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.

Haul All The Cuteness: Unboxing GILT – Baby Wardrobe

December 20, 2016December 20, 2016 by Dominique

A few years ago, B went to some outlet in LA and came back with three, maybe four, pairs of sneakers for himself and one pair of Converse kicks for the baby. We didn’t have a baby and I wasn’t pregnant.

*exchanges meaningful look with you*

THIS year, I found out I was pregnant. In her excitement my mum promptly went out and bought three pairs of shoes for the baby. During the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales this year, I saw the cutest dinkiest sweetest pair of baby shoes by Burberry on GILT. And instantly I understood why people keep buying shoes for babies. They’re just so darn cute! I hmm’d and ha’d over them for the longest time.

I showed my laptop screen to B.

“OMG THEY’RE SO ADORABLE, GET THEM ALREADY.”

“Ok, ok. Well, whilst I’m here, let’s have a look-see what else these babies purchase.”

And that’s how I ended up with a cart containing one pair of baby shoes, three pairs of organic pants, two sets of swaddle cloths, four rompers, one hat and a partridge in a pear tree. You get the drift. I lost my mind over all the cuteness. Ugh.

I mulled over the cart for a few more days, telling myself that if the shoes were still available online then ok, fine, I’ll get them. But NO MORE SHOES AFTER THAT. Newborns don’t even walk so why do they even need all that footwear for?

I checked back in a few days later, and the shoes sat there in my cart, patiently waiting for me. So I got them and along with them I picked up a few organic clothes for the baby. I culled most of the items I saved to my cart, keeping just the organic clothing that was reasonably priced and generously discounted. Who doesn’t add a ton of stuff to their cart and later laugh at the idea of actually buying everything? I’ve never heard of the brands aside from Burberry, I’ve never heard of most baby brands since my clients are always fully grown humans but I thought you might like to see what I ended up getting after several days of mulling.

Update: After I made my order I said to B, “OK! No more shoes for the baby for a while!” Minutes later we walked past a clothing boutique for children and he dashed in. Guess what he bought? More shoes.

I’ve never been THIS excited to see a box full of items that aren’t for me delivered. NEVER.

genius-place-to-put-a-sticker — WHO puts the sticker on the TOP of a lid?!

Genius sticker placement. Well done whoever did that.

Those of you who, like me, love pretty containers and boxes, will probably heave a sigh of relief when I tell you that the sticker peeled off easily. But still, who puts a label on the TOP of a box instead of the side? So weird.

burberry-baby — If these came in my size…

Oh my goodness. I can’t stand how ridiculously cute these are. I showed them to mum and jokingly suggested I could turn these into key chains when the baby grows out of them. She immediately said, yeah, one for you and one for me. She sure took to that idea real quick.

Have you heard of Nui Organics? I’ve never heard of it but I like the pattern and the soft pastel colour. Texture wise it doesn’t feel majorly soft but it’s organic and I’ve found when clothes are super soft they get holes in them from washing quite quickly.

This is from The Bonnie Mob and also says it is organic. I just love the bright colours and the happy print! Who knows, baby might want to be an astronaut! The clip buttons down near the diaper area will make logistics easy to navigate.

Another organic romper but with short sleeves in case things get too warm. I came across an old interview of Tom Ford and he was saying how he told his son that children don’t look good in black. “Ok, then I’ll wear grey” was the response he got. Kids are hysterical aren’t they?

So, that was my first experience shopping for tiny humans! What do you think of my choices? And do you know anything about these labels? Any good? Please let me know down below!

*This isn’t a sponsored post, I’m not connected to any of these labels or to GILT.

Choose Joy, Always

December 10, 2015January 17, 2017 by Dominique

Making happy faces at you from behind the screen. *Waves*

Currently editing a video which I described as for lazy bones (bonses?!) on my Instagram but maybe we should reframe that? What do you reckon? Lemme know?

Meanwhile this ~~lazy bones~~ hardworker is going to have some lunch (leftovers from a recipe I will also be sharing with you) and then will post those up.

See you later! xx

P.S. how has your week been? I want to know!

Our Zenaissance

we are changing

Tag: happy days

Birthday Weekend 1 – Growing Up, Shopping and Tea

Haul All The Cuteness: Unboxing GILT – Baby Wardrobe

Choose Joy, Always