Living with Sarah

Sebenarnya dah lama ada cita-cita nak buat road trip. Destination - open. Bila fikir-fikir, should've done it long time ago. Masa muda-muda tak ada anak. Sebab lepas ada anak, tunggu anak besar dan boleh berdikari baru boleh fikir balik buat aktiviti-aktiviti yang carefree macam tu. Since last year dah ada plan dengan Linda. Nak go up north, with no specific destination. Aim - to travel and savour food :). Mulanya tunggu payment milestone no 3. Bila dapat, tak cukup pulak sebab kena bayar banyak benda. Milestone 4 pulak tak kunjung tiba. Tak tau lah bila agaknya nak dapat. Alhamdulillah ada rezeki sikit ni. Bila jumpa our friend Is a few weeks ago, she was the one who told us of her crazy thought - that she sometimes felt like just jumping into her car and drive somewhere just to get nice food. Like drive down to Melaka to eat asam pedas :) So we planned. Then we posted the plan to our ex-ATPN group. Another friend joined. And this week we finally decided on the date. I was elect...

The haze is back. For the past 3 days, kesihatan tidak begitu bagus. Batuk teruk. Chest pun rasa senak saja. Kalau pergi klinik sure kena nebuliser. Tapi memandangkan ada deadline, nak spare some time pergi klinik pun tak sempat. I accepted this translation work last month. The catch is - kena kerja masa cuti Raya Haji. For some reason, the report is to be completed a few days after Raya Haji. I was OK with that. Masalahnya tiba-tiba tidak sihat. Alhamdulillah punya Hubby yang sama bidang. Jadinya, dia tolong siapkan a few files. Kerja jadi cepat sikit. Setelah 2 whole days bekerja keras sampai jam 3.30 pagi, akhirnya siap semua 13 files. I was supposed to station myself at that client's office today. Tapi sebab tak kuasa nak keluar rumah sedut udara yang mengandungi partikel-partikel yang merbahaya kepada paru-paru, I asked to work remotely. Alhamdulillah client sangat baik dan penyayang :). Aliyah pulak tak sekolah sebab jerebu, so adalah kawan di rumah. Setelah seharian menung...

The past few days dah agak busy dengan persiapan Hari Raya Haji. Not the Raya itself actually tapi plan nak buat small gathering sambil BBQ. During the weekend dah prepare mana yang patut dengan my chief organiser aka my Kak Long. Saturday collected marinated lamb chops. Selasa beli ayam dan marinate. Semalam beli udang dan ikan siakap, juga marinate. Tak buat rendang kali ni. Dan fetch vanilla strawberry cake dari my friend Azura. Pagi tadi akhirnya berjaya pergi tunaikan solat sunat Hari Raya setelah bertahun tak pergi. Dan rezeki Aliyah and I solat saf pertama untuk Muslimah. Orang Malaysia memang tak gemar ke depan kan? Lepas tu, balik dan start memasak mee goreng, garlic & parsley potatoes dan yogurt sauce. Kat rumah my mother, my Kak Long dah siapkan nasi impit dan kuah kacang. Our Pak Usu Mansur was around, since yesterday. Seronok dia round kampung ke rumah anak-anak sedara yang ramai buat BBQ hari ni.  The buttercream cake. Bau saja dah mengiurkan. A bit sweet du...

Siapa yang tak pasang hajat nak ke Masjidil Haram kan? Honestly, kalau tengok gambar orang pergi Haji or Umrah, ya Allah, rasa jealous sangat. Bila tengok orang lain mampu pergi Umrah selalu, kat hati ni selalu kata - kayanya boleh pergi Umrah, bila lah aku boleh pegi... masa terdekat ni rasanya memang tak mampu. So, dok tengok lah gambar-gambar yang orang share. Dulu-dulu ada juga mimpi pegi, tapi sekarang dah tak masuk dalam mimpi pulak. Banyak sangat dosa aku ni agaknya! Pagi tadi, as usual, pergi belikan my mother food before mandikan dia. Since semalam dah beli nasi lemak kat gerai Ruby, pagi ni nak tukar selera, stop kat gerai tepi jalan depan Chempaka Court. Selalu jugak beli dengan satu brother ni. I sebenarnya tak pernah rasa lagi food kat situ. Memang beli for my mother saja. Tapi pagi ni nasi lemak habis pulak. Yang ada nasi kerabu. OK lah kot. Mana lah tau my mother suka. Bila pilih lauk make sure yang tak pedas. Brother tu tanya, "akak tak makan pedas ke?". I...

