Living with Sarah

I love this pic. Friends since 1984. We grew up together. All of us, at one point, might drifted apart for a while. But we always get back together. Insyaallah another trip is coming in 2 weeks time. I'm still contemplating. Tak sure schedule sebenarnya. But I'll miss a whole lot of I don't join these girls! 3D wall mural katanya :)

Penat balik from Morib belum hilang dah kena start kerja :(. Semalam had to attend a meeting in KL. Malas betul kalau meeting start 2.30pm. Sure habis lambat. But then, one thing I like about my current engagement is that I am not what I call a principal team member. I support. I do mainly documentation and reports.  So, yesterday, I merely support while my partner for the meeting struggled to present the system walk through (a lot of functionalities still not working!), explained the rationale behind certain interfaces, got grilled when certain functionalities were not developed based on requirement (understanding concepts is very subjective!), while I sat, took notes, nodded where appropriate, and chipped in where necessary. When the (garang) project manager asked to commit a date for the next walk through, I was so glad I am not the one in the position to answer. Been through that, done that... Fuhh! I wish for more of such engagements :).  I love having this peace of mind. A

Once you have this crazy idea that your life will be filled with adventure. That every day, your heart will skip a beat at even the smallest of adventure. Then you realise even the smallest of adventure doesn't exist anymore. And then hope becomes a dream. But even dream can be achieved. You think. Until you lose that twinkle in your eye. And you dream no more. Why bother, you say. Why bother? And life as you know it becomes a mundane journey. And you care not. It's been sucked away that you care not. Seek it elsewhere you think. Seek it elsewhere. For you care not anymore.

Our adventure... Melangut tunggu Ude dengan harapan dia menang lucky draw... The runner and the pompom girls Lighthouse Bukit Jugra Aliyah tengah suka pose macam ni! At Istana Bandar. Macam-macam perangai. Ni buat mural Potong cake. Red velvet baked by Jay. Sedap gila! Beautiful sunset... Photoshoot majalah Mangga :) Sampai hati diaorang nak crop off I sebab tak ikut lompat macam ni :( Nice place tau. Rasa nak pergi lagi. Macam kumpulan rock buat photoshoot hari raya ;). Ini rumah Mak Jay. Still very traditional. Such an experience for Aliyah. Bukan senang nak ambil gambar kat rumah kampung. Tengah hujan pulak tu.

Our JJCMM2 went for a short break to celebrate Ude's birthday. Very near. Morib saja. Coincide dengan Ude's participation in Morib Run. Walaupun dekat, sekejap, dan expectation rendah, it turned out to be awesome and full of adventure. As always dengan geng-geng yang pelbagai perangai tetapi ngam bila bersama :). Aliyah pun ikut. Last minute she insisted. And she laughed and laughed along with us. At one point, she was so full after a meal and she said her stomach hurt. From the food and the laughter! The getaway started early Sunday morning. Hubby sent us to meet with Ies in Dengkil, and less than one hour later, we arrived in Morib and met up with Jay. Baru nak duduk-duduk ambik gambar, Ude pun sampai. 5km run only :). Lepas tu melangut tunggu lucky draw yang turned out to be not so lucky. Then, breakfast at Dataran Morib. After breakfast, the adventure began. Mula-mula naik Bukit Jugra. Drive up walaupun sebelum ni konon-konon nak hike up. Met up with Shake yang nak jo

Alhamdulillah, this project arrangement has so far been quite satisfactory. Once or twice a week of travelling to KL for meetings, the rest of the days are spent working from home. Today, since dah berjaya siapkan ToC for UAT script last night, way ahead of today's 2.30pm meeting, sempat jahit felt kepala teddy bear :). Tengah kumpul-kumpul untuk hantar ke Izzkin. Bukan nak buat duit sangat, just nak dapat balik modal beli barang. Stress therapy yang agak fun. Senyumannya agak awkward :). Next time kena kasi senyum lebih sikit.

