Maybe It's the Song..Maybe It's the Vibrant Colors..

Dina has a favorite TV commercial. Guess what it is.

No, it's not Fisher Price, where the babies get to play with fancy looking toys that ring and talk and light up.

It's not even Pampers with the cute boy and his equally cute elephant friend.

It's...



REMPAH KARI...ALAGAPPA'S!!

Whenever the ad comes on, she would stop crying abruptly and start wiggling her hands in the air like she’s doing the Mexican wave. If she were in the kitchen, she would crawl like Superbaby and plump herself in front of the TV.

I have no idea what to make out of this.

Portraits of a Drama Queen

These are my eyes....

This is my mouth...

This is my nose...

I took these pictures myself...can you tell? I also take pictures of my baby sister, check them out.

Dina, trying to climb ibu's bed. Shhhhh..ibu abah are still sleeping.

Isn't my sister cute? I think she needs a haircut though.

Dina likes to put everything in her mouth. Including stuff that belongs to me!!

As JD Sang..You Can't Always Get What You Want

JD Fortune is the new singer for INXS. Ah bein. My dear MiG got 3rd place. I knew he shouldn’t have sung Bohemian Rhapsody. But I still love him. And his FABULOUS body. :D

My project scheduled for the 20th went on without any major glitches. I really must learn not to fret over minor details too much. Alas, the downside of being a perfectionist, which I am not, so it may just mean that I DO go crazy once in a while.

I love doing events and I get such a rush when they’re successful but I hate the fact the work keeps me in the office for so long and I miss the few precious hours I have to spend with the kids before they go to bed.

I’ve been doing some calculations. The girls usually wake up at 7am. They play together, and then they wake me up at 7.15am. I spend 15 minutes playing with them, and then send them downstairs so I can get ready for work. I get out of the house at 8am and if I’m really lucky I get back around 6pm. Dina goes to bed around 9pm but in between those 3 hours, I take time to bathe, pray and have dinner so average time actually spent with her is around 2 hours. Since I’ve stopped breastfeeding Dina, she doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night anymore. Dania usually goes to bed around 9.30-10pm, so I have a little bit more quality time with her.

Still....

15 minutes + 2 hours + ...... argh, that’s it!!! 2 hours and 15 minutes a day spent with my babies. That’s like only 9.4% of the day spent with them.

You know what kills me? The fact that Nisa, my maid, gets to spend more time with the kids than I do.

I know this is the cost for being a working mom and I’ve told myself many, many times that I’m ok with it, but sometimes...sometimes, I really wonder if I’m doing the best for my kids. I want them to be happy, I want them to be healthy and I want to be able to buy stuff for them. And we wouldn’t be able to do that if we were to become a single income family. So I guess this is for the best.

Weekends are when hubby and I try to make up for all those “lost” hours. I plan all those trips to the Aquaria, Petting Zoo and other places because of that. We take the kids shopping, go out for lunch or take them to my parents’ house.

And you know what. Yesterday, Dina was being rather moody and Nisa went to pick her up but she refused to be picked up instead she crawled over to me. ME!!! The person who carried her in my womb for 9 months!! So what if I only spend 2.25 hours with her a day, she still loves me and still prefers me to all other existence in the world. YEAH!!!

Suddenly I’m not feeling so bad.

Do Not Eat at Delifrance!!

Because it sucks. And the food is overrated and overpriced. My story as below.

Last week, hubby took Dania and myself to Sunway Pyramid. Our initial plan was to get him a Wi-Fi SD card for his new iPAQ, which I had been duped into believing already HAD built-in Wi-fi in it. Anyway, we got out of the house around 2.00pm, so we decided to have lunch first before going window-shopping. We had the usual debate (where do you want to eat? I dunno, where do you want to eat? I dunno, where do you want to eat?) then after 15 minutes of walking around and reading the store directory twice, we finally decided to eat at Delifrance. The pictures they posted on the walls of the restaurant looked sooooo promising and delightful.

So we went in and the waitress came to take our order. I ordered the salmon, hubby got the beef something while Dania had the pasta. I ordered apple juice for hubby while Dania and myself had ice lemon tea.

After taking down our order, the waitress gave me the order slip. HUH? Oh, apparently you have to take the order slip and go to the counter to pay first. Okay…like you can’t do it for me. Honey, you just got your tip slashed off!! So I headed for the counter with my trusty Visa and after watching the cashier punch in, delete and then punch in the order 3 times, I had finally paid and we could now alert the chef to start cooking our order.

