool.

- For the custard:

1. Mix flour with half of the milk in a bowl
2. Heat the rest of the milk, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan
3. Take 2 tbsp of the boiling milk into the flour bowl and stir them well before putting them back to the sauce pan, stir constantly until the mixture thicken.
4. Beat egg yolk in a bowl and add the egg yolk to the saucepan after the mixture is boiled. Turn off the heat and stir them well.
5. After the mixture is cooling down, add the rum.

Next, fill the tart with the custard and place the fruits on top of the custard. For glossy result, you could coat the top with a gelatin glaze. The fruits can be varied, from berries into kiwi fruit or mango. You could also use canned fruits if fresh fruit is not available. The fruit tartlet is served best when cold.

However, do not refrigerate the fruit tartlet more than 12 hours as the tartlet will turn soft instead of crunchy. What I did is keep the custard in the fridge but the tartlet is kept in a box in a room temperature. I fill the tart with custard only a minute before serving.

Hope you like it!

Indispensable Lady

A Moment Alone

Life surely changes people. If I recall myself years back then, I was a very insecure child. I remembered I couldn't even get through just one day in kindergarden without crying because I was being bullied by the boys at kindergarden. Having to go to school was such a nightmare at that time, every morning I wished the school bus came late so I wouldn't have to meet the boys or at least the class already started so the boys couldn't tease me.

I'm not sure until now, whether it was my vulnerability that attracted bad boys to bully me at school or the bully that made me vulnerable. However the nightmare memory from childhood, really affected my self-esteem during my youth period. I was a very shy and introvert person. Even though I have some close friends, I didn't really open myself to them. I was afraid to speak in public and I spoke very softly that teachers barely couldn't hear. Another issue I noticed is I didn't like to be left alone, especially in new environment. Fortunately I have my twin sister almost in every activity, which avoiding me from being all alone, without realizing that I became dependent on her, only to make friends.

As a result, when we went to junior high school, my parents decided that the school should placed both of us in different classes and I struggled to make friends with people in my class, while my twin sister quickly had a clique from her class. I started to feel that I was left behind. Even though I managed to have few friends to hang out with, I wasn't really close with them. I felt lonely a lot during that period.

It was until I joined this one youth community, where my social life started getting better and better. I could say that the community changed me as a person. The activities involved in that community require the member to speak in public, share our thoughts and feelings to others and contribute our talents and creativity. Slowly, I gained more self-esteem and could open myself to others and engaged more with other people. 

However, the big changes from being solo into having a lot of friends, resulted in me becoming dependent with having friends or other people surrounded me. I still feel insecure being alone. I recalled that I didn't feel comfortable when I have to rent a room near my University as my campus is quite far from home. The insecurity aroused as I didn't know anybody in my building but I also didn't like being alone in my room, as I have no company. As a result, I tried my best to avoid staying too long in my room, either I spent my days in my friends' room in other building or went home. I guessed the childhood trauma was not completely gone.

As I grew older, I managed to find serenity by being alone. I realized I am no more afraid with the fact of being alone. Since I moved here in Copenhagen, I spent a lot of time being alone at home, but I don't feel insecure about it. In fact, I am quite enjoying my solo time, it's my time to reflect, to relax and to do things I wanna do. Thus I could proudly tell myself, yes I am alone, but I am not lonely :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Another Lesson Learned

This week I learned another important lesson: when in doubt, never assume. The story behind it is because on the same week three cases happened due to lack of information and wrong assumption.

First, on the day my husband came from business trip in Turkey, he told me that when he entered Denmark, the airport immigration officer reminded him that the visa sticker on his passport will be expired on May 10, which he didn't aware of until the officer mentioned about it. I've been aware of it since I arrived in Copenhagen last month, however when I asked the relocation agent whether we should extend it, she said your husband should have submitted some papers which will automatically extend the temporary visa. Afterwards I asked my husband, he said he couldn't remember, but he should have submitted every documents to the relocation agent. Well, then I ASSUMED everything had settled down.

Apparently, after confirmed once again to the agent, the documents should be submitted by ourselves to the Danish Immigration Office to apply for residence card before the expiry date, which is May 10. Otherwise we will be considered illegal staying in Denmark. My husband then checked documents on his office desk, and found the papers, which he should submit months ago. After found the paper, we went to the immigration office to submit the application for residence card. Thankfully, he was informed by the immigration officer, otherwise we will miss the deadline. I somehow believe it was God's way to avoid us from trouble :)

Then later on the afternoon after I came back from the immigration office, a guy from electricity company came by and asked to read the electricity meter, but I have no idea where the electricity meter is. A month ago, the apartment landlord met us to give the spare key and show us how to read the water, heater and electricity meter. However, he completely forgot how to read the electricity meter and he promised to contact us when he knew. We also tried to ask the previous tenant and they said they never read the electricity meter. After a month passed by, we heard no news from the landlord. Well we have tried to ask him about it once again and he said he would find out. We ASSUMED he would take care of it, until the electricity guy came and told us that we would be charged for extra fee as we didn't read the meter by ourselves and didn't pay the bill.