I've been wanting to get this book for quite some time. Tapi selalu tak jadi sebab I read that it was not a finished book by Tolkien. Some parts of the book was written by his son to fill the gaps. But then, with The LOTR trilogy being shown on Warner for the past months, and then re-watching The Hobbit 3 extended version, I guess getting the copy is a must :). The Silmarillion. Beli pun sebab jalan-jalan kat MPH ada discount :)

It's been a so-so week. Nothing much happened. Mainly work. The school holidays is coming to an end. We have started getting Aliyah's school stuff - uniform, shoes, just now books... Know what? Everything is so expensive these days. Alhamdulillah we can still afford to buy things for Aliyah, but how about people who are poor? For Aliyah alone, we spent almost RM350. I can't even imagine how other people fare :( Anyway... for us memang terasa boleh bernafas sikit because Hubby finally got paid for his work. After 4 months! Alhamdulillah... hari-hari doa semoga Allah bagi kekuatan mental dan fizikal untuk dia cari nafkah for us :). This is my new favourite lightning-speed breakfast :). Setelah bertahun-tahun our microwave rosak, we finally bought a new one. Itu pun lepas pikir yang Aliyah is old enough to operate one and it's the easiest, fastest and safest way to make a decent meal. So, sekarang selalu buat "meals in mug" :). Like that scrambled eggs. P

I sometimes crave for light readings. OK la, I don't despise chick-lit. Ada juga yang I baca :). But I don't go for the shopping therapy stories. Yang cerita pasal cooking and baking appeal to me. Like Sophie's Bakery for the Broken Hearted. That was a good one. Malam semalam we were at IOI City Mall. Sementara menunggu Hubby siap discussion dengan my current boss (we might be working together for this project I'm doing now), Aliyah and I went to Borders. Rasa terbuka terus minda tengok English books. I was at MPH Alamanda the other day and I was nauseated by the rows and rows of Malay novels dengan tajuk Suamiku Itu, Suamiku Ini. Please lah... Bila lah this craze over "lompong" literature will end? MPH Alamanda dah jadi macam Malay novel hub. English books adalah 3-4 rows. Anyway,I had this list of books I wanted to buy. Ada yang jumpa tapi bila baca back cover rasa macam - not at this point of time. I want something light I can read on the train. Even th

I've been wanting to try Korean food for quite some time tapi tak da geng yang nak join. Hubby and Aliyah tak berapa minat. Selalu tengok cerita What Shall We Eat Today. Nampak yummy sangat-sangat. Finally Jay ajak makan Seoul Garden IOI Mall last Saturday. Temankan dia last minute shopping sebelum terbang ke Turki untuk berholiday dengan office mates. Punyalah best company outing pergi Istanbul! Verdictnya? Hmm... maybe Japanese more for my tekak. OK lah. But I think dah agak customised for Malaysian taste kot. But for sure, Aliyah memang tak berapa minat. So, we'll stick to her sushi and udon for now :)  Dah kosong baru teringat nak snap gambar! Gambar orang yang makan tak diambil. Gambar food saja. Yang ada Jay, Ies, Aliyah and me.

My daughter can be very cheeky and funny at times. Despite those pouts of a teenager, she can be an absolute delight :) (at times!) She was out with friends at IOI City Mall on Wednesday and when I reached there to fetch her, she was nowhere to be seen, despite sending a message that she'd be waiting near Sephora. I called like a hundred times but she didn't pick up. Must be busy talking with her friends. I sent 2 messages within minutes telling her where I was. When I finally found her, I gave her a little bit of my piece of mind that she should have checked her phone, and be where she said she would be. 2 hours later when we were home, she finally replied to my message. And we were sitting just across one another! Yesterday, I rushed home from my meeting. When I got home, I stretched out on the sofa across Aliyah and sent her a message similar to what she sent me previously :)

