wfl990

wow, wow and wow

2012-01-16T23:57:00.000+08:00

Last saturday probably the best saturday ever. The husband was in Penang and he was planning to come back that day in the evening after that morning I threw my tantrum at him. Once in a while I would do that. There is no pint of being a supernice and superficial wife. I am not a perfect wife, I had my ups and downs and I have learned when to channel out my expression. There will be time in marriage, you have to be on a close guard. There are ti,es you can talk back to your husband and he really listen to you. But most of the time, you are expected to absorb most of the things and suffer in silence.

That saturday, I asked my daughter, where did she want to go - midvalley, IOI mall, subang parade? I was lucky, the location of the house is only 10min around the big shopping complexes. I will try my best not to go to a big one, like KLCC or Jln TAR. In fact local parkson was only 5 mins from home.

This time I did not really feel like to be with the crowd. I told her we should go somewhere different. The place that we had never been before - like the national museuml, or the bird park. We apparently spend the day at the Islamic museum. It was her first visit to the museum, so she did not really know how the expect from the place like that. There was a special exhibition, so we paied the price of RM12 for adult and my daughter was charged at student price of RM 6. After a while, she was beginning to enjoy the place. She walked around and read the description.

It was a must to have a photo taken by the building's name so that we tend to remember the place more.

It was a very nice building with tall glass wall and open space. The view was beautiful with the dome of masjid negara and the classic KL view.

The turqoise blue dome of mesjid Negara, a very distintive architecture in the 70s. My daughter said, the photo looks like a poscard.

She was facinated with the small model of the mosques around the world. This time she could explain to me and she really enjoyed herself at the museaun while I was growing tired of it. I keep on sweeping fast from one section to the enxt, but she reamian reading and looking at every object on display. She was the one who now told me, ' mommy that is this and that.' I was tired already but she kept on moving. Impressive.

We arrived at the museum during dzhohor, and left around asar. We decided to go to the popular KL birdpark. I was skeptical of going to the places. From my experience I was pissed of with the phetatic night safari in Taiping, so inhuman, you just looked at how the human treated the animals by putting the spotlight on at night forcing them to stay awake. Idiot!
But I love the melaka Zoo, the let the animal roam free in their zone. Everytime when I was thinking about zoo and animal, I always think about the melaka zoo. But that saturday, the malaka zoo was too far to travel without the husband.

I had to pay RM20 per person. It was pricey for wanted to see the birds suffered in a cage. But for once, we went. The minute we entered, it exceeded our expectation. We were like berok, jumping around. There are four main zones. The birds were free.

Peacocks were everywhere in the zones, they were making noise like the rare birds in the 'ups' movie. We really enjoyed there. But we had to move on, the place closed at 7pm and the husband had already asked us to go back home. A double wham! will definately come back here.

Then we had to pick the husband. Lepak kat kopitiam for dinner before going back home.

pistachios ice cream

2011-12-18T22:08:00.000+08:00

It was a rare opportunity in a married life. A treasured one if you have your single friends around. It was not that I did not enjoy my marriage, Alhamdullillah my marriage is a blessed. But you will never know what will happen next. I always told my friends, marriage is not a promised of happily ever after. A long the way to be happy, you need to be content with each other, be comfortable, and be acceptable. Celebrate the day you have today when you do not know what will happen next.

Like my cousin, she had a disagreement with her husband that night the next day the husband passed away due to heart attack. She was devastated.

I enjoy my marriage life for the companion I have, for some who will always be there for me. But I enjoy my single life for the freedom, to do what I want to wear what I want without having someonecritising every single thing about you. I am a loner and I do not mind being alone. Marriage was never in my agenda and it was not even in the milestone of my life.

Today, my husband is going for a wedding of his friend. I did not follow him and I was grateful for the decision. The wedding was in Melaka. He was reluctant to be there without me. I was more than happy to push him out of the house so that I can have my single time. My brain was spinning very fast. A lot of things keep coming out from my brain. For once that brain was working at full capacity.

By looking at him, I could see he was in dismay. Don't go far, and don't come back late! Don't try to go to Rawang to see maria there. bla, bla bla......

It was an order.

My radious was just around the midvalley or subang parade. No shah alam, no kl.

I called my partner in crime - maria for the outing. At the moment the plan was not very concrete, but the aim was to hang out either at midvalley or subang parade. I like subang parade, carrefour was near and the empire was calling my name.

Sad to say, Maria was in Taiping - balik kampung. There was no way she could reach me in 30 minutes from Taiping to Subang Parade.

Main plan failed. My brain was still flowing with idea, Hanging out alone was really cool.

This time, I called my cousin. She was not well.

What do you want to do.

I just want to hang out, makan ice crean then my sushi.

I was already determined of what I want to do already.

Walking alone will be strange for me, but I will get use to it.

I hang out at empire strolling in and out from one shop to the next.

I found the gelatto kiosk similar to the one at klcc. This one got pistachois gelatto. I used to buy two flavours. enjoyed it with my daughter.

This time I only requested for the smallest cup for only single flavour - pistachios.

My lunch was late around 4pm. I had it at sushi. The place that I like to hang out most of the time if I have the opputunity.

Alhamdullillah, the husband a daughter share the similar interest.

To the sky

2011-12-11T20:56:00.000+08:00

I was still not fully recovered after the two days collapsed. This week I had lost my voice totally and I had night cough. I think this is the time the body was trying to tell it was sick. But did not really know how to do it, which one should start first. And I feel my tempareture is soaring, mildly.

I went to the same clinic once again. This time I could not stand proud of how healthy I was when the last record of my visit was about two weeks ago. This time I was desperate that I went at the odd hour of 9 o'clock at time. I was among the last few when the clinic was pulling down the grilled while I was still inside waiting to see the doctor. My throat hurt so much that I told my husband I could not take it any longer. My voice was at zero volume - mute mode without the vibration like mobile.

I managed to see the doctor on duty and apparently she was having a running nose as well while treating her patients. She did not have to ask me more about the visit when she could not here my vioce. My husband demand me to shut up, but he was not that helpful in being my spoke person.

I got one mc. I need it.

My friend suggested me to come up here for the weekend retreat to cool down. It was really cold!

Genting, the place that was once so isolated to us but now grows closely to our heart. The place that was so brief to me but left a very significant mark in my life. This is the place that I met great people with good heart.

Today was cold. Last night was foggy and cold. We had our breakfast at Sri Layang. The friends had been suggesting me some places. But I like Stri Layng for the eternity view. But today I was in the cloud 9. In the cold weather like this, I like my food to be piping hot. My my fried rice and fried egg was dead cold, but I had hot milo.

After a few entry were stranded in the draft format waiting for the photos, I tried not to make this entry has the same fate with the others.

This is Safiah, while waiting for our lunch.

To see more green

When I was sick

2011-11-23T23:12:00.001+08:00

I know the sickness that I suffered for the past two day was nothing compared to those who have suffered so much more. I do not work in a hospital to remind me every single working hour how precious was my health when I was healthy. I was deeply touched when I was accompanying my daughter when she had her ear infection.
I could not describe enough with words how my heart went to them looking at their suffering.

But when I was sick, I lost my bearing. Two days I lost my time.

When I was sick, I slept most of the time. I slept everywhere. I slept on my bed, Then I moved to sleep on the mattress on the floor, then I moved again to sleep on the rug at the living area, the on the two seater sofa, then I moved again to my three seater sofa. I just woke up to move, during my sleeping, nursing my sickness.

When I was sick, the husband handled most of the things. The house chores stopped. I stopped eating. The sleep dominating me. I lost my counting of the day.

I could not really remember when was the last time I got sick. Alhamdullillah, I hardly got sick. I went to the clinic where I used to go. That was the place where every one of us goes everytime we fall sick. The place for the daughter especially when she had asthma. My visiting card indicated that my last visit to the clinic was jan 2010.

When I was sick, I had been sleeping around. I could remember between the sleep the husband would come with a pan on his hand asking me what else should he marinate the chicken and fish before he baked in the oven. How much advised could you relied on a sick lady.

He would come and wrap his arm around my shoulder after the cooking while waiting for the jemaah prayer, that when he left I was uncomfortable with minyak ataq stuck on my clothes.

When I was sick and sleeping around on my three seater sofa, when I open my eyes, he was there holding my hand stroking softly wispering how the house was differently quiet, he missed me and love me.

When I was sick, he woke up for tahajjud asking everything from Allah. He has changed so much that today Allah showed everything to me from his heart to me. Alhamdullillah, he is a so much better different man than I married more than 10 years ago.

When I was sick, I had a dream that I was stuck in a bus packed like sardin. Then I was so suffocated.

When I was sick, I beg him to rub my back to ease the pain. He was there in the toilet to rub my shoulder when I was throwing nothing out of my tummy after the non stop vomiting and diarrhea. I could not figure out what really trigger those jammed up. It could me the trip back kampong , then the blinking heat of cyberjaya putra jaya the day before I got sick, or I could be the reheat chicken curry.

When I was sick, and I slept around, I had another dream. In the dream there was a man who was trying to untied a tread ball. He was struggling, and the dream continue everytime I move around. The same dream returned everytime. The guy was struggling with the thread ball. Until at one point while I was moving, sleeping on my two seater sofa resting my head on the armrest, I the dream, the guy was telling me, hang on, it was nearly there. Just hold on. InsyaAllah. A little bit more. Then he managed to unfold the thread ball. I woke up at that time and I felt a lot better, no more headache.

I told the husband about the guy in the dream who was trying to help me.

You tau tu sapa?

Tak tau.

You tak tau, sepanjang you sakit, I bangun tahajjud doa untuk u.

Alhamdullillah, masih ada orang yang sering berdoa untuk aku dikala sakitku.

Hanya Allah sahaja yang mengetahui segalanya.

The final count down

2011-11-11T21:49:00.000+08:00

Time fly by so fast. My mother was recovering well. but still she was limiting her movements. Today, she made her first outing after the operation with sunglasses. She was still on the medication drops. We went to a very busy open market. I told the husband that the place looked like car boot sale. But my father corrected me. Bukan car boot sale, kaaarot sale.

A visit to Mee Bandung factory

2011-11-11T21:30:00.000+08:00

It was a rare opportunity, not the mee bandung trip, but to spend the time with my little sister. We had a very wide gap. She was born when I was in my form five. She grew up with me staying away to further my study. During hari raya haji break, I spent most of my time with her. She drove me around and of course we had a lot of fun.

The faces of me life

2011-11-11T21:22:00.000+08:00

They do not have to be rich, or highly educated. They are the faces that will bring you smile and drive you crazy most of the time. But in the end, they stay in your heart.

Day One in history

2011-11-11T15:35:00.000+08:00

hari Raya Aidil Adha

2011-11-09T11:02:00.000+08:00

For once I decided to have a long week break at home with my parents. My mom had an eye operation. I told the husband that I would like to spend the whole week at my parent's place. The history was in the making.

This time we choosed to take the highway instead of the old route, hoping that the trafic was not bad. I enjoyed the natural view along the road. The weather was cloudy along the way. The initial intention was to go back right after subuh, but of course, after tidied the house, the bedroom and arranged the laudry, we managed to travel back around 1pm.

Along the was, there were a lot of cars. Once in a while we had bumper to bumper crawled. So we decided to take the old route from the slim river. But it was not helpful at the local road was pack with cars busy with their final shopping. We stopped at the new renovated mosque to jamak prayers. This is the thing that is rude, when everyone was waiting along the lane we had cars using the mergency lane. That lane was supposed to be the lane for the motorcycle. I understood if we had an approching junction another 500m, but we are in the middle of highway. You are not the only one who pay for the road tax and the highway toll to get the privilage.

We reached Penang late at night. The husband refused to continue the journey back to Alor Setar as planned. We had to stay in Penang. Segala yang terakhir adalah satu kebaikan. The plan by Allah so that it will lead to the future planning together in the future. Alhamdullillah.

Seperti menarik rambut dalam tepung, rambut jagan terputus, tepung jagan berselerak.

The next day, after we prayed together, we stopped at the market to buy some fruit pickle, fish and a few simple groceries for mee goreng and gulai kepala ikan. A must.

Went back, cooked the mee goreng and gulai ikan, the husband sent us to the jetty.

lunch at the secret recipe

2011-09-22T17:21:00.000+08:00

Today, I had a lunch with my cousin at secret recipe. We ordered the set menu lunch. The waitress said, if you ordered the set lunch it would be faster than you ordered ala cut. At secret recipe, besides their cakes, I like the lasagna. Today because we would like to have faster lunch, I had the mee curry and my cousin would have the spagetti meatball. The gravy for the curry was too thick for me and they do not have a lot of garnish, only a few pieces of fried taufu, cut kacang panjang, one egg and a few slices of chicken which was not fresh. Unlike when I ordered mee curry at the food court, for a mere RM5.00 I had a lot of condiments - tauhu, taugeh, sliced of fish cake and kerang, not to mention kacang panjang.

I am not a big fan of mee and curry. Mee is too heavy, I prefer bihun or laksa. Curry does not fit my idea of enjoying like soup. The taste and texture are too strong for that. I prefer soup, plain classic soup without the spices. Yesterday I made meat soup, using rempah sup mak siti. It was nice. Mak siti rempah fit for my malay tastebud. We use rempah mak siti kari ikan. So we always make sure we have the rempah available in the pantry. Last time, at my sister's place my mom cooked fish curry. My husband keep saying how nice my mom's curry. He asked me what type of rempah my mom use. Rempah curry baba. Then a few day after that I made fish curry, I asked him how was my curry?

Tah, biasa jeee.

That is a very normal answer I got from him especially after he had my mom's curry or when we went back to Penang.

Niee, kena jual mahal sikit niee. Probably I need to wait a while to cook curry. Wait until his taste bud forgets about all those curries in penang and my mom's curry. Previously, my mom like his mom would make the curry paste themselves and grind it on the batu giling. His mom cookings were very nice. I like her pais ikan. But now, she is getting older, she has to rely on others to cook for her.

We talked and talked. We hardly meet, but we will try to find time to meet each other. We are at the same age. She gave very nice tart nenas. How can I get slim, if I have a lot of nice food around. We had to wait really long for her order. We had to wait until all the other orders were being served and reminded for a few times. I did not really like the spagetti meatball. So far, Pizza hut is the best place to have pasta, and domino is the best place to have pizza.

If the woman was full of emotions and sentimental values, the man would be more on facts and rational thinking.s And when it is the other way around, it was a very difficult situation to handle. I leave everything to Allah, and I believe, whatever outcome will be, InsyAllah there is a path for that. There will always path for every decison we make. Some of the path would be a challeging path, some would be the simple and straight forward. For every decision we make, we have to sacrifice a few things. InsyaAllah berkat doa memohon keberkatan, hanya kepada Allah. Dia yang mengetahui segalanya.

My relationship with my cousin is very close. I respect her decisions even though sometimes those were against my principles. In life I used to have a lot of principles, if I want to do this, I have to do that first. If I can not have this, then I can not have that. These principles were my rules and regulation of how I lead my life. But over the years, especially after getting married, I have to forget a lot of principles and tolerate with my marriage life. Did I regret of losing the principles? I have to accept the fact that life changes. My main aim now is to minimise the negative impact in a marriage life. If this is something for the positive influence to the marriage life, I have no choice but to follow. I, as a learning machine will take the challenge to adopt quickly.

People can get married and get divorce. But I told my brother, I do not want to get married to get divorce. Because of that principle, I found that I am in a lot of difficult decisions to handle. At the time when the situation was very tight, I had no choice but to remain low. One of the principles that I am still holding fast is to limit the things that I want to say. I believe, whatever the things that I want to say. Allah will give the best opportunity to it. Rasullullah s.a.w berpesan, jagalah lidahmu. Jangan biarkan ia mengheretmu ke neraka. Setiap patah perkataan yang dikeluarkan akan dikira. Keluarkanlahh perkataan yang baik-baik kerana ia menjadi satu doa. Dan apabila kamu tidak mampu lagi untuk mengeluarkan perkataan yang baik, lebih baik kamu berdiam.

After all the things that have been happening in our life, none of that will make us a distance apart. Of all the thing that I want to change. I would only want this relationship to grow stronger.

Ice cream

2011-09-21T17:28:00.000+08:00

I hardy got hick-up. Today I got it after eating non stop.

My tummy would be confused, to digest or not to digest!

During Ramadhan, I was determine to reduce my weight. When I went back for hari raya, everyone was commenting how blossoming I was. So Just forget about losing the weight.

When I came back to KL, I thought I could be more focus - losing my weight. So I had my puasa enam for syawal in a row.

That was not that easy when you were being distracted not by food this time, but by the situation. My hormone was not right. I mind has been wandering a lot.

How does it feel to be disowned?

How does it feel, the house, the red main door that you lock and unlock everyday was no longer the place you live. It will remain the place in your heart and memory.

How does it feel the small place that packed with colours will disappear. There will be no more comfy sofa for you to launch and enjoy the HD channels, there will no more bed with fluffy pillows in the bedroom for you to sleep. The striking green kitchen cabinet will no longer be yours.

At the moment, everyone is the enemy, the husband and the brothers. I do not know and I am so confuse.

I just want to have a place that I can call my own.

Family for him will come later. At the moment nobody bother. The one that makes us hang fast to who we are, is the parents. They are the reason for us to drive back for a long journey.

My fasting plan that was suppose to be consistent for the whole weekdays remains as a plan, never get executed. I only fasted on monday.

Today I thought I was stronger, to make a decision or not making a decision, is not going to make any difference.

I have to learn how to disown and to learn how to accept that, to learn how to focus. acting and contradicting. I know he means well.

Today I felt like eating and ice cream. By the time I reached the counter, I just did not feel like buying it.

I could not even make a decision on a simple thing like that!

I do not want the decision that I am making today to be like the decision I made 10 years ago.

There was no right or wrong decision, but for every major decision that you want to make like this one will divert the navigation of the ship.

I can take the hurdles and live within my means and be satisfied with it just like when I told my dad last time, after SPM

Pak, kak nak apply MADA punya course but mee ka, buat tauhu kaa, buat lengkong kaa.

My dad was mad at me!

When I received my SPM result, I told my dad after he rejecting my idea to continue for form 6.

Pak, Kak nak apply ITM jaaa!

He said to me,

Toksah nak ambik tempat orang lain yang lebih layak dari hang.

I did not understand what he meant. Then I got the offer to be far away to the Lib Democrat land.

Then he said to me,

Pie, tapi jgn bawak balik GD. Kalau tak hang buang masa jee.

I took that as a challenge, and he was right. He may be the teacher who did not even complete the training due to the war, but he was the dad whom I rely most for my major decisions.

Alhamdullillah, It went well so far until the day when I thought I would like to handle the life on my own. When I thought I was clever enough to make decision.

To get married and to further my studies. Which later in life I could not differentiate which was the wrong decision that I had made that make me suffer.

I struggled throughout. My parents would only be the place for me to get all the blame every time I was trying to look up for them. I became a stranger in my own family. My husband would be the sole consultant to my life. His decision was mine. For every wrong turning, it would be my faults and I got the blame.

I just want a simple life. At the moment I feel so comfortable with it. I may not earn as much as others, but it does not mean I was losing behind. I know my path will come. InsyaAllah. The inability for me to complete my PhD during the required time becomes the benchmark and the hurdle to move forward. I got the blame for everything.

Life after all is only a short journey.

To make decision or not to make a decision will be a decision regardless.

in my mind

2011-09-20T17:20:00.000+08:00

I have been staying away from my country long enough that one day when my student said to me,

It must be really interesting to be away from Malaysia.
I told him, the thought of going away makes me homesick already.

This may not be the perfect country, the heaven on earth, but this is my country regardless.

I may not hold high to our flag during our independent month. I may not have the miniature flag stuck on my glass panel, but it does not necessarily mean I do not have the spirit of it.

I had been on the phone long enough with my friend this morning discussing nothing but this.

Where ever a go, I love Malaysia. And that is fact.

The end of the long weekend

2011-09-18T19:51:00.000+08:00

A long packed weekend had come to an end when the brother came to pick up the kids back home. Saturday we were at my sister's house. Yesterday I was busy baking. My brother requested me to bake 3 velvet cake. Today, I baked cupcakes for the kids. They want the choco cake.

We had spegetti together then the house return to normal.

The open house

2011-09-17T19:48:00.000+08:00

For once, the condo management team decided to have the combination of chinese autum festival, hari satu malaysia, hari raya and deepavali. The pool was packed with the residents.

Hari Malaysia

2011-09-15T11:17:00.000+08:00

This weekend is the long weekend that a lot of people are taking an advantage with the open house. We fast for one month, we raya for another year. We are living in the culture that celebrates everything and anything with food. And most of our food are tempting and can be a dynamite that kills you. Among my favourite during raya time is tart nenas, lemang, ketupat pulut and rendang. These are the food that I will only reserve during raya time. I can always eat that anytime I want, but the food will be special if I reserve it for a certain time only.

My brother is coming over for raya visit. No I am not doing open house but guests are always welcome. I will do some small gathering, but even that, it will be like a festive.

I am not really sure what shall I cook. The kids love curry only. Anything with curry, they go for the gravy. When they had their open house last weekend, I went there with my first attempt of red velvet cake. The obvious thing about the cake is the colour. Another distinctive feature is that it has the cheese icing. The ingredient is different, it uses oil instead of butter.

We went in the evening. The house was packed with guests. I went inside the house. A cousin and her family were inside the house. My sister in laws opened the cake box.

Wahh, Ina, red velvet cake keee?

My cousin was giving a shout when she looked at the cake. The cake was covered with the white icing. And she made the right guessed. I was smiling. My parents were there as well. Everyone was quite, did not know what to expect.

For my parent, it is normal for me to bake cake. I had been supplying fruit cake to them. My mother always requested the cake from me. I had once during raya time to have my friends ordered the fruit cake from me. Sometimes I bake brownies. Baking is very therapeutic. And I enjoy doing it.

Cake in tengah famous sekarang. Sebiji kat internet RM65.

I looked at my parents. They were impressed with that and smilling.

My sister in laws cut the cake into small slices, and gave to her and her husband. My brother requested a slice. And suddenly everyone was interested to try, the red velvet cake.

She offered the cake to some of the guesses as well. My mom requested her to save a portion to my sister, who was not there yet.

Yesterday, I had lunch with my brother and the family at pizza hut. They ordered 3 red velvet cakes.

I love baking, but when it come to selling the cake to people, I tend to ask them to justify why they order. I do not want them to order simply because I am baking.

2 biji kami nak makan. Sebiji lagi jiran kami nak.

Tak kan hang nak makan sampai 2 biji.

Mana cukup sebiji. Hat yang hang bagi hari tuu pun tak dan nak balas lain.

Wait a minute. I haven't set the price yet. But you can pay me RM40 sebiji. Just to cover the cost.

Banyak tuu jee. OK lah kami boleh jual kat orang RM50.

What ever. My fruit cake was RM40. My husband's friend who ordered the cake from me said that I should increase the price. But for me, as long as I can cover the cost, it is more than enough. My pricing policy is based on the cost of production. Unlike the cupcake that requires the creativity in decoration, baking a cake is just a simple task. Why should I charge for more. The icing is just a simple icing.

This morning the husband called me.

Yang esok cuti satu malaysia. Kita nak pie mana?

Oh well, tak tau lagi. Kita pie makan mee udang?

Nanti kita plan lain.

We have raya and deepavali gathering at our condo. I am planning for the red velvet cup cake for that.

Berhari raya bersama sanak saudara

2011-09-03T06:51:00.001+08:00

Si Kuning Balik Kampung

2011-09-01T23:27:00.000+08:00

Balik kampung was never an issue to us. The decision has always been made and in fact there is no decision to make. Every hari raya has to be in Penang. That was what he claims. His parents are already old, they have the priority. There is no point of arguing. Every hari raya will always be a celebration at the hospital. Since we came back, she mother had been hospitalised for almost 4 times already during the raya celebration. This year, still se went to the hospital. His sister had been admitted to the hospital. The nurse at the hospital commented to my sister in laws.

Tahun nie hang pulak masuk hospital. Kalau tak mak hang yang selalu masuk.

Balik Kampung

2011-08-25T22:00:00.000+08:00

Last night I had a dream. In the dream someone was accusing me a murder. I was hiding under stairs in a building. They were searching high and low for me. I was very scared. How could I commit a murder, when I did not even have gut to kill a catfish. Every time when I want to buy a catfish, I will ask the fishmonger to gut the fish. The husband will hold the plastic and the fish will go straight to the freezer, if the bag is still moving.

One thing I was so sure, I was scared and confused. I would like to explain, but I did not have the opportunity. I was the fugitive.

This afternoon, I received a call from my mum. She hardly call. So every time when her number appears, i always freak out. This afternoon, when I picked up her call she was panicked and sobbing.

My brother and his family had an accident, all by themselves. The car slipped and twisted and turned. Luckily there was no other cars passing by. It was raining heavily.

He told me that he could not control his car, suddenly the steering was not functioning and he had to let the car drove by its wheel. I had experience it once at a high speed during the heavy rain the road can be slippery. We do not have to wait until the road will be flooded. Road was not design to get flood, but it will have water running through the road, making a flow across the road.

The car hit the divider and turn back to the left lane, badly damaged. Alhamdullillah, everyone was unharmed. The car was badly damaged. Luckily it was a pajero. If they had the ford, I did not know what to say.

To think about it, already make me shiver.

I had a dream a few night ago. I was travelling with my family. And I stopped at Kak Su's house. Meet Kak Su on the second floor. Her relative was there and she showed me a room where she use to pray. The double stry house was a bit chaotic and in a mess. In the dream according to Kak Su, she thought I was . a long distance relative to her husband. My husband was with her husband a few friends. We were not long at the house, then we moved again. One thing about this dream is that I have never meet Kak Su. But she is in my inspirational blogger. It was not today I read her blog, I have been reading her blog since the day I wrote my own blog, and until we keep on changing blogs from time to time.