Dania’s order came first. First thing that came to my mind when seeing the dish was…is that all? Come on, at least Secret Recipe makes an effort to drown the pasta in meatball sauce. To give you an idea of how small the serving was…Dania finished it. Ok, almost finished it.

Next was hubby’s order. What came were two lumps of beef, DRENCHED in raw barbeque sauce (believe me, they just poured barbeque saucer right out from the bottle over the entire plate), 3 slices of carrot (hard), two broccoli stumps and two moles of baked potatoes (burnt). I asked hubby how it tasted like; like boiled meat saturated in BBQ sauce.

My order was no different. I had ordered the Salmon with lemon herbs filling. Let’s just say, the salmon…well, I had to squeeze out all the lemon juice to cover the “undercooked” sensation the fish gave me. The carrots I got were also hard and the potatoes were also..surprise…burnt. I dunno if they meant to do that but whatever it was, it didn’t taste all that good.

All in all it was an eating disaster. But the best part had yet to come. Remember the two lumps of meat hubby got? Well, actually only one of them was actual meat; the other was…wait for it…fat!!! A whole big inedible lump of fat!! Hubby waved over the waitress as soon as he found out.

“Err..excuse me. Ni…this is just fat. There’s no meat.”

“Let me check with the chef, sir.”

Two minutes later.

“Sir, it’s supposed to be like that.”

Blink. Blink. Blink. “Suppose to be like that?!!”

“Yes sir.”

Okaaayyy…looks like we paid RM26 for a BBQ sauce drenched meat and a lump of fat!! Wonderful.

Seriously. RM26. And hubby was still hungry after we had finished eating.

I had initially wanted to take a picture of the fat, but hubby didn’t want me to make a scene. So I’m just gonna type out what we ate and how much it cost us…and you can all tell us how big of a loser we are for eating at Delifrance at the first place.

Iced lemon tea – RM5.60
Apple Juice – 6.50 (it wasn’t even served in those tall glasses but more of like those whiskey glasses, where you can drink the entire contents in one gulp. Sheesh)
Pates A La Forestiere (I guess this was the Pasta) – RM15.90
Poitrine De Boeuf Au BarBeque – RM25.90
Filet De Salmon Au Beurr – RM23.90

Plus tax, everything came up as RM81.65. Good grief!!

So lesson learned. Do not eat at Delifrance ever again. Their croissants aren’t that good either.

If We Had A Chandelier in the Office, I Would Be Swinging From It

I’m sliding in Full Blown Craziness. My project scheduled for the 20th is not going as planned. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Everything that should be ready is not ready. I’ve realized that maybe I don’t have great “people skills” after all. Next time I really should make sure I’ve hung up the phone before I shout FUCK YOU out loud.

That been said, my colleagues have been angels. Everybody has been so supportive and are all trying their best to get things right again. If not for these people, I would have hid under my table and cried quietly.

I should go back to work. Please pray for my sanity.

The Past & The Future

I was tagged by Azalea. Here we go...

20 Years Ago, 1985
I was 9 years old. Err..where was I? Living in KL, I think. Went to school at Convert Bukit Nanas. Believe it or not, one of my classmates and dearest friend at the time was Nori Abdullah, the daughter of our Prime Minister. I was always top of the class, either first or second. First time I was hospitalized for severe diarrhea (taun). Don’t drink water from the roadside vendor. Oh, this was the year I chipped my front tooth from falling off my bike. And landing in the drain. After getting hit by a lorry driver. Who was half drunk. Stupid apek sayur!!


10 Years Ago, 1995
I was studying in Sunway College, doing my A-Levels. Which I hated coz I was so stuuupidd at it. Family was staying in Taiping, a place I love dearly for its wonderful cool weather. Then they moved back to Subang, which I also loved coz I got to go home and do laundry every weekend. No boyfriend at that time but several admirers. I just wasn’t in the mood at that time. Still hung up about SN, I guess.


5 Years Ago, 2000
I graduated from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. With a 3.48 CGPA. Hehehe…in the most boring honors degree known to man, Double major in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Mathematics. Can you say DORK?!! My family came for my graduation and we all went to LA for a holiday.

It was during this year I started my first job. Which I am still stuck in, but enuff moaning about that.

This was also the year hubby proposed to me. OK, so he didn’t actually propose. In fact it was the most unromantic thing ever; he blurted out “Fine, then let’s get married” while we were having a 10,000 megawatt fight with each other. Of course I took it to heart, so the next day I announced to my mom that hubby and I wanted to get married. Within 20 minutes, every single member of my family had been informed and my aunt was already picking out my nikah dress.