It's quite shocking as we never received any letter about the electricity bill and nor didn't get information from the landlord where the electricity meter is. Another problem is as the previous tenant never read the meter, the consumption up to the day must be included their consumption as well. We decided to contact the agent once again and asked her to help us solve the problem as we realized that this was not our fault and we wanted to make sure we only pay for our consumption only. Fortunately the agent is responsible enough to find the solution of the problem so we shouldn't burden the previous tenant consumption expenses and the landlord is willing to pay for the extra service fee.

The third case is regarding our mobile phone number. When I came a month ago, I bought a prepaid card for temporary use as we were waiting for the subscribed mobile phone number ordered from my husband office. A month passed by and we didn't receive any sim card yet. However, a week ago, a bill was sent to us, regarding a subscription of mobile phone, which should be paid soon. The number stated on the bill is the same number as my prepaid card. As the number ordered from office is also the same operator as my prepaid card and we noticed that the number is longer prepaid, we ASSUMED that maybe the operator noticed that we already have a phone number, so instead of sending us new sim card, they changed the prepaid number into subscribed number. Hence, we decided to pay the bill.

However, yesterday we received another sim card, of which we ordered. Then we noticed we did something wrong, we paid the bill for the subscription we didn't even order. After doing some research, apparently the operator subscribed the prepaid number automatically and sent us email stating that we ordered to subscribe the number into postpaid account. We've never noticed about the email, and yet we already paid for the bill.

Well, after those three cases, I learned a lesson to never assume, especially when you are in a system you barely know how it works. Otherwise you will have to pay unnecessary spending for things you could avoid. Better ask and find information before everything is too late. Thankfully, from the three cases above, only one we really need to pay in order to sort out the problem.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

My First Baking Attempt

I've never literally done baking by myself before. Usually I just helped my mother or my little sister who loves baking cakes and cookies, but never really tried to bake alone. When I moved here, I decided I want to start baking in my spare time. Besides that buying cakes is quite expensive in here, I always admire my friends who have passion for baking, where they turn the passion into business. Well, who knows if I might be able to sell my own cakes someday :)

I've searched for the perfect recipe for my first trial, until I found the delicious brownies recipe on this website. I love having a chocolatey brownies, which have moist texture and dry cracked crust on the top and this recipe provides the exact brownies. The recipe is as follows (I've added some additional instruction to make it more precise and the sequence is more suitable for me):

Brownies (25 brownies)

Ingredients:

5 ounces (150 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chopped

1/2 cup (1 stick) (113 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

2 tablespoons (15 grams) cocoa powder

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3 large eggs

3/4 cup (95 grams) all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (125 grams) semi-sweet chocolate chips(optional)

Method:

1. Prepare a square baking pan of 23cm x 23cm, place a baking paper at the bottom of the pan and butter the paper and the side of the pan.
2. Prepare and weigh the ingredients.
3. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C for 15 minutes and place the rack in the center of the oven, use timer for precise timing. Use the top and bottom heat.
4. Melt the chocolate and butter in a stainless steel bowl (or a small saucepan) and placed over a saucepan of simmering water, until smooth.
5. Remove from the heat and stir the cocoa powder and sugar with a whisker (do not use mixer because we don't want the batter too smooth).
6. Next, whisk in the vanilla extract and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
7. Finally, stir in the flour, salt and chocolate chips (at this stage, the batter is getting thicken, so it's better to use spatula)
8. Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a little batter a few moist clumps clinging to it. Do not over bake. Remove from oven and let cool.
9. Cut the brownies with a cake knife into 3x3cm square per pcs. Between each cut, clean the knife with a tissue or paper to get a better cutting result.
10. The brownies is ready to serve.

Here are the picture of my brownies. It tastes as expected, very chocolatey and moist. When it is still hot, the chocolate chip inside the brownies is melted in your mouth. Very yummy!

As it is quite successful, I decided to give it as a present for a friend of mine who will receive confirmation this Sunday and I was asked to be her sponsor. So, this is my brownies gift for her:

Really hope she'll like it :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady