Feeling Fruity – Fancy a Refreshment? Smoothie Bowls For Early Dinner

September 11, 2018 by Dominique

In the spirit of keeping the smoothie bowls coming, I chopped up loads of bananas, mango, papaya and red dragonfruit (even though I prefer the white flesh ones, the red ones give you this amazing pink colour so eh fine! and it is important to eat the rainbow so…. make mine a pink orange and yellow rainbow). Everything is sitting in my freezer ready to go into the blender with water and any supplements I feel like adding for an extra zing in my step. The Child keeps diving into these bowls and making squishy motions. It gets so messy but it’s a delicious mess and afterwards we just head to the bathtub and hose ourselves off, lol.

Sooooo refreshing.

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A New Motto for Procrastinators and Perfectionists

September 9, 2018September 11, 2018 by Dominique

That’s what I told myself as I put away baskets and baskets of folded laundry that had been piled up on and around our sofa. There was so much of it that when I facetimed my mum, my brother caught a glimpse of it and said he wanted to cry.

I hear you brother. Everytime I looked at that ever growing pile I was overwhelmed with where to start.

Well now I was overwhelmed and constantly reminded of my brother.

So I pulled it together after teaching today’s yoga class and started putting away pile after pile. I winced a little at how things were not quite colour coordinated and exactly as I wanted but today, they just needed to be away.

Now we have the rest of our weekend to relax on our sofa!

What have you been putting off? Is there any way you can get it done quickly?

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Birthday Weekend 1 – Growing Up, Shopping and Tea

July 30, 2018 by Dominique ♥ 2 Comments

“What do you want for your birthday?” B has been asking me this off and on for the last two months. So sweet and I wish I had something great to say other than

“Tea and some sleep and someone to please wash my hair for me”

“And I just want to go to yoga”

I used to just order a whole bunch of Asos clothes as my birthday treat. The thought of getting more clothes right now starts off as sounding like a lovely idea but then I balk at the knowledge that I’ll have to put them away in the closet neatly which I still am working on decluttering. Every Christmas we head back to Australia for the holidays and I do a crazy bunch of shopping for things I just can’t get for a reasonable price here in Indonesia. When it comes time to fly I get crazy worried about the excess baggage. After months of trying to declutter my wardrobe this year I decided that is it with the clothes shopping. I’ll only buy one or two really wonderful quality items, sorry, PIECES. More expensive but they will last and not date. I look at photos captioned “wardrobe goals” and think argh, no thank you. I get wardrobe envy at the sight of near empty closets so you get the idea of the turnaround I have had.

Not when it comes to baby clothes though. I may be having less of a turnaround and more of a redirecting haha. B sometimes asks me if I want to donate any of The Child (TC)’s old clothes and I look at him like, “who even are you?” But I tell you, if I could get my hands on some baby Dior I would be tempted to go minimalist too. Oatmeal and spinach stains on Dior though, hmmm, never mind. Also TC goes through two to three outfits every day. Sometimes after dinner we need to do another clothes change because TC decided to just grab dinner by the fistful and most of dinner becomes some sort of accessory all down the front. I’m flattered that my cooking was so enjoyable but I also feel like I could raise a few pigs with the dinner scraps that I am shaking into a pail at the end of every evening.

Incredible how our priorities keep changing as we grow up. I’m still growing up so who knows. Although I have been considering getting a necklace with TC’s name on it. Or a Pilates reformer. Preferably both. So there you go. But in the last few months I have just been prioritising experiences over anything else. In Sydney I was very pedantic about taking TC to the playground and Taronga Zoo etc. I went to the shopping centre but most of my time was spent in the children’s play area. After lunch, of course, and after I had picked up a cup of teh tarik, of course.

If we haven’t spoken about teh tarik before, it means pulled tea. I spent a huge chunk of my childhood growing up in Singapore and we would go for breakfast at these lovely shophouses. You could get all sorts of food such as chicken rice, fishball noodles or you could get kaya toast or roti pratha with some curry sauce. The roti pratha is my dad’s favourite. Anywhere you can find food like that there is a drink stall and you can get pulled tea or a really dark earthy coffee. The tea or coffee is poured back and forth at a great height until it gets really frothy and smooth. The person is practically standing on a ladder doing the pouring. Just before I became pregnant I stopped drinking coffee and now it’s been so long that I love the idea of coffee but my tastebuds have changed. It’s easy to get teh tarik everywhere in Singapore, a little less so here in Indonesia but still possible. Especially if you are determined. I’m extremely determined, driven by mostly that feeling of “I just want SOMETHING for a treat“. Can you still call something you get pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day, a treat?

Whatever.

