"Pagi," "Happy birthday," and other progress

Tuesday, August 18, 2026
After a walk and change of bedding, we're on our way to IKEA for a KALLAX shelf. First, I drop into the hospital to pray with Dina, recovering from leg surgery. We have an appointment to drop off an aquarium and pick up about 20 puzzles. Maybe we'll start a puzzle night along with the games.

IKEA is out of stock but we eat lunch there ($8 for 2 meals including bottled water). We leave with a boot tray and a lid organizer. One more stop - groceries - when we're almost home.

Lew arrives in midafternoon, followed shortly by Claudia. He's American and a doctoral student. She's Latin American and is on her way from Indonesia to her home in Colombia. Claudia and I enjoy tea on the Porch before a quick Project tour and prayer for each other.

Wednesday - Kirsten's birthday
After a morning walk, W has a checkup at the hospital. All is well. We call our daughter while we're waiting. It's her birthday already although it arrives "tomorrow" in her time zone. She's begun sewing and is making fun coconut bags, like the ones we used to buy in Singapore. Her sense of style and color is good. Like me, she's always updating her surroundings. I like the little teapot that she's found!

After paying the hospital bill, W and I walk 20 minutes downtown to a vegetarian/healthy food restaurant owned by our friend Anna. She also owns Mom's Bakery, the best baker in town. We pass a place we've never gone to and might visit. Its courtyard and gift shop are next level. Our friend Hendy waves at us from his place, where he is talking to his high school math teacher.

We have better food ahead at #GreensAndBeans. My Thai salad is fresh and delicious, combined with a colorful hot tea.

W indulges in potato wedges and a shiitake mushroom burger.

The back of the restaurant is open - so refreshingly quiet and airy.

Hendy walks over and has coffee with us as we're finishing. It's his Birthday!!! Happy birthday, Hendy. Soon W is ready to head home, though we don't have plans for the afternoon. 

Claudia asked earlier this week how long the Project took to set up once we moved in last December. It was mostly ready in a week or two once we were in. BUT that's not counting W putting up electrical conduit (curtain rods) and slipping the bedsheets (curtains) over them in November. It's not counting moving the garden over in October. And it's not counting moving everything that could be moved before we landed here the week before Christmas.

The iPad, rarely used, regurgitates photos of the renovation process that began last June. The Porch was falling apart and littered with rotten ceilings and siding.

Today it looks like this.

I forgot how bad it was. The facade was getting the wood shingles ripped off. Piles of wood were everywhere.

Now, with the start of the front garden.

Like the rest of the house, Waldemar's office had rotted away due to falling branches, nesting animals, ants, and termites. The contractors left what they could: good teak moldings and mostly intact floor tiles. Many windows were salvaged after termite treatment.

It looked like an impossible task, yet here we are. A similar area - our sitting nook and my office - looks like this now. 

Some months ago, running across the renovation pictures, I was so startled that I started a series of before-and-after posts of the Project inside and outside. Don't know yet whether or when we'll share that.

Meanwhile, small things get updated. I'm a restless one in terms of spaces. The white birdcage hung beside two black ones. At the old place, the white wires were invisible against the light at the end of the old Porch. Now it's an eyesore.

Here the cages are seen against the darkness of the forest or shaded by the terrace. When it caught my eye in April,  I left it, since I had other things to do. This week, we sent off an aquarium that we don't use. Nearby, I spot a black cage. Must be time to swap. 

PakG and W change the white outlier to black. PakG catches the budgerigars with his hands, one by one, and transfers them over. Better. From the Project terrace, the cage is invisible like the others.

My mother hasn't changed her home significantly since it was built in 1972. I was 16 years old and she let me choose the color of the living room rug. RED. Looked great with a white stone fireplace, white walls, and sparkly ceilings.

The 70s red shag carpet remains, along with icicle-drop ceilings and a comfy (once-again-cool) gold-velvet sofa. She found a needlepoint rug and put that down. In the 1990s, a well-intentioned relative reconfigured the living room. She shrugged and hasn't changed it since. It's like a mod relic of decor gone by. We love coming home.

Mom was a home-based cleaning dynamo. We lived in a spotless house with healthy homemade meals served like clockwork. She worked hard to teach me that spaces have to be clean and orderly. That lesson didn't stick until the kids grew up and their clutter left home.

She regularly commented on my need to move things around. "Rosemee, did you change things again?"

I'd say, "Oh Mom, you know me." She accepted that I'm restless and visual. I'm a serial rearranger. I came to grips with clean and orderly with a personal caveat: spaces don't need the same "order" forever. hehe

We had a rat running around the office ceiling so W put up poison. There's the stink of decaying flesh. Yeah, someone will likely have to get it unless it dries out quickly. 

Thursday
Waldemar writes a coherent update on his own health. We're glad language is coming back. The sun's out so the birds get a sun bath. The dogs come close to see what they're up to but don't push over the cages.

Lew takes us for supper at Miss Bee Providore down the street. 

Friday

Dr Ingrid drops by with orchids from her and Ibu Dani. We have tea and cookies on the Porch.

She has the cutest little Chinese electric car! It's tiny with a good turn radius plus it's easy to park. W's stomach was upset overnight, so I go downtown to pick up the shelf he has had delivered to the IKEA depot. His energy is low. He's lucky to skip the 2 grocery stops on the way home.

The speech therapist comes as usual. W is making good progress in speaking and sounds. While he's working hard, I make chocolate squares, mixing cocoa powder, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, and a few tablespoons of honey. Tastes like a dark chocolate "bar" but is cheaper and customizable.

Read more:

* O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! Psalm 95:6

* For this is what the high and exalted One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy:

“I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. I will not accuse them forever, nor will I always be angry, for then they would faint away because of me—the very people I have created.

"I was enraged by their sinful greed; I punished them, and hid my face in anger, yet they kept on in their willful ways. I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners, creating praise on their lips. Peace, peace, to those far and near,”     says the Lord. “And I will heal them.”

But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.” Isaiah 57:15-21

He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Luke 17:16

Moravian Prayer: Surprising God, open our hearts to the unexpected ones who kneel before you today, modeling your ways in the world right now. May we delight in your surprises and shout our gratitude for your work in our world. Amen.