KOBO

2011-08-23T21:48:00.001+08:00

This entry is meant to be straight forward, for the sake of updating. No hanky panky photos and google result but I am talking seriously on this KOBO application.

I had once mentioned this application to my students. I was so eager telling them about this marvelous application, they looked back at me. Blanked.

Probably I shouted at the wrong people. Regardless, I enjoy having the application so much. KOBO is an application for e-book. A free one. I got it from borders website. We need to download the application first before we can enjoy the e-books. And what is so special about this application is that I can read free ebooks. most of them are fiction and romance. Suit me perfectly!

The husband used to complain to me that I had been collecting a lot of novels. I love reading. period. My purchase on novel will normally be an instant decision - spot on, like it, buy it and it can be more than one easily. One thing that the husband could never understand me reading habit is that, I would have one book by the bedside, another one at the sofa, probably one in the toilet. He hate it, and as much as I hate him when he scattered his smelly sock around the house.

With e-books, not only I can get it free, but I can also keep it for many titles and keep on jumping reading. Reading from KOBO allows me to just rely on my netbook. I do not need to rely on the network when I want to read books. I just need the network to download books.

I would read the book on the train. So it is very important for me to get a seat, so that I can switch on the netbook and start on reading. Call me selfish, but I hardly surrender my seat. I know now how to occupy my time during the commuting. In the morning, I had a chance to scout at the corner seat, so that I can recite quran on the journey.

Today, homebound, the train was packed. I switched on the netbook and continued with my novel. This is the time I wish I could have iphone or Ipad. There was a couple standing by my side, the lady was talking in an indonesian language. But they looked like chinese. It was normal for chinese indenesians to be very fluent of indonesian language, just like my best friend, Lita

When most of the passengers disembarked the train at bandar tasik selatan, most of the seat were vacant. The couple was seating at my opposite. After a while, the guy took out his mobile, and he looked at me,

Excuse me, can I take a picture of your poem, I like it very much.

My netbook was not covered by wallpaper. It was in it's plain bright yellow. I had two butterflies on the skin, and a slip of poem on a piece of paper, handwritten, between the thin plastic cover.

I was surprised with his request. I was impressed with his effort to take a photo of the poem. So I took out the paper and handed it over to him. Train journey can be extremely plain that you have the time to observe everything in detail.

You can keep it, I can write it again. I had a copy of it.

He took it from me.

The poem was in english, he began reading the poem to his girlfriend in english, and translated to indonesian language to his girlfriend. Just like He Gang, my chinese best friend from china. He would read a poem to me in mandarin, then translated it to english. It sound awkward of course, when the beauty of the language are being translated. I could only understand the meaning. That's it. We would be walking miles, and miles across the field. He would accompany me mostly everywhere. He was permanently with me when I had my breakfast with his classic chinese poem book.

It was hard to find a man who is so passionate about poem.

I found it at one of the motivational book for PhD. Apparently, it was a very popular poem in the internet.

You can google it on the internet.

I want to put it on my facebook.

Don't Quit (awesome motivational poem)

Unknown

When things go wrong as they sometimes will;

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill;

When the funds are low, and the debts are high;

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh;

When care is pressing you down a bit

Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Success is failure turned inside out;

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;

And you can never tell how close you are;

It may be near when it seems afar.

So, stick to the fight when you're hardest hit

It's when things go wrong that you mustn't quit.

My Students

2011-08-16T15:08:00.002+08:00

Having them around always lighten up my spirit and give me the inspiration. None of my classes are the same even though it may be the same subjects or the same students with different subjects. And so with my lectures and assignment, hardly the lectures on the same subjects with the same topics exactly the same. Assignment will be different as well.

I like to immerse with my students' thoughts and opinion. I want them to relate their understanding with their environment. I do not take my lectures as a responsibility and commitment. I see that as a journey along the way of life, as we proceed by days, we understand better. With understanding we develop the passion. I am not trying to tell that I am good. But being a lecturer is one of the profession where your students contribute to you in form of doa.

Yesterday, when my husband picked me up at the lrt station, I told him that I was desperately need another sim card. I do not mind buying the prepaid one as long as I can call out and people around me can call in. I do not know when my brother will replace my sim card, they are busy. My sister in law was not well when I called her over the weekend.

My sim card at the moment was completely and utterly hopeless. My sister in law told me, order to replace my sim card with a new one, celcom will block my sim card. I was getting desperate, but at this moment I can't afford to be disconnected from the telecommunication world. Critical.

I had to rely on my sister in law to get the replacement as we use the 1+5 family package. And it was under her name.

The husband looked at me laughing. He took out a blue plastic card from his shirt pocket.

Where did you get it?

He was so thoughtful to buy another sim card for me. Yes the price is not a bomb, but the taught that counted. I was desperate.

I looked at it.

It was a 3g sim card!

I looked at him, I was nearly in tears.

Susah payah i bawak reta sesat barat pie ambik kat abang.

My brother lives in kajang. We hardly visit each other and always busy over the weekend. There was once my mom asked me to deliver clothing material for them. It was ages ago, when I went back home. But too bad it was never done. Until they went back home to alor setar, then my mom called me to send the kain through my sister who works in penang. She came to KL over the weekend, to bring it back to alor setar for my brother. I love them regardless.

Last night, the husband bought 3 packets of nasi kerabu. I liked the rice, with the kerabu. I remembered we had a nice nasi kerabu at Kg Dato' Harun. I like nasi dagang as well. But the daughter did not like it. One thing about her, if she does not like it, she will just accept it and eat the food. She hardly complains. But you could see that she was not really interested. If she does not like my food, she will take a very long time to finish her plate.

She would have the food first. The husband will go to the surau after a quick break and come back home for a proper meal. I will wait for the husband in the mean time accompanying my daughter. Yesterday I made roti john. We only finished up 2 packets of nasi kerabu. I bought 6 pieces of kueh, and we still have the leftover. I made some agar-agar merah and dadih last week end, and still I have the balance in the fridge.

We always have a lot of leftover after breaking fast, especially rice. One day my husband brought back 2 children from surau. They came to our home with their mother over the weekend once - foreigners.

It was difficult to adjust with their taste. I was worried if they did not take rice and fish, because that day we had rice and fish. We always have rice and fish.

I ajak depa balik, sebab umah kita selalu banyak nasi tak habis. Buat apa kita membazir, kita boleh makan ramai-ramai. There were two of them, brothers.

Dulu masa I studied kat lancaster university, tok arablah yang selalu jamu I makan masa bulan posa. I bukanya ada duit sebab self sponsored. Depalah yang dok bagi duit kat I. Kadang-kadang bila I tak ada makan, I cuma makan brocoli rebus je (It was the cheapest veg while in season).

Hari nie I kenang balik.

They came to the surau during asar, stayed over, reciting quran until terawih. Sometimes when it rains, they could not go back to the house. They live in the neighbouring residential areas.

Mata hati

2011-08-14T09:04:00.001+08:00

She was so shy when she realised that I was staring at her intensely. I just could not help myself.

Look at her face, very sweet and lovely so innocent. The short journey with them, for once felt so intense and long. She was sitting between his father nad brother with her hand on her brother's lap. He was the one who will hold her, with the father holding to his shoulder. For a young man like him, it was a great responsibility.

One saturday morning, the train was packed just like the normal morning. Only those who boared the train at the first two stations would get a place to sit. For the rest of the stops, the passengers had to stand and cramp the place. If we had pregnant women, some of the sitting passengers had to reluctantly giving up the seat. But I had realise that after a while, we had so many pregnant women in the train standing. No one care to give up especially in the evening, when everyone was tired of the day work.

That Saturday morning with the packed coach, there was a family of three children boarded the train. Everyone was offering their seat to them, voluntarily. The couple were blind. The had a son as the eldest, around 15 years old, two daughters, one was about 13 years old, and a toddler of 3 years old. The son was holding his baby sister. They sat opposite me. I can't help but my eyes were literally super fast gluing to them throughout the journey. It was like a magnet.

The young daughter was standing on the seat looking outside the window, just like any other happy toddlers, excited.

Babah, kat luar cantik.

Babah ada umah kat luar

Babah keter apai jalan.

Petah.

The train was normally super quiet in the morning. That morning, I could hear her voice and I still can hear it while writing the entry. Loud and clear, excited and happy.

I had a rush of feelings. mixed of it. Disturbed, amazed, sad, impressed, and courage, and honesty.

Photos

2011-08-13T12:53:00.000+08:00

I like the location with the background. The relaxing swimming pool with both of the deck chairs with the metropolitan background.

I am not a professional photographer, I did not even own DSLR. But I love good photos. When I bought my mobile, one of the criteria was to be able to capture instant image and produce a good quality picture. When I got my mobile, I am satisfied with the instant result. These are a few of the photos from the humble mobile.

But lately I had a problem. The mobile could not read my sim card. I think I could figure out why. One of the thing probably my memory card, I got confused probably. Or it could be that I like to charge it directly from my netbook. Again I think it got confused, or It probably because I like to listen to the radio. Because for every incident, I always had my phone hang.

The husband was once having a problem with his mobile. Between him and me, surprisingly, he has less problems than mine. lately, his touch screen was no longer touchable. I could not blame the humble device. It was not in protective casing, it was together with tough items like bunch of keys in his trouser pocket, or even jeans most of the time.

But the devices are surviving well under our heavy and though condition.

I love the bleeding light at night, the white, the blue and yellow, beautiful.

Ramadhan Al Mubarak

2011-08-13T11:53:00.001+08:00

There was an old arab lady sitting on the chair, everytime. One thing about these arab ladies, they hardly speak english and understand it. How I wish if they could. The would will be different for me. They are very friendly, and love to cook. Very delicous indeed, even the homemade simple flat bread.

At one corner, was the indonesian group, constant jemaah at the surau as well. Most arabs adorn jubah, very simple, some of them with jeans and blouse, just like when I was in UK last time. I prayed just using my clothes that I was wearing. So everytime we went for terawih, we will wear jubah and scaf.

Alhamdullillah we are managing well with the ramadhan. Alhamdullillah this year the husband is constant with solat at the surau located in our residential area. A shop lot that had been converted into a place to pray by the middle east people without any sponsorship from anyone. They pay the rent by themselves. The lot that they plan to buy, by cash, but they are not eligible because they are foreigners.

Alhamdillullah his prayer at the surau is constant, subuh, zhohor sometime missed, with asar, magrib, then he would stay over for quran reading until insya.

Ramadhan this time, he told me that he has no intention to gather with people outside out residential.

'Kita pie jalan lepas raya.'

In fact now, we hardly stay away outside beyond the magrib. As far as he is concerned, magrib always has to be at the surau with Pak Arab. (As if we hardly find masjib around.) Masjid Abdul Rahman Auf is just around the corner. But it was sad, for such a grand and big mosques, the place is literally vacant. The building is surrounded by residential flats. Always after magrib, the place will be empty, no activity. Sad fact. Even tok imam pun balik umah.

'Bacaan quran depa lebih menusuk kalbu, setiap bait memberi seribu makna.'

Alhamdullillah. He was right, I enjoy listening to the quran recitation. Subhanallah.

First tarawih, we went together. He said that they had allocated a side of the surau for muslimah to pray.

Ramadhan this year is different from the previous years. He goes to the mosque for after breaking fast, for magrib and then rushes back home for dinner. This is totally different to us. A good move. Alhamdullillah.

We went on the first day. It was a small and condensed place as they put the curtain high up, and tight, preventing from free air flow. The area would fit 30 muslimah praying at one time. There were about 20 of us at that time. A bit suffocated. Most of them were arab, with some from the workers of the condo, Indonesians and bangladeshies. I could not rectify any malay apart from the daughter and me.

We stayed until witir on the first day. Then the following days as more muslimah jemaah came in, the place become over crowded and suffocated. With the dim light that we got from the main area, making it feel like we are under the container. I surrender, after terawih, we would go back home.

I had been away for a long time to be a foreigner, and at that surau in my own country, I was once again the foreigner. No wonder the husband was very comfortable. He is so used with praying with arabs. On saturday, after subuh, he would stay until 7am for another quran session.

Alhamdullillah, his quran reading is improving.

For once, I was determined to reduce my weight in this ramadhan time. I am so overweight that even after one week of fasting, I hardly feel hungry. This is a very serious indicator.

'Mak, kak punyalah gemuk, seminggu dah posa, sikit pun tak rasa lapaq'

My mom just laugh out loud for me. My mom. I just love her.

KL at night

2011-07-16T09:20:00.000+08:00

Beautiful with lights. It is not about flora and fauna, it is about brick and mortar.

The view fron an LRT station. I could only captures the tip of the twin tower.

Twin tower at night with flash of lights of the street.

After the rain, on friday night, the perfect combination for the jam

oven baru

2011-07-03T12:00:00.001+08:00

Last time when the husband requested me to replace my old oven I refused. We could still use the machine. It baked well. But we need to use sort of object to turn the timer. But last week I had my turning point. The last knob gave up. The knob for the temperature.

My oven was not an expensive and branded oven. I got it a few years ago at the price below RM100. It was not a big oven but a sufficient size to bake a lot of dishes. I use my oven a lot, for baking. The oven came with 3 knobs by the right side. The top one for the temperature, the middle one for the heat source, and the lower one for the timer. When the first knob gave up broken, due to the intensive use - I used a plyer to fix the heat source for upper and lower. When the second knob gave up, I use the knife to slip through between the two metal clip to twist for the time. I was not able to time my baking - so it would go straight to the max. The maximum timer for the oven was 60 min. Sometimes the timer was working. When the times up, it would 'ting!'. Most of the time, the timer was not working. So we would get the 'ting!' at the odd hour or the next day. I still use the oven regardless. The security was not there. So we could not leave the oven on when we would like to go out.

I baked a lot of dishes with love. The try and error recipes. The recipe that the family love to eat and enjoy - chicken pandan, honey roasted chicken, fish in banana leaves, muffin, chocolate cake, fruit cakes that I bake for my friends during raya when they order the cake, the brownies so many times, every times when I had my friends and family hang at my place, then we would enjoy the warm brownies with ice cream. The brownies that I baked for syura for her wedding. I would like to bake for Ika for her wedding as well, but the timing was not right. I bake the cup cakes that the daughter likes and she keep on asking for for. The flapjacks that she never gets bored of. The cookies, the tart, and not to mention the frozen food that I just whacked in the oven.

But last night we had to get a new oven, I just could not be bother with twisting the knobs creatively. The first baking for the oven was the scones - it was the cinnamon and dates scones - to fit with his health requirement standards - cinnamon is known as a spice that can lower the blood pressure, and the dates is high in fiber. The first time I had my scones was when I did my first degree. I went to an old lady's house and she offered me the scones. I like the crumbly texture. It was super duper easy to make and bake and you will hardly go wrong with it. It use a simple recipe, flour, butter, and milk. In UK scones is popular with strawberry and cream serve with tea. It was normally a plain scone. Last time I baked, I used raisins and almond.

The new oven is slightly larger than the previous oven. So i can put my broken pan inside when I want to cook omelet, probably I should try the york shire pudding. The breakfast for today is a one pan breakfast, where I had mushroom, tomato, chicken nugget and eggs in one pan. Then everyone will scope their portion.

Mengkelan

2011-06-08T12:18:00.000+08:00

Last time, when I had my humble nasi kandar of telur rebus, hati goreng and kacang bendi, it cost me around rm3. It was not expensive.

But this is not about the money that I couldn't afford to enjoy my nasi kandar particularly at line clear. The agenda was packed.

My plan was to have it on the thursday, when we arrived at penang. But the husband met his friend at seberang and then hanged out with his brother at the malay stall. We did not order anything. The daughter had a bowl of sup. She had been eating a lot. I was not that hungry - but I was looking forward for the nasi kandar.

It was around magrib time already, so we decided to head home straight away. It was too late and we were too tired to go out. Besides, I had an early day at USM. After meeting the supervisor, after friday prayer, I thought we could go for a dose of nasi kandar at line clear. I was becoming a very particular eater - I could always stop at any nasi kandar restaurant scattered around, but it was nasi kandar line clear that I really wanted to eat.

But the husband had to attend an engagement at the brother's place. He picked me up in the evening. Too tired to go anywhere. We headed back home. No nasi kandar line clear for me.

I was literally 'hungry'. I had laksa instead that afternoon. Another food that is a must when I was in Penang. It was hard to find a good laksa in KL, with the fresh fish gravy.

That night the husband took me out, but not to nasi kandar line clear. My appetite had gone already. Disappointed basically. He took me to 'pengkalan pak rahman'. That was the place that I enjoyed so much. The place where the local fishermen come back with their catch of the day. The place where their job description is more realistic and practical than the 9-5 job. The job that pays them by what they bring in for the day.

The next day, we went for a wedding, but then another wedding at sungai petani. Then we headed back to alor setar.

By sunday, we went back to KL. Satisfied.

One thing I learned in my life is that, it is not so much about money. Even the humble rm3 nasi kandar, I could not eat. I was not that financially in trouble not to be able to buy the nasi kandar, but Allah is great. I had a lot of others great food instead of that nasi kandar. I had durian at my friend's house. I had a good tepung talam, pulut sekaya and seri muka. I had more that enough of nasi kenduri.

Alhamdullillah.

Nasi kandar Line clear

2011-06-03T15:09:00.001+08:00

O.K, ada orang dah complen, tak update blog lama. This is not the moment of having choice. to update or not to update. I was on hibenating mode. Everything remain stagnant for a certain period of time. The time when you were having your own tsunami of your life time. It is everything about your PhD and supervisor. This is the time whether you like it or not you have to face it. It may not be in your favour, but still you have to face it. Endure with the positive mind and attitude.

Most of the time, I could not run away. I could not deny the fact. My PhD is haunting me. The supervisor is hoping that I could be his first PhD student to graduate. That was not easy. But he has a very high hope. An honour hope.

The husband is comparing me with pak-pak arab who are taking PhD at UKM, and UM. The guy at the opposite entrance are doing his PhD at USM. Some of them are asking him to do english editing and malay editing.

He always goes to surau for jemaah. Alhamdullillah his jemaah is constant, magrib, insya and subuh. Sometimes during the weekend, he goes for dhohor and asar. For once, I could not understand why those people live at my condo? Almost 200 families there.

One thing that was not really in my favour is that everytime when he comes back from surau, he will always tell me about this brother, that brother doing their PhD. And those are the bench mark he set for me.

Sapa kata kat tempat keja ja tension ada kpi.

Kat umah macam nak pengsan dengan kpi.

Yang, depa semua bini buat. I semua kena buat kat u.

Mana ada jalan.

Does he care?

Tough Luck. NO!

So we had the time during the school holiday to go back home. I set an appointment with the supervisor on friday.

haram, tak buat apa pun. File pun berabuk.

It was like kami kazi, hara kiri pun ada.

One thing I learned in my life - is to be brave to face your own consequences. If you are guilty as charge then you have to accept the fact. Yes you are. No denial.

I have also learned to accept that I am not perfect and I am not going to let people perceive me as a perfect person.

I was blank - my supervisor was obviously blank. What could you expect? He had other master students and Phd students to monitor.

Tak boleh jadi macam nie.

I had already finished my appointment with him. I have to be more serious. The deadline is more serious. No hanky panky otherwise I will be dead. His words in my progress report will determine my registration this coming semester. Yes, I know he was not a mean human being.

O.K one agenda ticked. Next one is makan nasi line clear.

I shall only tell about it after I had my session with it.

I am drooling at the moment - telur rebus, hati ayam, bendi, kuah campur

It was purple

2011-05-19T11:54:00.000+08:00

My stats was never good. What is the probability of having someone in the same coach in the lrt during the peak period for the day.

The way I pick my cloth for the day was by rotating the cloth. I have enough cloth to ratote over the month. So I just pick it up match with the tudong. I realised that the husband will pick his shirt in the similar tone with my dress.

The lrt was packed as usual. I normally will sit in the middle of the coach.

Yesterday, I saw a lady standing in the front of me wearing the same colour and pattern of baju kurung.

I did not really know how to react.

You look beautiful

2011-05-16T10:15:00.001+08:00

I told my friend that I blog, so she can read my entry. And I told her that I do not let everyone read my blog. She looked at me.

Why?

You do not necessarily write blog for others to read. You write because you want to talk about what you want to talk not what others want to here. Blogging can be selfish sometimes. This is the time about me, me, and me. Unlike facebook, you want to know what is happening to whom. In my case, I do not address my audience.

In a blog world you can choose to be popular or not. I may have link from the side, those are the links to the people who have been writing along with my time, but I keep on changing my blog address simply because after a while I feel very uncomfortable with my increasing statistics.

This morning, the husband looked and me.

You are beautiful today.

Yesterday he complimented the same.

I like the way you look - beautifully different.

He must be besotted with me - you must be crazy to have those kind of complements at the age of 40.

Ada udang disebalik batu?

What did I do?

Well, nothing drastic like plastic surgery or botox injection or spa. Nothing.

But I adjust my regime. Considering as someone who are not health fanatic, let alone the beauty conscious, make up is not my cup of tea.

I do not like to have the eye shadow on my eyes. The weather is so humid and I sweat a lot - I do not want to have colours running on my face.

I like the sexy smoking eyes - but I freaked out my husband by implementing it on my eyes once.

It looked like panda eyes.

I do not know what to use and how to use it. I do not like the fact that you need to spend a lot of time in the front of mirror -when I hardly have time to put my contact lenses. I choose to wear contact lenses because it is so convenient for my vision. And I never have problem of misplacing my glasses.

One day, I bought a foundation by lancome - It was a bit pricey - I was not sure whether I had made a right purchase of not.

I met my friend for lunch, and she complimented -

Muka akak nampak lincin. Eye bag pun tak de. It had been a while we haven't met, for her to give that compliment - it was something different.

The husband was the next person who keep on saying that.

I told her that I use lancome foundation - just a small dot, and it does the wonder on your face.

She liked it and we went to the lancome counter straight away - We had the time to do the make over. Last time when I bought it, I was too embarrassed to have the make over by myself.

This time the sale girl was doing the make over for my friend. Full make over - for once in years she looked radiant and more beautiful than her wedding day. Of course everything by lancome.

I asked the girl how to do a normal work makeup - the basic simple natural look make up, and how to do the smokey eyes so that we do not look like panda.

She explained in detail everything while demonstrating on my friend's face. The whole process took about 45 mins.

I said to her, but it took so long to do the whole make up. If the whole process took 45 min on the face only, how long we need to prepare for the whole process from ironing the cloth, take the shower, dressing.

Please do not tell me that I have to wake up at 5am to just look beautiful.

NO! 5 min jee kakkk.

It takes sometime before you know how to adjust the colours, blend the tones - max 15 mins.

Hmmm - so after the session, at least I know what are the basic make up I need. In my simplicity case - I just need an eye liner, two tones eyes shadow, the foundation, and lipgloss. That's it.

When my sister came last time - I did it on her face.

And yes, it did not take long - it accentuates the face, it does not look like a slab of eye shadow on the eyes neither the panda eyes.

Dr 'Aidh Bin Abdullah Al-Qarni

2011-05-12T08:36:00.000+08:00

Sebaik-baik harta adalah yang membawa manfaat bagimu. Sebaik-baik ilmu adalah yang mengangkat darjatmu. Sebaik-baik rumah adalah yang membawa ketenangan di hatimu. Sebaik-baik kawan adalah yang sentiasa menasihatimu.

Yesterday, I went out with my friend during lunch time to buy some clothing material for making blouse. I found a tailor at my place who makes a very nice cutting.

I have to admit, this is not my kind of shopping. I failed most of the time when it comes to buying cloth. We walked at Jalan TAR and stopped by at the book shops there.

Yesterday I got an islamic novel, a motivational book - la tahzan- by Dr Aidh, and one book about doa by ustaz Harun Din.

Dr Aidh is popular with his la-tahzan book. But it was not my first collection of his book and after browsing the book last night it was not the top of my list of his collection. My first collection of his book was al-quran berjalan. That book was a serious book. It was a size of text book, bulky and tick.

I already had trouble reading a small thin islamic book. I lost on the first page reading a normal islamic book. But that book was so good. The experience was more exilirating than 'Kane and Abel' by Jefry archer. It was a combination of Philippa Gregory of 'the Wideacre'. I flip the page one by one. I cried when it comes to the part that was so sad. I was motivated when it comes to the part of determination. It was better than the roller coaster ride. The book ' alquran' berjalan was permenantly on my bedside. The book that I will read when I was down and hopeless seeking for inspiration. But now the book was with my cousin.

I gave to her last time when she came to my house. Her husband passed away in a sudden death due to heart attack. She told me that she bought 'la tahzan' to bring her up. It works on her. But I told her to read 'al-quran berjalan instead. So, I gave her my copy. Last time I went to her house, she would like to return the book to me. But she was not finishing the book yet. She had stopped reading the book. But I told her to keep the book. Finish it at your own sweet time.

When my uncle came from UK last time, I gave him the books as well. For me, they best give I can appreciate is the give of knowledge. Good knowledge will never fade away. Now I think I can relate to my dream a few years ago, when in the dream, I was at a town, then I bought two books with me. At a town with a lot of men wearing jubah putih. The dream that even when it happened a few years ago, but the memory about the dream is still very strong until today.

The dream that reminds me of my respectable ustaz Harun Din. No, I have never met him in person. I had listened to a few of his ceramah. He is a very humble man, his ceramah was strong and powerful. I remembered in his ceramah, he once told that, he had a dream with our prophet, dalam satu majlis, dimana dia hanya memegang dan menjaga kasut rasulullah sahaja. Tidah dijemput bersama untuk majlis itu. He was so sad with that. Imagine, a religious man like him , a hafiz, when he had a dream about rasullullah, he was only eligible to hold rasullullah shoes. Apatah lagi aku.

