Somewhat Damaged: Updates

Forgive me Blogger for I have gone for quite some time. Other than posting an eid greeting, I haven't blogged about anything new. Not that there's nothing interesting going on... On the contrary. Too many things to write. I don't even know where to start. Well... Right now I'm just going to write before it's too late and vanished from my memory.

First thing that comes into mind is about Ari, our driver for 5/6 years. He is not with us anymore because of health problem. You could notice that something is wrong just by taking a quick glimpse at him. When I talked about it with the maids, they finally confessed to me that Ari had been coughing and taking long naps upstairs. And the only doctor he "visited" was Halodoc. ............... After we sent him to a REAL doctor and the verdict came out, we had to let him go. The last thing I heard from the maids before eid was that Ari's family would come to pick him up. But it was weeks ago. There's no news, excuses, messages, updates, goodbyes, whatsoever even to this day. Typical Ari. So... Yeah... All I can do now is to wish him well.

With no driver it was pretty chaotic. Before eid Kukka still had to go school, I had pilates class, and everything else. SiBapa had to step in. Dewi went back and forth to drop Kukka's lunch. And if SiBapa couldn't do it, Dewi had to be the one who take and pick up Kukka at school. Things got a bit calmer when the eid holiday began. No school and pilates classes. Just stay at home, no need for driver.

Then it was time for Dewi, Yuli and I to prepare for the real "war" 😂 This year Dewi and I had this idea to cook everything upfront and store the ready-to-eat meal in the freezer. So all I had to do later was to put the food in the microwave before eating time and voila! Food's ready! No need for me to read recipes and "cook" as in put the meat/chicken/fish/veggies/spices/etc on the skillet-pots-pans and have mountains of dirty dishes afterwards. Days before the cooking began Dewi and I brainstormed the menu for April 29 until May 3rd. It wasn't as easy as it sounded. Trust me 😆 I bet the women who read this can understand. There was a lot of things to consider. For example which veggies was safer to be stored longer, what meat should be cooked in what way, what day was okay to have fish and the list went on. After the menu was ready Dewi and Yuli went to the market. They came home with a huuuuuuge pile of groceries! It looked like they were going to cook for an entire army 🤣🤣🤣 And then finally it was cooking time. The last days before Dewi pulkam, she cooked and cooked and cooked and cooked until her entire body smelled like spices, she said 😂 Before the journey to her hometown began, Dewi sent me a long goodbye message with very important reminders 😎 :

Why she had to send me this reminder? Well... Because there was this one time when I totally forgot to take out the food out of the freezer 😅 I did defrost it in the microwave... But let's just say it didn't go/taste very well. Hence the reminder. Alhamdulillah everything went well. Every day our family enjoyed Dewi's cooking as if she never left 🙂 Yuli took leave a couple of days after Dewi. She too sent me a heartfelt message on the day she left, reminder about how to do this-that, and as always: "Ibu jangan cape-cape ya" 😊

Well unfortunately it was inevitable 😅 Lots of chores had to be done daily, I couldn't just skip it. So seizures? Yes I had lots of episodes... But luckily this year I knew how to do things better. After finishing 1 task, I took a breath and rest. I had a cup of coffee or watched TV. Sometimes I even took a short nap. I tried to take things easy. Just C H I L L. I told myself that it was fine NOT to do the laundry or sweeping the bedroom floor for 1 day. As long as most parts of the house was clean, it was a-okay. There was this one day when I had a series of bad seizures. My right part of the brain (temporal lobe) hurt so much I could feel the pain twitched everytime I took a step or make a movement. I think it was because I was too eager to finish everything. After that painful day I knew I had to relax.

Doing the laundry was the easiest. All I had to do was to put the big pile of dirty clothes into the washing machine and pressed START 😄 Hanging the clean ones were pretty tough because of the crazy heat. But alhamdulillah I had help 👧🏻😘 Ironing was a big no-no. Besides, since there was no school, what's the point of ironing?!? Am I right or am I right?!???? 🤪 But yeah... Making the beds, sweeping the floor, washing the non-stop of dirty dishes, taking out the trash... Doing all those things felt harder than an hour of an intense pilates session 😂 Now... The thing that pissed me off was, after doing all those heavy chores you'd think that you'd fall asleep at night very easy. Right? Well... Still a big no for me 🙄 Every night I woke up more than 3 times and had difficulty to fall back to sleep. I had nightmares. I had minor seizures. I had chills and almost vomited on the bed. And the list went on. But hey? What can you do other than istighfar 😎

Eid Day was nice 🥰