I have started my new project middle of November. The project office is in Bangsar South. However, the client has offices all over the country so depending on the system currently being studied, the team will need to go to the respective system owners. Since I just started, I have been to only 2 offices - the project office and one of client's office in Jln Raja Laut. Alhamdulillah the places are accessible via train so that's my main method of traveling. Siap beli new walking shoes yang walaupun sedikit pricey will keep my feet comfy. My first deadline was yesterday. Document 1/4 siap sebab tunggu other team members bagi process flow and other data. Lepas meeting on Monday, terus balik dan rehat untuk ganti tenaga Ahad lepas yang tak dapat diganti. Lepas tu terus work on the document sampai jam 2 pagi. Lepas Subuh sambung balik. Alhamdulillah siap ngam-ngam sebelum pegi uruskan my mother. Lepas tu sambung balik lepas dapat updates and finally emailed the document at 10.50am.

Our little JJCMM2 led a donation drive initiative for our ATPN88 batch. Someone shared Raja Shamri's call for flood kit donation. As usual, kalau dalam group yang ramai hanya akan ada comments like; "Jom buat", "Jom, jom" and nothing gets done. So, our friend Ude suggested we take up the task and we all agreed. Geng JJCMM2 kan mostly either entrepreneur, work from home, or free-lance. Boleh lah commit masa. I created a banner since I was forced to volunteer myself as the treasurer. We did a 14-day campaign and alhamdulillah by Saturday last week, we managed to collect RM1,800. Our initiative - to create flood kit for ladies. We planned the "rewang" activity last Sunday. Sempat pergi KL dulu jumpa our friend Ikin aka Toncet for breakfast before heading to Subang to buy the stuff and later on to Jay's house. The day sounded simple but the actual effort was tiring and crazy. I said to myself - nak cari pahala sebenarnya bukan senang. Mesti ada caba

My insomnia is back... Can't sleep. Lagu ni dok main dalam kepala. Currently one of Aliyah's favourite songs. And her Mommy's too. I memang suka Bunkface. But this one really is catchy with a happy tune. It's romantic but "sempoi" at the same time. I imagine a couple having a fight and the hubby trying to apologize :) Pulanglah malam ini, bintang-bintang di langit sedang menari... Gosh, I kept having these lyrics in my head! Saya suka. Awak kata biasa je. Know what. Day by day our interest just keeps on falling apart.

We kicked off our first of hopefully many more JJCMM2 session today. Lepas Penang, we did meet up tapi tak lah makan-makan sangat. Macam-macam tempat makan dah discuss over WA sebenarnya, kali ni kena jadi!  Today it's - naan cheese at area Medan Tuanku :). Yang ni Ude yang suggest. Aliyah, as always, hopped along. Mainly because we plan to cuci mata di Sogo dulu sementara tunggu kedai naan tu bukak. Walaupun masa tak begitu mengizinkan, Aliyah berjaya squeezed in one blouse, one track bottom (for school katanya tapi malam ni dah start pakai!) and one shawl dalam masa 1/2 jam! Memang seriously dapat bakat terpendam ni daripada Titin! We took the train. Nak ajar anak I ni susah sikit. Asyik senang lenang mak bapak drive kan? Sesekali kena merasa susah senang naik turun train dan jalan. I showed her KWSP building where her Abah used to work. And I showed her the building where I now do my consultation work. I hope she can appreciate how difficult her parents work to earn a liv

Yesterday was Aliyah's last day of school for 2015. Next week her class is being "rested" due to SPM exams. She completed her Form 2... How time flies... Next year dah Form 3. Akak yang stress! Selfie dalam kereta...

Today, after months of "due diligence", we finally met up with one close friend whom we last saw 26 years ago. It's a long, long story of how things happen, of why she simply vanished from our circle of friends... Most importantly, our little group managed to track her. She was my classmate at primary school in Sungai Besar for that one year I spent there. We then moved to Yayasan Selangor. I was supposed to be in CBN and she Sri Aman but my father switched our schools. We would visit each other during school holidays until I moved to Bangi when I was in Form 4. We were hesitant when we reached her house. She recognised me instantly :). We spent almost 4 hours catching up. Insyaallah, today will be the first and start of many more meet ups in the future. That's Ikin or "Toncet" in pink tudung as we fondly call her then :).

Alhamdulillah, sejak close shop rezeki datang dalam banyak bentuk dan cara. I was so worried when we decided to end the business but then seems that it was for the best. Most importantly, I really enjoy staying home :). Ringan rasa kepala sebab kitchen and washing area dah repair. Hubby and I painted the kitchen light brown. Sekarang semangat nak kemas dan masak pun sangat tinggi :). Since I bought the "magic mop", Hubby sangat gembira meng-mop rumah sebab quite enjoyable ;). Sekarang dah start "reactivate" my vege garden at the side. Weeds dah clear, pasu dah susun, pokok pisang tanduk yang berserabut tu dah clear tinggal a few yang nampak kuat saja. A few weeks ago I bought half a pumpkin untuk buat masak lemak and saved the seeds. Baru semai less than a week, the seeds have sprouted. I also sliced some ripe tomatoes and simply put then into the soil of 2 pots. One of the pots dah nampak tunas. Yeay! Anyway, after I finished that translation work, sementara tu

My books have a new home. In my bedroom. Bookshelf kat bawah dah penuh. So I bought a new bookshelf just for my books. Mainly novels. Not many actually, tapi penuh juga 4 shelves. Still got empty spaces to fill up. Yang lain ada lagi kat bawah, category reference books. Sekarang baru ada semangat nak beli buku baru. I have my Murakami collection. I have only one more to complete. Then, my Calvin & Hobbes comic books. I love Calvin & Hobbes. Funny and thought-provoking. I also have collection of fantasy books by Raymond E Fiest. I started reading them during my PPP days. Masa kat NST dapat sorang colleague yang pun pembaca setia so selalu compare notes :). But I don't have all sebab dulu mostly I rented. But I have Magician revised edition - author's preferred edition (the combination of Apprentice & Master). The worlds of Midkemia dan Kelewan lived in my head for quite some time until the original characters grew old and some dead. Lepas tu macam dah tak berapa

A friend shared this. I like I like sebab kena sipi-sipi. Ada mention Murakami, Fellowship dan Alice. And this just reminds me of that small second hand bookshop at Subang Parade that I frequented when I was studying. Start dengan modal RM20, I will rent books. Sewa, pulang balik, sewa pulang balik. Bila dah tak cukup untuk sewa 2 buku, top up lagi. The store has dark hardwood shelves that smell heavenly of old books. I would sit on the floor with a few books in hand and scan the pages trying to decide which to rent first with the money I have in my pocket. The owner was nice too. Selalu bagitau kalau ada buku baru :). I think, perempuan yang membaca dan menulis adalah manusia menarik, yang punyai satu dunia lain di dalam minda mereka. Dunia yang kekal hidup tempat mereka menyorok buat seketika di kala hati terluka. Hanya mereka yang punyai deria ke 7 mampu mengesannya :) CINTAILAH PEREMPUAN YANG MEMBACA (Oleh: Rosemarie Urquico. Terjemahan: Izmil Amri) Cintailah perempuan yang

I went for a follow-up at Annur Hospital yesterday. It's been 2 weeks since I last went there due to my vertigo. The diagnose then came as BPPV. My supply of pills was finished and I still have that vertigo when I get up from bed. And since I am such a malas person, I didn't do the head exercise much. I was told it does take some time for the vertigo to go away. And I got one-month supply of pills for that. I then described my prolonged cough. It been months and months now. Sometimes bila batuk rasa nak menangis sebab lama sangat tak hilang-hilang. The specialist did some tests. He inserted a camera down my throat and nose. Alhamdulillah, he said no tumor whatsoever. Because that can be one cause of having scratchy throat. Just that I have abnormal amount of phlegm in my throat, nose and eventually it went to my chest. Hence the reason why I was having asthmatic symptoms. The diagnose is allergy. To what? Non-conclusive. So I got 3 more medications for that. Alhamdulillah i

