2012 SUPER reviews

So, tomorrow is a new year started and I still couldn't believe that 2012 is over in few hours away.  2012 is so much different in any other year in my life, it's mixed of so many sweet moments rather than the bitter ones. The only words I've for my (our) 2012 is "awesomely beautiful". Of course, there are new people we made friendship with and the old ones that gone by as their dark side are totally shown. I know and I realized on how the amazing LORD has been in protecting me in terms of relationship especially. HE protects me from the people who harmed me (us) and this extra protections made me feel even more great and blessed than ever. True, no one will stays forever in your life, but you know the best ones aren't just going to leave you when their purpose of friendship is true and faithful.  I also did mistakes to bunch of people, perhaps some of my friends got hurt with the words I said or attitudes I shown, but regardless whoever whom I hurt intentionally or unintentionally, I apologized. And for those whom I hurt intentionally, I've no regret of doing so, neither I would ask to be forgiven because I know I won't do so if its not too much to handle for me.  Look, I'm too tired of wasting my time and for the ones who were/ are creating some opportunities from me. My message for each of you is this simple "we're old, let's grown up, be a better friend and I'm glad you're walking from my life / putting distance." As for my other "awesome friends" who have made my 2012 becomes "awesomely beautiful", I (and sam) couldn't be thankful enough for the presences at every moments of ours. The moments when we needed a super support and moments when we felt overdosed by HIS blessings. The moments when we were struggling and our hearts were crying so loudly seeking for HIS MERCY and the moments when we are on the top of the world and know all are going so well. Friends who've reminded us about HIS GRACE and to be patience, I know HE will be giving each of you rewards that money will never buy and that's HIS blessings! Each of you has made us felt that together we can conquer the world and victory is ours to own which is just the true fact about having best people surrounds you! not to just cheer you up but to laugh, to cry, to seek hope and to fight together.

WOW! Our baby also have turned ONE year old, entering the toddler year now. I remembered the first time we started our exhibition or whatever you're going to call it. We introduced our brand to this school by doing a Christmas Photo-Booth with Santa. There, we started our journey with nothing much to offer but very confident in what we were doing. We were just lost parents but never gave up! Then, the roads are slowly being opened, being shown, until where we are today. We were given the chance to do couple of exhibition at the same place with so much experiences we got. I didn't know how it all happened but, HIS timing have always been perfect. Now, we are getting our presents from the tears, worries, disappointments and struggles we went through. The struggles aren't about in "getting clients" but also with our relationship. It's a different relationship when both of us working and running the same business. Often, tensions at work comes in between, we got angry because of work not because of relationship or vice-versa. Quite take sometime to adjust but slowly, we adapted with the situation and be professional when it has to do with work. We put a line in between who do what and try to keep ourselves in that limit. But once again, its worth it, it paid off and now, our work is getting its recognition faster than we thought. Often, when we talk with strangers, they were like "oh, i know that company. I've heard..."  and clients are referring our baby to their community which is a heaven's blessed. So yeah those quarrels, silly arguments, and less time for dating have made our baby growing properly :)

In this awesome year, our work is also getting its recognition even though not yet at the top but we are climbing and getting people trust. We did couple of massive exhibitions at the same place with bitter sweet experiences but those were worth it at the end. Especially, the last few months, we were super blessed, the works are keeping us busy everyday until we didn't even have time for ourselves, friends or family too. We kept the entertainment life aside for quite long time because you just couldn't ditched your clients. Often, we got a very last minute deals so basically, we always said NO to going out in the weekend.

ONE thing we kept continuously doing in 2012 was that "keeping up the romance in hectic schedules". So in every 3rd of the month, we celebrated our anniversary and lately for the past few months, we had work to do on that day. But no matter how tiring the work or how busy it was (even one of us may forgotten but never both of us), we spared some precious hours together even by means it was just quick lunch/dinner or sometimes movie + lunch; barely one-full-day. Of course, it's a deal we made that no matter how hectic our schedule will be in the future, we have to take few hours OFF on that day for a quick date. I know (we know), you never can balance romance and work but with little efforts from each other by abandoned work for few hours, will make it balance. When you're running the business together, often in time, we bring personal issues to work but as time goes by, we learnt and are keep trying to keep aside and prioritize work. And I like to make "MONDAY" as our official holiday but it barely became holiday for us but of course we are happier to be occupied with tons of works then doing an art-of-nothing.