I had an arab student came from riyath. He always talks to me tells story. I told him that I read the book by Dr 'Aidh, and I told him that his books can really influence my emotion. In my culture when it comes to religion studies most of the time is about dosa dan pahala, surga dan neraka. Everything is about must, and forbidden. The history about rasullullah was only on the names, dates and place. The plain boring history book style. But when I read the book, I was impressed on how he digests every single incident, full with passion. He is a very passionate writer.

MashaAllah Mam, I saw him with my two naked eyes. He always come to our mosque regularly for giving dakwah.

I had tears in my eyes - How I wish I could see the man who gives me the different perspective about islam. The religion that is so full with love and passion.

These are the two islamic icons whom I respect so much. For me, they are the true independent ulama whom are not biased to any influence, politically and socially.

The two men that a really like to meet are those two men.

Roti Arab

2011-05-11T10:39:00.000+08:00

Dinner over the weekday is always challenging. It has to be like maggi tagline - cepat dimasak dan sedap di makan'.
Two days ago asked my daughter what would sho like to eat. She would be the benchmark for the food to eat. The husband refused to have nasi at night - perut buncit.

Mommy, aten nak makan burger. With her wide open eyes- she was serious about that.

We went to the arab grocery to get the burger bun. The bread at the shop was baked fresh from the local bakery at the condo - an arab bakery. I always get the bread supply from the shop.

The bread will get mouldy - I told my mom.

Koman laaa.

I do not like the commercial bread that never get mouldy - it was not normal.

We bought the burger bun, the flat bread, the ramlee beef burger, and the chicken luncheon.

I gave money to the daughter to pay.

It was a malay lady who manned the shop. My husband told me that she married to Arab, and open the shop. A middle age lady.

Pandai makan roti arab. She commented.

Beli lah cheese, buah zaiton, mkan sekali baru sedap.

Dah ada kat umah cheese baru beli. Nantilah pulak.

The cheddar only cost me RM4.50.

That night the daughter had double cheese burger. The husband had chicken luncheon.

Last night, the daughter requested for the flat bread folded in two and grilled it on the pan.

I spreaded the bread with olive oil, tomato paste, the sliced chicken luncheon, sliced tomato, and the cheese. The lady at the shop was right, if we had the olive, it would be double nice.

When the bread was ready, it would be crispy and the cheese melted.

The husband was with his agenda. He went to our local vegetable shop and get the supply of fresh basil, mints and water cress. I like those as part of salad.

But he came back with more. I can so insane with his health fanatic. Everything has to be cinnamon. Cinnamon in the bread, cinnamon in the drink and cinnamon in everything.

Apparently this morning he told me, last night he stopped at his regular organic shop, talking with the shop owner, a chinese man and then there was another Indian man - they were talking about how good the food are.

If I eat my food for leisure, he consumes his food under the name of health. Failure to justify the food from the health benefit, it will be rejected straight away.

Food must be delicious. Yummy and scruptious! Otherwise it will be rejected.

The Indian man told him, if you consume the cinnamon, it will reduce the blood pressure. He came back with a lot of health food reminding my daughter to be very careful when to comsume it and a pack of cinnamon power, persuading me to channel my cooking based on cinnamon.

This morning he told me - I tak boleh makan cinnamon tuu lah.

I looked at him - why?

My blood pressure turun below the normal line - 112/67.

Tau pun!

Senyumlah untuk hari ini

Weekend yang sibuk

2011-05-10T09:58:00.000+08:00

My weekend was not like a fairy tales that begins with 'once upon time' and ending with 'happily ever after'. Last weekend was the busy weekend. Weekend yang tangkap muat litarally everything. Weekend yang keluar jumpa orang dan orang datang rumah. Weekend yang dipenuhi dengan silaturrahim.

Last friday, we went to shah alam, my husband's friend called. A long lost friend at his university life in Lancaster. He stayed at bukit jelutung and we were hopeless with the place. I do not even know how to go to my sister's house at puncak alam. So we made a meeting point at tupai, tupai. Alhamdullillah, I had been requesting my husband to buy our favourite yam tau foo at the pasar malam. The place that we buy our yum tou foo, because of the nice thick gravy. That night we had steamboat buffet, with the yam tau foo gravy. Verry nice with a lot of choices.- seafood and fish balls and vegetables and mushrooms. I had been planning next week to buy the yan tou foo at the pasar malam, and top up with my favourite seafood, vegetables and fish balls.

On saturday, the husband was planning for a bowling session with his friend. We would 'tompang' him to the giant at our place to buy the grocery and to hang out with the daughter. But the daughter had a class on saturday. The husband persuaded her to stay with me instead. We could go to secret recipe for a good dose of cakes like we use to do once in a while. It had been a long time we did not go to the secret recipe. At the same time we could do out grocery shopping. we were running out of cooking oil, salt, sugar and many other. My shopping list was very long.

The lunch on that day was very basic, grilled ikan keli and rebus ulam and salad- no oil to fry. We use two types of oil, normal palm oil for shallow and deep frying, and olive oil for stir fry and pasta.

But what made the day chaotic because, my mom called during lunch time, telling me they were heading to my house for lunch.

What?

I thought that you were supposed to tell me a bit earlier? Not like there and then. (she learned very fast to trap me) I used to be like that impromtu. There was time when I went back at home right in front of my parents' house, then only I called my mom. But they were not there, so we went to my aunty's house.

With literally nothing at home, my parents do not eat ikan keli, my brother and my sister also do not take 'ikan darat'. That day, our lunch was ikan keli, and the other ikan I had in the freezer was ikan tongkol.

But I had no oil to fry, even salt to taste. It was still solid frozen!

They stopped by then my sister went back to her house with her daughters. Everytime when they were at my place, they would always have some mischevious things happened. There was a time, when the daughter feed the fish with biscuit kacang. The next day I found the water in the eathen bowl was thick and cloudy. Thank to the highly resistant guppy fish, they were all survived. I changed the water quickly before the husband found it out.

That day, they were playing with glasses on my coffee table. We had a very loud glass knocked on the tampered glass table, but the drinking glass was not broken. We replaced quickly with the plactic glass. Later when we took away the table cover, there were lines of crack. We bought the glass table because of the durability.

After the sister went back home, we when out for grocery shopping, to get the supply. But we had to rush because someone else we rushing for magrib prayers. My brother and family were coming for the dinner, and my youngest sister with her boyfriend were coming as well. The house was once again packed with guest.

Tetamu yang datang, adalah rahmat Allah. Melayan tetamu dengan baik adalah salah satu sunnah rasullullah s.a.w.

My dad requested my brother to get nasi arab for the dinner. So I did not have to cook. I bought yogurt, the mango was in season, we bought mango as well. And at home we had manggo yogurt drink.

That night my brother took my parents to his house together with my daughter. My sister and her long distance boyfriend went back to my sister house at puncak alam.

That was a long and chaotic day.

The next day, on sunday, the husband decided to go for a drive jalan-jalan cari kampung. It has been a while we did not do that. So, we both went out heading to 'tanjung malim' ikut 'jalan lama. But refused to go through KL - jammed.

The 'jalan lama' route took us to subang, LDP damansara and sungai buluh. We were supposed to go through rawang heading for tanjung malim, hoping to stop at the small kampung along the way and enjoy some of the flowing rivers. But we missed the sign. The signboard after sungai buluh only show the kuala selangor signboard. As we strayed to kuala selangor, we found another signboard to rawang. We just followed, but the husband was a bit sceptical, the road was deserted.

We reached rawang eventually, after the long winded road. It was too hot already for us to travel up towards tanjung malim. We stopped at a few stalls selling durian, rambutan and pulasan by the road.

It was bit irritated really, when you were driving with the yellow car. I could understand if the durian was at the pricy end, due to the speciality. But what I could not really understand is that the price of the durian was RM25 a kilo. For durian, it was berat kulit dari isi! O.K I am not that fanatic in durian in that manner. Not that desperate. I will get my supply cheaper when the season really comes. We moved to another stall selling rambutan and pulasan. When we ask the price, it was RM10 sekilo.

Kayanya orang Rawang!

Makan buah mahal-mahal. I looked at them in shocked! They explained that the fruits were not in season. This supply came from thailand.

Agak-agaklah nak put the price pun.

The yellow car syndrome!

We moved on. Our jalan-jalan cari kampung end up at tesco rawang and had lunch kat foodcourt.

We walked around the tesco. The outside was so hot. We found a stall selling the traditional herb supplement. The husband read an advertisement about the zureat supplement by a local at a newspaper. We found the supplement, but we were not so sure whether should we try it or not?

The tesco complex has two levels. We went up, and found another stall of herbal supplements. We had been walking around and around the stall trying to find the supplement - but the person who manned the shop was a male. I was a bit reluctant to ask. But my husband was eager!

O.K you ask, I will go the the cloth shop nearby.

He did not. We went down once again. This time we were determined to get the supplement.

What should I ask?

You should ask how effective is the product. Said the husband.

OK.

We went, to the stall at the ground level. This time there was another lady manned the stall. She was more approachable that the first lady. I asked her about that particular supplement. She said that she did not get any feedback yet about the supplement. She proposed another product instead. But she was running out of stock!

She told us that some ladies came by and bought a few bottles at a time. It must be very effective!

She showed us the product advertisement on the magazine.

We walked around and then the husband said, let try the upper level, probably they have the product.

He was very determined!

We went up, there was another male manned the stall. This time he was a bit younger. The husband asked him about that particular product.

No, we do not have the supply. He replied confidently.

We walked around his stall, and we found it was displayed on the counter.

Man, what do they know but to feel very confident!

The weather was dry and hot - no wind.

We just drove back home. Knacked!

We stop at the mosque for asar prayer. But there was no telekong for women to pray. I had to wait after jemaah to pray.

Next time bawa telekong pie mana-mana, tak payah pakai telekong surau. Said the husband.

But most of the time, surau banyak telekong. Banyak orang nak buat pahala by donating telekong to surau. Probably the masjid wash the telekong.

That night the parents dropped by to send my daughter. And they were heading to my sister house. The next morning they were heading back to alor setar. My sister came here to meet the boyfriend, my parents tagged along so they could meet up with the children.

It was short, it was brief. It was chaotic, but it was fun.

When they went back, the husband said to me, pak was happy because he is going to get a new menantu. A nice one. Later Dahlan will fall into a second place.

But believe me, in the long run, I will be the best menantu!

I looked at him - a was a bit confused. Man can sometimes be over confident on their statements.

When we share

2011-05-05T19:08:00.001+08:00

When We Share

Poet: Unknown

When we share laughter, there's twice the fun;

When we share success, we surpass what we've done.

When we share problems, there's half the pain;

When we share tears, a rainbow follows rain.

When we share dreams, they become more real;

When we share secrets, it's our hearts we reveal.

If we share a smile, then our love shows;

If we share a hug, then our love grows.

If we share with someone on whom we depend,

That person becomes family or friend.

And what draws us closer and makes us all care,

Is not what we have, but the things that we share.

This peom is to my friend, thank you for sharing the good news. I know you deserve it. Segala yang terakhir adalah satu kebaikan. It is a new beginning for the future undertaking.

When Nancy passed away in a freak accident last time, I was devastated, especially at the time I had 6 more months in completing my PhD. I could not turn back the clock but to endure. A friend told me that if you go back without a PhD you will suffer. She was right and I had to agree with her.

A lot of people with PhD said to me to have it once is enough, never to have it twice.

I was devastated. For once I felt that without a PhD I am the most stupid human on earth. I hate every one, and everything. I live in misery and live like a cave man - uncivilised.

I had to opt out, and still continue with the second PhD. To do it once and to do it twice.

It was really hard to smile, when you have to suffer.

For my friend, thank you for sharing and you can have a good sigh for the better future.

Alhamdullillah.

iphone and ipad

2011-05-04T20:14:00.000+08:00

I know, I know, I know.

I am drooling indeed. When apple released their first I phone, I said to myself, that I should wait until they release a few more versions. They had already released their iphone 4 and still I am with my samsung that qualified enough to be replaced with another mobile. I know, Syura lost her iphone in the peak of her second pregnancy, and she managed to replace it instantly even before she gives birth to the baby. I know I am so envy with her, for being pregnant and for having iphone.

But what can I say about it! (look hard at her with great green eyes)

Then last week, my brother told me that he got an iphone as well. The iphone without the simcard package. And yes, he is another human being who lures me to my fantasy world of apple. Oh my God, why do I have to be surrounded by these people.

I know literally every single feature about apple gadget. I am so mad with them. My first experience with mac was when I did my first degree. At my university, in the computer lab, we had two types of computers, the normal pc and the mac. I used mac for my assignment documents. I would only use pc for the programming. I know how different the gadget was and I have been dreaming about them.

Today, my friend showed me her ipad. I had to give a BIG SIGH!

She got it on friday after a long hassle. But she just managed to get a good look at it today, after I had been persuading her about the ipad. Yes, ipad is good, if you like to read your e-books or magazines. I know that alright.

And I know, the price was only around RM1500. I can use that for my documents, and presentation. I know having that, I do not need to buy another handbag. I can use my turquoise bag, no problem. The slim built and the wide screen are some of the tempting features that you can not ignore.

But, where shall I put my samsung netbook. I just bought and and it is still in a perfect order.

One thing about me is that I do not buy things. The things that I buy, I will own it. Regardless the condition, as long as it fit the major functions, it is mine. And I am not the type of person yang senang menjahanamkan barang.

So I am drooling and dreaming of Iphone and Ipad with my samsung mobile and netbook!

I rest my case.

hibernating weekend

2011-05-04T16:20:00.000+08:00

The long labour weekend was dedicated to your truly home sweet home. My brother who went to melacca for a gateway reported back that the place was jammed packed with people. The city sleeker probably, running away from the concrete jungle.

I requested my husband to take me to 'pak hussain''s house. He was known as abu abdullah. In arab tradition according to him, when a man married, and has a child, he is called abu means father to the name of the child. So, the husband should be known as abu faten.

I had to ask my husband to go the the place. Arab tradition is slightly different. The women are not free to move around by themselves without the husband accompanying her.

So my husband would called abu abdullah, and abu abdullah will inform his wife.

I have another problem with this visit. The wife did not speak english. Or the english is very limited. I met the wife once during kenduri cukur jambul of the husband's friend. We were communicating via her friend, telling and explaining a lot of things. The communication then was so limited as I could only see her eyes. They were covering everything in black.

I have learned from my student that in arab countries, they have muslim and christians. Both wear the same blak jubah covering the whole body and face.

After receiving the permission, we went to the house. When the arab friends came over to my house, they stayed separated from me - isolated.

We went to the house and we sat separately as my student advised me that in arab tradition, male and female are expected to have separate living rooms.

But with the wife, later I was inform that her name was munah, sat separately. Their young child was supposed to be the translator.

It was not really a successful attempt as the child kept on escaping from the conversation.

She would like to tell a lot of story, but most of the time we were lost in translation. I could understand her feeling of being homesick. I had once been away from my beloved country for so long, that the pain of homesick was so numb in my heart.

We went there after the asar prayer, and we stayed until magrib. Both the men went to surau for prayer. Left us the women with the young boy to translate.

Still in trouble to communicate, she took out her husband arab-english dictionary. We keep on referring to the dictionary. Inviting her to the house would be another challenge, as she did not eat malay, indian or chinese, as the food was not to the taste of Arab.

What shall I prepare for her?

She gave us 5 big pieces of the flat bread that she prepared herself, and vegetable pickle.

The next day, we made our own vegetable pickle.

We came back after insya that night. For once I was grateful. No more struggling in expressing myself.

My imaginary friends

2011-04-26T13:58:00.000+08:00

Yesterday evening, I had one missed called. It might be from a student probably. But the number was a familiar number. It was not added in my address book. I have changed my mobile a while ago. So, there was no way I could figure out who the person was.

I had a message from the same number

Salam kak na...RINDU!! Akak sihat ka?

O.K.....But I did not know you. How could I be so rindu to a stranger. So the reply should be plain,

Sorry, siapa nie? No tak ada dlm address book.

Then, I called the number, just to show my appreciation. This person must be someone whom I know. Very closed indeed, otherwise the message won't be that hysterical.

The minute my called was picked, the only sound I heard was Kak Na, kak naa and the rest was 'macam berteh jagung'.
Pop corn in the hot pan.

It was a very familiar voice. So familiar, but I just could not recall.

Hate me if you must, but most one the time, when you have the unexpected call from someone whom you had been living together, you brain just went blank.

It was fun. We had a long talk and laugh out loud together.

The 40 mins was never enough for us to actually talk.

But, lepaih tuu ada orang kena piee basuh berak anak.

Ina, thank you for the good laugh together.

I missed you so much.

I wish

2011-04-25T17:25:00.000+08:00

I wish I could be like a bird that chirps happily in the morning. But I am not. I am someone with 'berat mulut'. It was so difficult for me to be friendly and warm to everyone. And I seriously can't accept a stranger to my life. They, most of the times do not understand and draw a conclusion that I am 'sombong'.

Honestly if they are in trouble or in need, I will be there to lend a helping hand.

I am just a late bloomer. It takes very long to warm up. Just like an old car.

We stayed at home again this week. I just did not feel like going away from the comfort zone, the TV, the bed, and the kitchen. I still have books that I bought long time ago, that I haven't read. Most of the time, I browsed the internet at home wireless with my netbook.

The husband was getting worried with his hippo status wife. We went to Bukit Jalil park. I was not far from our flat. 15 min walking will burn some calories, but the husband insisted on driving. I had a good session of walking, enjoying the fish in the pond, and played badminton with the daughter and the husband.

We came back home, hungry!

I cooked chicken dhall ala Ina.

She thought me how to make a nice super duper easy chicken dhall. We had it with bread after everyone had their shower and smell nice.

That should last us for late lunch cum the early dinner.

That night I watched Jamie Oliver at home. He had a simple recipe for muffin. I was a bit sceptical. The recipe was butternut squash muffin. 400gm of mince butternut, 300gm sugar, 4 eggs, 400gm flour, 2 teaspoon soda bicarb, 175ml oil. Mixed everything together and filled the cupcake paper and baked at 170 c for 20 min.

I did not have butternut squash, but I have two banana, a bit of oil, ngam, ngam two eggs. I made banana muffin, with half of all the ingredients - I was impressed, the texture was soft even when it was cool, and crumbly. Probably next time I should just bake muffin instead.

Everytime when I was in the kitchen my daughter will always come and join me,

Mommy masak apa.

It was really a precious moment when she eats the food and likes it so much.

Sleep deprivation

2011-04-22T16:35:00.000+08:00

Research has shown that sleeping women consume more calories than the non sleepy one. So I think that justify why I never lose my weight.

The husband was having back pain, the repeating things over the year on on off. It started when he slipped off while jogging around the condo, the doctor told him that as we grow older, we were no longer growing strong. Out bones were giving out slowly. From the x-ray, the bones were brittle. Then he had the accident, the impact was bad, not only on his back but also the whole body, every single bones were shaken.

Being a health fanatic, exercise is a must. He jogged everyday, played squash, unlike me like hippo, stay in the pool.

But as we age, we have to sacrifice some of the heavy activities. He has to walk instead. and give up his squash.

So, one of the advice was to sleep on a hard surface. Last night we camped out in the living room. It has been a while I changed the sleeping place. And last night, even though it was only next room, I was twisting and could not sleep well.

Today I am sleepy,

And having a platter at the mahattan fish market for lunch just justify the whole things.

Sleepy woman really eats a lot.

Goreng pisang panas

2011-04-21T21:23:00.000+08:00

Goreng pisang is nice to eat while is was still hot. It will be perfect if we have it on a raining day. Yesterday was the perfect time to have a dose of goreng pisang. The price varies. Depending on the place and the pisang. Pisang awak, pisang abu are the common pisang for pisang goreng. To have pisang nagka is the privilage, and to have pisang tanduk was like you win a lottery.

I bought RM 1 pisang abu - the lady told me that it was still hot, I had RM 1 pisang nagka - it was my favourite, the velvet texture and the taste. I bought RM1 kueh kacang goreng. - for the husband.

Kueh 3 seringgit.

It has been a while I haven't had a good pisang goreng. The last time was at Janda Baik, crunchy, have and big pisang abu was served for us to enjoy.

But what made it was not that perfect moment was when the husband after finished kueh kacang goreng, I gave him one pisang abu to eat. A hot one.

He squeezed the pisang and showed me his greased fingers.

Tok sah makanlah. U nampak tuu berminyak (While monitoring me munching my final bite of my first pisang goreng)

He made the heaven moments felt like hell. But I still need to eat my second pisang goreng -

He made the whole event felt like you just committed a crime - murder!

I had my second pisang goreng nonchalantly.

Whatever it is, he lift me up when I was down. He was there to feel the frustration. He hold my hand to move up and back on the track.

Yesterday, was a history, tomorrow is mystery.

Today is a gift. - Kong Fu Panda.

Anak tunggal

2011-04-09T20:14:00.000+08:00

My husband comes from the family of eight. He is the second child in the family - there are only two male in the family, the second male is the second last of the family. So he is the big brother. The brother for the sisters look for support emotionally.

I come from a family of four. I am the eldest, the second is my brother, and two other sisters. Between my brother and me, we were closed, we grew up literally together. We had a wide gap with the other two sisters. I hardly close with them, because at the time I was 13, I was already away in the boarding school. At that time, my sister was still baby. I hate babies at that time. Since 13, I hardly stayed at home. After my schooling, I continued with my study, leaving my family far behind.

We were in touch once in a while when I went back for a holiday. We called each other once in a while. When I went abroad, I lost them literally. We grew up in our own way. My brother has a family and leads his on life. I got married and attached more with my husband family. His reason was simply because his parents are getting old, time with them are literally limited.

But he forgot that ajal maut is in the hands of Allah, regardless the age any one will die as time comes.

When I came back from abroad, then I realise that my family was scattered. My brother was not in the good term with my sister. I was torn in between. My parents were not accepting me and my husband because we did not 'obey' them. There were a lot of misunderstanding.

But my husband always tells me regardless whatever your parents say to you, regardless how disagree you are with you parents, they are still you parents and they love you.

It was hard to accept the fact -

You do not really understand my parents - there are worst than a tiger - they disown their own children.

My brother was not in contact with my family at that time. The only contact he had was with me. He always look as me as a sister whom he grows up closely.

My husband, regardless of my parents ignorance, he still keeps his duty of going back at least during festival season. If it was not the first hari raya, it will always be the second or third raya.
We have to celebrate first hari raya puasa at my in laws because there is no one will be at the parent's house.

Alhamdullillah, those were history in my family. Life is too short to get disappointed with every one, just let it go.
When we got married, having kids was not in the agenda in our marriage life. He got married for his own reason, and I was too naive to accept the proposal. I decided to have a child. If anything were to happen, I want something out of it, and through marriage I can have children.
But later I learn that having a child, is not like you go the shopping complex and choose your favourite dolls and pay at the counter. Having a child is a gift from Allah. Satu amanah dalam kehidupan sebuah keluarga, suami isteri.
When I had my daughter, my husband forced me to leave my child with my parents, because I need to concentrate on my study. I was like a mad woman at that time. I lost her growing up time.
When I took her back, we had a lot of work to put things together, for her to understand who is her abah and mommy, and for us to understand who is she as a daughter to us. It was not easy.
But she is the only child we have together. I wish I could buy more and put in my shopping cart. But it is impossible.
Anak tunggal. Almost alone

weekend at home

2011-04-09T20:08:00.000+08:00

For once I really need the solace. I was looking for the weekend. The daughter was supposed to go to school, but she has an eye sore this morning.

One thing that I like to do in the morning is to stay in bed and read. My favourite time and place, bed and read. I will always have books by my side table, and magazines on the floor.

I prepared flapjack, on of the ways to let my daughter eat the things I want her to eat, but she did not enjoy the food so much. I had oat, with cornflakes, but I add in almond, dried cranberry, and choco chip - that bring the smiles on her.

Lunch, was just chicken masak kunyit and rice. The husband bought ulam, daun pudina and bay leaves.

Most of the time, we were with our own monitor, mine with the flat screen and my note book. I had pile of laundry to fold and wash. The never ending task.

The daughter was watching movie with another tv complete with sound system. She had been watching for the whole day. Well, she missed her swimming this morning.

We watched hercules on the disney channel, then she would like to watch the wild, break for the wild, for lunch and zhohor prayer. Continued with Narnia 1, stopped for asar, she is on the narnia 2.

I bought a series of narnia books, but I haven't read yet. There are a lot of other books that I haven't read yet.

O.K continue watching movie

Kong fu panda next!

hello stranger

2011-04-08T17:09:00.001+08:00

This morning I was early. The bus was packed and so was the LRT. Friday is an unpredictable day - most of the time the public transport will be packed like sardin. The driver, keeps on taking passengers along the way. One thing about the bus, if we have none, there won't be any around. If we have one coming, there will be a lot more rushing in. I just barged in regardless. It was not that bad to squeeze under someone else armpits, it was still morning, everyone was fresh and nice smell. Imagine if you have to deal in the evening. In the evening I will take the lrt home - straight to sri petaling.

This morning while I was walking on the pavement, I saw a lady bersimpuh cantik on the pavement. She was crying for help, but no one care.

Kak, tolong kak, please put me up.

I was not sure , was it a genuine case?

Please help me.

She could not get up, because one of her hand was twisted.

I saw her wrist was twisted, the watch was broken on the floor.

Do you want me to call the ambulance?

No, just pick me up.

I pick her up, took the wrist watch, and put in her bag.

And continued my walk to the breakfast corner.

When my husband had an accident last, a stranger helped him to the hospital as well. In an emergency like that, we do not know what to expect.

Most of the time we will be at the mercy of strangers.

swimming again

2011-04-07T15:21:00.001+08:00

One of the reasons why I bought a condo instead of double story terrace is because of a swimming pool. This particular condo is simply because around the area, it has the biggest pool. Normally I would be swimming on the width wise. The length is too long for me to kayuh!

