Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!!!

Selamat Hari Merdeka my fellow Malaysians! I am and will always be proud and happy to be a Malaysian. Even though it is not always a bed of roses living in this country especially when dealing with the government service sector, things have gotten so, so, so much better over the years. There is certainly no better place than Malaysia, our home.

Speaking of pride, am I very glad that I sat and watched the whole finals of the Pesta Bola Merdeka. I had not watched Malaysian football, ok,ok...football in general for such a long time but last Wednesday, something drew me to watch the match. According to Naz, for the first time in many years our Malaysian team did more proud than shame. I have to admit, despite not knowing many things about football/ soccer, I think it was a really a fun game to watch. Of course, the opponents (Myanmar) were so rough and rude towards our players but they were behaving like that because they were under a lot pressure! So bravo Under 23 Malaysian Team. I hope that this victory would not make you too proud but hopefully will make you more dedicated and motivated to play even better in the future. For the sake of Malaysian football and to prove that Malaysia actuallyBoleh!

I would also like to share a bit more information here hehe. The Malaysian goalkeeper, Syed Adney Syed Hussainis is so good looking. So jambuuuuu...Even Naz thinks so too, hehe. Oh by the way, he is actually the brother of Sharifah Sofea, the beautiful actress. So not only he's handsome, he's also talented! He's definitely going to be very popular after this!

Quality Time...

August 21

Happy Birthday Jue Ying! Now that I know you, I just can't imagine life without you. You have brought extra joy and happiness to my life. I am so glad that fate has brought you to where you are now and our paths have somehow crossed. I hope that we will friends for the rest of our lives. Thanks for everything!

August 22

Naz and I went to watch Rush Hour 3 after work. It was funny (but couldn’t beat the Simpsons though) and entertaining but Chris Tucker was a bit too annoying and Loud. His high pitched voice, aiyooo kept sending shivers down my spine lah. I can never get up to that voice every morning no matter how good looking he is. As for Jackie Chan, despite his age and all, still very quick and his kung fu skills, never failed to make me go ‘Wow’!

August 23

Munira had a short school break last week and so we decided to take two days off to spend some quality time with the kids. We left to Mantin on Thursday (Aug 23)and activities started on that day with swimming.

August 24

On Friday, Naz and I took them to visit the Ostrich Farm a.k.a. Ostrich Wonderland in Semenyih. We had always wanted to bring them there so we finally made the trip this time around. The entrance fee for an adult is RM8 and RM4 for children under 12.

I thought we were just going to spend about half an hour in there but turned out that there were quite a bit to see and do. Honestly, I didn't think that it was going to that fun but not only the kids enjoyed themselves, we did too! The kids still talk about the trip until now. Anyway, here are some photos that we took:



Description:-
1. Flower Girl and Boy, in front of the humongous Signboard
2. As soon as the eggs are layed, they are placed in the warm incubators for hatching. The eggs will stay in there for 42 days.
3. When the eggs are about 42 days, they will be transferred into another incubator and in here you'll be able to see small heads and beaks emerging from the egg shells. Sometimes, the babies would need some help emerging so they will use hammers to break the shells a bit.
4. Holding the real egg - the shell is as hard as wood!
5. Muzafar standing on a real egg. Even I stood on one and it didn't break - so now you know how hard it is considering how 'light' I am hehehe...
6. Naz and Munira feeding two week old ostriches. They are hungry all right!
7. Naz, Munira and Muzafar posing with a group of ostriches. They looked scary but actually they just love attention and just a bunch of very curious birds. If you go anywhere near them, they would not run away but will come even closer to you.
8. Reproduction time, must I say more? Scary was the word as they were making loud sounds!
9. A close-up. Check out the nostril man. Huge!

Besides ostriches, there were also other animals at the farm:-
1. Yellow duckling who peed in my palm - how disgusting!
2. Baby rabbits - how adorable!
3. Funny looking chickens
4. Turkeys - Happy Thanksgiving!
5. Lil monkey who didn't like females because she was one. She liked Naz a lot!
6. Chicken with a white afro - whassup babeh...


Their first pony ride! They were certainly more excited than scared. The pony was just so adorable. I just wish I could bring one home!


Right after the trip to the Ostrich Farm, we dropped by at the Hutan Lipur Sungai Tekala which was just about 5 minutes away. I had been to quite a number of rivers before this but Tekala's the best so far. Even though you would need to pay a ringgit to enter but it is really worth it. When we went, the whole place was super clean and well maintained. There were more than a dozen changing rooms. Just the right place for a family picnic.