I love tea and coffee house culture. It’s such a lovely feeling. We woke up extra early this morning (more like TC woke up extra early and decided to haul me out of bed) so I ordered some teh tarik with some roti pratha from a kopitiam my friend took me to. Whilst I waited, my dad was messaging me about ingredients for Chinese porridge and how to make it. We both bought the same rice cooker so he has been messaging me about that quite a bit since I am the only one in the family who reads manuals. (edit: he found his manual so he is reading it as well. We are the only two who read manuals in our family.)

I’m pretty easy going in restaurants but that cup of milky tea was half empty when it came. Soooooo just as well that I ordered two. It was a lovely start to my birthday weekend.

Now I just want some yoga and to wash my greasy hair.

What would you like for your birthday?

Listening to this as I type.

A To Do List for a Nothing is Going to get Done Day – Yoga, Meditation and Stir Fry

July 27, 2018July 27, 2018 by Dominique

Here comes a Moon Day.

Full Moon App

I love reading what this app tells me I am. Focussed! Alright! Yes! I’m ready! But also practical! I like that. Ambitious. Yes. Yup. I’m with you.

(I love that anyone anywhere in the world would likely read this description and think, yes this is soooooo me.)

Speaking of ambitious, are you a big list writer? I have huge lists of things I want to get done and buy and posts I would like to write. I have an embarrassingly long list of partially done drafts I need want to get through to finally post them. But as can happen wife gets in the way. That’s right, I get in my own way – I’m working on my follow through. One of my biggest stumbling blocks is those darn danging lists! They get longer and longer until I just feel totally overwhelmed. On other days I get in the “that’s it! today is the day I tackle everything I wanted done” mood and tadaaah 9.3/10 times* that is the very same day that nothing goes according to plan. Time to just breathe and go with the flow. Easier said than done when you’ve been looking forward to crossing things off a list.

As if I needed any more lists, I made a new list called My Contingency List. When it turns out nothing is going to plan I pull this out.

My Contingency List

Yoga – any kind, any duration
Meditation – any kind, any duration, with intention to remove obstacles and blocks

That is the list. I can add anything else to it but the only things I MUST MUST MUSTTTTTTT do is these two. Once I do the first two items I find I’m not so attached to anything else I previously thought had to be done. Life feels a whole lot easier and happier after that.

Even just thinking about a yoga posture can have a calming effect.

Something interesting often happens too – what I thought was stopping me from getting to whatever else I wanted to do suddenly dissolves. I end up getting more things done. For example, The Child (TC) usually has a nap around midday and I think of that time as my run around in a frenzy trying to tidy things away, shower, shave my legs, prepare lunch, prep dinner, read, relax and a million other things to be squeezed in if possible. All this requires the nap be LONGISH. But on a day like today I was out running errands and the nap was 30 minutes. Our window of time had closed for the day. Not the end of the world, I can do some things just not all the things and not to the extent I would if I were on my own. I think a lot of mums understand.

I was talking to my mum about this whole trying to let go of expectations business and THE LIST. What am I even doing? Living in the shadow of these things I need to get done or else I can’t be happy?! Again I totally think a lot of mums and just everyone in general understands this idea.

Out came the contingency list. I did some yoga for spine health with TC doing downward facing dogs that turned into roly-polys (I know, WHAT A SHOWOFF). I like this yoga set because I can do it seated haha. How quickly I go from a productive mood to lazy mood! If you have never done this set of exercises be warned, you can get a little sore afterwards!

Kundalini Yoga: Guidelines for Sadhana (Pomona, California: Kundalini Research Institute, 1974), p.45-6.

After that I did a short meditation to clear subconscious blocks. To do this, I pick a happy song, set my intention to clear any obstacles and infuse everything with positivity, and then I sit, smiling and clapping my hands to the song. The hand clapping is partly to keep TC engaged but also it feels hard not to be cheerful when you are clapping away. I also played this track I really like for humming Om to.

After this I just felt really good about going where the day took me.

The day took me on a walk to brunch.

And later it turned out TC wanted an afternoon nap so I even got to chop loads of veggies to stir fry when TC woke up. We make our dinner together as part of our evening routine. It is just as well because one evening I was so flat out trying to do everything that after washing the rice I was about to walk off without pushing the lever to start the rice cooker. If TC hadn’t been gesturing at the rice cooker we would have been riceless. Riceless! *shudder*

I tried out my Joseph Joseph noodle maker thingy again and again it was a just the most disappointing thing ever. Totally does not work for me. It’s just a really expensive container now.

I’ve been really into eating as many colour vegetables as possible. I keep calling my veggie stir fries “chakra stir fries”. Technically they are.

I’m pretty happy with how the day turned out.

* Not a real statistic but golly it feels that way

** Also: I did not get paid for my opinion on the Full Moon App or Joseph Joseph. I bought that noodle maker thingy with my own money and I downloaded the free version of the Full Moon App for my own use.

