Category Archives: Personal

How I saved my shoes?

Posted on February 2, 2013 | 16 comments

If you don’t know me yet, I am telling you that I am crazy about my shoe. Of course most girls are but do read my post here if you want to read the details.

I don’t know when my obsession for shoes started but I still dream of the day when I am going to have a whole wall wardrobe of shoes. I am sure my husband still wonders what I do with 100s of pairs of shoe I have and keep buying more but men can never understand.

Buying a pair of shoes has always had some supernatural effects on me making me super happy and super confident when I wear them. I believe that shoes also tell a story about the kind of person you are from the feet to your head. Feet are our feelings and a good pair of shoes that well-made, attractive to look at, and comfortable to wear tell the world what you think of yourself all day long.

Anyway on my recent trip to Nepal and Thailand I have bought few new pairs of shoe. Look at them, aren’t they lovely :).

my shoes

I was wearing one of them when I went out for lunch with one of my friend today. When we went out, it was really windy but there was no sign of rain.

But while we were having lunch, it started to rain like cats and dogs. Seriously, there was a thunderstorm and the rain was really heavy. We waited for a while for rain to stop but it didn’t and there was no sign that the rain going to stop. We were less than 10 minutes away from work and we were getting late so we decided to run from the café to work.

Instead of saving myself from getting wet, I took my jacket out and put it on my head to save my hair and took off my shoe and hide it under the jacket. Then we both ran. I was really hoping that no one I know recognise me in the street.

It is quite embarrassing to run like that but my brand new shoes are made out of suede and if it is wet, I am not sure what will happen to the shoes.

When I finally got to the office, my dress was wet but my shoe was dry, not a drop of water in it.

When my colleagues saw my situation, they couldn’t stop laughing. I am sure it looked really funny to others but for me I am just very proud that I saved m y shoes 🙂

Guess that show that I am fashionista after all and my love for shoe will never die 🙂

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Posted in Fashion, Personal

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Life is too short

Posted on January 16, 2013 | 14 comments

A while ago I blogged about my penpal and told you about one of my penpals named Raja Gurung who is my Facebook friend now. I was shocked to find out from his Facebook that he has passed away recently. I have no details but I am really sad to know about it.

Actually, I was shocked to read RIP messages in his Facebook wall and have no idea how to react.

As I told you before Raja was from Darjeeling, India and he was only a few years older than me. He was happily married, with two kids. I had met him a couple of times. The last time I chated with him was on Facebook which must be more than a year ago. He was telling me his plans of making a new family home and about his kids and now he is no more.

Life is short but looking around everyone seems to think that they will live forever. We spend time and money as though we will always be here. We don’t tell the ones we love how much we love them often enough because we assume there’s always tomorrow. But thinking about him now brings tears to my eyes as I know that he was a good husband and a father who loved his family a lot. But at very young age he has left this earth and his family to go far from all of us.

We think we have got forever and worry about millions of thing. We talk of killing time, passing time, and getting through the week, forgetting we are wishing away the moments that comprise our lives. We say time is money when in fact the time we have is all we have. Money can be borrowed, time can’t. We fear taking risks, unaware that the biggest risk we run in playing it safe is in fact living as long as we hope and never doing the things we dream of. And then it’s too late.

Every time someone around me dies I face the reality of life but when someone so young leave us it really makes me think harder on my choices in life because I know I may not live until tomorrow. So I am vowing to try my best not to piss anyone around me just in case. Also I want to keep my loved one close and tell them I love them a lot so that they know I will be with them even if I leave this earth before them.

I am a planner and I always plan my years in advance and it is working well for me but sometimes I wonder what will happen to my dreams if I don’t wake up tomorrow. Will my ghost haunt the earth and fulfil my dreams or will I be nothing but the ashes after cremation?

Today this is a reminder for everyone that life is short. It must, therefore, be well lived.

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Posted in Personal, Social Issue

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Etiquette for announcing engagement

Posted on November 18, 2012 | 10 comments

I want to share a story from my workplace today. Let’s call my colleagues S (male), B (Female) and K (female).

We (me, B and K) have been bugging S regarding his wedding for a long time now. He has been with his girlfriend for over 5 years now and he is in no rush to propose.

Our argument was that if a woman wants to get married then she deserves to be. I really think if both of the people in a relationship are happy living together without getting married that is perfectly fine but if one of the people in the relationship wants to get married then the other should be able to give in.

The wedding doesn’t need to be big, just go to the registry and register but at least respect the wish of the other person in the relationship so that they will stay happy.

Anyway S has been living with his girlfriend for a while and they have even bought a house together. So we always asked him what the problem is, why he isn’t married to her yet. I think he wanted to stay away from all the planning and the wedding headache as long as possible.