Talking about picnics, I just have to share my joy with you out there about this new item I just claimed from Bonuslink. It is our new picnic bag. It is just so pretty and one of the best things that I have claimed from Bonuslink so far. We just love to go for picnics and this set is perfect for us. It even comes with a knife and a cutting board. Even the mat matches the bag. Love it, love it love it!


August 26

Happy Birthday Grace! You were great as a colleague and still great as a friend. I can never be as thoughtful and patient as you are but at least I am learning! Hope we will be friends forever!

Happy Birthday BFF, wherever you are...

A day before yesterday (Aug 17) was the birthday of my BFF Win. Who is Win? Win is a good friend to me, a fantastic daughter to her mom, a loving sister to Kit, a superb colleague to many and a wonderful auntie to my children. An extremely special person like Win just do not show up in your life everyday you know. That's why I consider myself to be very, very blessed to have her in my life, actually not just mine but my children's lives too. (They fondly call her Auntie Winnee).

I met Win in 2001 at the office and we have been really close ever since. Never in a day that I do not thank God for all the things that He has given me thus far and one of them is of course Win's friendship.

In a scale of 1 to 10 for efficiency, Win is absolutely wayyy...above 10 but not just for efficiency but for all the other things like generousity, understanding, intelligence and many more. Life with Win makes me realize that true friends do exist but sadly it depends on your luck, and hey I am darn lucky!

Anyway BFF, happy birthday and I hope that you will find nothing but happiness and success in your future. Thank you for everything. I love you with all my heart and take good care of yourself!!!

Another Marian Keyes's Novel...

Just finished another book written by Marian Keyes. The best part about this book is that it was about the sister of the woman I had read earlier. There are 5 sisters all together in this family:
1. Claire
2. Maggie
3. Rachel
4. Anna
5. Helen

The first Marian Keyes's book I had read was about Anna and this book was about Claire. The next one which I will be starting soon is going to be about Rachel. Interesting!


I mentioned our Mantin house quite a bit in my blog but never really elaborated about it but feel like doing so now. You see, about three to four years ago, my dad persuaded Naz and I to purchase a condominium (Sri Palma Villa) at Dataran Mantin as he said that it was going to be a good investment. The condominium was going to be built within the compound of Kolej Lagenda and considering that there would supposedly be thousands of students, we were assured that getting tenants would not be a problem.

When we went there for the first time, we realized that there were many other apartment buildings that were still vacant, almost 70% of them. I guess there were not many students studying at Kolej Lagenda afterall and I bet, they wouldn’t want to pay a lot more to stay at the condominium only for the swimming pool as all the other facilities were also available at their college.

Anyway, we still went ahead with installing the lightings, fans and kitchen cabinet hoping that someone would want to rent our place. At the same time we knew, our chances were slim as there were more than a thousand other units (Sri Palma Villa)available to be rented out. We also heard that apparently those who managed to rent out their units were renting out at only 25% of what they are paying to the banks!

Not wanting to waste the monthly installment to the bank as well as the facility fees to the developer, Naz and I go back to Mantin as often as we could (almost every weekend and public holidays). The kids love it there because of the pool. I love it there because of the air and Naz love it there just because it is away from KL.

After all these years, there are still many more vacant units and we doubt it that anyone would want to rent our unit since there are many others which are still brand new. Well, we do not mind it anymore as we are starting to enjoy having a getaway place or a weekend house. There are many activities we can do there as a family: swimming, walking, tennis, table tennis (which is ours), gym and sauna. I think there are others too who are treating Sri Palma Villa as a weekend house just like us. We do not know anyone yet but we hope to get to know more of these ‘weekenders’ and make new friends…

Merdeka! At least for now...

Just finished with this year's ISO Audit at the office. Was not as bad as I thought. Praying hard not to get any NCR. Whatever it is, yeaaa dah habis...yahooo...MERDEKA! And J's back from the U.S. Guess what, she had an extremely close encounter withhh...Matt Dallas from Kyle XY. Now, even Win and J agree that Matt Dallas is beautiful. J brought me back two Kyle XY Comics (which were given away for FREE!) and also took a few shots of him. This one here is the best (and is currently my desktop wallpaper hehe)!


J took this for me too. Wow, can you imagine that she was at a place where Johnny Depp was once there too, at one point (even for a few Minutes) of his life! Cool...