When I told my dad, one of the main reasons for the condo is the swimming pool, he said

Sat jaaa lepaih tuu cemuih laaa

He was not in the agreement with me. At that time there were a lot of things that he would find reasons to disagree. I was quite.

I was willing to wait for more that half a year to get the vacancy unit at the condo.

I was not alone - my daughter loves swimming.

We taught her how to swim at the age of 6 years old. It did not take long for her to struggle with floating for someone who loves water.

We had floats for her arms, and we had the square floats. Now she is all by herself swimming in her own style like a fish, faster than me.

Once in a while she observes my stroke.

I would do leisure swimming with the breast stroke and hang out my head out of the water. It took me a while to master the move. I could do a proper breast stroke, and a butterfly stroke.

The impact of intensively swimming was huge one my body. My arms were as huge as my thighs, think about at what size my tights were at that time.

It took a while to reduce to a normal size because it was muscle that I had to deal with in losing the size. More exercise would be pumping the body like a balloon.

So now, I just had my leisure strokes. Butterfly strokes - utilise every inch of the muscle, I do not do that now.

Yesterday I was improving my freestyle strokes, back float. It was easier because I do not need to control my breathing, just improve on my stroke. In fact when I was learning learning how to swim, I got it through back float. I still remember my friend from hong kong told me,

Just take the square float, hug it, and relax as if you were sleeping, lay down on your bed.

She was right, spot on. The rest were history

I prefer swimming compare to jogging, as swimming wont hurt my join. I had a pair of sensitive knees. When I jog, my knee join will be painful at night. Swimming improves my posture and my breathing.

But swimming was not proven as an exercise to reduce the weight, look at the size of hippo! They live in water most of the time. Look at whale - giant!

Regardless, I will always enjoy swimming. At the moment I would only swim in the pool. Once we snorkeled at pulau pangkor, but I never had the experience on swimming in the open sea, the eternity depth blue water. I just lost my confident.

I do not like to swim at night, I freak out. I try not to swim in the afternoon, too hot and you get your tan instantly.

I will swim in the morning. Like this morning we had the big pool all by ourselves.

Mommy, kita swimming hari rabu, khamis,

jummaat - hmmm jummaat tak boleh, mommy kerja pagi

hari sabtu, hari ahad.

4 kali seminggu.

Oh dear, I will get the tan, and will grow big like hippo!

Body odour

2011-04-06T17:33:00.000+08:00

I had a very sensitive nose. There are smells that I remember so well and bring happiness and good memory. But there are smells that I can't stand, especially when the smells come form my own body part.

If we eat a lot of garlic - the whole lift will smell garlic. If you eat a lot of apples, like six apples a day - then your urine will smell like apple. If you eat a lot of meat, then the body smell like a dump site. At the moment, that is how I smell.

Last weekend my parents were here, because we had a wedding to attend. One thing about my parents, they like to travel. And they always travel for a reason, most of the time visiting relative. If someone was sick, they travel to visit them, if some cousins were graduating, they will join the trip. If there were wedding or funerals, they will always be there as guests and in some cases as helping hands.

Both my grandparents passed away already. My mom comes from a family of eight. The eldest in the family, mama. Since abah passed away during last hari raya haji a few years back - my mom handles most of the social arrangement in the family, replacing mak tok and yan. Pak Ngah is in Ipoh, and he is not well due to diabetics. So my parents will be the old man to look up for.

She was here in KL. One day at my sister house in puncak alam, one day at my house, and one day at my brother's place. When my parents were here at my place, my sister and the family will camp over as well. The house will be full.

Last weekend, during the weekend, the husband's friend was here as well. The house was literally packed. I cooked beef masak kunyit. I love red meat, but I do not take it often, once in a while, or when we attend weddings or any kenduri. Most of the time we live on fish. Meat, red or white is a protein for us, but we have to be careful in consuming a lot of red meat. For health reason, prevention is better than cure.

That day, rezeki murah. My mom came over after lunch on saturday. They brought along curry and left over rice. Then later in the afternoon, the husband's jogging friend gave us nasi bangla. The beriani type of rice, with meat in the rice. That dinner we had meat as well. The next day, with the whole big family convoyed for the wedding apart from my little sister in penang, we had another round of meat. I had meat masak hitam.

Having to much red meat at a time can lead to indigestion. When the system could not digest properly, the body will have the leftover odour. Regardless the perfume, the smell was really strong. Regardless how many time you take shower, when you sweat, you smell.

So, there will be no more meat in the mean time. I fell very uncomfortable.

So smelly! Please do not come near me.

weddings and funerals

2011-04-05T09:38:00.000+08:00

Last night I had a dream, I was at my 'house' big house back in kedah. The heritage house like the colonial banglow with the 'fat' pillars. It was always the house that I admire the most architecturally. I like the regal built of the house. I like the tall ceiling, a like the wooden window panels and big wooden door.

and last night I was in the house in a residential areas where I have another house of the similar built. In the dream, someone bought a bigger plot of land behind the houses and built a bigger house, and it built close enough that the roof met the roof at my house. I saw some one in the house. I was mad, and went to the house.

Sapa yang mai beli tanah kat sini, buat umah besaq-besaq. (nak menunjuk-nunjuk konon umah dia besar)

I will break all the glasses at the window panels. The house was a big house, with wooden window panels. And besides, I don't think he will appreciate the place so much!

I don't care!

The man in the house, very calm replied to me,

This is not my house. I just took care of it. I came from Bangi. I took care of someone important there in Bangi, alim ulama. This is his house

Who he is?

Ustaz Ismail Kamus.

I woke up this morning, and I told the dream to my husband. This is the type of dream when I could remember clearly the whole story.

The husband said to me, I our life, we are closed with alim ulama.

You tuuuu,

Jangan dok garang sangat!

He was right, my temper is on the high side - I have to learn to cool down. Getting mad is not really good. Once in a while probably it is acceptable to release our anger. But if I have it so often, it will be an attitude, that is not nice.

My weaknesses

2011-03-29T16:19:00.000+08:00

I am only human, to err is human to devine is god. I am not perfect. Not everything about me is about flowers and nice.

My husband is the perfect person to point out the weaknesses,

Of course physically, I am not attractive, I am short and fat and dark. My face is round and flat like piring.

When I am mad at someone, I hardly talk, and I will avoid the person. Now I am learning to absorb my anger and try to channel it somewhere else. But when I am really, really mad, I mean war. Baginda rasullullahs.a.w, apabila tidak berpuas hati dengan sesuatu dia hanya berdiam. Sesungguhnya apabila kita dalam keadaan marah, syaitan mengalir dalam salur darah kita. Baginda ada berpesan, kalau kita marah sedang berdiri, kita kena duduk, apabila kita sedang duduk, kita tidur. Apabila kita tidak suka dengan makanan kita, tak sedap seumpamanya, depan makan jangan complain, nanti makanan kita kecik hati. Apabila baginda rasa makanan itu kurang menyelerakan, dia hanya berdiam, tetapi bila sedap, baginda akan memuji depan makanan. Setiap percakapan kita adalah satu doa, kita tak tahu percakapan mana yang akan di aminkan malaikat dan dimakhbul Allah. Apatah lagi percakapan depan rezeki.

Baginda rasullullah, tidak pernah berhenti bedoa dan memuji kebesaran Allah. Baginda sentiasa berdoa untuk para sahabat, biarpun di kala baginda bangun malam dan terlihat ada para sahabat yang telah meletak air untuk baginda beruduk semasa tahajjud. Apabila baginda melihat kebesaran Allah, baginda selalu berdoa. Doa baginda selalunya memohon segala kebaikan yang datang daripadanya dan dihindari segala kejahatan yang tersembunyi ataupun yang terang yang ada bersamanya.

But when I was mad during that event, I was standing, and when syaitan was already in the blood line, of course I forgot everything.

Another weakness is I am too transparent, even my 12 years old daughter can read my mind, a stranger can read out what I am going to say next. So when I was mad, my husband could obviously read my face. It was like a display screen on the face. Damn! I hate this

Unlike my husband I am not a social creature. My nature is contradicting with my profession. As a lecturer, we talk, discuss and talk. But actually when I was myself, I would rather not say anything. Rasullullah s.a.w berpesan, kalau kita bercakap, kalau kita rasa percakapan kita tuu hanya menyakitkan hati orang lain, lebih baik kita berdiam, kerana percakapan yang tidak mendatangkan manfaat dan memburukkan lagi keadaan akan menambahkan lagi beban. Beban dosa mulut. Apatah lagi kalau diaminkan malaikat dan dimakbulkan Allah. Parah. I do not talk in the morning. My friends were observing me and it did not take them long to see my rythm. I hardly talk. I am talkative, but only with specific persons. I would rather smile and walk away.

I have the inferiority complex - according to my husband, I yang jenis tak boleh dibawa kat majlis, dahlah hodoh, tak pandai pula nak bergaul.

Unlike my husband, I do not have a lot of friends. My phonebook, hardly full. His was full to the bream. I just do not keep a lot. I do not know why, but I prefer to be private.

I do not know how to cook. My husband is very sceptical everytime he woould like to bring his friends home. So normally we bought food from outside.

I do not know how to do the sweet talk. Completely and utterly hopeless. I will walk away if I could not handle the situation. But in my profession, I have to stand tall and face the situation and try to resolve it.

My gardening, and housekeeping is disaster. Tak ada seni langsung. I had to donate my orchird to my friends after 3 years they failed to flower. The minute I gave away, they were blooming none stop.

I am terrible in ball games and singing. There is no way I could endup melalak at any karoeke, or bowling. I hate chess, and I never understand the different movement. My husband on the other side, said that if you do not know how to sing, you will never be able to sing. He sings really well. But it was not a sin to enjoy tony braxton.

I love cats, which is to the disadvantage to the husband, so consider it as my weakness. I wish I could have a cat at home. I used to have a lot at my parents' place. I enjoy it so much. My friend told me, if I want to have a cat, get the laziest one - the persian. But where I am going to put the litter box?

I think I can do the sweet talk once again.

I need a cat at home, at once!

Persian please!!!!!!!!

Inferiority complex

2011-03-27T19:26:00.001+08:00

Today, we had two events, one was the wedding of his old friend, another one was aqiqah. Both were equally significant to him.

But

In a family life, if you want to be close to the husband, you have to be close to the in-laws and respect them accordingly. I was closed to my sister in laws, simply because I do not want to loose my brother. I have to admit, a simple human like me I had a lot of disadvantages. I can't afford to impress everyone.

Between the two, the husband was committed to the aqiqah, of this young and rich and live in fabulous and glamorous life.

I failed my test every time I met them. I was numb and dumb, because I failed to mingle with them.

I have to admit, I did not know how to mix with them, it was just not me.

I was not born rich, beautiful and never made my self into a glamour life, and never think of becoming one.

That is according to my husband was the major social problem in my life. Simply because, I never believe my husband really appreciate me as someone who is not beautiful, and had a major handicap in becoming a glamorous one.

I am just another hopeless human.

In my marriage life, it can be very lonely and alone most of the time. If your are not beautiful and glamourous you are out of the game.

I have to move forward. Being humble and being simple are the things that I do not want to loose in my life. I do not want to fly so high to the sky and forgetting the hard rock bottom on the ground.

I have seen a lot in my life how people only choose the pretty faces as their bride, and how only the beautiful live rich. That is the hard fact to accept, in my life. I don't think if I am just another nobody cleaner, my husband will marry me. I was so dumb to be naive in my life.

I have to learn how to face the life alone, and being dumped, for something you are not being born with and for suffering with what you are being born with.

Facing the pace alone.

How much do you have in your purse

2011-03-25T11:26:00.000+08:00

Satu muhasabah diri pada pagi hari.

Last night the husband requested me to pay for his mobile bills. 019 had already blocked our service if we had reached RM100, which is o.k for me. My RM 100 bills is a two months use. Before we use the 1+5 planning, one month bills for each of us can be more than RM300.

He took my purse to put the money in. I was surprised! He hardly open my purse, it is not that I keep a lot of secret in it or keep anything secret in, but this I think is a bit of privacy issue. I don't mind since he is my husband. It is just that he never did that before.

Mommy, hang ada berapa ringgit jee dalam beg duit nie. Cukup ka nak makan esok?

I had less than RM20. I hardly have more than RM50 in my purse, unless at the time when I have to pay the major bills.

RM20 is more than enough. I use my touch and go for the monorail, and my LRT star, I had the prepaid ticket. But I need to buy today.

My lunch normally will not go beyond RM10. My breakfast 3 ketul kueh is only RM 1.50. Yesterday my lunch was RM7, that I considered as expensive lunch as tak sedap, a piece of ikan, paru goreng, sayur manis labu. It was a disgrace to food especially if you cook for business.

I used to have life in a very limited budget. When I was in my primary school, my mom would give me 30cents for my pocket money. That 30cents would remain in my pocket for a long, long time. Every time she would like to give the pocket money, I would say that I still had the 30 cents she gave to me earlier.

I was not born with a silver spoon. I could still remember my mom would boiled water for my brother and me to take shower in the morning. We lived in a place like a shack, and the wall at that time was only the blue plastic tarpan.

Last time when we recalled the story, the daughter just looked at me. She could not believe in her eyes with the comfort of the condo and facilities, actually her parents was living in that kind of state.

This determination that drives me to be better today, and to contribute back to the society. This is something that I want to hold it to myself until the day I die.

How much money can you pay, for a simple living. I do not have LV handbags to parade around, I do not have Iphone to use, and I do not have IPad. I had been dreaming how nice to actually own one. I do not even have macbook. My watches are not chopard. Sometimes, when I do not have a lot of money in my purse, I always wonder how nice to have lunch at pizza huts.

But I believe that part of the beautiful life. You do not necessarily own everything to tick your happiness box. It is so nice to dream to bring out the cheeky smiles on your face.

Ayam goreng

2011-03-24T15:00:00.000+08:00

Last night the husband would like to eat the southern style fried chicken - the kfc type. He bought 6 thights and also the flour.

Malam nie you masak ayam goreng kfc.

A wife, regardless your qualification and position, you are still answerable to your husband. When a husband or daughter request to eat something, they just kno w how to ask, but they never think further. They never question about the skill. Luckily I know how to do about it. But most of the time, they will the victims of my cooking disasters.

The minute a put down my bag, I have to straight away sort out the dinner, at the same time switch on the washi8ng machine, with the continous load. Clear the kitchen, and prepare the food for cooking.

By 9pm the dinner has to be ready. Then the time to sort out the laudry, pick the clothes from the drying lines, hanging the clothes fold it. By the time the clock strikes 11pm, the cinderella was heading for the bed.

Went to the surau for magrib and insya and came back right after quater past 9pm. Normally, he would linger with his arab friends.

Last weekend my brother and his family came over during lunch time, to send back the daughter who followed them back during last school break. This time we did not go anywhere. I cooked spicy fried chicken using the old chicken. I bought the chicken at pasar malam that friday. Eating the chicken remind me of my chilhood when you realy have to chew. The flesh was not that hard to munch

The billionaires

2011-03-17T20:48:00.001+08:00

Forbes had released the billionaires list for this year. The top tycoon is Mr Carlos, the mexican family with the value of US $74billions. The permenant Mr Bill Gates falls into number 2 this year. Is he getting poorer? He hold US $ 56 billions, number 2 after Carlos. Why? Because he donated US $30 billions to his foundation. Otherwise he could easily overdo Mr Carlos as the top billionaires. Our uncle Buffett who lives to his old age of 80, is right behind Mr Gates of US $50 billions. And the LV guy is at no 4 with the value of US $41 billions. He is dominating some of other designer labels like Bulgari. So expect him to be even richer by next year.

These people make me feel so small and insignificant financially.

I was touched with Bill Gates who donated $30billions on his foundation for charity. Something he would like to contribute to those in need and to the society.

I wish I could have enough to contribute to the society in the significant manner. But at the moment, I am hoping for my Ipad. Hoping is the only thing I have.

My friend is planning to have a visit to a charity house. She was asking me if I could come out with something. Not having so much money and things to contribute significantly, I promised her to come out with something, that do not need donation and things.

Last night, I told the students about this story. About a place where it has 60 people live in one room, sharing their life together. There are ophans, single unfortunate women, old age people, and the disable.

I want them to come out with something. Something that do not require monetary donation. I asked them to select only one group and do one activity. They looked at me. Blank! there were 10 of them and half of them are foreigner.

Stories after stories came out to make them feel. A story about a bangladeshi guy, who won the nobel price for his charity work on the microeconomics was among the stories. The person who went to the rural places to help those with basic skills but need some money to survive.

I told them that in Chinese proverd that says if you give a man a fish, it will only last for a day, but if you teach them how to fish, they can feed the family for the rest of their time.

Being a lecturer, one thing I could really be good at is to make the students absord what I want them to, by hooked or by crook. Normally, I would tease their brains.

The looked at me. With a lot of mixed feelings. They started to see something that they want to do without using a lot of money, but more on the brain.

These are the poeple who make me feel at the time when I only have RM50 in my purse, the money can strecth further, because I know at home, my freezer is packed with the supply. My pantry is full with food. These people, they do not even have the future to look at, let alone the money, when they do not know where the food will come from next.

Tinggal berdua

2011-03-16T20:43:00.000+08:00

I have never thought the time has come so fast than I would imagine. My daughter tagged along with her cousin back home afther the emotional roller coaster ride of the merong mahawangsa.

We sent her back home to malaysia at the age of 3 months. I keep the story to myself, simply because i was too sensitive to even spill it out in my blog. I used to walk out from the supermarket if I heard baby crying. I had to, becuase no one was taking care of her during my study. I know some of my friend have their family with them. Yes, I was so jelous with it. We did not only have one, but two or three. But I did not have the opportunity.

The husband said, concerntrate on your phd first. That was the reason why we were here, far away from family.

That was long time ago, I did not manage to get my phd, simply because nancy died in a freak accident.

Came back, I was stuggling and juggling with everything. The daughter was confused about her parents. The grandparent were her top priority. It was not easy to make her understand, those two human being living with her now are your own mom and dad. We lost the contact, because we were not there when she falled asleep, and we were not there when she was crying for help.

Time passed by, she is beginning to absorb abah and mommy in her life. I want the to be part of my life in my every frame of memory.

Last night before she went off, she kissed the father hands and hugged him with affection. She kissed me and hugged me with love. Probably she is learning and absorbing from her surrounding on how they care about their parents.

It was lonely when she was away. The husband found it difficult to accept it. He is also beginng to learn to love his own daughter. They spend a lot of time together.

Today, the husband was at home, he went to surau for prayer with pak arabs as usual. Alhamdullillah his alquran reciting is improving. Pak hussain was helping him with his reading. Sometimes, when pak hussain is not available other pak arabs are more than willing to help him.

After we returned, we were hoping and trying for another child, but I think at the moment, we only have a daughter together, the one and only child.

I think the most beautiful thing that ever happen to me to be love by somebody else, to see right through the eyes the affection.

Like tonight I had a student joined me for the first time in class, came to me and said, mam, this is the first time I entered your class, but honestly I really enjoyed your class.

Hikayat merong mahawangsa

2011-03-15T20:50:00.001+08:00

Sampai masa tibanya waktu
Redup hati kamu berdua
Bila dua jasad bersatu
Hidup mati jadi bersama

During school holiday, we are nor really going anyway. When you have only a child, she is totally yours. Bored and alone. As parents, we were still sceptical to let her enjoy her time with friends going to shopping complexes. So we have to do the walk. But her father was very health concious, no KFC and McDonalds. But last weekend we went out for dinner at Ayam Penyet 101 mall. The huband had ikan keli penyet, she had daging penyet, and I had the ayam penyet. Penyet was a verb that we hardly used. Normarrly we would use it when you sqeeze things and flatten. It was not that bad.

I told her, nevermind, we will go for a movie. So we went to the cinema, to see the movies on display. We had ranggo - she already passed her aged to indulge on something like that. I want something more meaning full. We had kembar siang, which I did not really approve of. Last time she went for a movie, hantu kak limah balik rumah, with my sister. She is growing up already to enjoy watching movie, which I have no problem to approve on, like me. I used to watch movie every week before I met the husband. My last movie was twister. Unlike the father who was obsessed with sembilu, simply because he also owned I big bike like Awie, most of my movie selection would be action pack english movie, or animation.

The only movie that I would like to take the risk that day when I checked out the available movie was hikayat merong mahawangsa. The poster look different, but the next view was 7pm. It was late and we would missed out magrib.

The husband was supportive, he said never mind, we come the next day.

I was not that convinced. Why don't we buy the ticket today for me and Faten.

Buy for me as well.

I looked had him long, are you sure. You never watched movie in our marriage life.

Very risky. If he is not happy with it, macam lalat taik, dia mengaum!

So we bought the ticket. 2adults and 1 child.

I called my brother and my niece picked it up. I told them that we were going to watch movie at 1pm tomorrow afternoon.

The next day, we were already late. 1 pm, we were stucked at the junction. 101mall road is permenantly jam. He husband was making a joke in the car. He was still sceptical about my choice.

Kat panggung wayang tuu nanti hanya ada lecturer yang pakai baju kurung zaman 50an dengan laki dan anak dia saja yang nak tengok wayang.

Joke aside, we were late by nearly 15 minutes. Luckily we bought the ticket already. I dragged everyone with me running. And the husband still got time to go to the toilet. The screen was way at the back.

2adults and 4 children

My neice and nephew joined us the night before for the movie.

My brother and sister in law, just like me, we were still sceptical to let our child on our own.

I was losing my confident. When we entered the dark room, the seats were literally vacant. We got to choose the seat and we had been moving around finding seat for 6 people. The movie was already started.

I was disappointed with the graphic quality. I realised that the film was in the budget. The Rome prince did not look masculine like romantic masculine Rome. He looked like a school boy. Everything looked so minimalist.

But what really attached my family was the action packed and splashed or red blood everywhere. Very frustrating indeed.

My kids, of course, very inpressive with the whole movie, like kids do. They liked it. The huband, for the first time in our marriage life, we watched movie and he enjoyed it so much. Overall, it was not a heavy movie on your brain. You do not need to use your brain to digest the story.

Very shallow story line.

To be malaysian

2011-03-10T10:19:00.000+08:00

To be truly malaysian, I believe is to experience three different scenarios

1. to have the traffic summons- today is the last day to get the 50% discount on the total compound. The husband checked my ic and the car number, wfl990. I had one! RM300. Since when that I had been driving fast? Driving a sport car does not necessarily I had been driving fast. last night I was trying to pay at the post office, but I had to wait for the next 60 people who were paying. The counter was slow. I really need to check the time and date of the incident. The husband went to the bukit aman later in the afternoon, it was packed and overflow. Luckily, they closed at 10pm at night. So after magrib, we went to bukit aman once again, less traffic and the crowd was less as well. We check our details first, and the date was in dec 2007. Long time ago! My friends had three summons.

2. to be directly and indirectly involved in accident. I will never forget the night at the odd hours I drove my yellow car when my husband had an accident at the junction. I was surprised to find that the car did not really block the road, but safely tucked by the barrier at the junction. There was no one there but scavengers ripping off radio, tv, from the car. The car was badly damaged. I could only look from the distance. It was sad to see the state of the car. But I was glad it was a good car. If it were to be just a car, I think that night I would be collecting three dead bodies from the morgue. Alhamdullillah, everyone survived and safe apart from light bruise. The car that we thought was irrecoverable, survived after more than 6 months at the workshop. When I told my stories to my friends, they also have their own story to share as well.

3. Snatched. - It happens everywhere that it was so common that when you want to make the report at the police station, the police will ask you write your own report. While I was reporting my incidents, apprently there were a few more coming. In our society, the good poeple can just looak and see what had happened. We are the good and weak group. But the snathers were bad and deaperate, that's was why probably they were driven to be strong. They had no fear. Should it be the other way around. Shouldn't it be the goods were supposed to be strong and work in a group. Probably we were not that desperate. We just surrender everything to the bad and desperate instead.

That was what I had a 1, 2, 3 of truly malaysian. How irony!

gulai semilang, sungai pinang

2011-02-15T22:54:00.000+08:00

One sunday morning during the long chinese new year break, we had a morning call at 7am. I was so sick the night before. I had been vomiting non stop. I just could not understand why. We had grilled salmon that day and strange enough, why the husband and daughter did not had the symptom of food poisoning. Salmon is relatively a vely oily fish. So that night had a new fragrance, salmon.

So that sunday morning was supposed to be concluding sunday over the long break. But the morning call revolved the whole idea. My sister in law called. She would like to speak to me instead of her own brother. But the husband told her that I was sick last night and could not pick up her call. She told the husband that their brother in laws, the husband to their sister passed away this morning. The husband was crying like a baby. That was the first funeral in the immediate family. It was a shock to everyone later we learned that he did not show any symptom that he was sick. He had been vomiting the night before and died the next day. The night that I was so sick for no apparent reason. Probably it was trying to tell us something.

I tend to get those types of message when something significant is happening.

We drove back straight away that morning hoping to catch up with the funeral.

He may not show any critical symptom, apart from the last day when was vomiting with blood. But according to her daughter, the father was having problem with the bladder and having difficulties of passing stool. The symptom that most of us take it easy. The culture in our society nowadays that refuse to have veg, salad and fruits as part of the main course. It just got carried away. When the japanese have the seafood as part of their diet, they have the green tea to detoxify their body. When we had seafood as our diet, we eat like nobody business, and we never care about about detoxifying body.

The day after the funeral we were heading to the popular spot for gulai semilang. We went to sungai pinang, the fisherman port. When we arrived, there was no more gulai for us. The place opens between 10am - 3 pm, for the fisherman coming back from the sea. We arrived at that place for the gulai, but it was already finished. Good food always attract people. When we were eating, even the chinese dropped by eating a plate full of rice with kuah gulai taroh atas, just like how we eat. The owner said,

Tak palah dah mai jauh-jauh, sanggup dak tunggu lagi setengah jam, nak masak lain.