3 Years Ago, 2002
Dania Jazmin came into this world and changed our lives forever. One of the happiest day of my life. I can still recall everything that happened; the bleeding, the calm wife (me), the panic stricken father-to-be (hubby), the wonderful doctor and nurses, the admission into the labor room, the dilation (5cm), the lack of pain, the drip, the pain, the great-grandmother-to-be pacing in the hallway, the pain, the absence of both grandmothers-to-be coz I was 3 weeks early damn it, the pain, the pain, oh god the pain, the frantic hubby, the epidural doctor, the first game of the 2002 World Cup on Astro between France and Senegal, the epidural not working, 10cm dilation, major-major contractions, the baby coming out as the commentator shouted GOAL!!! Senegal beats France 1-0.


Last Year, 2004
Yet another wonderful addition to our family, Dina Yasmin. Horrible pregnancy, to think we almost didn’t make it in the beginning. But Dina has proven to be a fighter, coming out into the world at 3.49kg. Only 2 days shy of her due date. Much easier delivery than Dania, thanks to heaps of gas that made me high as a bird the entire time.


This Year, 2005
Got a new maid to replace the old one. Began obsession with MPVs. Sister-in-law got married so finally another person to contribute to the grandchildren-making fund. Dad took early retirement. Work wise, still the same.


Next Year, 2006
Planning major holiday family trip overseas. Hopefully the apartment we bought will be ready so we can start renting it out and getting some extra income coming in. Further studies, perhaps? Parents will be moving into new house in Shah Alam, so will spending a lot of time there too. Is my brother planning on getting married? Ello, ellooo..are you?


10 Years from Now, 2015
Insya’allah will have 5 kids by then; don’t care how many girls or boys. Will be living in a bigger house with a nice big lawn so the kids can run around and play outside. Will finally have my dream MPV. Will have quit the rat race and opened up my own business of being a wedding planner. Inys’allah, will live a long, happy and prosperous life with hubby and the kids.


Everyone I know has already been tagged with this post. So I'm leaving it open, whoever feels like doing it, let me know in my comments section and I'll check your post out.

Happy 4th Anniversary!!

Actually it was yesterday but everyone was too busy preparing slides for today’s Business Plan presentation meeting, so I didn’t have time to do my entry.

What did I finally get for hubby?!!

JENG, JENG, JENG!!!!!

After much deliberation and discussions with my fellow colleagues, I finally decided to get him this......

A HP iPAQ 6500 Series.

This thing rocks!!! It has Bluetooth, GPRS, quad-band GSM, Wi-Fi, Intel processor , 1Mg camera, video capture, MMS, GPS ( in case you can’t find your way home), speaker phone, Window Media Player. 64MB built in memory, dual memory card slots (SDIO and miniSD) and loads more features. It’s like a PC, phone, camera, camcorder and MP3 player rolled into one. Click here for more info.

Luckily HP was also doing a promotion until the 18th, so with the standard package (which had the cradle, headset jack, battery, power cable and clip on casing) I also got the complete car kit, the battery charger with extra battery and some other stuff like the wipe cloth for the screen, 2 of those pencil thingies (what do you call them?), and screen protector. The shop owner also threw in a 256 SD card and I added in a 256 miniSD card, which I got at a discounted rate.

How much did it cost? DON’T ASK!! But everything’s available when you can use the Easy Payment scheme. Thank God for 0% interest.

Thanks to Maiz and Ju who followed to Sunway Pyramid to buy this. Muchas gracias!!

What did I get in return? Errrr...lot and lots of hugs and kisses. Hehehehee...I dunno. Hubby though we were waiting until Saturday to celebrate, but I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face after getting his present. It was priceless, to say the least. So now he’s worried about what to get me, coz I’ve set the standard so high. Hahahahahaaha...

But I love him and he works so hard and he’s totally worth it.



Maybe I should ask for a Perodua Myvi as my new car. Hehehehee..

Our Underwater Experience

Everyone has gone out for lunch. Since I’m on my fasting marathon (12 more days to go!!), I’ve decided to take a breather and update my blog. I promised all of you a recount of our family trip to Aquaria KLCC, so here it is.

We had heard about the exhibition from some office mates and had decided to take the girls since they loved animals and we figured they would get a kick out of seeing live sharks up close. Watching them on Discovery Channel just doesn’t do much justice to these magnificent creatures.