Win is still in the US but she passed this to me, through J. I feel wrong using this as I have the urge to constantly lick my lips. Not only that I am not supposed to cause it is a bloody lip balm but I feel guilty as Chocolates = fattenning. Hehe, anyway, thanks J and Win for everything. Win, I miss you loads and J, glad you're back!!


A lil update on my cooking/baking experiments. Baked a quiche over the weekend. This was how it turned out to be. Looks good right? But honestly, it didn't really taste as good as it should. The custard and the filling were not bad at all (yummy!) but the crust was a little too thick and probably not baked long enough. It was because I didn't use the right quiche pan size so it was not deep enough for the amount of dough that I made. Oh well, will try again one of these days!


Completed another novel recently. Ironically the book had so many similiraties when the one I had completed earlier. a) Both were written by Irish authors 2) Both were about women who struggled with the loss of their beloved husbands and were very much in denial 3) Both didn't end with the two women having new men/love in their lives (which how I wanted them to end actually hehe).

Even though I found the earlier one to be more interesting but this latter one was still worth a read.

Superb dinner with superb friends

Due to Fira's busy schedule, Az and I only managed to meet up with her last night for a belated birthday dinner. As usual, when we get to meet once in a blue moon, it can get quite noisy. Just too many things to talk, share and laugh about...not to forget, a gossip or two.

As the birthday gal, Fira got to choose where to go and hence she decided on CPK. When she first mentioned CPK, I scratched my head and went, 'err where?' she said 'CPK la'. So-rry...I really had not the slightest idea what CPK was and hey, I wasn't the only one. When Fira finally told me what CPK was I went like 'Ooooooo'...so I decided to test Az. Muahahaha...he didn't know as well. So I wasn't the only clueless one...hehe. I bet most of you out there already know but just in case, CPK stands for California Pizza Kitchen (I kept saying chicken instead of kitchen for only God knows why!).

Anyway, we ordered the following and shared them all. It was really a good thing that we shared. Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to finish and and at the same time try so many things on the menu: from salad to dessert! Anyway, I loved them all, really. In terms of the pricey, a 'lil bit like TGIF or Chillis. Tak bole selalu but not so bad! Thanks Fira and Az, for another meaningful, fun and entertaining dinner!

Salad - The Original, BBQ Chicken
Chopped lettuce, black beans, sweet corn, jicama, cilantro, basil, crispy corn tortilla strips and Monterey Jack cheese tossed together in CPK's garden-herb ranch dressing. Topped with chopped BBQ chicken breast, diced tomatoes and scallions.

Portobello Mushroom Ravioli with Sautéed Mushrooms
Rosemary ravioli filled with Portobello mushrooms, herbs and cheese. Topped with imported Italian tomatoes, fresh basil and garlic or garlic-Parmesan cream sauce.

Pepperoni Pizza
Fresh sliced Roma tomatoes, Mozzarella cheese, fresh garlic and fresh basil, topped with Parmesan cheese.

Hot Fidge/Caramel Sundae
Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream topped with pecans, fresh whipped cream and a cherry with your choice of CPK's triple-thick hot fudge (you can have it with hot caramel sauce too.

Oh yes, I have to wish a special and extremely talented person, a Happy Birthday (August 3)...none other than, Maman Teacher's Pet @ Rosman Lamri. Hope you will come out with a new album soon and am very sure that it's gonna be as good, if not better, than the earlier ones...Maman rocks (4 eva)!

p/s sorry no photos of the food. Brought a camera but too embarrased to snap3.

Simpsons - The Movie!

Naz, Az and I brought the kids to watch the Simpsons last night at TGV KLCC. It was Muzafar's first time going into a cinema and thank goodness, he behaved pretty well. I have to admit that the movie wasn't really suitable for children (for obvious reaons, children wouldn't get most of the jokes) but for us adults, it was just so hilarious! The Simpsons being the Simpsons (Homer and Bart), were quite gross and improper most of the times but hey they were very entertaining. If you need a good laugh or two, you should go watch it! Thanks Az for the free tickets! Check this out: The Simpsons Movie

I would also like to wish a Happy Belated Birthday (July 29) to my good friend Vivienne Cindy G Kaur Hans. Viv, I really hope that when you google your name (if ever) one day, you will find this entry and know that I still remember you. Hey, we've been buddies since 1982 and managed to keep in touch until 2004 right! I can't recall exactly when we had stopped writing to each other but if you do find this, please email me ya. Miss you!