It's the last day of our holiday. Pagi-pagi bangun dengan rasa tak percaya. Cepat sangat masa berlalu. Straight to breakfast dan lepas tu terus ke hot spring. Terjumpa dengan Pakcik Hj Said yang memang station kat situ. Dapat banyak tips - lembut dan cantikkan kulit dengan lumut yang tumbuh hanya dalam air panas. Katanya royalty pun dok mintak lumut tu masuk dalam flask. Lepas tu dia ajar cara-cara nak rendam kaki sampai lutut (or rendam satu badan) dalam air panas. Selalu kan dok rendam sikit-sikit. Yang akhirnya tak berjaya pun sebab air rasa sangat panas. Petua dia senang je. Masukkan terus dan dok diam-diam. Jangan bergerak, dia kata. Which was very logical. Scientifically, udara panas or air panas akan ada kat atas, yang sejuk di bawah. So, kalau kita masukkan kaki sikit-sikit, memanjang la kena air yang panas sebab kat atas. Kalau terus terjah masukkan kaki sampai bawah, and just stay put, yang kat bawah tu tak lah panas sangat compared to kat atas. Bearable lah. Pandai lah

Kerja translation yang urgent itu sudah bermula. Sejak hari Jumaat dah mula dapat file. Sikit-sikit. Hari ni patut dapat semua 35 pages. Setakat ni dah siap dalam 20. Plus minus mungkin ada lagi 20. Urat bahu dah mula tegang dan keras. Adoi... ada potential kena penyakit biasa - urat belikat keras. Alhamdulillah, kerusi kesayangan dah diambil dari kedai, jadinya selesa sikit buat kerja. Ruang "work from home" di bawah dah mula menampakkan rupa. Itu untuk Hubby. Ada meja baru. Drawers dan cabinet dari kedai dah disusun. Kipas dan lampu dah ganti baru. Tinggal karpet je belum ada sebab hantar cuci. Once in a while I might go downstairs to work. Boleh tengok TV sambil kerja :). Doa semoga kerja smooth tanpa banyak masalah. Jangan last minute baru dapat semua cukup. Tak tidur malam nanti nak kejar deadline 27/10 :(

We left Penang by ferry. Our Google Master said the frequency of ferry was 20 minutes. And we thought, why not! After the cross, we headed straight for Sungkai. Traffic was quite bad. I took the wheels half-way. It was not a nice drive. And for the first time since we arrived in Penang, we felt hungry. The roti canai and fish curry was supposed to be for lunch, but it was already past 4pm. Good thing we had the vadey to alas perut. Sedey tau tinggalkan Penang... We reached Sungkai at 5.15pm and met up with Ude, whom after receiving our messages went to buy Nasi Buluh. Now we have Nasi Buluh (teamed with ayam panggang madu and ayam goreng rempah) and roti canai! Punyalah banyak food. And sangat sedapppp... Anyway, we checked-in. The rooms and villas at Felda Hot Spring Sungkai are now half price until 21 November (if I'm not mistaken). For the villa, we only paid RM250 per night compared to RM500 original price. The villa was oh so awesome! It was huge, more than enough for

I read this on FB yesterday. And it lingered in my mind the whole day. Baik sangat hati budak ni. Semoga Allah rahmati keluarga dia. Semoga Allah anugerahkan mereka dengan rezeki yang mencurah-curah, yang banyak lagi halal. Semoga anak-anak keluarga ini membesar menjadi anak-anak soleh dan solehah. If I can meet up with this child, I will hug her, kiss her and tell her that she's the nicest child any parent would ever dream to have.