Post, Interrupted – mascara calls

July 25, 2018July 25, 2018 by Dominique

I started to write a catchy-uppy post the night before. It will show up eventually but in the meantime I read an article about a woman who didn’t wash her mascara off and a surgeon had to REMOVE GLOBS OF MASCARA FROM HER EYEBALLS.Do you ever find that even after washing your face clean (supposedly? allegedly?), you’ll wake up in the morning and find more mascara shadow? I’ve been spending the limited time I have between baby bedtime and mummy bedtime scrubbing my eyelashes clean of all gunk. And then following up with skincare because I’m already standing up, might as well.

I really think I got ’em squeaky clean this time. I know micellar water is super popular for cleansing but have you ever tried olive oil? I get really good results with olive oil on gauze. And I never run out of it. After that I get a warm washcloth and dab. It’s SO relaxing.

What do you use for cleanser?

The Universe has a funny way of working for you: Story of my (mom) life and a sort of Gratitude Practice

January 2, 2018December 31, 2018 by Dominique

I had been trying to pack for our annual trip back to Sydney for Christmas for the past three days. Every single day came with its own obstacle course of reasons why I could not get everything done. Our flight was at 7 o’clock in the evening and as at noon I had:

sweated through one set of clothes;

got a sink full of things to wash up;

one toddler alternating between chasing me around the apartment and wrapping themself around my neck/leg;

suitcases open with the contents flung far and wide (thanks for the assistance UNPACKING, o child of mine).

My heart was pounding with adrenaline or angst. If you would only nap, I kept muttering to myself as I grimly dragged myself around the apartment trying to replace items back in the suitcase, child firmly wrapped around my left calf like a barnacle. IF ONLY.

Another hour went by and finally, finally, naptime. I retreated to the bedroom to lie down and regroup as well. I felt like I had ALREADY been on a redeye flight with a baby. Still needed to make lunch because feeding children is what we do. WOOSA.

In the back of my mind a soundtrack kept playing on a loop, “How the heck is this going to happen?”

I shook my head and thought well let’s just do our best and if anything gets let behind, as long as it’s not the baby that’s fine. As I walked to the kitchen to start making lunch, B said to me, “Hey, your flight has been delayed. By 3 hours.”

THANK YOU UNIVERSE. I bet no one ever appreciates a flight delay but this time I really needed it.

The child slept terribly on the flight as in not at all but was very happy just shimmying around our seats so it all came together.

Our jetlag lasted a week. But I’m still going to call it a win and I am GRATEFUL.

Haute Off the Press : Maison Valentino

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 by Dominique

It’s Haute Couture week in Paris and I used to love buying magazines to ooh and aah over way back when. Then the internet happened so it became so much more instant. And now there’s Instagram. Soon I’ll be able to time travel and see the shows before they happen. Only a matter of time before someone makes an app for that.

I miss the pleasure of buying magazines! I’ll always have a soft spot for print.

Anyway.

I saw this image from Maison Valentino.

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A post shared by Valentino (@maisonvalentino)

Firstly, that colour. Or. La Couleur. Ooh la la. Me anytime I see a vibrantly coloured anything in silk: take my purse, help yourself. Once, and I’m not proud of it, I spent so much money on a pair of saffron coloured silk genie trousers from Scanlan & Theodore that I walked home in a daze and I don’t know what I ate that week. Lettuce, probably. I don’t regret getting them but I felt so silly afterwards for being so crazy with my money. It was a case of almost buyer’s remorse. More like spender’s folly. I was working really hard and suddenly all my cash was spent in seconds and I had to figure out how to get through the week. Love the trousers (I still have them!) but I learnt my lesson after that.
“Pay” your savings first before you go shopping!

Come to think of it, Scanlan & Theodore got alot of my money any season when they seemed to make the whole line out of silk. Or chiffon. Or cotton. I learned that lesson about savings coming first a bit slow. Or I’d forget the minute I walked in there.

I’ve stopped walking in there. See no silk, buy no silk. Back to this Haute Couture gown I’m eyeballing.

I love that colour so much.

Secondly, those puffy sleeves! So flattering on everyone.

Does it have pockets? I can’t tell from this angle but it looks like it might. I love gowns with pockets.

And that neckline and that train! Perfect for breastfeeding and swanning around the house feeling very glamorous. Or for trailing along the edge of the ocean on a beach somewhere far far away as the sun sets. Or just wearing it anywhere. Brunch, I suppose. Is brunching still cool? Let me know.