I have this resolution. Berkait rapat dengan hadiah Hubby (yang I sendiri pilih) iaitu exercise pants. To lose some weight. OK, to be precise - 7kgs by end of the year. Satu resolution yang nampak macam boleh achieve. Insyaallah... Sejak jerebu ni dah tak kayuh. Rasa bosan gila. Nak power walk memang tak de nya lah dengan cuaca macam tu kan. Ever since dah station kan diri sendiri di rumah, macam boleh squeeze in some fitness program. Sejak dari hari sebelum birthday dah cuba untuk makan food yang boleh assist weight loss iaitu protein. Tengok lah ya kalau jadi! Semalam rezeki Aliyah jumpa kawan dia di IOI City Mall. Long story but in short, we parted ways. Siap pergi tengok wayang Maze Hunter. So, berdua dengan Hubby spend my birthday :). Tunjuk kat dia card yang Aliyah bagi. Ehem, dia kalau pasal Aliyah selalu habuk masuk mata :). Test wefie Hubby's new Note 5. Sebelum cari my present, dia dah dapat dia punya dulu. Rajin betul Maxis bagi dia hadiah. Entah apa-apa dua oran...

My 44th birthday. Masa teenager dulu, tak pernah imagine akan jejak umur 44 tahun kan? Alhamdulillah. Allah berikan umur yang agak panjang, diberi kesempatan untuk beribadah dan beramal sebagai seorang Islam. Berbakti kepada mak, suami, anak, adik-beradik. Diberi peluang untuk cari rezeki dengan tenaga dan kesihatan yang baik. Diberi kawan-kawan yang baik-baik belaka. Nikmat Allah yang sangat besar tak ada comparison dengan wang ringgit yang semakin jatuh :). Hari ni tengah nak siap-siap ke IOI City lagi. Hubby nak belikan hadiah :). Petang semalam dia nak pergi sorang-sorang cari hadiah kat Alamanda, tapi I sibuk nak ikut sama. OK juga sebab dia plan nak beli perfume. Hmm... at this age and stage in life, rasanya perfume mahal-mahal tu adalah satu pembaziran. (Nasib baik akak ikut tau!) So, I asked for exercise pants. Harga pun lebih kurang sama! Pasal la mahal sangat exercise pants? Tapi tak ada size pulak. Rupanya sekarang pakai size M gitu :). Jadinya, hari ni nak cari tempat lai...

Last week sebenarnya adalah minggu tidak sihat. Every year, despite all efforts being done or said to have been done, the haze still comes back. Tahun ni punya agak teruk for me. I don't know, for the past 2 years, ever since kena batuk teruk yang lasts for months, lungs dah tak berapa nak kuat kot. On Saturday night, we went to Alamanda to get Hubby new shoes. Maklumlah, dah lama tak kerja office, manalah ada sangat official shoes. The one he's been wearing sebenarnya sejak zaman dia kerja EPF. Imagine berapa lama! Memandangkan Monday and Tuesday he's conducting a training, new shoes dah jadi keperluan. Anyway, bila nak balik, pergi je kat parking, bau jerebu kuat sangat. Memang the parking bays nampak kelabu. Tambah pulak dengan asap kereta. Terus rasa sesak nafas. Rasa OK lagi, tapi Hubby yang dok ajak pergi klinik ambik neb. I guess, sometimes you need someone else to tell you that you are not OK. All the way back, cuba bertahan dengan beraninya. Tapi last-last kalah ...

The three of us spent half a day at IOI City Mall yesterday, during the Hari Malaysia holidays. Tu lah kan, dah namanya pun "Mommy". Asal dapat duit je, dalam hati berbunga-bunga nak shopping untuk diri sendiri sebab perlukan baju baru, tudung baru... In the end? Aliyah juga yang dapat habuannya. Dan dia juga yang excited bila dapat peluang nak shopping. Again - ikut siapa lah agaknya? After 4 hours there, she got herself a new blouse/sweater plus her Body Shop skin care set yang, aduss... harganya agak pricey. Mommy dia guna cleanser dan day cream cap Rania saja. Itupun kalau ikut kan kepala dia, ada lagi yang dia nak beli! And what did I buy? A small tiny bottle of Body Shop perfume. Itupun harga tolak voucher Aliyah beli skin care set tu! Apa pun, anak kesayangan rupanya telah save up duit belanja sekolah for the past month. Dan share dengan Abahnya belikan I another Murakami book. Yeay! Even though the new book has come out, it's still hardcover and has this not-s...