An awesome year it have been for us, 2012 had its awesome highlighted moments for us. Moments when we cried and felt like giving up! Moments where trust became such big issue and creating awareness reached its end. Moments where we thought and saw with our own eyes that we were stuck but HE opened those tiny roads for us. But 2012 became the remarkable year where the most important thing we learnt is to SURRENDER in HIS PLANS completely. As for me, each disappointment moment that were happened, happens because I lack trust unto myself, my faith and the most in HIM. But Grumpy never failed me to bringing back my faith, made me regaining my strength and made each and every pieces of my broken dreams became alive again. I forgot where did I read but the whole thing is that "in order to be successful, you need to make your own circle of people to make it happen". and in my case, I've found my partner. We are very different individuals whether the way we think, we perceives and attitudes but these differences which often made us had big arguments didn't make us getting weaker. Instead they have made us stronger and covering each other weaknesses. Thank you Grumpy for making me better, better and stronger lady. Doing business with differences are tough but tough is just a word to describe when you aren't able to compromise. It takes long time to compromise, to understand why he behaves like this/that, but once you understand the messages they want to pass to you, you will just be grateful to have them as your partner :-)

Thank you LORD JESUS for made me realize that YOU are amazing and how blessed I'm. THANK YOU for granted my biggest wishes, the wishes my heart longing for. Thank you for surrounded me with the best people even the numbers of them aren't huge but the little community which I built have been my best cheerleaders. Thank you for every clients YOU had given to us whether they love or dislike our works but thanks to YOU, the majority loves it. Thank YOU for made me appreciate everything YOU've given to me and I'm so sorry for unable to spend as much time as I should have, praising and singing for YOUR GLORY.

LORD JESUS, YOU are amazing, glorious and gracious. Those who have seen me for long understands how much YOU love me and blessed me with YOUR mercy. Thank you for making my parents healthy, lucky and wealthy too. Thank you for giving me, Mr. Grumpy to protect and making me better person. Thank you for the friends who've stayed throughout the whole amazing year and I forgive those who hurt me intentionally or not, as I asked to be forgiven by YOU :)

LIFE has always been great when I surrender in YOU! Thank you LORD for making my 2013 wishes granted even before I know when precisely it will, but I know YOU will. And as a person, I want to be able to control my anger, become wiser and more mature in terms of well acting more cool in front of new people :p! "attitudes" have to be shown more cool and mature. One thing I really want to control and that's my horrible short-temper but apart from that I love my stubborn thinking :p!!

Wonderful Christmas 2012!

Introducing you, the awesome chef who made super delicious food! She is my friend's mom and I felt so blessed and super lucky to be invited into their annual christmas lunch fiesta. Okay, this is my first ever Christmas lunch where the family gathered and had those dishes like I saw in the movie! Never my christmas lunch was this perfect. It was all started when me, tania, and yenny went out together after a decade and she was talking about her "annual christmas lunch", and me & yenny was you know"we want it, we want it" LOL! and there were we and Indri, ate the yummiest turkey with no mercy to our tummy. Thank you so much aunty and Tania, it was such a great experienced we had! And goodness me, I really can felt the warmth of Christmas, the laughter, great food and the funniest things were the "giving presents" moment. Ava and Calista became like the Santa elves and both of them were super (always) adorable, weren't they. PS : I love the sister bonding they have together! Okay, let's just see the pictures, that's all. LOVE all the food and desert too much! and thank you so much for the invitation! GOD Bless each of you tons :)

And afterwards, we continued the fun of Christmas Spirit! We went Karaoke at nearby house but didn't take bunch of photos. All of us were being super silly, sang some old classic songs and beers of course. Honestly, the songs we sang weren't too oldies like those songs in our youth time but goodness us! Hard to believe on how old we are now ha-ha-ha-ha! We sang those classic hits songs from Backstreet Boys areas.