Anyway, the good news is that he came back to work after a 2 weeks holiday and told me and B that he proposed and they are getting married next year. It was great news for us as well and we finally think we managed to get it into his head. K was off that day so she didn’t get the news.

Today when K was back at work, I told her excitedly that S is engaged now and they are getting married. I was sure she would like to know about it.

But the scenario changed quickly when B had this shocked expression on her face while I was happily telling K about the engagement. Ohoo I was given this look that I might have murdered someone. I didn’t realise what I had done wrong.

So when the initial shock and surprised expression was over, B told me that it is not right for me to tell K or anyone about S’s engagement. I should let him announce it.

I felt really bad about it as I never knew this rule regarding engagement announcement before. So I went back to S and told him what happen. He being a guy didn’t care at all (Thank god!). He said it doesn’t really matter to him how people find out. I think he is just glad that the difficult part is over and done with.

I always try to follow the etiquette everywhere I go as I know in Nepal we have different etiquettes while in Australia I need to follow different ones. Even when I travel, I try to Google and learn basic etiquette of the place. This must be one of those times when I  had no idea what I did wrong,

I talked to other colleagues at work about it and some think that B is right about the matter while some are either ignorant like me or don’t think it is a big deal. Anyway, I do understand why B wanted S to announce it.

It is funny how things works in the west compare to east.

I remember when me and AS got engaged, we told our parents and they told everyone else.  We called a few close friends to convey the news but for the rest of my friends, after the engagement ceremony, I uploaded mine and AS’s pic on Facebook and captioned it, “ENGAGED”. Also I changed my relationship status from WHATEVER to ENGAGED.  🙂

After that I remember that my Facebook flooded with thousands of likes and comments. Most friends who we went to school with me were shocked about it. As I told you before in many posts, here and here, I and AS are so different  that it was surprising to some people to even think that we would get married one day.

I was the chatty one who had many friends and used to speak with everyone. I never minded attention I get while AS was the quite one who had select friends and didn’t want to have any attention on him. So imagine North Pole and South Pole coming together.  As I explained already before about our relationship here, we were friends first and it took a while for AS to propose to me.

After the engagement me and AS were trying to convince our close friends that we were not a couple from school days; we were just friends but they thought we had lied to them all these years.

I didn’t bother to correct other friends from school who wrote comments like

 “Chhupa Rustam, how did I not see it?”

“I knew it something was on with you guys” and so on.

It was really funny that suddenly when our relationship was out in open, everyone was telling me that they knew AS liked me from the start. I must be the silly one who never saw that before. Anyway I am glad things happened the way they did. I am just happy with my loving husband and still feel butterfly in my stomach every time, I recall the day he proposed :).

So what is the etiquette in your culture regarding engagement announcement?

10 Comments

Posted in Personal, Relationship

Bhuhari is going to Nepal

Posted on November 9, 2012 | 16 comments

Bhuhari means daughter in law in Nepali.

As per our plan, I have booked my flight to go to Kathmandu, Nepal for mid of December.  I know I have been back form my Europe trip not long ago and l haven’t finished blogging about places we visited in Europe but it has been more than a year since we went to Nepal so, it is a perfect time to go again. We will be using our Christmas and New Year break with our annual leave to accommodate this holiday.

We will be going via Bangkok and will be stopping over for 4 days to do some sightseeing , some shopping and meeting AS’s family . We had been to Thailand before but I will be really nice to go again and meet AS’s new niece. She is so cute.

While in Nepali, my nephew will have his Pasni ceremony as well so we have a celebration and a holiday with our family. My brother, sister in law and nephew will be travelling there before us.

I always like to book my holiday in advance so I can look forward to the day and that keeps me going. I am always very eager to go to Nepal and I am this time as well but I have some fear of all the changes I will face.

This time, going to Nepal will be very different for me than ever before. This will be first time for me to go to my home town as a Bhuhari. It may sound strange in western society but life after marriage for Nepali women is very different than here. Lots of things do change which I haven’t really felt because I am in Australia but that will affect me while I am in Nepal.

Every time, I go to Kathmandu, my parents would come to pick me up at the airport but I am not sure what will happen this time. Because I am meant to go to AS’s house (my new home) from the airport. I am thinking to tell my parents not to come to the airport to receive me as I don’t want them to go home without me but instead am planning to go and visit there on the same day in the evening.

I will have to divide my time between two houses this time and I have no idea how I can manage that easily.

Going to Nepal always meant waking up late, not exercising , being spoilt my parents with yummy food , going out and meeting my friends and relatives, a short break to somewhere with my parents and lots of relaxation.

But I am not too sure I can keep this attitude in my new home.  I think it will be very rude to wake up at 8 am and go to kitchen where my MIL will be preparing breakfast for everyone. We have help but still she likes to do lot of things herself. Don’t get me wrong, as I have mentioned before as well, my MIL is very understanding and caring lady but still I can’t be spoilt the way my mum makes me when I am with her.