I'm officially a home maker / part-timer. We no longer run the bike shop. It was excellent on the first year, but things started to decline last April when GST was implemented. Then our ringgit fell and for us with low capital to buy stocks... It was difficult. And to sell things was also difficult. Price of things was kept to a minimum but still people kept on asking for discounts. I guess at one point, when I received this customer from hell who persistently asked for discounts and then came back to the return what he bought because it didn't fit his child's bike and demanded his money back without feeling any guilt, I took it as a sign from Allah that I am not fit for to face this kind of people. I would love to just sedekah the item to him if he came on a motorbike and showed signs that he was poor. But he drove a car and he was rude.  We did stock clearance sale, managed to make some money, used it to pay debts to some people. The rest of the stuff, our bike sh

We finally managed to spend time in Georgetown at places we originally planned. We parked near Nasi Kandar Line Clear as we wanted to go to Pasar Chowrasta. We ended up buying vadey again at a street hawker near the police station (we bought some yesterday and they were awesome!), and then bought jeruk at the street next to Chowrasta. Like I said before, we met very nice and friendly people in Penang. The kedai jeruk we went to belonged to this Abang who is a cyclist (waahh... boleh connect gitu!). He once cycled to Scotland with 3 other guys and the newspaper cuttings were all over the wall. He even suggested some places we should go to eat instead of the "cut-throat tourist places", he said. We promised next time :) We then followed the direction he gave to go to Lebuh Chulia to see street arts. And what a wonderful time we had. Walaupun terpaksa jalan jauh (ada bikes for rent tapi we didn't have much time to spare), we managed to see a few. At one point, we were at L

11 Oct 2015 Our last day in Penang. Already? We concluded 3 days/2 nights in Penang is not enough. Even us yang sangat hyper ni pun tak dapat cover and makan banyak benda. We checked out early in the morning. Terus angkut beg masuk kereta then baru cari breakfast. We decided to try that stall yang Tini suggest tu. And we found it! The description - gerai tak ada nama, depan dewan, grill saja. We ordered roti canai and kari ikan, one each. And the taste... waaaahhhh... sangat delicious. The fish was fresh, the curry not too sour (unlike kedai Mamak lain). And you know it's delicious when Aliyah actually ate the curry instead of her usual dhal. If you ever in Teluk Bahang, go get your dose of roti canai with fish curry here. Thumbs up! We even tapau 12 pieces of roti + 6 ketul of fish for our Sungkai lunch later. Tengah elok duduk-duduk tiba-tiba dengar orang jerit Hiiiii!!!!. I looked at the girls, none of them was talking. Rupanya kat sebelah I, Tini stopped by on her motorbike

It's my little girl's 14th birthday! Dah anak dara :). Nothing much today since we have given Aliyah her birthday presents weeks ago. School is closed again due to the haze. Very bad today. And so is tomorrow. Since I'm still cleaning the kitchen, and Hubby took the car, we just stayed home. Lagipun Aliyah just had a dentist appointment last Saturday. Gigi sakit after the dentist tighten the braces. Nak bawak makan luar pun tak boleh. Around 3pm her friend came and surprised her with some cakes. Bagus juga ada kawan visit. I was already feeling guilty because we didn't do anything on her birthday. Happy birthday my little darling :)

After we reached the apartment, siap solat semua, terus turun pergi beach. Crazy energy aunty-aunty ni semua. Aliyah pun dah melepek penat! Mula-mula ikut jalan yang biasa orang dari Sri Sayang pegi beach. Tapi baru nak lalu nampak monyet pulak! Lain macam saja rupanya, terus tak jadi. So we went through this middle road in between Rasa Sayang and the next hotel. Cadang nak mandi tapi tengok orang lain tak mandi sangat. Teringat dulu-dulu pernah holiday di Ferringhi nampak jellyfish. So we just sat by the beach tengok orang paragliding. After about 30 minutes, we went back. Tapi ada satu pakcik ni tanya nak paragliding tak? Of course we didn't want! Tapi entah sapa gatal tanya yang macam empat segi tu apa pakcik? Ohhh... tu donut namanya. I pulak mengada pegi tanya, "Berapa pakcik?". RM45 sorang. Si Jay pulak mengada tanya, "RM40 boleh pakcik?". "Boleh lah! Jom!", kata pakcik tu. We all looked at Jay yang dah pucat. Jay pun try nak cover, "tak