Meet Rina from CuteCoconut and her CUTE family

Welcome to Pam's Pen!  Thanks so much for letting me interview you!  I am delighted to learn more about you, your family and CuteCoconut!  CuteCoconut, the mommagazine for every young mother in the motherhood world, is a unique and  fun place to visit.


PM: Can you tell me a little about yourself?  Love the family party pic, by the way!
RS:  My name is Rina Shelomita and I am a mom of two adorable toddler boys (three if you include my husband in the list). I quit my job as a hotelier one year ago to join my husband residing overseas. We are Indonesian who are now staying in United Arab Emirates. Dubai is the most well-known city (emirate) from this country but we are staying in Ras Al Khaimah, an hour from Dubai. I am a day dreamer, love new things, very easygoing, a musician by heart and a food-venturous. Currently I have been enjoying my role as a stay at home mom, but I never plan to quit my career forever. There will be a come back for me someday, but for now I am just embracing my SAHM shoes to the fullest. My hobbies include reading, watching movies, shopping and drawing/sketching. Many of times I am caught up watching video music on YouTube for hours. Coffee is one of my guilty pleasures and not like others, sleeping is not the thing I fond of. Unless I get really really tired!

PM: I love your Mommagazine, CuteCoconut. How did you come up with that idea?
RS:  I wanted to write a book and get it published, but I am having trouble with concentrations and not being able to keep my interest in one subject for too long. I always ended up getting bored in the middle of a story that I was writing and kept changing my story into a new one. So after filling up my laptop with unfinished stories, I decided that writing books is not for me. I think I am more suited to a magazine because it can have various subjects and it does not have to be all lengthy materials that can bore me. That was when the mommagazine came into my mind. I chose mommagazine because motherhood is a very wide field to explore and everyday there is always a new subject to learn, new information to share or anything at all to talk about. The name cutecoconut does not have any meaning at all. It was just a word that first popped up in my mind when I was buying my domain.



PM: Is Cute Coconut the first blog you have ever started?
RS:  No. I started writing a blog in my friendster account back in 2005. Then I became a skirtsetter and write my blog in Skirt.com. I started to get serious one year ago when I joined the SAHM club. I started with a wordpress: Fashion, Flavour and Fun. You probably can still see it if you visit rshelomita.wordpress.com because I have not re-directed it to my current domain. I also have another blog in blogspot written in Indonesian language which shares my day to day life. It's www.myshelomitashop.blogspot.com. But it wasn't until after June of this year when I bought my own domain and hosting as cutecoconut.com that I got more involved deeply in the blogging world.

PM: Where do you see Cute Coconut going in the future?
RS: I have a dream of making Cutecoconut  a published online mommagazine someday and to be the place where young moms can get lots of informations and get inspired to do whatever they need to do in their life and also to generate income for myself.

PM: Why do you blog?
RS:  As someone who has never really get in touch with any house chores at all in the past (I have always had a job and used to have three helpers in the house), to be a stay at home mom without any helper is a quite challenging adventure for me. I need something to express myself, share my overloaded ideas and just to get away from the craziness of household chores and kids once in a while. In other words, blogging keeps me sane. It is one of my passions in life and I really enjoy doing it.

PM: What is your least favorite thing about blogging?
RS: Pictures. I love taking pictures but I hate to have to upload it in the blog. It's not about the picture, it is about the uploading process, choosing the right pictures or image for an article, edit it and so on. I don't know why but it is just not one of my favorite things to do. Unfortunately, a picture is one thing that can make an article looks interesting. So I just have to do it. Oh and I hate SPAM too. Whenever I find any SPAM comment in my blog, I feel like meeting this crazy person who has left that comment and kick his butt.

PM: What is your favorite time of day to blog?
RS: I blog whenever I can but my favorite time is in the evening when the kids are all sleeping. I can stay awake until early hours just to blog (including blog walking, finding interesting subjects to talk about in the blog or just to say hello to my momblogger fellow).

PM: If you could change something about your blog, what would it be?
RS: My blog is always changing. I am referring to progressing for the better. I would add something here and there but if you ask me about anything at all that I would change but I could not is the name. It has been attached with the domain and the blog and if I change it, I will probably lose my SEO rank.

PM: Do you have any advice for new bloggers?
Be patient. Blogs does not grow overnight. You need to nurture it with your passion and patience to get your blog recognised. Be friendly and join a community. It helps a lot.

PM: What is your favorite book that you have read recently?
RS: I don't have enough time these days to read a book.  Instead, I go for mom-family friendly blogs, newspapers and magazines. I did finish three books last June when I was on vacation, two were about politics and one was about a poor child who had succeeded in reaching his dream in life. They are all Indonesian published. But my all time favorites are Chicken soup (any series except the teen's), the Loss Boy (and A Boy Named Dave) and (you can laugh about this) Harry Potter (I have four of the books including the last installment but have read all the series and I have all the DVDs excluding the latest ones, still fully wrapped). Oh I love Chiisai Momochan too, written by Miyoko Matsutani.

PM: What is your favorite thing about being a mom?
RS: I get to play cars with the boys, rolling and cuddling in bed all morning with them, watching cartoons on tv and indulging in cheerios!!
I can buy the whole section of children books without anyone question about it, always get a seat on packed public transportation and get first priority when queing for almost anything.

PM: And of course, I have to ask, what are your 2 favorite blogs and why?
This is very difficult choice!  Because I said so by Dawn Meehan (www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com), I just enjoy her stories so much. I like her style in sharing her daily life. She can share a negative situation in a very positive way.
And www.scarymommy.com by Jill Smokler...she is just so funny and outspoken. She talks things that most mom may not have the courage to say out loud.

Thanks so much Rina for taking the time to let us get to  know you better.  Have fun with the boys and don't eat too many cheerios!
Please visit CuteCoconut and grab her button!