So we headed out to KLCC around 4pm. The whole exhibition was indoors, supposedly in an air-con environment so we weren’t worried about the girls getting too hot. We debated about whether to park inside or out, coz inside the parking rate is hourly (and we had planned to spend quite some time there) but parking outside, we would have to make quite a walk to the exhibition hall. Finally we decided to park indoors and pray that the rate wouldn’t be too extravagant.

After going up the escalator and going through the tunnel to the hall, the first thing we noticed was this looooooooonnnnggg line of people queuing up to buy tickets. Great!! Fortunately the girls were in relatively good moods and there were other kids lining up with us, so the whole 35 minute process of getting the tickets wasn’t too painful. Tickets were RM20 for adults and RM10 for children, but I think these were special pricings until end of August. Luckily, both Dania and Dina got in free.

However, once we got in, it was a whole different story. For one thing, the place was dark. The only illuminated areas were the glass panes were the animals were showcased. I kept running people’s feet over with the stroller which caused me to keep saying “I’m sorry. Forgive me. Excuse me.” like a mad parrot.

Secondly, the people who managed this exhibition must have really underestimated the number of people who would visit. You’d think lining up for 35 minutes to buy tickets was bad. Try lining up and being ushered like herds of cows, trying to catch a glimpse of the fish and other animals they were showing. It was madness!! And extremely frustrating, especially for my daughters coz they couldn’t see anything. A picture of the crowd is below, just to give you an idea.

Arghhh!! Cannot see anything.

Why there are Tarantulas is beyond me

Managed to push through and take picture with this fish

If that wasn’t bad enough, the underwater tunnel (where you can see all the sharks swimming overhead) had no air-conditioning!! People were made to stand on this conveyor belt and watch the sharks and other fishes swim about in sweltering heat. The entire trip must have taken not more than 15 minutes but it felt like the longest 15 minutes ever. Some pictures of the sharks (who were totally cool, by the way) and hubby with Dania looking hot and bothered.
Cool shark #1

Cool shark #2

Cool shark #3

Hubby trying to be cool..but actually rather pissed
We were already kind of tired and rather hungry by that time so we just strolled along with the rest of the herd to the end of the hall. I managed to take some pictures of the seahorses and ribbon eels. We zipped through the souvenir shop (I was kind of mad about having to pay RM40 for the entire experience, I wasn’t about to give these people a single cent more) and made it out of the hall alive. After prayers, we had dinner at KFC then decided to call it a day. Parking charges cost us another RM7. Good grief!!

Many friends have been asking my opinion on the Aquaria and whether they should take their kids and families there. For RM32 for adults and RM16 for children, (I’ve heard those are the new pricings) there are better and much cheaper places for you to do some family bonding. However if you desire the feeling of having a shark swim over your head, then go to the KLCC Aquaria. But if your intentions are to educate the kids on fishes and other types of aquatic life, you’re better off watching the Discovery Channel or taking them to the local fish market.

I'm Still Here

Yes..yes, I know. I’ve been neglecting my blog for quite some time now. People have been smsing me, YMing me asking if I’m alright. I’m so touched!!

Let’s see..reasons for me not updating my blog.
15th-21st August – Busy with a international games event.
22nd – 25th August – Busy with I.D.E.A workshop, organized for secondary school students.
Other projects: Music portal, agreements, meetings, usual paperwork...

*Yaaaaaawwwwwnnnnnn*

Actually last weekend was rather long for me. Our National Independence Day was on the 31st August, which fell on a Wednesday. After busting my ass for the past two weeks, I decided to take book off for Thursday and Friday, giving me a 5-day weekend. Yoohoo!!

So hubby and I decided to do some family bonding activities. We took the kids to the overpriced and over hyped Aquaria at KLCC (more on this in a different entry) and also to the surprisingly nice and fun Sunway Petting Zoo (write-up and pictures in different entry too).

Until then my Dear Friends, that’s all from me. Just a quick note to let you know that I’m not dead (alas!! Hahaha) and that all is well. I’ll be posting up pictures of our family outings soon, so until then...take care everybody.

*********************************************************

Just remembered!! Anniversary is THIS THURSDAY!!!! This happens EVERY YEAR!!

What I have so far:
1. A card
2. 2 DVDs – Collateral and Meet The Fockers.

Yesterday I bought him a pair of sunglasses. But that’s no surprise anymore, coz he was there to pick it out.

I suck. Big time.

Help anyone? Any great, last minute ideas?