We ordered for five people eating - the gulai and semilang goreng. Ikan semilang is similar to ikan keli. But ikan semilang lives in the sea and ikan keli in the white water.My dad told me to differentiate between the two, you could look at the tail. I was not that detail.

While we were waiting for the gulai to cook we walk around the area. It was so hot. It was in low tide. Small boats moored by the jetty. We met a group of fishermen hanging around there. They said, the fishing activities are not that productive anymore. There are diverting to another activity, eco tourism. So the tourist can come here and get a boat to the reserve center at Pantai Keracut. I went there with my husband last time. Pantai Keracut is popular with penyu reserve centre. The place provides the basic necessity for camping and picnic.

In the hot weather, with very limited shade we were hopping from one roof to the next. If it were in the evening, it would be windy and we could enjoy the sea breeze. No hope to sea the boat with fresh seafood. The low tide did not allow the traffic to flow. Most of the boats tied up by the jetty. The fishermen would only go out in the morning, came back later, or go out in the evening for another fishing shot. My husband has a friend living there. They call this place as pengkalan pak rahman. His friend's name. A very friendly person. He was the knight in shining amour when we went to pantai keracut, straving to death last time. He came over with rice that enough to feed the entire army. Never under estimate the value of friendship. They can do wonder most of the time.

Pak Rahman was not there at that time. After about half an hour, we headed back to the place for the gulai. Unlike mamak curry, this gulai have the strong version of malay curry.for curry. The gravy was not that thick, and they have daun kesom, bunga kantan, and daun bawang apart from the normal stuff. Look at the curry. Minyak berlenja. If I were to cook it at home, they husband will band my cooking for the entire life. It was forbidden in the house. But that time, everyone eat like a hungry horse. Eat, eat and eat. In the hot weather, I had limau ais. Yummy

We were all very full that day, before we went back to kl. And we we stuck in the jam on the highway - bumper to bumper. It was actually interesting to just pack and go and stay for a while then go back to kl.

Malam yang bising

2011-02-11T00:47:00.000+08:00

I was so tired tonight. We had guests pak arab came over for a visit. Actually my 'biras' passed away over the weekend. I was supposed to properly blog about it.

It was already passed midnight. My sleep was disturbed tonight with the sound of fire crackers. It was so loud even the cars had an alarm off.

I had no choice but to browse over the night in the dark. The husband had already gone to the lalaland.

I am waiting until the sounds subside. At the moment it does not sound like it will go away yet.

I am so sleepy.

I am a very particular sleeper. I have to fall asleep before the husband, other wise I had to struggle with his snoring. It was not loud, but being so peculiar, sometimes, I could not even had my alarm clock near me. I could be counting the ticking seconds. Tonight I had been complaining that he was so smelly - thick with sweat.

You tak mandi kah tadi. Busuk!

He was annoyed, because he is not the type who will make himself smelly. And my over sensitive nose will always pick up the smell and try to revolve around it.

The sound of fire crackers was just making it worse with my sleeping arrangment.

You nie mengandung kot. Dulu masa you mengandung kat Faten pun macam tuu. I sampai naik heran dengan you. Pada hai I dah mandi tadi

Mengandung or not, I do not care. My brain was spinning fast to let go the smell.

Where did you put your shirt that you wore today?

Tuu kat depan pintu toilet.

No wonder!

Immediately, I tooked the whole bunch of the dirty laundry and dumped it in the washing basket.

But I still could not get away with the sound of the machine gun!

And I have a very morning class!

The story of my handbags

2011-02-03T13:21:00.001+08:00

I do not collect handbags. In other words, my hobby is not to collect handbags. For every handbag that I have, they have the reason and justification to be with me (or I will always find reason to buy them). I love each of them.

I am not a handbag person. The first handbag that I had was a small plain square dark blue handbag. I bought that before I went for my first degree. I only used that during the flight, to keep my passport and other important document. And I was so clumsy with that. I failed to balance my movement as I had an object that I had to hold to. Before that I only used backpack I think! I can't really remember that. I would rather have a backpack that I could just dump everything inside.

This is among the first handbag I bought. I was still inexperience and I had been influenced by people around me. They said I should have a handbag to go to work. And they said 'bally' is one of the designer and expensive brand. So I bought it. I have the perception, if it is so expensive, it should last long. It is something that last long if you are only use it once a year and the rest of the time to keep it in the bag that comes along with the handbag. This bag is a dark green colour. I was very conservative in the colour selection. I want to use the bag everyday, so it would just compliment with any garment. Besides dark colour won't look dirty after a long time. The outside was shiny dark green and the inner layer was the dark green velvety suede. Another thing about handbag, I like the smell of leather. The workmanship was very detail. It may look simple, but the quality was there.

Soon, I realised that, I could not really use the handbag everyday and every time I went out. One reason was, it was too posh to bring the the market, or pasar malam or eating at the stall. I just do not feel comfortable. Second, the size was relatively small. My purse was getting larger, my handset would be the permanent resident, not to mention the husband most of the time request me to keep his stuff like the sunglasses inside as well. So I keep the handbag only for special occasion like hari raya, makan kenduri if I remembered. The bag was safely wrap with my old tudung and keep it in a bag.

Those reasons, made me acquired another handbag. The one that was not so posh. It had to be small and handy enough to just grab and move. I liked the bag so much and I had been using it even until today. The bag is just big enough to put my long purse and my mobile. Then I am free to go. I good hand bag for me is that the bag when you sling on your shoulder, it will not be falling off. So you are free to walk, especially after your grocery shopping when you have more that one plastic bags heavy loaded. It was convenience enough that you just flip open and grab your purse or mobile. No extra time to 'gagau' searching for your stuff. It was beach in color. It was in a fabric material I think by 'bally'. For me this bag is very convenient I like it and I have been using it. No problem about it.

I realise one thing about that bag was that the size. It was not suitable when I would like to bring to the office. It was relatively small for me to chuck my stuff inside. I need a working bag. A bag that is slightly bigger that I can put a novel in, my name tag, my purse, my mobile. It should be roomy and have a few compartment. When my bag was snatched last time I lost literally everything. Luckily my house key was hanging with my car key. I lost my office key, my bank books and a few other. Over the time when I am using my handbag, I tend to store other important document in. This is the bags that I would always have trouble searching for my keys. At the time I want my office key, I would get my car key. Then I have to empty the whole bag to get my office key. I have my lip gloss in and most of the time I could not find it. I have the small baby powder as well. And most of the time when I accidentally did not twist close the baby powder, the whole bag was having a powder.

This is 'belenciaga' fabric. I did not know how popular the brand is, but the bag meet my specific, it had a few compartments inside, so I could arrange my stuff according to the compartment. My pen and my mobile share the same compartment, my lip gloss, my ID card, office key in separate compartment. And the bigger item dominated the main area. The husband has no trouble asking me to keep his staff and document most of the time. It did not fall of the shoulder. I like it. Alhamdullilah it worth every single penny of the bag because apparently the fabric after serious and intensive use never give up and remain clean and undisturbed.

No problem, until one day I went back home for hari raya. My late grandma at that time said to me,

'Ina, mak tok berkenan betuil lah kat bang Ina. Cantik.'

Mak tok berkenan, nah Ina bagi kat mak tok.

I always wanted to give something to my late grandma. She was a special person to me. She was the person who always give to people. Immediately I emptied my whole contents inside the bag. And handed it over to my mak tok without hesitation. I put my stuff in a plastic bag.

Mak tok bukan mau bang Ina. Ambil lah balik.

Tak pa mak tok, Ina nak bagi juga kat mak tok.

My grandma did not travel that much after my grand dad past away. I know she won't be using it. I was right, that bag was just hanged by the room until the day she collapsed. My aunt went there to take some of the stuff. And I asked her to take back my hand bag. It was not cheap!

Bag had yang ada tuleih-tuleih ka?

Yes, I gave to my grandma last time simply because I want her to hold something that I like so much. When she was no longer around, I want to hold something that she like so much, even it was my own bag. When she passed away after a few months come, I looked at the bag and a feel the love flowing out from inside the bag. I keep the bag together with my other favourite bags. For the bags hold so many valuable memories to me.

I came back after raya that year with a plastic bag. I need a handbag for working. In the meantime, I was willing to use my dark green bag. But definitely the posh green was not tough enough for my extensive use. Soon I need to find a bag. I found this one. I fell in love with the light turquoise. I always love the crystal clear sea. I love the salty smell of the beach and that bag just encapsulates everything about my passion about the sea. It passed exceedingly with my criteria for a working handbag. I fell in love immediately. I am not an impulse buyer, but when I found the right one, it did not take long to have it, instantly. Obviously the colour will never match and compliment with my attire. but I believe a good handbag has its own personality and identity. I enjoyed having the bag. I could just simply put some of my small shopping like my lingerie inside. It was leather, and the outer layer was very delicate that it feel like a tissue paper. The sales person convince me that do not worry, it might feel very delicate, but it wont peel off. And the colour, it will never get dirty.

She was one of the honest salesperson on earth who does not talk rubbish. For every single she said was exactly correct, After a few year of heavy usage, the bag just retain its value. I love that bag. That was the bag, I brought everywhere.

There was once, I accompanied my friend at braun buffel. She would like to buy a handbag to work. She is just like me and she only want one bag that last 'forever' and she chooses braun buffel. We went in. She was at that time only have a canvas bag. No sales person was paying attention to her, they were following me instead. That bag I was holding really gave a statement! She got the hand bag at last, and I had a nightmare, because I have been dreaming about her handbag. I need to get one, like that.

My mom went to serawak last time, visiting my cousin. She bought the sarawar bead key chain. I hanged it there. The contrasting red beads with serawakian design, with the handbag. It was a special bag to me.

Ho! Ho! Ho! My latest acquisition and an impulse buying. I went to midvalley with my daughter last time. One thing I hate about going there was the parking. But I found out that if you are going there the best place to park is at the garden. They have a lot of empty space and it was not crowded. I have heard a lot about the garden and the robinson, but never had a chance to really go there. So that day after we parked at the garden I told my daughter that I wanted to go to the robinson.

'Mommy, nak pi tengok handbag ha!'

O.K I know I am a very transparent and predictable person, but I never expect a 12 years old girl can also read my mind!

We just browsed through, I was holding and picking up a few handbags - I did not buy my hand bag there.

I have my netbook, and at the moment the netbook would be in a separate bag. It was too big to be inside my turquoise bag. And besides, the handle is breaking apart. It is getting old and I do not want to add the damage further because most of the time I just squeeze my netbook inside the bag. It was not good to overload your bag. If you do not like to be overload, why you make your bag overload.

So, I have to find another bag to accommodate my netbook. Before this the netbook will be inside my recycle shopping bag. And it is wearing off. And I do not want my netbook to fall through as I can see the stitch is breaking apart.

It was leather. I asked my daughter to smell the bag. And I asked her to smell her own bag. And I told her in the bag world, we have leather and non-leather. Leather handbag smell differently. I would like to inhibit the smell into her. Ha! Ha! Ha! Such a devil monster!

Inside the bag is so sexy - bright pink!

Thanks to wifi - I can now blog from my comfortable bedroom.

weekend at home

2011-01-19T15:48:00.000+08:00

Last weekend the two days home were dedicated to yours truly 'home sweet home'. I am not a clinically clean person. Most of the time the house was left with a lot of mess. The kitchen floor was greasy, the washing machine area turned out to be garbage corner, and under the washing machine was basically the graveyard for the creepy crawly. I have a chimney smoke extractor, and at that moment it had an inch thick of grease.

So, that weekend, I refused to join the husband for his morning exercise. He apparently had a companion of the pak arab. I mopped the floor, scrubbed the chimney, mopped the washing machine area and scrubbed, scrubbed, and scrubbed. When the daughter looked at me intensively clean the area, she took her part in mopping the house. I was blessed the house was not big for me to handle. I do not need to take the whole weekend to clean the house.

So the time I can use to watch TV. Thanks to Daun, the astro beyond was installed. We can really enjoyed the quality of the picture. It was worth every penny. The quality of the graphic is not only limited to the HD channels but also to other channels as well. It was the same quality we looked at the shop. The husband had also updated our streamix to the wireless modem. I got the freedom to browse the internet with my netbook. Shall I just mentioned that he got me the netbook as well. I got a yellow samsung, just the same colour with the car. I can now enjoy my browsing while watching the TV.

Dinner on the friday night was steam turkey wings. The husband bought two turkey wings. Turkey meat, like buffalo meat, they are dry meat. The next day, after last week incident on mee goreng, I refused to prepare any breakfast. By lunch we had grilled salmon head and sushi. The daughter had been requesting the sushi since the day she had at my sister house. This time she requested specifically on the calofornia roll.

Aten nak yang macam mommy buat kat ayah hari tuu.

What make sushi rice taste different from a normal rice is that the rice will be blended with rice vinegar. I found out that the rice vinegar by mirin contain rice wine, and the rice vinegar from other brands contain white wine. So I opted out for the normal vinegar.

Our classic sushi dish would be garlic fried rice, grilled salmon head and sushi. It was worth for every effort when I saw the way she eat. Sedap!

Peak hour

2011-01-13T09:37:00.000+08:00

The house only has two periods - the empty and vacant period, where everyone is not in the house, quite. Another one is the peak period when everyone is at home rushing after picking up the daughter at school, rush back home for dinner, everyone is hungry, that is the time for magrib, and the husband was rushing to the surau at our place. His routine now is asar at sri petaling, picks us up and magrib and insya at surau with the arabs. Alhamdullillah he is comfortable that way.

The minute we arrive home, the food has to be instant. The husband would normally bought naan bread at sri petaling, and the bread at home has to be ready. Yesterday we had tuna sandwich and we hardly eat rice now. But the daughter insists on having sushi. She requested me to get the crab sticks and sushi nori - the seaweed wrappers. But those are still in the fridge.

During magrib, the routine for both of us is jemaah magrib and insya together. Alhamdullillah. After magrib and insya, I will recite doa and she will read the translation. Between the time - we will rotate the reading on riwayat rasullullah, terjemahan alquran and solat. Previously, she would prefer to read, after one page, she was running out of steam. Then I would take over and 'read' to her with more interactive way. Asking her along the way, telling her more about some of the issues and sometimes she would peek through and read together. I would let her finish the sentence.

Last night was the time to read riwayat rasullullah.

Mommy, bacalah!

We read together. The time was limited, I would allocate around 20 mins for the reading while waiting for insya. Last night we read about rasullullullah had an open operation while he was a child.

I could see that she was very interactive and the eyes keep on shining. She enjoyed the reading. Alhamdullillah, I manage to make the religious understanding to my daughter in a relaxed manner.

We had jemaah insya together, after doa, she wold kissed my hand. She would coup my hand with both of her hand and really kiss my hand deeply, holding it close to her face, like holding it close to her heart.

I want my daughter to grow up and understand how much she means to me. I want her to understand being alone does not necessarily being lonely. I want her to mingle with everyone at school, not to create enemy.

We were still looking for a bus to send her to school. One day we were talking to two students at her age who were waiting for the bus. But she went straight into the car. I was annoyed. Why she did that? They are her school mate.

Faten, next time when mommy and abah were talking to your friends do not just rush into the car. Orang kata kita sombong dan tak pandai berkawan. hari nie kita hidup sorang-sorang, kalau kawan tak tolong, siapa yang nak tolong kita.

After that she came back and start telling me about her two friends and a few others. That day she was quite on the way back home. But actually she was hungry. We are always hungry when we go back at home. I could just detect her mood. If she was quite in the car with short responses, she must be hungry. Otherwise, she is always a bubbly girl to me.

Good morning!

2011-01-12T09:55:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, when we were rushing in the morning, the husband looked at me,

You face is so clean! (spotless, he would complain for any sign of pimples!)

It is a complain or compliment?

It is a complain!

Why?

Bahaya.

Thanks to lancome my making my face so spotless. I am not the type who would put on make up. My basic was only foundation, my face is very sweating, putting on make up in the morning would be wash away in 10 min especially in the morning when I am rushing. I desperately need a foundation that really understand my skin. When I bough lancome, it was pricey for me who do not do make up, I took the risk. There is no point of having anything on your face anyway when you keep on sweating. But it was different with lancome. You can sweat but the foundation that I have actually make my skin becomes flawless and after a while improve the texture and tome. I only have one drop of the foundation in the morning and do not worry at all until at night. That suits me.

Normally my breakfast now, is the kueh. I would stop by in any stalls along the way and buy the kueh, karipap, pulut udang and anything relating to kueh talam. I used to have my favourite nasi lemak, later used to me the favourite Huda while she was pregnant. With her it has to be extra sambal and telur goreng separuh masak. Yes, the nasi lemak was very nice and cheap, but very rich in calories.

It was actually disaster to your diet if you have pregnant friends, like mine. Lapar memanjang, can eat the whole horse. My so called diet was nowhere to be found. I put on weight as much as she put on during her pregnant. She could justify that the weight was a baby weight, but mine! Pure fat!

Since then, I had trouble in removing every single from of weight in my body. I know it was not only the nasi lemak to blame for, a lot of other delicious meals that I enjoyed.

I stop taking nasi lemak. I only enjoy the meal once in a while. I switched to kueh instead. I hardly take rice for lunch - because I know I will fall asleep soon.

But this morning was different. It has to be extra special for me to have rice in the morning. This morning I found a stall sold nasi dagang and nasi kerabu. It has been a while I haven't had nasi dagang. That nasi dagang looked so delicious with the rice and kari ikan tongkol.

Nasi dagang is not my kind of food that I was growing up with. Blame it on my trangganu friends at Setiu, I got to enjoy the simple and humble delicious dish almost everyday everytime I was there.

Yummy! Alhamdullillah for the humble food.

happy weekend

2011-01-11T08:24:00.000+08:00

Cinnamon bun - recipe courtecy IKEA phamplets

On saturday, I was the whole day at klcc - entertaining my daughter, turun naik escalator - then only I realise how old I am. We have different interest in our shop hunting. I like to hop in at isetan, handbag corner at parkson and M&S, while she was loitering at swatch, all the fancy bangles stalls, and the glitter things.

And where was the darling husband?

At the masjid sri petaling

We both were having a great time - yet it was very tiring. We had lunch at kfc, then we enjoyed our gelato - at one of the kiosk near la cucur - could not remember the name. We had the triple combination shared between us the pistachio, very berry, and vanilla. Pistachio was very nutty and creamy. The natural green was very attractive. Even if you are blindfolded, your mouth could taste the pistachios. The berry was very deep dark red, the sharp fruit flavour just burst into your mouth awakening every single sense. Truly we enjoyed the time together.

Sunday was a spontaneous gathering with my brother and sister. It was really hard to drag the husband, especially now when he found solace at sri petaling masjid. It was always hard anyway, especially to ask him to join any family and friend gathering. He will always find reason not to.

I did not really know what to prepare. The husband has been complaining about my unhealthy cooking. We had a disagreement on my mee goreng during breakfast.

Kalau time I goreng meee - macam-macam you tanya i. Yang you dok sebat bihun goreng, ikan goreng, kari kat luar tuu tak pulak you kepoh tanya guna minyak apa, guna garam apa. Mana sedap you goreng mee pakai olive oil - tak bertemu jodoh. Minyak masak yang kita pakai pun bukan minyak masak biasa.

Itupun you nak pertikai. Carilah orang yang boleh masak untuk you!

Malas nak gaduh - especially in the morning. I hate of having disagreement.

I hanged my apron - you handle your own food. You blame me for all the bad things while most of the time you eat outside!

That saturday, mee goreng was the only food I prepared. Came back home after magrib, I prepared the bread dough for the cinnamun bun.

He pick us at bukit jalil station, send us back home and return to the masjid for insya and he stayed longer with his friend there.

When he came back, he was impressed with the bun. Or he was trying to make up the day?

Do you want to buy the bread maker?

It was easy, you chuck everything in, pressed a few buttons, the next morning you can have the fresh bun ready for you. My brother in law has it. But it was expensive that when I calculated that we need to baked every day for one year to cover to cost.

But now the price of bread maker was around RM300.

One thing about baking bread is the kneading. It was good, we burn more calories from making bread than eating bread.

Besides cinnamon bun, I prepared sushi. It has been a while I have not been making my own sushi. We can easily get sushi at jusco, and I do not feel the pressure of making one.

It was a struggle especially if you want to role the whole thing. It takes time to adjust with the vinegar in the rice.

The sushi had a very good respond from everyone, that we had to prepare more at my sister's house. Today when my brother met me at sogo, they were buying a complete sushi kit for making sushi at home.

Ahamdullillah - it was really happy weekend. The best time in my life is the time when I can spend with friends and family. They are my precious belongings. They make me feel very rich and special.

hujan

2011-01-06T09:29:00.001+08:00

I love when it rains. When we first stayed at our condo, the husband installed 2 air conditioned. One in the maser bedroom and another one in the computer room, the smallest room in the unit. We always had the impression of staying in a flat it will be stuffy and hot. Alhamdullillah, our buildings are well distributed and ventilated. The units are being arranged so that it is semi detached unit. Each room has windows to let the air and light flow in and out. When it rains, it is cool. We hardly use the air conditioned in the master bedroom.

Yesterday, the husband visited our neighbour at his unit. The had been hospitalised due to heart attacked at the age of 35. It is a very young age to have to symptom. The husband came back freaking out of no salt and frying stuff. It was intimidating actually to have such a hard and almost impossible requirement.

This morning, the road was jammed. It was drizzling. I stopped at one of the stall selling kueh. The kueh was 3 pieces RM1. I bought RM2 kueh, tamak! Karipap, pulut udang, cucur badak, kueh keria, lepat pisang, kueh dal (indian kueh, tak tahu nama, but my favourite). After the four pieces eating kueh, I was full.

I did not buy nasi lemak. The habit that I left long time ago, nasi lemak and roti canai is no longer my daily meal. But it is still my favourite food. I will only consume once in a while. I have to take care of my health as we are getting older. I am also taking supplement like fish oil. spirulina, B executives, and lately we are into monavie.

I bought a book relating the eating habit. How rasullullah eat and stay healthy. and one that touched me so much was in the introduction chapter the author says, how could we have a strong muslim, we are always sick. So it is very important for us to take care of our health.

2011

2011-01-05T09:34:00.000+08:00

We are on our own way. I will tag the husband. He at the moment is under the weather after the none stop weekly trip back to penang for the wedding. He has been complaining with his muscle pain, stiff neck, uncomfortable sleep, block nose and everything. He was not comfortable. He went for the medical check up - apparently there was nothing serious. He just got the cough syrup and paracetamol.

The daughter has the evening session. We will pick her up in the evening. But she was on her own in the morning. The husband has been complaining that she looks thin. What can we do, she is growing taller. We can accommodate both being big and tall. One has to come after another. In her case she is growing tall, probably later in her life she is going fat like me!

But I am monitoring her progress. She has to come to an age to be able to justify what is good and what is not. She still has the room to make mistakes of course. But there are things when she has to be independent, prepare the school uniform, help me me the laundry, prepare her breakfast - a bowl of milk with cereal. This morning I suggested her to make the scramble eggs. I have already showed her last time how to prepare the simple delicious scramble eggs. She did just that. I have already showned her how to turn on the gas and ignite the fire, control the heat. That is the basic she need to know, and turn off the gas after use. That also I hope she is adapting.

We are on the steamboat now. The husband just bought the electrical steamboat pot. It was easy and we all like it. We just put everything in the chicken or fish with various kind of vegetables. The first steamboat was the tomyam, then ikan talapia masak asam, and a few days ago, soto rempah mak siti. It was very nice. We had some left over. The daughter could eat with rice next day before she went to school.

We managed to arrange a van to send her there.

When we came back yesterday, every one was hungry. She would like to eat burger, so stop at the shop, got the meat patties, burger buns and plain buns, cucumber and tomato.

The left over soto was still there. She did not eat that much. I heated up the soto and we were all having soto cicah roti. She said she would prepare the burger before going to school.

We shall see how we will survive after today.

kenduri kahwin at perlis

2010-12-30T10:35:00.001+08:00

The two essential persons in my life, without them I am nobody, my mom and my daughter. Senyum bertambah meriah as everything including the tudung borrowed.

Rombongan pengantin yang penat menunggu due to delayed from the girl's side. Everyone was hungry.

Note: tomorrow is a public holiday, announced by our dear prime minister because Malaysia won in the football game.

When the big brother was having a wedding for his son, it was a tall order for everybody. The wedding on the girl side was one week earlier which we were not aware of. So when we went back for USM registration, we were stranded without proper attire for the wedding. I only had with me shirts and pants. It is not an acceptable clothes to wear especially if you have to be part of the rombangan.

We had no choice, it was actually an opportunity when he never planned to go back to Alor Setar. I can't borrow any of their dress, because they are if not taller than me, they are bigger than me. The next solution was to get a new dress. And the last solution is to go back to Alor Setar and 'pau' baju bank at alor setar. We basically share the same size in my family. And my daughter is growing tall, that now she can join the club.

It was a strategic idea, simply because alor setar to perlis is only half way through. We could sleep in alor setar, bring along my parents, the more the merrier. And not only me who can borrow the clothe, the husband can borrow my dad's shirt to match with my baju kurung. How nice!

The agenda was the akad nikah would be at night, and the kenduri would be the next day. When we were asking why, they said in perlis that was how the wedding should be. So we had to depart from penang in the afternoon. But in the evening, it was raining heavily. After magrib, then only we managed to begin our journey. So we could not participate the akad that night.