Merry X-MAS to all of you and I know the blog entry is just too late but lately, things have been rough.  Nothing crap happened, it's just my eyes got infected or whenever it's tired, the headache starts. Once again, I had a wonderful x-mas and x-mas eve celebration too and I felt super blessed of course. I'm so blessed by HIS GRACE and surrender in each and everything toward the LORD JESUS made my life becomes EXTRA blessed and wonderful. Happy Birthday LORD JESUS, YOU are PERFECT :)

Christmas Eve!

Mr. Grumpy was super excited when he knew Dabangg 2 is out already but due to hectic schedule, we couldn't made it until CHRISTMAS EVE! Actually, we were planning for this since Saturday and the truth I forgot! But thank GOD, everyone remembered. Me, Grumpy, Suresh and Era did double date again but this time is with "ice creams", how lovely. Here's my 2c about the movie : "lost the touch of action but entertaining and the genre is more of comedy movie!" I don't say Dabbang 1 is awesome as it's not my kind of movie but I would said Salman did really well in acting and I love on how he portray Chulbul, the typical Indian cop like in every Bollywood movies I see. The 1st one is of course show the "macho" side of Chulbul Pandey which I think it's quite sexy while the 2nd ones is more into showing his "feminine" side. Yeah it's good sequences but D-2 is more like drama and comedy where we see the fun side of him. I'm not sure about the D-3 but I guess, there's a big possibility that the 3rd sequence will be on! My rating for the movie is 6.5/10 because the movie made me laugh and really entertaining. But not as all of us expected to be. It's good but not awesome like how others reviewed it. Me and Grumpy expected more into actions with touch of comedy not fully drama! The songs are more reckless and funny and I enjoyed the songs especially that Fevicol Se - ha-ha-ha-ha  :") 

DONE with the movie and had no idea what to do so we decided to just shop a bit at Food Hall buying chocolates. We were in the state of "not hungry yet but later at night we'll be", so I decided to just let's go for dinner. Sadly, Grumpy didn't want to eat, something wrong with his tummy! We had food at Pizza Marzano and pardon me for the crap photos! We ordered two pizzas, two dough balls and totally yummy meatballs! I tried their new pizza but I forgot the name "Sloppy something" and it's awesome! I wish Grumpy could had tried them even for a bit because I know he gonna loves it! The only thing that Pizza Marazano has always failed me is their "service"- super slow. We were waiting more than 15 minutes for our drink and around 30 minutes or so for the pizzas! Of course, their pizzas are yummy but still, 30 minutes +++ for waiting is just too much, isn't it? :)

Yeah, awesome Christmas Eve I had today! Mr. Santa gave us present too and we were super joyed! Even though my two eyes are still infected, but thank GOD, I could did my work. I always become this wonder-woman whenever I'm working and holding my hubby. The pains are bothering a lot but I forgot the pains, just working, working and working. I know I'm workaholic but thank you so much LORD for given me the strength to finish my work off. Working from morning, continued with beautiful sweet romantic pizza dating with Mr Grumpy at lunch, then ended with movie date and pizza dinner with the best ones. Heaven's blessed and thank you so much LORD! Looking forward for tomorrow's Christmas Lunch with the girls. Work - Dating - Hang out - Working is what I love!

FASHION Photography!

OMG! Let me tell you a dirty little secret ...  Ready?!

This is my F.I.R.S.T. time to shoot for fashion catalogue but the name I'll make it disclosure as it's their new products that will be launched in 2013! The brand is quite famous though and I went ga-ga-ga when I got this project. I had no expectation or whatsoever. Never ever I thought I would ever be doing this or had a courage to do so if it wasn't because of Mr. Grumpy! How confident I was? Well, wasn't confident enough knowing i had no idea what to do or how the model supposed to pose. But thank GOD all went smooth and the model was just totally cooperative, friendly and super-fun! Of course all of us were super tired and some parts of our body went numb but it was such an awesome experience.

