Albeit late, but here you go, the many greatest things that happened to me:

1. Found the rental apartment that fits in our budget after months of searching for properties, both for sell and rent. It’s been a rollercoaster ride. Ya, finding rental also gave such a headache, what’s more purchasing property. *Nightmare* We almost had an impulsive house purchase at a bad location and got ourselves in debt for the next 30 years. We found a two-floor terrace house for rent, slightly out of our budget, agreed with the landlord but he didn’t keep his promise and rent out to other instead. After many turn down, we finally found a place to call HOME for the two of us, where we began our cooking adventure, DIY home stuff, etc.
2. Managed to handle all the household chores while also work from home. Five years ago I’d be screaming for a domestic helper. Hehe. Funny how people changes!
3. Went to the concert of my teen idol. Woohoo, Dream comes true! Not long after the concert, they announced their breaking-up news after farewell tour on 2012. Oh well..
4. Still get to travel despite declaring 2011 as non-travel year. Started with Bandung on January to attend WordCamp (WordPress event), hometowns’ trip in between, 4-5 hours road trip to Cherating beach, family vacation to Singapore, year end vacation to Langkawi island – the haven for chocolate, liquor and tobacco + cigar auction . I think I’m parting away from big city/shopping trip and prefer a relaxing beach getaway. Hmm..
5. Got a Dribbble invite, yay! It’s one thing that I’ve been wanting for in 2010, but when I got it I sort of lost the excitement. Haven’t posted the screenshot of my work in progress for quite some time. Gotta pick up!
6. Stirring the direction of SWP to Freemium model. We jumped in joy when we got the first sales. It works! So glad that we walked with faith and pushed our fear aside.
7. Finally took the first step to start my long awaited personal project. It’s near completion now. Pushing my learning curve a lot.

Lesson of the year:

1. Do it now! Don’t wait for the right time because right time will never come. It’s like starting diet, we always give excuse to start it tomorrow. No time? Make time for it. In my case, I kept telling myself that this few months are the busy months (with clients’ projects) so I’ll wait til another few months to start my own project. Boohoo, that right time never comes!
2. Pay attention to details but don’t be over perfectionist, you’ll end up waste time polishing details that aren’t important.
3. Don’t judge a thing too fast before we witness/experience it.
4. It’s OK to be away from the laptop, internet and social media. Life goes on!
5. When there is too much going on and don’t know how to start/make decision, PAUSE + take a deep breath + empty mind, then lay everything out in mind and analyze from there.
6. When in doubt, have FAITH and PRAY! From finding road direction to making decision in life.

For 2012

1. Main thing is to live minimalist. Inspired by this, this, this and many other going-minimalist posts. Have the wake-up call when helping a friend in moving house. Seeing how many ‘junks’ that we can collect over the years scared me. With being minimalist, I’m hoping to spend less time in cleaning (more time to do things I love doing), spend less, and not emotionally attached to the things so I can leave/sold them away incase we have the guts to pack our luggage and move to other cities/countries.
2. Get an oven, so we can baked pizza (a friend refers to it as an expensive bread, haha) instead of PHD delivery, turkey for Thanksgiving, and cake for birthday with baking recipe from MPL.
3. Since we haven’t found a permanent house (as in buy) that we can play with; can’t do much with the apt rental and don’t have the budget to do huge decor project, so I’m thinking of starting a doll house project, inspired by this. A miniature of our dream house, diy-ing it will be much more affordable and possible.
4. Launch my long awaited project and venture into a different field. We have brainstormed several ideas, so it’s the year to release our own projects! I call it the year of planting the seed.
5. Balancing online and offline life.
6. Travel (whatelse, duh) and see the destination from different perspective, in terms of living, design, culture, foods, etc. Not just travel for shopping or going to touristy place.
7. Gain back the snap-and-shot mojo.