Last night I got news from our ex-company FB group that another ex-colleague passed away. Fadil Halim. He was 47. Very young I must say. While I still think of Atom who passed a few months ago, another loss is very much felt. He was one of the pioneers of my previous company. After the turn-around, he was in charged of the data centre, handling the handful of boys. Projects would make us work together despite being in different departments. Most notably was the Brunei project as he was the lead there. I remember him as someone quite stern but warm and funny at the same time. He was very strict with the boys, but never with us from DC0, as we fondly call the office without the machines :). My days in Brunei were always made easy by him and another ex-colleague, Zuhdi. He moved on I think around the same time that I resigned. At first he started his own company and then joined the management team of a treated water company. He once visited Hubby and I at our office for a chat a few y...

Today, 17th of September, would have been my father's 80th birthday. For the past few days, my FB has been showing old photos of Raya 2010 & 2011. My father was still very healthy, my mother could still walk! Looking at the old photos just break my heart. Al Fatihah to my father whom I miss dearly. Semoga dia ditempatkan dikalangan orang-orang yang beriman. I know I should have used "arwah" or "allahyarham" or simply "my late father". I'm sorry, I just can't. Because in my heart and sometimes, mind, he is still very much alive.

Dah 2 hari I didn't open shop during the day. A few reasons. One of them - it feels quite dangerous in the afternoons as the shops at both sides are now closed. The place is really quiet until around 4pm when the Thai restaurant nearby starts to open. And I am usually alone. Better safe than sorry. You never know what can happen nowadays. So I stayed home. Hubby ada mention that he wish I can just stay home so that I can cook :). How I wish too! But staying home is not as "carefree" as I thought. There's still not enough time to do stuff. In the mornings, I actually reach home at around 11am. That is after going out at around 8.30am to buy breakfast for my mother, then bathe her, then maybe a few minutes of chat with my Angah, then send Hubby to work, maybe stop to have breakfast but not always, then back home. Rasa macam drive beribu-ribu kilometer je. After that, maybe do some laundry or whatever cleaning up. So, I can only start work on my laptop at 11.30am. Ba...

Sebenarnya dah 2-3 hari agak down. Kenapa? Kena aniaya. Tak pa, Allah Maha Besar. Kalau aniaya orang, esok-esok patah balik baru tau kan. Jadinya, usaha kena start from zero semula. Effort sejak 3 bulan lalu lebur macam tu saja. Engage lawyer baru. Pagi semalam cuba ceriakan diri sebab nak berjimba-jimba dengan kawan-kawan. Allah tu Maha Penyayang. Sungguh. I was driving to my mother's place untuk mandikan dia. Dengan hati yang sangat berat. Rasa dugaan besar sangat lately. Rasa sedih, marah, terkilan. Ikut hati, memang nak jumpa dengan seseorang yang pangkat saudara yang telah buat my life difficult. Bagi sedusyum pun bagus. Nasib baik I ni sangat baik orangnya. I tak akan buat kerja bangang macam tu, walau macam mana teruk pun I kena.  Tiba-tiba, satu rhythm lagu yang sangat familiar keluar di Suria FM. Masyaallah... sayang Allah pada hambaNya. Dia tahu lagu ni boleh lift my spirits up. Lagu ni pernah selamatkan diri ni at one time when I was so down. What's the odds ...

Semalam hari berjimba-jimba dengan Is dan Linda. 10 jam ukur IOI City Mall. Gila apa makcik tiga orang ni? Walaupun mulanya ada miscomm sikit, tapi berjaya sampai dalam jam 12. Agendanya? Makan, jalan, makan, jalan. Cukup 3 waktu solat, 3 waktu makan :). Agaknya kalau ada energy lebih sikit, memang tolong pak guard tutup pintu agaknya. Walaupun hati menggunung tinggi nak bershopping (Linda baik hati kasi I "gedeban"), tapi tak beli apa pun. Memang bukan kaki shopping lah. Tapi makan sedap memang pasti - sampai 3 kali lapar :). Anyway, hasil daripada sesi berjimba itu adalah rancangan nak bercuti-cuti Malaysia lepas Raya Haji nanti. Insyaallah... girls only (or rather, makciks only!). Friends since 1984 :)