Other than that, the "place"! So I look around at their showroom as the owner wanted something simple but elegant and NOT a fussy ones! Of course, it wasn't smooth at first since we had problems regarding with the model agency but praised HIM, all ended awesomely! HE is great all the times! Felt like this project is such a big blessing for us and we were so proud to be able to capture their "first" edition for book catalogue produce in Indonesia! and it's such an honor, that we got chosen to do so.

What I least expected is the place. We were given two places but we chose their store right away! I had no idea on how the photo-shoot would be done, what pose should the model did, and other stuff! Basically, I had no imagination, like I always be! I just let things go with its flow which I ended up loving each of the photos! Okay, this is me being bias! but get through these four images for a sneak peek and hope you love them as much as I do! and I remembered, the day before the shot, Grumpy told me "BE CONFIDENT" because often I felt insecure a lot especially when It is not my cuppa of tea or something bothers me. But I guess, when I let all my worries a lot and pretend as "miss-know-everything", I'm able to excel. Enjoy the photos and thank you so much Mr. Grumpy for the encouragement and the LORD who have given us an opportunity to be their "first" and we gave 101% towards this job, full dedications and may we achieved their expectation or even awesomely beyond their imagination :) #Aamiin!  

i LOVE Baby C!

Finally, after one year of waiting, this baby is in my hands and now I called him Baby C! I wasn't expecting to get it this sooner but HIS plan has always been awesome. Funny on how I got this car as it was all started with a dream I had. It was like ONE week before we made a booking where I had my dream that I got a new car and well, the rest is just history :D! I still disbelieved for quite long time and kept it low as much as I could until I hug my baby! Since I drive Manual for years, so driving in Auto is a bit troublesome for me as I tried the car and I press the break too much! Apart from that, I drive "Super slow!" I'm totally speechless except one thing for clear, HE granted my wishes again and like Grumpy said, I'm really blessed. Thank you super much LORD and those who've prayed for us to get what we wanted too!

 

in TODDLER years

okay, i know this is so late but I'm just doing a very late blog entry since the work occupied me too much - basically really super hectic. Hip Hip super Hooray! " Our baby" has turned ONE on 29th of November 2012! that is the tagline for tonight's blog entry as I also try to keep updated my blog so I won't lose my love towards writing. I still couldn't believe and living in denial that our baby has become a Toddler!  I swear I felt that we are running this business only for few months like half year only but surprisingly 12 months it have been and it's keep going awesomely. Of course running where we are today, full of struggles and never was as easy as it sounds nor looks. I know many could see lots of smile in our faces with so much happiness most of time but they did not see the parts where we cried, where we lost faith, hope and clinging to each other. And yes, we did cry a lot but its worth it. For each lesson HE gives to us is only to make us better, stronger and wealthier too. 

We cried, we laughed, but always be thankful for every little things HE gave even by means we didn't get any profit from the photo-shoot. Yeah, often we wondered "where's the money left for us" but at the end of the day, we always say "thank you LORD". At first, we were too eager in getting clients but who isn't when you are a new player, right? We ignored every little things and just pleased the client by following what they wanted and thank GOD, we decided to change our attitudes after bad experiences hit us! I wanted to act more cool, tried to stand up for my own right even Grumpy pushed me to do but I decided to hold on a little longer until I fed up anyway. I realized "you can't pleased everyone when yourself is on the verge". 

We did exhibitions in every months since April at the same place, Miniapolis, Plaza Indonesia and from there we learnt a lot especially me and our freelance marketing, Ferdinand. What we learnt is that "when client loves you, they make an effort and adjustment and yes we compromise at the end, but when they have no interest in you, they don't care about your offers even you give the cheapest price than the market, they would still say no!" which is true and you can understand those later when your business is starting to be steady. We are also like that, if we don't want to buy something, no matter how those sales tried to promote us with big discount, we will say NO. Luckily since we are growing up, we understand it all. 