The next morning, we went early for the kenduri. They had pulut, nyiour and ikan kering for the breakfast. They had nasi goreng also well. The breakfast was the courtesy from the girl's side. For penang people, they do not really understand why they have to eat pulut, ikan kering and nyiour kukur especially in the morning. Odd combination. But I am growing up with it. That was my breakfast in the morning! This is something I do not want to miss in the world. My mom hardly cooked the pulut already since she had diabetics. I do not want to push. It was impossible for me to cook. Pulut is a forbidden food in the house - sakit urat! Pure carbohydrate - not healthy. Ikan kering never represent nutritional value in a healthy diet - the salt is killing us. Nyoir is always associated with high in cholesterol. Having that for breakfast is like dropping an atomic bomb to your life - that was what according to my husband - but never for me! When I got the opportunity - tibai like there is no tomorrow and I forgot that it only was for breakfast, we had our lunch waiting! The minute I am heading home kl, it was definately a time to detoxify!

This trip was filled with wonderful surprise that opening myself to the childhood memories. Unlike normal wedding with kompang and everything, the wedding had seruling. The music of my childhood years. The music that once belong to the royal special occasions. It was played only during hari raya at balai nobat in alor setar. I got to enjoy the music that day.

For lunch, we had gulai rebung dengan tulang, nangka masak lemak and a few other menu. Pulut hitam was for the desert. Bertambah, berulang makan gulai rebung dengan nangka. Yummy!

Alhamdullillah! Kenikmatan yang allah beri pada hari itu bukan sekadar kenyang di perut, tapi kepuasan menikmati makan yang sedap dan lazat bersama family yang tercinta dan percuma.

It was time to go home - after a long wait since the morning. Kenyang perut and senang hati

Batu Ferringgi 2

2010-12-27T18:03:00.000+08:00

The previous entry was supposed to be packed with photos. The husband told me that when he was young, this was the place where a lot of foreign backpacker stays. They called this plave the fisheman huts. The price was about RM 3 for an a shape hut. Today, the price for the room was RM160. He used to come here with his friend to be the tourist guide. Today, this place has changed so much, that he was shocked to discover.

These are some of the photos at the beach.

I was surprised to discover that the beach was full with excitements and activities.

Along the beach, there were a lot of huts and wooden stalls that blocked the beach from the main road. The place was secluded. You have to pass through between the wooden hut to enjoy the beach. The beach was clean. We arrived there late in the evening while the sun set.

We stopped over at the cafe to enjoy the view. It was not that hot. The sun was about to retire. The beach was not over crowded. There were a few families in the water, jet ski and parachute boat.

Yes, they also have guided horse riding.

We ordered our drinks at one of the stalls. There was nothing special about the food. The place won our hearts.

We stayed a bit longer to enjoy the view at night with the candle light dinner.

That was definitely a special place, different and we will be coming back here.

Batu Feringgi

2010-12-22T17:48:00.000+08:00

I went to the place once with my friends last time. Normally we just drive through. The husband never though of stopping. Batu Feringgi was so alive at night. I like the crowd at night. People were passing through. there were so many things on sold and display. We were squezing between the small lane made of playwood and the bargain goods on display, clothes and most of them are counterfeit and pirated items like sunglasses, handbags and t-shirts.

We stop at a place where they were selling the pirated dvd for a price of RM4 each. The daughter were selecting a dvd and she was holding a pricess frog. Suddenly the place became busy, they were piling up the rack and store it under the table. The daughter was panicked. We quickly left the place, but the daughter was trying to return the cd to the rack. They were already packing the rack and running away, but the daughter insisted in returning to them. Being naive not knowing what is legal and not, she was trying to be honest.

Ambil dulu adik nanti kira lain.

How to make yourself look slim?
Buy a long mirror.
I got feed up after a while with my diet and my weight. My weight decided to remain permanent, especially after I came back from kampung, bertambah tembam adalah. One of the way to motivate me is to look at the slim mirror. I could see my slim figure.

How to make yourself on holiday at home.
Just camp outside the living room. There were only two of us at home. A night before, my brother in laws and his family came over. But I did not manage to entertain them. They arrived at my place after two am in the morning. I left the house n the morning. The wife just managed to sms me the night after around 9 pm, telling us they were leaving for penang.

the post meeting at usm

2010-12-16T16:52:00.000+08:00

Finally the meeting with the supervisor adjourned with less than an hour. Not too much of a release - need to do a lot more for the data analysis - really, really need to work on it.

Reminded the supervisor that he did not approve my registration yet. I need that to proceed with my fee. last year, he went for haj, came back late, so I had to pay for the penalty. This time, I tried not to be late.

My mood has gone. The peaks and the downs of doing phd. I am still chaotic at the moment. I will normarlly wait until tomorrow to get my bearing right again.

The day before I came back, a friend asked me at what time I will go back next day?

I looked at her and said ' pukul siap.'

She looked at me puzzled!

I can really say. Normally I will do my packing in the morning. The house was in a mess. I need to sort out the laundry, arrangging the cloth, folding and washing. The daughter would help me with the hanging. It was such a release on that task. I changed the bedding. The husband tendered the garden, changed the water filter and everything. The house has to be tidy before we leave especially if we are going away for a long time. Coming back home to the untidy house after a long home away was not a nice experience.

We have a small eathen bowl that we keep a few guppies, mixed male and female. My brother gave to me long time ago, telling me that these guppies will breed, so I do not need to take so many. My previous neighbour also told me the same. He would normally have a lots of guppies that he has to give away.

But the guppies in my bowl do not show the normal breeding progress. Once in a while, I realised missing guppies, dead and stucked rotten by the water filter pumps. My husband said,

Ikan guppy pun macam tuan dia juga tak productive.

I am immune to that already. Life for does not have to be perfect. having a child is a gift from Allah. No matter how perfect your health, if you do not have children still you do not have one.

Back to guppies. That day when I topped up the water, I found four to be exact small guppies swimming around. How nice!

I told the husband. And he said,

Hmmmm tuan dia juga yang tak productive.

What ever.

Another issue that we have before we leave the house for a long time was the plants by the balcony, expecially the bamboo that desperate for water. last time we would ask the courtecy of neighbour or the sister in laws. We need to water the bamboo literally every alternate day. Or else, the leaves will be falling away, and turn into a horrible yellow and brown.

But everyone else was busy and there was a time during hari raya especially everyone was heading home for balik kampong mode. So we would leave the watering host at the bamboo pot and let the water drizzles.

After tidying the house, then the packing begins. because then only we have some clothes to sort out. I would limit to two luggages per person. One hand luggage and the carry bag. The daughter would put all her underwear, t-shirts, pyjamas in her bag. I would put mine in my bag.

I have to go the husband is arriving to pick me up. I am updating at the library .

at usm

2010-12-16T12:48:00.000+08:00

A quick update - I am at usm, taking the advanture on the public transport. Will be meeting with the supervisor in the afternoon. Butterflies in my tummy. And he is holding my registration!

Ayooo will update later after everything is sorted out.

Ya Allah, berikanlah segala kebaikan, keberkatan dan kerahmatan yang ada untuk hari ini, hindarilah segala keburukan dan kekurangan yang datang untuk hari ini.

Amin

Pasar Malam

2010-12-11T10:34:00.000+08:00

When I was a student, pasar malam was one of the night that my friends and I will be looking forward in a week. Being a student, budget was limited. I would save some money for the special night. That day I would buy kerangka ayam goreng garing, nasi tomato, and fruits.

I love the night activity at pasar malam. I enjoy seeing the people busy selling and buying. I enjoy everything on display from the basic groceries, fruits, food and the lighting. Some other food that I love to look at was when they use the wide pan to cook the keuw teaw, noodle and rice. I love the hot food. I like the grilled corn, yam tau foo is still my favourite food until today.

I has been a while we haven't been to pasar malam. Last night the daughter requested to go pasar malam around our area. After magrib we went, we bought yam tau foo from the regular stall. The stall was always packed with people. You have to queue up to select your food. The price was reasonable. Last time there were other stalls selling yam tau foo as well, but it did not get a very good respond. I believe, if you do it right and with passion, you are able you attract people. Like this stall, they have fresh and nice gravy. The father was doing the costing while scissoring the food, the daughter will pour the gravy into plastic bag and the mother will help around. And last night we saw they had another helper, probably the son. I do not know about other customers to the stall, but I like the stall particularly because they are generous with the gravy. And the gravy just taste nice. Some people eat the yam tau foo with soup. But I prefer to have it with gravy.

We walked along the crowd. The husband bought apam balik for the security guard at our place. He always buy something for them. No harm of being nice to people, as long as we are not extending the limit. Sometimes, he would buy pisang goreng. We also bought pisang berangan, one for the gourd another one for us. He has been taking pisang a lot lately when he found out that pisang has a lot of health benefits especially for you brain. And I wonder what effect pisang has for monkeys. I love pisang regardless. And it was one of my favourite fruits.

And I had read somewhere saying that pisang is one of the fruit mentioned in alquran. Other fruits mentioned in al quran like buah tin and zaitun and grapes. According to my reading, it says that the fruits that have been mentioned in al quran ihave a lot of health benefits.

That was one of the strategy when I want him to eat something, or if I want to eat something, like chocolate. I told him chocolate is good especially for man, the can absorb the nutrients in chocolate better than women. But it has to the the plain dark chocolate. It also good to ward off the flu. That also gives me the reason to buy chocolate. But in my case of course I have gone beyond the boundary most of the time. Did he eat the chocolate? No! But I can justify myself. So when he saw chocolate in the fridge, at least he can't say anything.

I boiled more vegetable like terung bulat, peria katak and bendi to add in to our yan tau foo - to make it healthier! We had our dinner in one big bowl on one small round table at the small balcony. We enjoyed the night life together.

The husband told me that, there is a planning to build a condo beside our condo. Hmmm very interesting. The pricing of our condo will be skyrocketing , because it hold a lot of privilage like big pool and garden, and the floor area is relatively large with 1220sqfeet. One we bumped into a new tenants. We can recognised new tenants because the lift only connect to our block. You know who live which floor and everything. The husband asked him, did he just move here? He told us that he was here for about a month only. The husband asked him how much he pay for the rent? RM1200++

Not bad ! Kachingggg!!!!!

what is your BMI

2010-12-10T12:47:00.000+08:00

This is one of the figures that is difficult to manipulate. I admit, I am not a good girl. I sneak out most of the time. But I tried to be good by having a lot of fruits, vegetable, I cooked most of the time with olive oil, I drink most of the time at home green tea. I drink most of the time plain water.

A few days ago, I got the opportunity to do the basic medical check up. My blood pressure and others were medically normal. My weight since last few years regardless being 'good' never barge from the scale. That, calculated with my not high height making my total BMI 26.7 the overweight ban heading to obese.

I was frustrated with that. How relevant my weight with the obese. The figure measures the body mass index. The body mass can be your muscle or your fat or both combination. How about the mass consist a massive muscle from the previous activities. I was once a heavy swimmer, I swimmed constantly every alternate day. My shoulder was huge, and I could not even fit at that time the normal blouse. My hips were massive. I could not fit a normal jeans.

So to reduce the weight by exercising is not my kind of game. The more I exercise, the more muscle I put in. It was very discouraging. To diet was no better in reducing my weight.

But I definitely need to reduce my weight that at the moment decided to remain stagnant.

Last night the husband was complaining, he had stiff neck. The blood pressure reading was normal. He got very agitated once he was not comfortable. Today he went for the medical check up to make sure everything is o.k.

We blame for the eating out too much -

Last night we had fried bihun in one big bowl, on the small table with three stools at the balcony. For once we utilise and I managed to encourage the husband to eat at the balcony. The balcony is not big and spacious, but just nice to fit a small table and three stools.

But I determine to reduce my weight.

wet, wet, wet KL

2010-12-09T11:39:00.000+08:00

When KL had shower, the weather was a lot cooler. The view was superb grey colour, with the cloud and mist. The air seemed fresher.

The empty rail

The jam traffic on both ways

The grey tower and KLCC from the distance behind the grey mist

But one main problem, jam - not only the traffic on the road, but also the lrt. The frequent lrt was delayed to sri petalinf yesterday. The only destination was ampang. I wondered why. I asked one of the staff at the station. He informed me that the train to sri peling was stuck. They were trying to pull it to chan sow lin, to clear the line.

My single day

2010-12-08T11:06:00.000+08:00

He was not there waiting for me at the lrt. So I had to figure myself out on how to get home at least safely and fastly. Normally with the lrt and he picked me up by 6pm I was already home. This time no lrt, driving is seriously impossible when you have the beat the jam at jalan sultan ismail, then bangsar, followed by midvalley - perabih duit minyak jeee. On the top of that, it was raining that day making the road a permanent parking, nothing moves, the junction was blocked irritating the opposites lane. Stressful! I took lrt, changed for ktm - it was not helpful, things never change with ktm with cancelled and delayed. Then I had to take a bus from midvalley - to OUG plaza - took a cab home and it cost me more than RM4 for the short distance journey. That was by 7pm I arrived home. The daughter had already waiting for dinner.

Where to for dinner?

Initially, the plan was for the subway - to use the voucher by one get one free. But eventually, after magrib, I told my daughter let's have McD instead. I was still full. I had lunch and ice cream - famous amos ice cream - because I was stranded in the rain during lunch. So she had the chicken mc deluxe and I just had the chicken porridge. She liked the porridge. It was not that bad. After dinner, I bought her scholl uniform - 3 baju kurung, 2 helai kain, stokin 3 pasang, and 2 helai jogging pants, 2 tudung. That cost me more than RM200. I was not complaining, but I wonder if some families who have 3 or 4 children schooling, imagine how much they spend. I am not talking about some of my friends, who could afford to pay more then RM 1,000 for the kindergarten fees. But not every one have those luxury to have that. How about normal family? I like my daughter to participate in the shopping, especially in choosing her stuff, so that she was aware about where the penny goes. She can now appreciate that RM 200 is actually a lot to spend on. With RM200 can get something else. I never want to splash out a lot to my daughter. I want her to learn in real life without abah and mummy, she has to survive and survey the best for her. Think about those children who stay at the orphanage.

The next morning, we stayed at home. I was doing the laundry, washing, hanging and folding. One thing that I could not see the rational sometimes, is there are only 3 valid human being in the house, but the laundry is mounting up so fast. One day missing, the dirty laundry was piling up like nobody business. Then tidied up the house. The husband decided to replace the bedside table with two layered rack, actually three layered, but it was too high for the bed. We opted for the two layered - just nice. He would like to have buku ugama like Al quran and risalah doa, on the shelves. So I started to transfer some of the books from the computer room. Free some shelves from the computer room. That really occupied the time, because I was sorting out the shelves from the computer room and sorting out the books from the new shelves. The daughter was motivated to clear his room as well. The mess in her room and her dad's computer room are no different.

We had quick lunch. I cooked the rice, fried ikan keli, garlic prawns and stir fry cabbage. If the husband is not around we could have the simple frying things. If he is around, then we may need to grilled the fish, because we already stir fry the vege, and saute the garlic prawns.

He was never long to be home. By the time 10 am he already called, telling me they cancelled due to the heavy rain, strong current. He of course was looking forward to be back. He is just not the type of outdoor and adventurous guy.

After lunch, we went out for dessert. We were heading to secret recipe, then shortly after that we had KFC one piece each.

By 7pm we picked up the husband at the LRT.

He was so glad to be home! And to be with us.

Alhamdullillah.

single but not available

2010-12-06T17:03:00.000+08:00

The husband was contemplating. Part of him would like to be adventurous. But he never trust us to be with him. Everytime when we are with him, he will be extra precarious about the safety and everything and all the unnecessary things.

When his friend ask him to join the group for the adventurous day at the slim river, he was looking forward to the invitation. I fully support his move. I believe he needs to be tough and adventurous, not staying around and closely monitor us.

I honestly enjoy the privilege and the attention. He would send me to the lrt and pick me up everyday. No those never extend to doing the cooking and laundry. But he is a good cleaner, he mopes and hoovers literally everything.

Another part of him, does not feel like going. He gave excuses like kaki sakit laa, takut nyamuk gigitlah, itu laahhh ini lahhh and so many others.
One thing that I warn him, find to go, but do not try to follow his friend on another thing. His friend has two wives. Kalau u nak tengok langit tinggi rendah buat lah.

Last night after we came back from shopping, he filled up the petrol tank. This morning, I was supposed to drive. But he was still not sure whether he should go or not, because his friend will pick him up. So I mentioned to him, do you want to send me to the station. He instantly jumped up and got ready to send me over.

Eventually he went to the public holiday break leaving us. This is a very rare opportunity indeed. The opportunity the be alone.

Ideally, I would like to go melaka zoo, a very nice place to spend a day. I went day once with my student trip and I enjoyed myself there. The daughter like it as well.

But that was not easy escape. There is no way I could travel that far to melaka for the day trip.

What shall we do?

I could enjoy the dinner at everywhere. I could eat subway for dinner tonight, bout the big tub of le creame almond praline and have it at night with the famous amos cookies. The next morning, I could make the yummylicious scramble eggs eating with the hailam bread and taost it, eating with butter and kaya lots of it. Our lunch can be McDonald, dinner that night can be KFC, in between we can snack out at Jacko donut, or having the tutti fruti. We can watch the movie and kill our time.

Or we can spend the whole day at KLCC take the daughter to the petrosains.

We are free.

But we will enjoy it with less one person.

He said to me, don't worry - we can always make free calls. But I am not so sure whether I can get a clear celcom in the jungle. We had free minutes talk of 20 hours. Enough to hook us up and update each other every single minute.

He was trying to convince us.

sup tulang

2010-12-03T17:26:00.000+08:00

O.k, i did not have the pressure cooker to cook my sup tulang. The tulang was strait from freezer, hard frozen and I put it in periok tanah. The humble RM20 periok tanah to cook most of the meal. Priok tanah is good to make curry, or any other cooking that require slow process. No circulon analon by meyer.

I slowly boiled the bones around 7pm by 9 pm the soup was ready. It was a simple soup with sliced ginger, dried dates, cinnamom, aniseed, and sliced onion.

The husband went to surau to pray with his friends, and both my daughter and me, we finished up the left over fish, chicken and prawns from yesterday's meals. If the husband was around, there is no way we could eat the leftover, we had to have a very long lecture on the health issue. For me once in a while it is ok to relax on the food you are eating as long as you are not going too far from the foundation of the healthy food. I only take plain water hardly any flavour or carbonate drink. Most of the time my food was plain fish, grilled or in light source like singgang. Hardly curry or masak lemak, hardly nasi lemak or roti canai. I hardly take rice for my lunch and my dinner most of the time at home with brown rice. Or I believe the regime should justify my health conscious life.

I have a very limited time for my daughter, so every single minute with er is very precious and most of the time it was intense. The time simultaneously to love, to teach and guide and kena marah at the same time. I love her with my whole life, she is everything to me and she was completely aware of it, but I am the monster of the house. When she has been scolded, she really, really being scolded, even the husband could not take it.

Last night I told her that we were doing the magrib prayer together. Between magrib and insya, she would reciting quran. She already finished her first round and she is repeating another round. So instead of reciting quran, I told her let's learn something relating Islam. She was a bit confuse.

Mommy can't teach. You are not ustazah.

I told, Faten, do you know you should be lucky to learn from mommy. Normarlly, you have to enroll to university to learn from mommy. And not everyone can enroll to university - only the educationally qualified person can learn from mommy.

So, better consider yourself lucky!

She had once mentioned to me that Kalau mommy ajaq, macam kena dera jeee!

She has been going the the short course on basic islamic principle. And now every morning she will have her sock on. Ustaz kata aurat perempuan cuma muka dan tapak tangan jeee.

I just look at her and smile. That's my daughter!

Everyday, she would tell me what she had been learning. Yesterday was mandi wajib, and sembahyang jenazah.

I believe she had actually learn something practical about islam, the religious that she has to live and die in. Insyaallah.

Last night we had magrib together. I have allocated three 'subjects' to teach her after magrib - one book about solat, that is very important as muslim to build the foundation on. How could you claim that you are muslim when you do not even pray. What will it make different from others. Another one it terjemahan alquran. She has already completed reciting, but can she understand the content, at least the meaning. The strory behind and the things that she should learn from the quran itself. As a muslim this is the point of reference and strength for life. Learning from the past and absorbing some of the strenghth from it. There are only three, I wish I could add more, but time is limited and I want her to fully understand the whole concept. Islam as religious for peace and complete. The last one is riwayat rasulullah. You will never understand islam in full if you do not really know the riwayat of a man who had sacrificed his whole life as a guidance. Last night we read some of the riwayat of rasullyllah. The baitully, nabi Inrahim and Nabi Muhammad came to her picture a bit clear when I could see the spark in her eyes.

Last night the question was how rasullullah was born. Bagaimana seorang insan mulia di lahirkan? Adakah kelahirannya sama saja dengan kelahiran kita insan biasa? According to the story, rasullullah s.a.w was born with his pointing finger pointed into syahadat, and he was already berkhatan. The story begin by introducing mekah as one of the bless place on earth, the baitullah the place that had been developed by Ibrahim as an ibadah place, tempat yang penuh dengan keberkatan.

Tonight I am planning to cover about solat. She was already looking forward as the thing to spend with me.

I want her understand about islam, not just simply apply it, macam pakai baju, main sarong jeeee.

By the time insya, she was hooked up on TV monster inc last night on discovery channels. And yes, the flat screen did not disappoint us. We could see clearly every single hair of the monster fur. Cool!

By 9pm the husband was home with his flat bread, to eat with the soup. Initially we would like to have spaggetti, but it was too heavy and I did not feel like eating that.

Flat

2010-12-02T13:14:00.000+08:00

I am flat. He was determined there was no way I could distract him from having the flat screen. One one evening after picking me up from the lrt, he took me to an electrical shop. I like the small one, but he decided that he would like to have the 42 inch. I had no comments. The tv came next day, he was at home to sort it out. But we were a bit frustrated because the quality of the picture was not to the standard that we saw at the shop. We wondered why. It was too late already to call the shop to complain and return the tv. It was not cheap, the price was more than RM3k. Money did not flood in our life. We had to work hard, keep the saving.

Can we just return the TV? That was what I wanted at that time. I could not enjoy the detail of the picture especially the one in Nat geo channels. I love watching the documentaries on those channels. The green plantations and yellow deserts and the blue sky were just jumble in one single confused tonation.

Next day he called the shop asking them about the solution.

Abang, memang banyak customer complain gambar tak clear.

Tapi masa tengok kat kedai apasal gambar cantik jeee?

Itu kita orang pakai blu ray? Kalau nak tambah kena another extra RM600. Kalau abang pakai Astro, dia tak set lagi broadcasting dia ke LCD programme, masih lagi dengan CRT. Tapi abang adjust lah kat 'picture'.

After countless adjustments, last night the pictures from most of the channels were basically sensible. In some occasion, it was crystal clear.

There is nothing that I want to miss in this world than having my weekly lunch with my cousin. This time we got our timing right. Choose the right stall and the right place. At the time when the time is limited, we have the choose the shortest queue that we can join. We lined up at nasi kukus. I ordered nasi kukus with ayam goreng berempah and my cousin ordered mee bandung. She had a big bowl of mee with do not what gravy that did not resemble any taste of bandung gravy. I had just nice nasi and ayam goreng berempah. It comes together with chicken curry. The cousin did not eat much of the mee bandung.

We finished early and still got the time to walk and talk sensibly.

The work is piling up, the meeting with the supervisor is planned to be in two weeks time. But I haven't actually called him yet to set the date. I need to register for this semester. And I haven't touch my work yet.

Desperate woman needs desperate measure. I normally have a clear cut where my work will end and my home life begins. Like today, I commanded everyone to leave home early. I switched on the netbook in the crammed lrt like sardin and started doing my work. Last night I was late home. And to add more to fun packed life, the husband the night before told me that he would bring home his friends from surau. There were two of arabs whom he was closed to. At 7pm, I was nowhere near even to the lrt station. He bought the quick fix ayam mas. By the time I arrive home after magrib, the talapia and prawn were there ready. I wondered whether arabs eat seafood or not. I did not know. But I made garlic prawn, and dancing fish, our kind of dish. After insya, we have the table full with roasted chicken by ayammas, the dancing fish, garlic prawns, cucumber salsa, and fruits - grapes and watermelon. I was lucky this is only happen once in a blue moon.

jogging

2010-11-29T15:38:00.000+08:00

The husband was not that satified with my attire for jogging. He does not approve first of all the rubber slipper that I wore - selipar jamban. But I did not even run, a slipper is just enough for it to do the justice walking around the park, up and down the hill. He also hate my t shirt - macam kelambu. He prefer me to adorn a fitting short sleeve t-shirt. And he also does not like my jogging pants. So much of a healthy exercise.

After jogging, we had our late breakfast - instant noodle with garlic prawns and green vege. Boiled the noodle and vege. Fried the sliced tauhu, and soute the prawns and taugeh with garlic. Add some salt, brown sugar, and soy souce. Everything being arranged properly on a big bowl and we shared together with chopstick.

In the evening we were heading to 101mall again. This time he wanted me to get my jogging shoes. I got myself two long sleeve tshirts, and he was loosing himself with the flat screen tv. He wanted to own one. But am not in the position to have one. The tv that we have at home is still ok. But he insist on the flat screen. Hentam sajalah labu!

I bought for the daughter some legging for her to wear at home. It has been a while I bought some clothes for her. But I just could not understand why the clothes department sells more clothes but very limited choice on pants. The only pants they have is jeans. I was very disappointed.

On the way home we stopped over at my sister in law's house to pick up the daughter. Tomorrow, she will have a short course on aqidah class for the next one week. Initially we would like to send her over in ulu langat, but we back off last minute. I was a bit frustrated. The initial plan was for her to stay with her cousin for at least 3 weeks. Alhamdullillah when we cancelled the package, the husband found the similar course being offered at our place. So we could just send her in the morning and pick her up in the afternoon.

Moving

2010-11-26T16:26:00.001+08:00

I am moving again, with a new 'boyfriend' who offer me the material being. If the previous 'boyfriend' is a nature lover -this one is different. I have been swinging from one shopping complex to another during my lunch time.

December is coming, to update on my phd work and registration. December also a month of school holiday. The daughter is staying with my sister in laws. Lonely was her excuse to escape the house. She has been claiming for brother or sister, sad to say, no luck. So we sent her off.