I am not too sure how I need to plan my days as there are lots of pending invitation we need to attend this time form AS families’ side. As it is a culture in Nepal to invite newlyweds for dinner after their wedding, we got lot of those invitations after our wedding last year. But as we had only 4 days after the wedding, we declined them and told everyone that we will be visiting them next time when we come back to Kathmandu. That means most of our evenings we’ll be dining out either at AS’s relatives’ house or mine’s.

Even in terms of clothing, I don’t know what I will be expected to wear. Like I mentioned in my post before, married women in Nepal dress differently after their wedding. So I am sure I can’t dress however I want. I don’t really mind wearing Sari and Kurta while I am there but it will be mid-winter so I am not too sure how easy it is going to be. Even a year after the wedding I will be a newlywed buhari so I need to learn all the right manners :).

I am sure with all the confusion and anxiety I am still going to have a great time with my two beautiful families, just thinking about it makes me bit anxious sometimes though. There is still a long time till I land in Kathmandu but I can’t wait to write about my experience and Nepal  from Kathmandu  🙂

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Posted in Nepal, Personal, Social Issue

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Spring Cleaning and Shopaholic

Posted on November 1, 2012 | 14 comments

My husband has been reminding me for many days to clean my wardrobe. He did his a few weeks ago but his was easy. He threw away few unwanted t-shirts and jeans and was all done.

I was not looking forward to doing mine as I knew it would take me forever. I think it had been more that 6 months that I had not rearranged my wardrobe. The clothes just kept on increasing with every new purchase.

I promised myself that I was not going to buy any new shoes until I go overseas and I have kept my word. From Europe trip till now, I have bought just one pair of shoes (only because it was the kind I was looking for and it was on a big sale) and it is a record for me but I couldn’t commit to the promise in the apparel department. Every season there are new things coming in the market and it is hard to walk past the shops without trying something on. So it begins. I love some of the things I try and I will buy. I always justify with the thought that it is a good time to buy as they are cheap or they are on sale.

May be this is what they call shopping addiction. I watched a movie a while ago called ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’. It is a movie about a girl, Rebecca Bloomwood, who is a lovely redheaded young woman who loooooves to shop. I am not talking about the reasonable kind of love where she goes monthly or even weekly to see what’s new at her local boutique. I am talking about an addiction as powerful as any drug out there. When she walks past a store, the mannequins talk to her and convince her that this, only this, particular item has the power to make her feel better, more attractive, more alive. She shops using 12 credit cards, including her Gold Card, which is encased in a block of ice in the freezer in case of emergencies.

While watching the movie I was glad that I wasn’t that girl in the movie who would ask money  from strangers to shop. I know the movie shows the extremes of a shopaholic. I definitely will never be that bad but I am not very good either.

Before I was married and even before my husband move to Australia, my favourite pass time was shopping. I used to work in the city and almost every lunch break, I with a few other co-workers would tour the closest shopping centres and look around for good deals. We did find some great deals and we used to spend lots of money.  If someone was on a shopping trip and found some good deals, we used to text the rest of the girls and we would go running to the shop.

We will go and try dresses and just buy whatever we liked and we were happy doing it. When you are surrounded by many people like you, you forget that you are a shopaholic as everyone around is doing the same thing.

I have changed a lot since I changed jobs and my bank account is happier than before. There are no shopping centres close to my current work which means no shopping during lunch hours. So I have to plan to go shopping during weekends and we don’t do that every weekend. But every time we do, I always end up buying something. I really need to learn how to stop myself from going crazy about new clothes and shoes.

After my husband came into my life, he did help me a lot to control my habit but I think there is still lot of work.

Anyway, last week when I had a day off, I finally managed to clean my wardrobe. It looks much better now. I had a pile that I am giving to charity, a pile that I am taking to Nepal for my cousins and then a pile that I am packing in a box for winter. Now there are only dresses hanging in my cupboard that I will be wearing every day to work.

I counted them and there are 82 dresses. I was thinking I can wear those dress to work every day and I can still go without repeating them for almost 4 months. Gee, that is really a lot. And those are dresses just for work, not counting the ones in another cupboard for weekends and parties. My mum would have a panic attack if she knew that I have more than 100 dresses along with my 100+ shoes. Can a girl ever have enough dresses and shoes?

So I am planning not to buy any dress this year in Sydney. When I fly for my next trip aboard that will be my licence to shop again. Let’s see if my plan is going to work.

Please let me know if you have any solution for me. I am sure I am not alone here.

P.S. When my husband read this post, he emailed me with  his suggestion “Give your credit card and debit card to your husband and only shop with his card!!!  “

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Posted in Fashion, Personal

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