Above all, I couldn't be thankful enough to have Mr. Grumpy in my life and helping me to run our business together. Too much fights we went through, too many mistakes and wrong decisions we made too, but through these down moments of Lil' Sunshine Kids Photography, we aren't giving up nor losing our faith. When I'm down, he becomes my cheerleader and become a reminder about not to lose my hope and faith. And when he is down, I also made him remember on how generous and awesome our GOD is. Although we are not breathing on the same belief but both of us are surrender in HIS hands. And look at where we were and are today's. Every little things we didn't expect to happen or least to happen, it's happened and a lot happened in an "awesome ways".

Of course, apart from our prayers and faith in HIM, there are awesome people behind us! Our families who are keep praying for us and our little brother who are praying so much for us, GOD bless all of them with tons of happiness. And our best friends too, their prayers are also heard by HIM. When I'm losing my faith, this bible verse from Matthew 17:20 keep me strong "... If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. " Do you believe that Everything is possible when you've faith? And when we talk about "faith", we are talking about believing in something so strongly and feel like it's yours already even the reality is too far away from that. And in our case, it's actually those little faith we have that keeping us alive! Yes, often we lost those hope and faith when we faced the bitter reality, but never we forget to encourage each other and remembering HIS Grace. It's the little faith which as small as a mustard seed that made us where we are today and the prayers and supports from our best people too.

Nah, we haven't even planned for our "Birthday party" yet since our schedules are quite tight and everyone free-time is different than ours. Seriously, not yet we are still thinking to combine together with X-MAS and New Year but still, we are not sure on what to do and where will it be. Everything is quite a mess nowadays and so much things (but very little time) to do everything we have in mind. We are still looking for few people to join into the group but still haven't found the best ones yet. A lot of things needed to be planned and bunch of things need to be improved too but I just wish we can get those things done as soon as possible as creative as we can be too :-)

So what are our wishes? well, since we haven't even cut our birthday cake yet, then let the wishes be kept inside of our heart and mind ha-ha-ha! Even I'm looking forward for beer-toast moments first with our besties! Okay, the story ends here because whenever I recalled the past, our struggles, I still couldn't believe we are turning ONE year old already. Now, like always, at the end of the day, whenever we recalled those pains, tears, and the joys while we were getting through it, Its WORTH it for every tears dropped. 

Another lesson I also learnt while writing at the moment is that "Everything has it's own timing". Thank you to my best friend who kept reminding me that everyone has their own time to rise and reach their victory because the wheel of life is round and it's keep moving in the circle ; no one will stay at the top/bottom all the time. I remembered when he said this to me and of course, being patience isn't something we (as a human) can handle for long. But life itself decided by us but designed by HIM, is that right? The decisions are ours to choose and  while we are waiting for great things to happen in our life, you will found tons of "perfect-deals" that made us so tempted with shortcuts!  Often, we are using our own power or others' people extra power (let's say mystical belief) to make our road more smooth. For we, human, we designed and wanted everything exactly like how we'd wanted them to be in our imagination; Even for the unimportant things which we are blindly believe it's really important for us. but believe in none other than HIS plans because HIS plans are designed to prosper not to make us weak and what we must to do is COUNT on HIM. 

That's it and gosh, I'm pretty much turned myself into philosopher instead of writing about our achievement. See, the truth of where we are today is because of HIM. See, without HIS GRACE shines into our life and surrender in HIS plans every time, our baby couldn't be growing as fast as we ever imaged. The LORD is more than good but GREAT all the times, thank you so much LORD JESUS and SHUKRAN ALLAH :")

I quoted from Wikipedia that "the toddler years are a time of great cognitive, emotional and social development." and for our toddler, we believe that we will be a lot better in terms of managing the business and of course showing more of our creativity too. We are growing and we are in our toddler years, so it is time to develop ourself to be awesome. Of course, it requires lots of new learning and tons of improvements but we are willing to do so with wholeheartedly. Sadly, a week it had been since we turned ONE, we still have NO time to analyze ourselves yet as it requires "great quality time" to see our weaknesses.  I guess, next week, we will be having some free time and I can't wait to argue with Grumpy and we are fighting against new ideas =)

Great Wednesday!

so while my laptop is busy in transferring the photos, I decided to kill the time by no other than WRITING my blog :D! Let's get started ...