We are planning to send her for a short class on aqidah and hafazan at the mosque near our house. the two separate session start on the 29th nov for one week each course.

It has been a long time that I haven't updated my blog, making me a stranger in my own blog.

I will update later.

UP

2010-11-09T10:01:00.002+08:00

Picture from the pixar website.

I watched Up with my daughter a few days ago. I enjoy most of animation movies because of the simplicity and nice story. This is the movie that I could watch repeatedly. This particularly animation movie touch my heart in so many ways. The daughter enjoys the story so much, and we had a good laugh through out the movie.

When I first saw the movie, I did not know what to expect. Why the house, why the balloons. But it was actually the childhood dream of a couple who happened to meet at a dilapidated house and later they got married and bought the dilapidated house and tendered it with love and care. The dream to have a house at the paradise fall. The dream that was never happened as in life, not holding a lot of money to pay for such expensive vacation far, far away in the foreign land.

The life of the couple who initially hoped for a child, but they did not get it. They grow old together until the wife died and the husband kept everything to himself, until one day a boy came and knocked on his door. It did not have a lot of conversation, and very descriptive.

He eventually managed with the balloons took the house to the paradise fall in the foreign land with the boy who knocked on his door.
Last night I came back home, they were hungry of course, and the husband told me everything is all ready.....Just wait for you to cook! The keaw teu was on a bowl, with taugeh and tauhu.

I will go to surau for insya. But I am so hungry. We can have our dinner when I came back.

That was the routine. The daughter was hungry, and she was watching movies.

I asked her, where are all the crackers in the tupperware.

Abah makan semua, Aten pun tak boleh makan. lapar!

I had a small bowl of milk with banana, because I was apparently hungry as well. The last meal I had for yesterday was breakfast tosei.

Took out the chicken, soak in the water, wash myself quickly and

lets the rumble begin!

I fried the keaw teu, made tauhu sumbat. I used the whole packet of keaw teu, and all the taugeh. Fried all the tauhu - five pieces of it.

By the time the husband arrived, everything was ready.

We were so hungry and we just ate. The husband told me that the shop owner informed him the whole packet of keaw teu can feed five people nicely.

But what the shop owner did not realise that, it can nicely feed three hungry people in a family.

Semua lincin sapu bersih. Yang tinggal hanyalah separuh tauhu sumbat.

Diwali break

2010-11-08T12:31:00.000+08:00

I could still remember during my early blogging times, we wish everyone especially our readers on any festival. I wrote for the dedication and for the readers. After a while I feel like, I have the obligation to write because people are coming to my blog for their daily dosage. Then I realise that I hardly write based on what I feel but more on how the reader would like to read my entry with photos and everything. Writing blog was no longer nursing my feelings.

After that I stopped, to give time to me to write not to the readers. To write for myself and to actually see the inside, the feelings and everything. To mumble for no reason and to be free to write rubbish if I wish. My rule was simple, as long as I do not make others feel so bad in order to make me feel so good.

The dewali break gave me time to be with my daughter and husband. I took one day earlier because we needed to sort out the daughter IC card. She is growing up already. Then our friend from penang stayed overnight.

The life for once was free from rushing in the morning. We had a pool waiting, had some fun in the pool swimming. We tried to swim at night, but I did not enjoy it very much. I went for a walk in the evening at the garden.

The friend came, we had breakfast together. We were talking and they were telling us

Orang kampung sekarang dah banyak jadi jutawan. Habis tanah di jual. kalau dulu berbasikal tua, sekarang dah ada kereta jaguar, BMW yang 5 series punya.

Orang kampung kita dah kaya. Kalau dulu kerani cabuk yang tah apa-apa, sekarang beli toyota vios dengan cash. Apa depa kira, kita bukan ada apa.

They talked a lot about being kaya. I can talk as well, but I am not trained to talk about others and about material, how kaya you are. That was just not me, so I was quite through out the conversation. I was numb just nod and agree. They talked even more about how rich and materialistic orang kampung are. Butt please itu rezeki masing-masing. Talk about ourself, talk about opinion, life, happiness. I just listened and the conversation became a one way channel. Cakap berjuta-juta, tapi nak buat apa? I was not good at this honestly. For me it does not help. Wrong groups of people with wrong topics to discuss. They went off after the breakfast, try to buy us with RM50, gave that to my daughter.

Nak buat apa?

I trained my daughter not to be lavish with material being. I want her to understand that we can get happiness with things that we enjoy the most, not by how may shoes you have, how many dresses in your wardrobe. I tried to reduce the time we visit shopping complexes. I just do not want her to be too materialistic. We took her a lot to enjoy outdoor activities, going to kampung-kampung, or pangkor for a short break. Alhamdullillah so far she can accept that. In fact this dewali break, we did not go anywhere, we stayed at home with each other. Even the house was shocked suddenly the tenant did not go anywhere. The time we spent together at home was precious to me. She ate literally everything I cooked, she said mommy dah pandai masak sekarang. Roti canai yang keras macam batupun habis dia sapu.

But I think she missed me being at home most of the time.

Today, I had to drag myself in the morning. I thought I can find happiness in heaven, but I was wrong, the smiles come from my heart when I am at home with the family.

When she wanted to take photo for her IC, I told her, don't forget to smile.

I took her photo for a test, and looked at it. Macam kerang busuk so unnatural. This photo is very important, she have to carry forever. So the single shot is very important.

I told her to imagine the happy moments in her life, going to the beach or what. Then you should see the smile shining through.

But my smile was shattered. The husband broke the handle of my frying pan. For others it means nothing. We buy another one he said. Senangnya cakap.

Do you know how much is my frying pan.

RM50.

Yang, kalau setakat RM50 tuu tak kisah but this is RM500 satu analon frying pan. It is meyer!

But the thing is he does not know what is meyer. But he definately shocked to know the price. Takkanlah mahal macam tuu. I will take to parkson and show you the price.

Geramnya! With him, Ikea will go bankrupt soon.

Public transport

2010-10-29T11:29:00.000+08:00

I rely so much on public transport like bus and lrt in my working life. Commuting with lrt is super duper efficient and safe time, and jam. But being in public place I believe we malaysian we carried it beautifully. Caring malaysian we claim, the lrt coach will have a certain seat reserve to the elderly, handicapped and pregnant. Even so, the unreliable commuter went over board to express their caring by allocating a coach for ladies.

One thing about not so caring about we malaysain is that at the time we had a journey home, when we are really tired, and when the coach are packed with people, we had to sacrifice a place to a pregnant woman who happen to be in the train. Sometimes not one but many. One thing that pissed me off is that the passengers who were sitting at the allocated seat could not even bother to surrender their seat. Idiot!

Last night someone asked me, can she take a bus to Ipoh at Setiawangsa stop.

No you can't. (She is not familiar with KL)

So, how to go to puduraya to catch a bus to ipoh.

Puduraya is under renovation. You have to take an lrt to Bukit Jalil. I will show you as I am heading on the same direction.

She followed the direction. And I showed her the place to buy ticket to bukit jalil.

But I wonder how confusing it can be because the same line with different train. One to Ampang, another is to Sri Petaling.

I was on the train home, and there was a young couple on the train. I just shock to find that there we doing a peek on the mouth occasionally. They definitely malaysian, at least the colour skin is not white and the face were so typically asian. Boleh blah manusia yang tak tahu jaga muka!

There was another girl came in with the super duper hot skit and split. Short and fat, she sat terkangkang launch herself like she was sitting on a sofa at home. Haiih, apa nak jadi, we are so materialistic that we do not even bother the moral value, regardless the religious background, at least you should respect others. You are not in your living room, we are cramed up in a train full with strangers.

Congested mind

2010-10-28T16:31:00.001+08:00

My mind is so congested at the moment. The two things that are streaming in my head now - to eat and to sleepppp

To eat is something that I am trying to avoid very much. If the fat in my body can display the contents clearly - It would display the delicious crispy goreng pisang, nasi kandar, cendol, tonnes of ice cream, not to mention the cheese cakes, chocolate cakes, brownies, and those uncounted kenduri kahwen, and those eggs that I had been eating, can I count the seafood as well, udang, sotong and clams that I had over the years. Those fat already had PR status on my body.

lagi mau makan!

It was different when I was in my study time, I could eat tonnes of chocolates, ice cream and cakes and many more. Those days.

I will get agitated easily, my life can be upside down over a small, irrelevant matter. My ideal day is to wake to a quite morning, less conversation, and routine. But there are times when you have to wake up even before you open your eyes. Most of the times, they are actively running your brain that make it so hard to differentiate whether you are sleeping or not. Something that disturb you so much.

This is the time now.

Yesterday, I arrived home slightly earlier than normal time. So I had some time hanging at home. I would always try to make the time as a quality time with the family, the husband and daughter. So last night we still had a balance of pisang tanduk. They already had their dinner without me. I had already missed the chance of being together and there was not even left over for me. The husband thought that I might have taken my dinner or do not feel like taking dinner. One thing about me is that regardless, how full I am, every time when I arrive home, I would always seek something to munch. A habit.

The daughter likes pisang goreng, I made a second round of pisang goreng. But still I wanted to have dinner, so I had telur mata kerbau with rice. The quick classic of meal. The night before we had sandwich tuna with grilled aubergine. That day, we had pasta with mushroom sauce.

Those are the precious time that I would like my daughter to enjoy - the moments with mommy.

The never ending quest of mee udang

2010-10-27T11:03:00.001+08:00

Of all the places we went for the quest of mee udang, expensive or cheap, near or far, still in the end we agree to one place, the Bagan Nakhoda Omar (B.G.O) escapade. I had once gave a direction for my father to stop there and tried it. Since then, he never stop of going there every time he passed by, eat and ta pau some more of the mee udang.

My brother and his family who have never been there felt the challenge. So they decided to have it a go. They actually booked a chalet over the week end for the purpose of nak makan bagi puas. That is my brother - always to the extreem. I had that kind of spirit as well.

They went with our direction - search for the remote place, the humble stall by the deserted beach for the best mee udang.

We followed on sunday. I asked him,

So how was mee udang?

O.K laaaa udang besaq duit lima kupang jeeee????

Besaq duit lima kupang jeeee!!!!!!

Hello brother where in the world you can get the mee udang - lapan ekoq udang, fresh, penuh pinggan, dengan kuah yang fresh di masak hari tuu juga for RM 4.50 kootttt. I never asked for the price, but it was dirt cheap. Fresh is my key ingredient in my food. I could taste the food better with simple ingredients. That is another key. That day, we had two mee udang, kerang rebus, nasi goreng udang, ice kacang, laici kang panas for a mere RM22.60. Where can we get that. Even the father, who have a very high standard of mee udang keep coming here to the remote place for a good dose of mee udang.

You have never tried the lousy mee udang at kuala sepetang that udang besaq duit dua kupang saja for the price of RM8.00 semangkok. Udang pulak tak fresh. Nak udang besaq bayaq lebih. Lagi lahh pulak, gerai tuu atas longkang jeee.

The misleading famous mee udang kat sg dua pun nothing compares to this. The same thing mee udang kat penang we had once, yang udang besaq piring, kedai nak roboh bawah pokok tepi pantai charging us for nearly RM50 for two of us. Lagi merapu.

He didn't quest enough of mee udang to appreciate the simplicity and freshness of the whole thing.

Once my husband said, minyak pie balik, sekali dengan tol lebih mahal dari kita bayar mee makan 3 orang.

One the way back, we stopped at one of the local stall by the side of the road, got fresh riped pisang berangan for half of the price here in kl, and big fresh betik for only seringgit satu. And bought goreng pisang yang dah lama tak makan, for two ringgit and got a lot of it. One thing that I realise, when I looked at them in their eyes, I could see straight to their hearts. These moments and experience are something money cannot buy.

If it were to be a marriage

2010-10-26T17:27:00.000+08:00

Oh My God, I am so glad that this is not happening in a marriage. If my life can be an anology of a marriage, I am a woman in a serious trouble, a wife of somebody, having an affair with another person, living together, and planning to runaway with a secret lover. So at the moment, I have set a gear on running away with my secret lover from the boyfriend. The boyfriend found out and would like me to stay. But why do I need to run away. This is a materialistic games. Those who can offer me better return, I would just go. I am just another materialistic girl who just want to have fun.

When I am not writing my friends had been calling me.

Wei, dah jadi apa kat hang?

Tak jadi apa lagi. Awatnya?

Daklah hang tak tuleih lama dah. Aku baca blog hang baru aku tau hang buat apa.

That was Ju

Thank Ju and Yus. But I am a bit tied up at the moment.

friends

2010-10-20T17:25:00.000+08:00

You do not really know whom will be helping you out from trouble in your life. Most of the times, we rely on family and friends. They are the people who are close to you. But they may not be the people whom you can rely on during desperate situation. I am not talking about the lucky people in the world who would just get things done and sorted on their fingertips. I am not that type of person. I understand when I am seriously in trouble, I just look up and doa, hoping that Allah will help. When I turn around, I could not see anyone. It was not easy for me to actually go to people telling them something, or asking them for something, money in particular, no matter how close I am to them and how desperate I am in the situation. I would rather go hunger, that was what I had been doing. I keep most of my problems in blogs. This is one of the effective way for me to let the whole things out, the sadness, the desperation and the tears.

I am still in my spiritual journey, understanding about a friend. A friend that need the help but does not know how to ask. For me a friend who is close enough to me are able to understand what was my feeling by just looking through my eyes. So I am learning for myself, to look at their eyes, to find the meaning. That is the at least I could do today, to stand by her side and to support her believe and principles in life.

When I am trying to focus, I like to make an anology that a life is like a file itself. In a file there is various sections. Each case will have it's own file, that you open it properly and closely nicely. So what ever that it happening between me and my friends with be in this file that I monitor it closely. If I want to make a decision, which is most of the was not an easy process even on the simple decision, I look at the fact and react to the current situation. The strategy is to solve the problem immediately and to plan for the next later. That was the strategy that most of the time do not work. That most of the time when the decision made was not suitable, when most of the timne when you already made a decision, later you found out a better solution which is less harmful. But still I made decision regardless. Only through doa.

I went for a malacca trip. I like it. the concluding trip I believe. I can heave and say that I have been there and done that. And I prove that I can do it, gain the respect and reputation from it. Alhamdullillah. The next thing is just that I need to prove that I can complete my PhD InsyaAllah. I need to be very determine on this. Focus, focus and focus.

At the time I would like to upload some photos on the trip, there was a problem with the maintenance. Overall, I enjoy going to the historical state, walking around the historical remains and buildings, the ship museum, the jonker street walk, and the river cruise. I think, paying RM10 is worth for the boat ride. I got to see the the preserve malay village with dainty houses. I will definately return. But one thing that I could not stand is the heat. It was seriously hot.

Focus

2010-10-18T13:39:00.002+08:00

I realise that in the process of growing old hoping to grow wise, I tend to have a lot of things messing around. I am a prudent person, meaning that I am learning to close one eyes, but most of the time I close both of them. Human are prone to error, I con't help it. But what I am trying to do most of the time is to stay focus, to expand the boundary if possible and to look at the fact, be sensible in another word. I learn and keep on learning through mistakes and doa.

So I learn that in life the fact is we only have 24 hrs for the day - hafl of it, we were in the lalaland or trap in the jam, or on the road in your favourite car listening to favourite music - being positive is one of the things that I was trying to juggle. It helps me to get through in most difficult situation. It help me to be sensible and to bring the smile back home. But it was hard to hold the smile if the husband was another challenge for you to stay sensible. With them you are just vulverable, merajuk dan marah. But knowing my husband, he has his time to make up with the lost time together. Atttention, Attention and attention. The daughter is another person that I neglect most in my life. She is growing closer with the father. She is growing fast with him. So I would always find the precious time giving her some survival skills living with his father. She a learning machine on her own. She pick up well, learning about the parents who have contrasting way of life.

In staying focus, my entry doesnot seam to head for any direction yet. But focus I must, in my life there are only two things in my top priority - my family and my PhD. Selfish indeed but those are the other facts I have swallow.

For once last night, the husband was trying to make up the lost time together. Normally, he would be in his room with his blog. Yes, finally he blogs and has a number of entry. Yes, he torments his wife in perfecting his entry to be with video download, photos and everything. But I like it. Later I learn a lot about my husband that before I did not even know. He was a passionate write once. I am so glad through blogging he find the purpose of writing. And the blog he contributes with his friends has attracted a lot of crowd -.

My husband likes to tell story - he loves talking, and he can talk non stop, unlike me. He talk before he goes to sleep, when he wakes up and he hang up with his friend almost everyday for at least an hour for each conversation. Depending on the situation, most of the time he told me strories. Strories of his life, and one particular story was the story he was playing in the sea swimming around at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Last night I asked him, what did he feel when he was in the sea in the middle of nowhere? He said he enjoyed it so much.

How old were your at that time?

After form five. He replied.

You know, I never had so much fun at that age. That was the time I was struggling with my english class and a-level. I never stop studying.

Tuuu laaa umor dah dekat 40 pun you tak habis lagi belajar. I yang kahwin dengan you pun naik rimas. Tak habis, habis belajar. Dah 4 unversities you masuk for one PhD.

I wish my life was not that tough.

Ya Allah permudahkanlah urusan hambaMu ini di dunia dan akhirat.

It is too long

2010-10-15T11:32:00.000+08:00

Finally after the turmoils and hot sit and hot line life - I felt like I was in a roller coaster with your legs hangging on the air during the ride. It was a very challenging ride, with a lot of unsettled things. Things that you have to decide for your future for your family and for the people around you. Things that you have to defend yourself when you are being accused of doing something that you never think that you do. Things that also involved your friends around you who have been together with you. Things that full with gossip and conspiracy. Most of the time I felt that I was in a heavy black cloud. At the time you only one to focus forward and holding your friends around you closely convincing that we will be fine, nothing is going to happen to us. But God is Great, Allah ada agenda yang tersendiri yang jauh lebih sesuai untuk kita sebagai insan biasa yang sungguh mengharap keredhaan and keberkatan hidup di dunia dan di akhirat.

Allahdullillah, the black cloud has cleared. I am just following the path dengan doa dan harapan hanya pada yang satu Allah maha esa.

Alhamdullillah, I can sit down and write again.

I owe my two ladies the brownies recipe - so here it is , the original recipe I copied from my recipe books. I made this brownies during syura wedding, I could not made

Rich dessert brownies

Line a 20X30cm (8X12 inch)tin.
Melt 200g (6 1/2oz) dark chocolate with 150gm (5 oz) butter and leave to cool.
Beat 3 eggs and 1 1/4 cups (310 g / 10 oz) caster sugar until thick and fluffy,
fold in 1/3 cup (80 ml / 2 3/4 fl oz) chocolate flavoured liqueur (I replace it with coco power mix with water), then stir in the chocolate mixture.
Sift together 1 1/4 cups (155g / 5 oz) plain flour, 1/4 cup (30 g/ 1 oz) self raising flour and 2 table spoons cocoa and stir into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the tin and bake for 40 minutes. Bake at 170 C (325 F / gas 3).

Selamat mencoba dengan oven baru. Kalau tak sedap sila salahkan Ika yang tak baca resepi dengan betul. Ataupun salahkan cik daun yang tak pandai timbang adunan.

Balcony

2010-10-04T16:44:00.000+08:00

After a long hibernation, I deserve an entry. The weekend was welled spent at home, in house. I suddenly had the feeling of missing my home so much that the strange feeling turn into a serious energy channeled out to my appetite. So I was constantly looking for food to eat. If I am not eating, then I would be on the sofa, watched Tv, or stayed in bed or at the balcony. I was like a desperate woman.

We went swimming for the whole two days staying at home. Even the husband followed on both days. The daughter was over the moon. I enjoyed swimming very much. Every time in the swimming pool, I get the fresh experience, improve the skill, and more playful in the water. I enjoy the feeling of floating and moving in the water. I just love water.

The weekend we were at home doing nothing. We need to get our grocery done. We had literally nothing at home to eat. But we still dragged the idea of going out and doing the shopping.

I have a tiny balcony at home, just enough to fit two beach chairs, that I would unfold it and put it at the balcony. I would sit in the morning and at night to get the fresh air. But the tiny balcony serves me more that just a place for sitting and enjoying the fresh air it has - i tried to upload photos, but I could not. I photo of my bamboo plant complete with natural bird nest, my favorite childhood hanging pots, desperate daun pandan palnts, my bunch of tumeric plant and the latest addition to the balcony, is the ornamental crawling peria katak plant.

laksa johor

2010-09-24T09:37:00.001+08:00

Laksa johor is a very distinctive meal. It is a combination of the italian and malay in one delicious bowl. I like spaghetti, and the thickness of the gravy. Unlike the gravy for laksa kedah, the fish gravy for laksa johor is thick and has more fresh spices - that most of the people making good laksa , keep is safe the recipe for the gravy. I love the fresh condiments that come with it - kacang panjang, taugeh, and mint - yes the fresh tingling taste of the leaves.

My husband does not take laksa kedah or penang, even though he is a penang guy. Anything that mamak serve will just suit him well. But both my daughter and me love any laksa in the menu. Most of the time we bought it from any stall and eat it. So if we see a laksa menu, we will always order a bowl of it. But he will go for laksa johor no problem. One thing about this laksa is it not readily available at makan stall. Once in a while you will get lucky to enjoy the dish from openhouse kind of gathering. I know Wilina makes a good laksa johor, but you just can not pester her. Unless if I threaten her that I am pregnant and she has to do it. But no luck, I am not pregnant. So better forget about it.

So being adventurous enough, I found a recipe in the news paper on laksa johor, the basic ingredient of course is the fish, then things like onion, lemongrass, chili if I am not mistaken. I do not have the newspaper cutting with me now to read out the whole ingredients. But it looked simple enough for me to do it. I understand all the ingredients well.

First attempt after raya - I used a can of sardin instead. Nelayan tak turun ke laut, berhari raya - no fish. We eat it regardless. The taste for the gravy is nothing near to my recorded memory. But anything for spaghetti goes.

Second attempt - not only nelayan berhari raya - suddenly the farmer was having the fun as well, so no lemon grass, the only lemon grass that was available the organic, three of the stem cost RM3. So we was not that desperate. The laksa still went with the fresh condiments - but it was nothing near to johor.

It would be a total humiliation to johorian if they were to taste my laksa that was not at all so johor.

I am making the third attempt this weekend - help me god - I was bless with the people in my house that just simply eat anything, johor or not.

But I want to eat laksa johor!

Gangguan

2010-09-22T12:22:00.000+08:00

The departments that are busy in the house at the moment are the kitchen and laundry. The kitchen has been taken over the husband. It is too depressing to describe the status, almost every single item inside the cabinet was outside. The tiny kitchen is no better than mamak grocery shop, everything is everywhere. What to do, He has more time at home than me, he could conquer the kitchen. I was obliged to handle the laundry activity, washing, hanging, folding and storing. The priority is washing. I target of having one wash load a night. The daughter, once in a while after reminding her , than will help with the hanging.

Last night, not fasting, I arrived home early. Lega. But I was mentally drained and knacked. By 9.30, I lost my sense and coordination. Forget about the target on one load a night. I just could not be bothered. I dragged myself to bed, and had a very long sleep until the morning. But in my sleep I had a very strange dream. The dream that you can fully describe basically what is happening as if it was real.

In the dream, My husband, me and we had a baby of 1 year old. Strange in a house, my old house at kepala batas. Then we went to a mamak restaurant - at a town near our house in Jitra. There, the husband went to a malay stall nearby, he said he was hungry and he was so tired. But when I looked at him, he was really tired. Not only that his face and physical literally changed into an old man of 90 over years of age. I said to him, you seriously looked so tired and your have changed so much into an old man. Something must be wrong somewhere.

I returned to the mamak shop, to seek for help. I saw the baby was playing by himself. I was not sure about the sex of the baby. When I approached him, then I strated to see, makhlus halus, a group of them were playing and entertaining him. No wonder the baby was so occupied. I tried to chase them away. The group disappeared into a design on a blanket that the baby was holding. But then another group of makhluk halus came by, a girl and a boy were playing with my daughter. I was trying hard to chase them away, but they refused to go away.

The husband then woke me up for morning. I told him the whole story.

The husband said, tempat I duduk tuuu memanglah tempat jin bertandang. So some of them might just follow me back. Or probably I got it at Lrt. I do not know. But I have nothing before, why last night. I might have done something than normal.

Tapi yesterday, I had lunch at this thai restaurant. The tom yam was so good. It had been prepared by the thai cook. I was by myslef.

Not being sceptical, that was the place that I went yesterday.

UPSR

2010-09-21T12:06:00.000+08:00

I went back late last night. I missed the bus at 5.45 pm, so I had to take 6.15 pm. By the time I reached home it was already dark. Magrib masuk awal. We, both husband and wife were fasting for puasa 6. So alamatnya, I bukak puasa telan air liour dalam lrt. I was grumpy and bad mood, because for sure the husband would membebel like nek kebayan, and I was hungry, and the guy who was standing beside me in the lrt was snorting. Go away!

I reached home, the daughter was waiting for me to have dinner. They apparently had the magrib prayer already. On the way home, then I just realised, I dah melahap kueh raya kawan I dengan jayanya petang tadi tanpa menyedari yang I tengah puasa 6. Boleh?

So with that I should declare my puasa 6 void lah, tak berbaloi. Dugaan!

I told my daughter last time, the night before UPSR we would have baca yassin for her. She was looking forward for the idea. So last night, after azan insya, she quickly prepared herself for insya and waiting for the baca yassin session.

After baca yassin, she said to me,

Mommy boleh takk kalau Aten dapat 2 A jee kee 3 A jee.

We knew that we can't hope so much. She had been learning so much, adapting to the surrounding and adjusting to the environment. We understand, at the age of 12 she can't absorb everything. We as parents, could only pray for her better future, successful in her education.

