Thursday, 6 May 2021 13:26 “Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone” Gladys Bronwyn Stern One thing I always enforce in our home, is that my children have to say ‘bedankt, mama’ (thank you, mama) every time they receive the meal at home. Yes, I’m a bad mom – I
Menjawab tantangan mingguan KLIP dengan tema “menemukan kepingan ide tulisan”, saya mencoba bercerita tentang bagaimana saya ‘mendulang’ ide yang bisa dituangkan dalam bentuk tulisan setiap harinya. Ceritanya saya sudah dua hari absen dari setoran tulisan KLIP. Kenapakah? Kurang ide? Sebenarnya tidak. Dua hari yang lalu kebetulan saya punya waktu luangRead More
“J, stop putting your hand in your mouth!” “No, that’s not the bin for paper. You have to use the one above. Yes that one.” “Do you have an eye in the back of your head, Mama? How come you can see what we’re doing when you’re not looking atRead More
Two weeks of not-walking husband has left me with the responsibility of a single parent. This shouldn’t be something new, because for a year we practically lived apart between Paris and Utrecht – my husband in Paris and me and kids here at home. But I guess one sick manRead More
I’ve known the story of King Saul all of my life. The first king of Israel, a man who stood out among his fellows by his physical distinction: a handsome young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else (1 SamuelRead More
Life is full of things – complicated things. Some things are easy to define – helping others is right, stealing is wrong. But many things fall somewhere in between. And dealing with these things is never easy. We do wrongs not always because we’d like do so. Some people gambleRead More
It’s been days since so many things around me are completely out of my control, and I’m absolutely N O T H A P P Y. All the frustrations were so ready to snap out of my system, and the more I let everyone in the house know how frustratedRead More
As I laid in my bed tonight I suddenly remembered the mother of my friend. A university friend of mine, he was from the same year but different major with me. We were together in the swimming club of our university, and we were very close for several years ofRead More
It’s been three days since my dear husband stayed in bed. First it looked like he catches a cold. Fearing that he would share his virus to the children we arranged him to sleep alone in my daughter’s room. Two mornings later he woke up unable to move his rightRead More
One of the annoying things I deal with my children is the moment they don’t ask me when they deal with problems. “J, why do you stand still there? Have you finished your school work?” “No, mama. I don’t know how to do this part,” he pointed out some mathRead More
Lagi-lagi menjawab tantangan KLIP, yang temanya “Persiapan Menyambut Ramadhan”. Kenapa kok senang banget ikut tantangan KLIP? Hehehe, saya menggunakan tantangan mingguan ini sebagai suatu tantangan buat diri saya sendiri untuk menulis berdasarkan tema yang tidak diciptakan sendiri. Lumayan kan, setiap minggu ada satu tema baru, tidak usah capek-capek mikir sudah
Menjawab tantangan KLIP minggu ini: “memilih buku bacaan untuk anak-anak”, saya teringat suatu kejadian di satu sore di RS. Boromeus, Bandung. Saya sedang menunggu giliran dipanggil oleh dr. spesialis di sana, untuk memeriksakan maag saya yang sedang kambuh. Karena lama sekali, saya iseng berjalan keluar. Di depan pintu masuk utamaRead More
She was a woman of praises, a beautiful young woman, graduated from high prestige university, small built and completed with meekness and gentleness. She was known by many, praised by many. Many juniors looked at her with full respect. Many good words were spoken about her. She was like aRead More
I know don’t about other people but I feel like my brain never stops working. It keeps talking to me. Does it mean I hear voices? Am I sychrizopenic? Am I delusional? I don’t think so. My life is pretty dull most of the time and yes I’m struggling everyRead More
Menjawab tantangan tema menulis minggu ini di KLIP: “bagaimana saya ikut menjaga lingkungan”, saya akan berbagi cerita tentang pengelolaan sampah di negara Belanda dan bagaimana saya dan keluarga mengikuti peraturannya. Pemerintah Belanda sangat proaktif dalam mengkampanyekan ‘recycling‘ – mendaur ulang. Mereka percaya bahwa dari semua sampah yang kita hasilkan, 75%
Between two neighbours, there’s only a wall of 20 centimeters dividing the life of two families apart. The latest technology might even provide us with an even thinner wall, which still provides strength and isolation needed to divide two houses. With such a fine line between two lives, I realize
It’s been almost four months since the 2nd wave Corona lockdown applied in the Netherlands. I heard in the news the 3rd wave is coming and our neighbouring countries start to impose a new set of lockdown again. These lockdown and un-lockdown things have been going on and off so
Sometimes we find ourselves in a point of going nowhere. We know approximately what to do, but our eyes are fixated on the things that hinder us from doing that. “I haven’t fully understood what going on is.” “I still don’t know the details. I don’t even understand the big
There was a hot issue discussed yesterday on one of the Facebook groups I followed. A Netherlands man with Indonesian background went on air in a television show complaining about his ex-girlfriend (he found via a dating site) who never lifted a finger to help him doing the house chores
Today I’m going to write here about my children and their books. I’ve once written about how in the Netherlands’ school the children are exposed a lot to books – story books. When I was young and went to school, we didn’t have many good story books except the books