Like always, woke up in the morning, turned my laptop, did some work and get ready for a meeting at PIK. Goodness me, there are tons of awesome (new) cafes around and glad the meeting was at T-Lab! We tried to look for the place twice but just like I guessed, it must be on the other side. The place was wow, so unique but since we were there for a meeting so you know, we just have to act cool LOL! But inside of me, I got the urged of wanting to take pictures. We love the way they present themselves although our drinks weren't that awesome. The cafe is just recently opened and their drinks are mainly bubble tea as it's the trends' nowadays. I had Mango Milk Tea and Grumpy had Honey Tea but both of the drink is not as addictive as we expected to be but they made it look cute. Anyway, I recommend the place for hang out with friends and it's awesomely designed and good for photographs! But for the drink and food, just usual, low your expectations, they are just average beverage and food. 

Done with the meeting, we went to the printing place (see so much work), then had quick late lunch. I was so overwhelmed with those new cafes around PIK areas which creatively designed. At the same time, it made me started to realize that both of us are so left behind. It's more like, we are so isolated with our own world and spent numerous extra hours with so much dedication towards our little baby who's growing up now. Laptop, Photoshop and meeting has occupied most of our's 24 hours! We forgot about our social life because we have different schedules - in the weekends we will be out for photo-shoot while in the weekdays, we will also be busy with the post-processing works. It's really great to be totally focused so much into our works, our business but today, I was questioned about my social life. I decided to "NOT" get any work done for few hours, just relaxing and spent the hours with quality friends.

So there was I, sent messages to my girlfriends, Yenny & Tania and asked whether they are ready for being kidnapped in the evening. Glad that they spent their precious time with me for dinner and beers. Wednesday is a girl's night out and yes, It was so hard for me NOT to work but I managed after a while #patting my head - Good Girl LOL!We had no idea where to go, but there's this new cafe nearby our area called 19th Avenue.

We ordered several food and shared them but like always "the environment is good but the food is average". It's really common in here and it became an option - place vs taste but their place is really good for hang out! So there was I telling Yenny, it would be an hour hang out but ended up 3 or 4 hours! We were just talking about random things, catch up some gossips, and not forgetting drinking beer and lychee Ice Tea! Oh heaven.... ! The food of course I've so much to be complained about especially the waitress which lack of knowledge but what matters the most is how we spent the hours, right? The random chit-chat could lasted for 4 hours and if we didn't check the time, we would had been there until midnight I guess. Thanks to San Miguel for being our best companions along with Lychee Ice Teas for me and Tania! Even we also forgot to take picture together ha-ha-ha! 

Great decision it was for me to ignore work and gosh, it was a way too hard but I managed anyway. I do missed hang out with them and the last time I met was like 2 or 3 months back even they live in the same area with me. Talking with them is like having my "few hours of great gateway", it relieved the burden in me - mentally and physically. Thanks so much girls, it meant a lot for me :-)

And YES! After today, I'll start to be more organized and both of us also can spend more time socially too. Life is great when your business runs so well with best people next to you. Indeed, you don't need thousand of people to be your friends because the "few best ones"are better than a lot. Our best friends have been there throughout our career even the numbers are not big but few of them and their sincere prayers have made us where we are today! And silly us, we forget to be thankful and spent more time with them.

Thank you so much LORD for an awesome day today and I made the right decision to forget work and   spent time with them. Thanks girlfriends for the great time and looking forward to spend more either at Christmas or New Year. Or maybe we need to start planning for new year eve ha-ha-ha-ha!!