Sekurang-kurangnya kita mesti target untuk dapat 5A. Berusaha dengan bersungguh-sungguh dan meminta dan berharap pada Allah.

That was what we were doing, she had been putting a lot of effort and more focus. I believe we had made a right decision by pulling her out from the tuition class, because after that her result improve drastically. I personally, monitor her over the weekend, so she could focus a little bit.

Today, the husband continue with is puasa 6, I for once, refused, nantilah dulu.

Mission accomplished

2010-09-20T11:28:00.000+08:00

I went for a cruise - from penang to penang. A crusie to nowhere - it was tiring - but a really good experience.

The twin sharing cabin, inside was on the small side - we had to squeeze literally. - no window - the cheapest room of all.

I was able to enjoy the top view of the open sea on the deck.

The top deck that offers the best view of the surrounding area.

Penang by sea

You can not miss the nasi kandar. I had it between two narrow lane that was packed with people having their lunch.

Raya yang hilang

2010-09-14T17:10:00.001+08:00

I was determined, the last week of puasa, I would like to spend it with the family. We went back to Penang first, balik mengadap dulu. Satisfies, a am looking forward for the next move, making my aim for completing my PhD at the age of 40 becomes more of a reality InsyaAllah.

On wednesday, we took the mother for the follow up check up. She had been admitted to the hospital previously due to kidney problem. During the check out, the doctor found out that she was not recovering as expected. She had been admitted once again on the basis of monitoring. Day after day, the result was not satisfying enough. She remained.

On the night of ray, I just need a break, the night was lonely with ayah sleeping in his room and we occupied the living area and mak's bed was empty. Raya was rushing since mak had been admitted to the hospital. We were rushing to visit mak, and preparing juadah berbuka puasa for ayah.

On second hari raya, we taught that we would like to go back to Alor Setar, but my parents decided to go for a holiday during raya time, first time in their life.

So we headed back to kl, because nothing to do. Mak was still in the hospital.

The road was busy, but still o.k. We arrived Kl late at night. The first place we went to is the fish bowl inspecting the fish and the water level. The fish were o.k surviving at the based of the bowl. The water level was running low. We were away from the house for more than a week camping away. The next place was the balcony. We had bamboo plants and a few other pots. The bamboo was a sensitive plant, it needs water constantly. Without water, it started to have falling leaves everywhere including the neighbour's balcony. Before we went off, I left the watering host on with dripping water. It survived.

We missed the house so much.

A day before raya I smsed Yus asking for rendang recipe, the ritual I used to do - asking for the recipe. But I always after raya at the mercy of Yus, she would bring rendang, with ketupat and lemang to eat. But this time, when I asked her the recipe, I actually for the first time made the rendang by meself. Woo hooo. Sedap! Huda like the rendang to be a mixed of limpa, hati, perut and daging. I had all of those stuff, making a total of more than 2 kg of meat. It was a risk for the first timer like me making it from the scratch.

Thanks Yus, rendang tuu sedap sangat, bukan puji diri sendiri, tapi resipi Yus tuu memang menjadi.

Balik mengadap

2010-09-07T14:04:00.000+08:00

Ramadhan is coming to the end. raya mood is on the air. Lagu raya is on the radio stations continuously, in the car and at home. This is the time for a break from the busy life and material being. We had a long break of raya when the school break will be for two weeks.

This is the time we spend in Penang. And at the same time doing another duty of mengadap tuan supervisor after the last time I was disappearing from him. The last time I saw him was during the registration time. It was a nightmare, but my work is progressing at a snail pace.

I called him a few days before returning home and he said to me,

Ingatkan dah nak kena report polis sebab tidak dapat dikesan pelajar PhD.

A meeting was set, on monday, but he said that it depended on the time. He had meetings in the morning. Afternoon, he needed to sort out the house for raya.

SMS me when you are there, then we can set the time by the time you are at the university.

I smsed hin and he called, telling me to actually prepare a slide presentation for his master students.

Buttt, I only had about an hour. My pen was running out of ink, and I forgot to refill before I came back, and I did not bring back the ink bottle. I needed to buy another bottle. Masa tuulah rasa nak gie toilet. masa tuulah rasa otak macam tak progress.

But Dr Issham, I thought that I was only showing my work to you.

Takkkkk you kena present kat student master, masuk sekali research framework - you tak tukarkannn???Dan present sekali pasal you punya qualitative data.

HMMMMMM in less than one hour. I had to give a very long and deep hail. More towards going hysterical.

How much slide presentation can you make it up in less tha one hour time?

7 slides with cut and paste method. With a few msword documents ready on standby.

Is this part of the Phd processs - die!

I was late of course struggling to fit my slides and my contents. He called

We are at the bilik seminar. He reminded me.

on my way.

The minute I entered the room, every one was there already waiting for me.

Dengan juah nya, he introduced me to the master students - some of them I was familiar with.

This is Dr Haslina.

Apa nie Dr Issham, buat silap cakap pulak.

Tak paa lahh berkat bulan ramadhan hari ke 27 pulak tuu, minta-minta termakbul.

Ok, we let Dr haslina present.

Juah lagiiii!!!!

The presentation of 7 slides went really well. He was satisfied with the progress, with the framework.

Along the presentation, he was nodding with the agreement and everything fell smoothly.

Alhamdulillah, everything fell into place, making the data collection into a clear 3 phases, the initial, the extensive and the 3rd stage is the interview sessions, which I will be conducting during the semester break.

Alhamdullillah, for once in my PhD struggle, I can really celebrate my coming raya.

No wonder he was so juah! Calling me Dr Haslina.

InsyaAllah Dr Issham. Diantara doa yang dimakbulkan Allah adalah doa seorang guru kepada anak muridnya.

My paternal grandmother passed away

2010-09-02T13:56:00.000+08:00

Two months ago when my maternal grandmother passed away after a long suffering of coma, I did not manage to go back. But I was released that she did not have to suffer any longer.

On 29th August, in the morning, while I was still in bed, my mom called, told me that she was in the way to Tunjang, tok baq passed away. It was a shocked because I did not hear any news that she was falling in health. I knew that she had 'lemah jantung'. That was the breaking news for some 30 years ago. She died at the age of 90 years old. But my paternal grandfather still healthy at the age over 100 years old. He proudly showing off his IC to everyone that on the IC he was born in 1913. But actually he was a lot older than that.

I went back. My mom told me that the funeral is at 12 noon. I won't be able to catch up anyway. But I went back regardless. There is nothing I can do to rewind even a second back, but I would like to be with the family. I was being brought up with my childhood life living together with my grandparents, and cousins from both side. But we are growing closer with families on the mother's side. The visit on the paternal side was only an obligatory duty during hari raya. We hardly stayed, let alone to sit down together and have a meal. But we still go back.

So, I arrived late in the afternoon, when the house returned to a normal state, alone, and quite as if nothing had happened.

She was the kind of grandmother whom I had a kind of love hate relationship. But she is my grandmother regardless.

One thing that I was so glad was that I stayed long enough until the 'buka puasa session'. Under the dim light, it brought me back to the 30 yrs memory of having meals together with my aunties and cousins. The time when we used to be so close with one another. I was so glad indeed for the moment, apart from this time, the grandmother who used to make a lot of fuss was not with us any longer.

According to my aunties, my grandmother died due to kidney failure and heart problem. The nails were all blue, and the whole body were swollen. The last time I met her was last hari raya on my obligatory trip. She was still healthy, still remembered me. She was holding my hand and looked at me with question marks. I know my grandmother well enough to anticipate the type of question she would ask, even it was not verbally. Why my hand did not have bracelet - gold bracelet in particular not a single one.

Took, laa nie orang dah tak pakai gelang mas dah. Takut kena samun.

She could not believe it!

The world is no longer a safe place to live now. Not like 30 years ago, when every one ran free in the paddy field.

I went back to the house next day when I would like to get a copy of her death certificate. Only then I could really feel the sadness, the loneliness and the place was so empty. Mak teh one my aunties lives next door. She is a women full with maternal love. You could just feel it when you were with her.

Those are my lost time with them.

jatuh longkang

2010-08-25T11:55:00.000+08:00

Last saturday, when we were rushing out, the husband had a problem with the main lock. The key was stucked at the latched and he could not pull it out, or turn around. The main door was locked and we could not even open from inside. But we were late already to catch the bus. The husband left the key on and then sort ot out later with one hammer from the maintenance staff.

So, we had no choice to replace the existing key and locked. We went to the nearest DIY shop to get the replacement and parked our car facing the main road. After we got what we want from the DIy shop, we saw an old man sitting by the drain. There was a guy who was holding him.

Our car was parked right at the place of the incident. The guy who was holding the old man said that the uncle fell into the drain and he could not move. He could not even walk. He was not responsive.

I called the ambulance. A few crowd gathered around trying to help in a way. The uncle was chinese. When he did not respond to us we tought that he could not understand what we were saying because we were malay and the one who was holding him indian. There were a few chinese around, asking him questions, but he remained silent. We found his mobile and call the number from his mobile, but non of the person know him. We checked his wallet trying to find the contact address. He was born in 1920.

I had already called the ambulance, but after 20 min, we could not see any ambulance coming in. I called again 999 for confirmation. The ambulance came from Serdang Hospital. So far, it would take at least 30 min.

The uncle started to have saliva drooling.

But sad to said that we still could not find his relative. When the ambulance came, he was all by himself.

Fadhilat ramadhan

2010-08-18T12:03:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I arrived home early. It was raining . The husband picked me up and we decided to get food from bazaar ramadhan. It was late by the time we arrived. Everyone was rushing home. That was the time when some of the sellers were generous in giving big portion for a dish. The husband had nasi kerabu with fried chicken, I bought two beriani from different sellers - one from mamak type with ayam madu, another one from malay with beef curry. We were full till the night.

We had magrib prayer together, but the husband would have the insya and terawith prayer at the surau. After magrib, the daughter would recite quran. But because she had some homework, it was only a short reciting. After that I asked her to read a book, I found on the shelf about fadhilat ramadhan. A hadis saying the important of ramadhan, when during this month, the pahala for any ibadat sunat will be about the same pahala with ibadah fardhu. The hadis also explain about the significance of sedekah during berbuka puasa, prepare the food for those who fast, you will get the pahala puasa just the same with the person who puasa. But if you can't afford to feed them, you can always give them even a kurma. For those who provide the drink, they will drink in akhirat later, the drink from telaga rasullullah, that when you drink the water, you will never get thirst.

With that, I told her, abah has been preparing food, and buying food for us to buka puasa. So abah get all the pahala.

There was a word 'jannah'. I asked her, do you know what is jannah? She look at me expecting some answer. I told her that means syuga.

She smiled.

When it comes to the part of giving the water, she interrupted,

'Mommy, esok Aten nak bagi mommy ngan abah minum ayaq untuk buka posa. Nanti Atan boleh minum ayaq dari telaga rasulullah.'

She was excited about doing something like that. And you can just see the spark in her eyes.

That was one of the precious moment in my life.

There was a time, when we were watching tv, there was about mekah and kaabah, and we were talking about going to mekah. She was persuading, 'kalau mommy ngan abah nak pie mekah, Aten nak ikut juga.'

Insyaallah. Tapi lambatlah lagi. Kalau ada rezeki kita sampai. Sesungguhnya setiap satu pengharapan adalah satu doa.

'Aten tau tak mekah tuu apa?'

' Hang tau dak yang kita sembahyang ikut khiblat tuuu, kita ikut di mana arah kaabah laa.'

Ooooo again, that was the time I will never forget to her new understanding.

She continued with her reading on fadhilat ramadhan. The next ibadah sunat hanya dalam bulan ramadhan is solat terawih. She looked at me and asked 'Mommy, nanti hari jummat kita pie sembahyang terawih di masjid?'

'Insyaallah.' That was actually the plan, because during workdays, she would have her homework and preparation. So we will be going to terawih this friday, saturday and sunday, insyaallah.

One day she came back home jumping all over when she needed to stress out on how important the matter was.

'Mommy, ustaz suruh pakai tudung masa bulan posa.'

O.k. o.k. You have the tudung sekolah already kan?

So she has been wearing tudung to sekolah.

She was persuading me to wear tudung after that. I told her, to wear tudung, you need to understand the whole concept first. I do not want you to wear simply because you have the influence from people. Pakai tudung buat perangai macam orang tak beragama islam nak buat apa? Jgn nak berlebih-lebih tak tahu batas macam orang jahil. Pakai tudung berpegang-pegang tangan, berpeluk even dengan lelaki yang bukan muhrim. Apahal. Di mana ugama kamu. There were cases anak luar nikah at sekolah ugama. So ugama bukan terletak pada sekolah, pada kawan, ugama terletak pada hati.

Insyaallah mommy selalu mendoakan semoga harapan, niat and iltizam yang menuju ke arah kebaikan dan kesejahteraan senantiasa dirahmati allah.

Sahur this morning, we were having ayam masak kicap. No appetite to eat, but what amaze me was that I managed so far to wake up and prepare for food. Alhamdullillah.

So natural

2010-08-17T13:30:00.000+08:00

I am referring this to others. But I love anything natural. I love to taste my food when it was not added with even salt sometimes. Simply because I want to taste the original flavour of the food, no salt, no sugar nothing. The fresh fish taste nicer without any flavour.

I missed the natural beauty, the beautiful blue sky, the crystal clear water, the lush green forest and the creatures that are beautifully created even if they were to live for only a couple of days. But the beautiful was created like it was for the eternal display.

These are the moth I found around here that never stop to strike me with awe. They are huge. They are just beautiful.

The yellow pattered moth with tail

The broad green wing moth

Yesterday, we were on our own for breaking fast. The daughter was with my sister in laws, I was stranded at lrt bukit jalil station due to the down pouring rain, the husband had just arrived at jalan duta from penang, and on the way to pudu to take lrt to bukit jalil. We were supposed to meet there. His mom had been hospitalised due to some kidney problem, but it was not so serious and she was in a stable condition.

The sister in laws invited us all to break the fast at her house. But I needed to fill in the tank first. So after all the down pouring, and sort out my bank account, I managed to pick up the husband at sri petaling instead. We went to pick up the daughter. She already had her rice and everything. Both of us were having bread only. The house was in a mess. The sister decided to rush in the morning after sahur making the house felt like a refuge camp, with mattress on the living area, the table was still messy, and the sink that was overflow with dishes. The stove was in a phetatic state, with crumbles from the tart making that night. I did warn the husband about the state of the house.

We went home, without food to eat. Fasting during the raining season, does not really make us so hungry. But still we would like to have something hot. I first of all needed to clear the house. Tidied up the living room. Turned on the washing machine, clear the dining table, empty the sink and wiped off the stove. Then only I made tomyam from the previous ingredients of steamboat that day. I still had some squid, prawn, and veg.

This morning for sahur, I cooked the rice, made some chicken soup, omelet, and heat up the rendang that our indonesian friend gave. At the same time hanged the laudry. One pile is waiting to be stored, another pile is waiting to be folded, one pile is hanging at the back balcony, a few more piles waiting. She gave use rendang daging and paru.

family

2010-08-16T12:38:00.001+08:00

Last saturday. my sister sent us the two girls over. She had to finish up something at the work. When the husband went back we tought that we would have time together to do what we want, but the sister stayed over. And they apprently over stayed that this morning everyone was rushing, to send the kids to the nursery, to work, send my daughter to school and me driving to the bus station.

The whole house had a hectic time, the kichen was none stop cooking, fasting was definately not an excuse to rest from the kitchen. Weekend during fasting month, was the time to experiment some cooking especially the one that you would like to prepare for raya. So yesterday sunday, a tried the family kacang goreng bertepung, that my mom used to make and packed it into small packet. I would then took those packet to the canteen at 5 cent perpacket. At night, the sister tried the cheese tart, not bad. I was a bit worried, because I am not a tart person, and so was the cheese. But everything went really well, the pastry was crumbly, the type that is suitable for mince pie. The cheese was great, but we need to control on the cheese, some cracked, some brown, but the taste was great.

We had steamboat yesterday for buka puasa session. And this morning I found that the day was moving slowly.

The mom-in-laws was hospitalised last weekend. She was so weak. She had been vomitting for about one week already. She was suspected with kidney problem. But the husband informed me that her condition was stable, and she will be warded for further monitoring.

So the husband will be coming back this afternoon.

And I am still sleepy. I miss my bed. The laundry was piling high with the weekly bed linen and towels, plus extra linen and towels for the guests and sister.

My Husband

2010-08-13T13:08:00.000+08:00

I hardly write about a man that I have been married for more the 12 years. But yesterday was the highlight of all. Our marriage is not a marriage made in heaven, nice beautiful and smooth ride. The marriage life is full of bumpers, twisting, backstabbing and anything that you may encounter along the way that most of the time there will be a pop up question comes out in my head like ' why do I marry this man in the first place?'

That was there time after more that 12years, you are running out of answer and excuses. It was too late to make another decision. I had already made it 13 years ago, and I am not going to make another. But the tricky journey has made me person today. One thing that keep my both feet firm on the ground is that another statement would follow after the pop up question, 'I do not want to get married, to get divorced.' Under one condition, regardless, whatever may come between us, as long as we are still loyal with each other, the marriage contract remain. You are free to find along the way another person, I am not going to stop you. If along the way you find one, I am so ever ready to move out from the place and take my yellow car along with my daughter. I for one, had enough with. Been there done that.

As a wife, the place for me is with my husband. If there is nothing between us, I would like to remain single, growing old or die alone. Once is more than enough in marriage. He always tease me, that I will get married to some one else. And I told him, I will if the man would give me at least RM3000 a month and support everything. In other words, he has to be rich. Normally, rich people would go for the pretty and young person. I am none of those.

So along the way I remain, most of the time I was being so low, for not understanding each other. I have also learned to give up and let go what I used and enjoyed doing, and take what I do not like and try not to do it. In the name of marriage. I also learn from the traditional way of keeping marriage in a bless, silent most of the time help, no matter how desperate you are at a time.

You grow in marriage as a different person, from someone who use to be me, me and me, now the family, the husband, the daughter and finally me.

Ramdhan was one of the biggest challenge, but one the the biggest enjoyment as well. You will never understand your other half if you do not close your eyes and open up your heart.

Our first day breaking fast, the three of us break our fast in a car. By the time the husband picked me up at the lrt station. It broke my heart, but I was happy, because the husband and daughter were with me. We were together.

Yesterday, a male friend was asking me, at a time to go home,

'Lina, hari nie nak masak apa?'

What will I cook, when even before I reached home, it was already azan.

'hari nie, suami saya masak.' spontenously I replied. The husband had already informed me that he had already made sambal patai with udang, and put in the oven the turkey tight that I had marinated the night before.

They were surprised to hear my reply.

"Dengan itu Lina, wajib ke atas kamu untuk lebih taat kepada suami.'

Today, he went back home to visit his parents.

I am free over the weekend!

This is not an anniversary entry, there will be time the day will be special without any special day.

Alhamdullillah, over the years, I do not have to look deeper into his eyes to find the answer of how much do you love me. The love is just all around me. I was blessed, he did not stray. Wherever he goes, we were so close together by just a phone call away.

Ramadhan AlMubarak

2010-08-11T09:48:00.000+08:00

Satu harapan pada satu bulan yang mulia adalah keberkatan dan kerahmatan dari yang maha Esa.

Degan ini harapan ini hanyalah untuk lebih beristiqamah dalam ibadah, lebih-lebih lagi pada ibadat-ibadat sunat seperti solat-solat sunat, sedekah dan membaca dan beramal dengan ayat-ayat suci kalam Allah.

The husband is doing everything for the domestic chores. This ramadhan can be different, I will arrive home by the time magrib. He will be picking me up. He will preparing for the meal.

Normally during ramadhan time, we limit our outing activity especially at night. We hardly attend any buka buffet. Most of the time we will be at home. The husband would go for terawih, and I will be staying at home during work day. Over the weekend, we will go together to the mosque at our house.

Things that associated with ramadhan are - buah kurma, and sahur.

I like kurma very much, especially kurma madu or mariam. But this time, I could not find it, so we haven't really bought kurma for this month. Sahur is something that I did not really practice last time. When I was a child, my mom would prepare dish like the small square papadom, daging goreng kunyit, or telur masin over the sahur time. My dad would go to siam and bought back beras wangi for the supply for the whole month. In kampung life, we lived near to another house. We did not have alarm clock to wake us up. Our house was next to tok Su Hussian. Our bedroom was next to his kitchen door. So when he woke up for sahur, he would open the door, and called my mom to wake up. There was a time that he missed his sahur, so was us.But I love my sleep more that sahur. My mom would just give me water and dates and I would continue my sleep.

When I was single, I would just have a glass of water. By sahur time, I would just drink the water and continue my sleep. My sleep was so precious. One of the things that I love doing - sleeping or staying on bed. And one of my favourite place is my bedroom. Most of the time I would just sit on the bed. I have a bedside table for the night lamp, a clock and books. Magazines, due to the bigger size would be on the floor.

Without sahur, I can go for the whole day no problem.

When I am married, God help me. My husband need his sahur, the daughter also. I for once had to actually wake up heat up the food, or prepare something simple, woke them up and I went to sleep while both of them having the sahur.

Last night I woke up 4.30 am. Cooked the rice, and heat up the leftover curry, woke the husband and the daughter. Had some rice and continue my sleep.

Sahur is one of the things that I has to istiqamah for this month.

Agar-agar kering

2010-08-09T11:59:00.000+08:00

Last weekend I had a pleasure of having for the first time in my marriage life to spend the whole family of my younger brother and my sister in one room. It was a last minute plan as I was getting last minute on the chalet confirmation, last minute on the friday asking my sister and my sister in laws to join. Satuday was a half day, we were here already, my sister came later in the evening after her husband came back from work. My brother was not yet confirm. But I really hoped that they would come, because that saturday was a history of my life. Last minute after 7.30pm he arrived here. Non of us had never come here before. We had bbq that night after so many sms exchanges between me and my sister. The kids were running around that night. One word that perfectly described my feeling was happy.

My sister brought with her agar-agar kering, because I have some ordering here. Apparently she had been introducing that in her facebook and received a favourable response on it. She sells RM30 per kilo including the postage.

Our parent make the agar-agar kering. They never stop selling and making things since I was young. I paid my SPM fee using the money selling nasi lemak. Anything that they have and can do they will always sell it. Being nasi lemak, pulut inti, ketupat pulut during hari raya, catering, buah jambu air and belimbing, binka, jemput-jemput durian, and agar-agar kering.

My dad told me once that, after my maternal grandfather passed away, my maternal grandmother said to him, that when arwah yan passed away he had some money given by the company as a token. She said she would like to go with my parent for hajj with the money. But that amount was only a few thousand, that was not sufficient for the whole trip.

So since then, my dad has been thinking hard on how to finance the three of them for the hajj. We were not coming from a well to do family. My dad was a pensioner. The only alternative for it was to do business. Living in Alor Setar, you kind of have a limited alternative. My parents started with making bingka - bingka susu and bingka ubi and distribute it around the local stall that sell kueh for the morning. He would wake up around 5am in the morning to prepare the stuff. After subuh, he would drive his car distributing the kueh, after that my mom would prepare the kueh like jemput-jemput jagung, pisang for the afternoon. So after dhozor, my that would go another round, collecting the money, the left over, my dad would just give to the seller, and distribute the afternoon kueh. His kueh, the seller would sell for 20cent. My dad would give some commission to the seller. How much really they had in keeping. The cost of hajj was way too far than a few cents per person. And he had to consider for three.

They were working like mad around the clock, and at that time I wonder why my parents had to work so hard selling all those kueh. They are supposed to enjoy the retirement. All four of us are independent already. With the pension money, it was more than sufficient for both of them. I did not know yet at that time.

But the kueh business, went so well, after a while, the regular customer came early and wait for my dad for the bingka especially. When my dad did not come, they went back home empty handed. When my dad would like to go away for a few days, they had to inform the sellers, so that the regular customers did not wait for the bingka. The bingka had once being order by the hotel at our place.

During ramadhan time, my parents focused on one type of kueh, bingka - bingka ubi specifically. During durian season, my dad would get a free supply of durian leftover from durian seller, because he knows my dad sold kueh. Jemput-jemput was sold at the price of 10cent each. I looked at my dad and asked him, why?

Banyak manalah pak dapat balik duit. Mana ada orang jual kueh satu 10sen.

He said to me, biar untung tuu sedikit tapi berkat.

I was quite and still not comfortable with his answer.

But knowing my parents, they would sell what they cook and eat. There was no cut thing short. My dad was very meticulous, that he would use a ruler to cut his bingka. Nobody can touch it. He monitored the whole process. Everything had to to measured accurately up to a gram. Once they were so used to it, they even weighted their food - like bihun or ikan.

Bingka ubi was their specialisation. He got a special machine to grind the ubi. The supplier of ubi kayu at the market would already allocated for him, 8-10kg of ubi for every time he got the new supply.

After 3 years of working around the clock, when they surprisingly have enough money from selling the 20 sen kueh, they went to my maktok. And asking her about the trip.

My grandma after so many years saying that she had already forgotten about that, she did not really expect to go away especially for so long from home. She however, would like to go for umrah.

So they apparently used the money for umrah instead. The three of them went without using the saving from my grandmom money.

That was my parents determination. Agar-agar business was growing steady. One thing about this business, they will use a lot of sugar. It was normal to use 100 kg of sugar. Thing will be critical during the festivals time. Their agar-agar comes in various colours and a hint of various flavour. Once thing about this agar-agar, it does not have preservatives or chemical. At a time when we had issues on sugar that was short in supply, they had already secured a supply of 300kg of sugar at home.

They do not only sell it during raya time, but also all year round, because there was a continuous demand and order for the wedding token.

Agar-agar kering was one of the traditional kueh melayu that has been forgotten. Not many youngsters know about this anymore. It is soft in the centre but crystal crisp on the outer layer due to the process of crystal sugar.