Also very enamoured with how well behaved that child is sitting there on her mother’s lap. Although she is probably what, ten? – I’m terrible at guessing ages. I only know how old my baby is because I pushed (more like squeezed) my baby out myself. You remember days like that. – Still. So well behaved!
Filing this under: logical choices / daydream

Mom Jeans v Mom Life

July 5, 2017 by Dominique

Heh, funny story. Remember how I got those mules? Well…… I also got a pair of ‘mom jeans’ to go with them or with other things. I could wear them everywhere.

Great idea right?

RIGHT.

Although…. I can’t fit into them. I, a MOM, cannot fit into my MOM JEANS.

From the side, they don’t look that bad, right? A bit of a squeeze but totally fine.

Wait.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

“Can you get back into your jeans yet?“

“Sure. Just can’t do them up yet.“

I’m only posting this to share the humour and also to show that I am not a bounce right back after baby girl. It’s been three months. There is no bouncing. I lost weight after the birth and also from breastfeeding but I’m really, really soft in the middle, and even softer after a meal haha. But I’m not that worried because I know that with a little exercise, a decent amount of Pilates, continuing to eat healthfully and I’ll be in my jeans soon.

So here are the goals I have for myself:

30 min walk everyday
15-20 min Pilates everyday
Yoga
Drinking 3 litres of water a day
Incidental exercise like squatting whilst carrying the baby (who finds the up down motion extremely amusing)

Mostly these goals are just to make myself feel good. It feels amazing to move and any toning is a bonus! It’s important to me not to make the goal getting into a certain size otherwise I can get disappointed by how long things take whereas if my goal is just exercise for the pleasure of it, I find the process so much more enjoyable.

Oh, and the jeans are from Mink Pink, the material is super thick which I love and I got them for 15% off.

If you had a baby, tell me, did you fit back in your jeans right away? Or are you taking a while like me? What goals have you set for yourself? Let me know down below! xx

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Outfit Love [Selena Gomez]: Mom Jeans x Velvet Mules

July 1, 2017July 5, 2017 by Dominique ♥ 2 Comments

It’s been a while! I take it you know I recently had a baby? So we’re pretty much all caught up! I spend most of my time breastfeeding, then shoehorning into what remains of my time my yoga practice and trying to solve the mystery of why nappies leak sometimes – is it at all related to the phase the moon is in? Mercury? No?

Anyway, the other thing I do alot is look at what everybody is wearing. I’ve always loved people watching. One night I came across an image of Selena Gomez (she seems nice! I only know one song but man it is soooooo catchy!) in a pair of orange mules and mom jeans. And I was so taken by the look. I’ve always thought of mules as tricky because they can kind of look a bit ageing but she looked great IMHO.

Image Source: Backgrid

I love that the heel is still low enough that you don’t end up wobbling around whenever the wind changes direction but you still get a little lift. And that colour is so vibrant.

Do you know how much those shoes are? $600. Ish.

I have $600 shoes. I love them. But I also have super cheapie shoes which I love too. It’s fun to mix and match things, instead of being head to toe designer. I had a browse around that bordered on obsessive and finally settled on some vegan suede ones from Therapy. I got two pairs for way, way less than a fraction so I could (in theory) pick up a pair of jeans if I wanted. I wanted! (I have a funny story about that)

These are the $600 ones from Mansur Gavriel. Mmmm, gorgeous aren’t they?

Here is what I ended up getting:

The black ones are a little higher than the red so I’ll wear those when I feel like I’d like a boost haha. They feel really comfy and I’m looking forward to getting out of this cold so I can put these babies to good use. Loving the sweater weather but I’m ready to emerge for some sunshine!

A few days after I got these I tried on a pair of boots I got last winter aaaaaaand they’re too small! Because pregnancy, oh my goodness. So I feel really justified about getting my new shoes.

What do you think of mules? Love ’em or leave ’em?

If you see any other cute ones, let me know!

P.S. Ohhhhhh the Mansur Gavriel ones come in the sweetest blush pink too. Soooooo pretty!

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Busy Doing Nothing

June 16, 2017June 16, 2017 by Dominique

I’m also researching how to get yellow poop stains out. So, REALLY busy.

What’s with diapers that don’t do their one job? C’mon diaper, you had ONE thing to do.

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Our Zenaissance

we are changing

Feeling Fruity – Fancy a Refreshment? Smoothie Bowls For Early Dinner

A New Motto for Procrastinators and Perfectionists

Birthday Weekend 1 – Growing Up, Shopping and Tea

A To Do List for a Nothing is Going to get Done Day – Yoga, Meditation and Stir Fry

Post, Interrupted – mascara calls

The Universe has a funny way of working for you: Story of my (mom) life and a sort of Gratitude Practice

Haute Off the Press : Maison Valentino

Mom Jeans v Mom Life

Outfit Love [Selena Gomez]: Mom Jeans x Velvet Mules

Busy Doing Nothing