Sharing Birthdays

I share my birthday with another friend, Maznah who studied together in UW - Madison. Maznah studied Business Administration while I did Computer Science.

During our 1st semester as freshmen in UW, we stayed in the same apartment building. She and two other girls rented an apartment a few floors above mine. Jupe, Muni, Maznah & I later became housemates during our junior and senior year.

I remember this one surprise birthday party our other friends threw for us. It was during one of those Wisconsin cold winter days. I had gone out for a movie with ABE. When I arrived home...tha da...surprise!!!! Happy Birthday to Maznah & Khalid (my UW gang call me by this name)!!!

I found this picture of us cutting our birthday cake together that evening. We were so "comel" back then ;-) Maznah is now in Alor Star, Kedah. It has been quite a while since I last met her.

Wishing You, Maznah....Happy Belated Birthday. From all of Us..Jupe, Muni & Khalid.

A Year Older Today

MOI turns a year older (uhuk..uhuk...sad lorr) today and the "magic number" increases ONE more.

Present - tudung clip...wore it to work today.

Big birthday dos have never been my fancy. ABE and girls got me to blow candles on my cake when I came home from work. Oh no...there are more candles on the cake this year then the previous year. Ummm...another cake. There goes my diet. But tak pe lah...birthdays only come once a year. Eat now exercise later.

Recipe book & "genie" vase from Jupe & Muni

The day ended with a kopi -tiam outing with my two best friends Muni and Jupe. And they got me presents too....best nyer..best nyer. Thank you..girls!!! What a support and inspiration you guys have been since our Madison days :-))

But most of all, thank you to ABE and my children Faris, Farah and Nissa for being the loves of my life and bearing with this crazy, idiosyncratic and yet unique person - ME.

Snippets from Last Week

Work has started to build up. My meeting schedule was all topsy turvy. When Friday came, I felt all my energy had been exhausted. My brains had been picked to the max. Proposals and presentations were lined up for submission back-to-back. Urgghhh...what a life...I need some breathing space!!!

I figured if I don't have much time to post in the blog in the weeks to come, I should at least try to provide snippets from what's been happening in the week.

Monday 11.02.08

The road was still OK. Driving to the office was a breeze. I fasted.
Work was picking momentum. The day ended with my swim & sauna (S&S) with Muni.

Tuesday 12.02.08

The usual traffic jam was back. More people had started work today.Had a meeting in the city. Came back to the office after the meeting. Was beat tired and still had a bit more to complete at home.

Watched the late nite news and Mr PM told reporters that there were still LOTS to be done in the country. He needed to still hold cabinet meetings...so he said, the parliment may not be dissolved YET to make way for the upcoming elections.

And why does something inside me say that..all these..they are a bunch of CRAP. Continued to finish my work. I finally went to bed at 2 in the morning.

Wednesday 13.02.08

Took the train to the city. Had a whole day meeting with client today.

At 11.00am received an SMS saying that Mr PM had dissolved the parliment.Yesss....my guess was right. The guy gave some award winning presentation when he faced the media yesterday. Indeed, it was a call only Mr PM could make....but why lah the acting??? Nak bubar parliment...bubar je lah...as if it made much of a difference to layman like us.

Thursday 14.02.08

VALENTINE'S DAY today!!! Got a surprise gift from ABE. OK...thank you...thank you. By mid day, my head was spinning like crazy. Something's not right somewhere. I could feel a flu coming. I just wanted to go home and sleep. Work was crazy and my heart was just wasn't into it.

Friday 15.02.08

TGIF..... However, I had some deadlines to meet. What a drag...Wanted to go S&S that night but my mood swing was just terrible. I'd better not lah...nanti ader plak yang kena screamed at for no reason. Must be the hormones...I tell myself...sob...sob... In the end, I went out with Nissa and ABE. Got Nissa the watch she wanted and I got myself a new bag!!!! And that got me smilling again.... and I knew it then, it was the retail therapy that helped swing my mood back to normal.

Saturday 16.02.08

Went for S&S. Did more laps than my usual. Gotta be really serious on shedding some of the extra kilos. The sauna was extremely HOT. It was like an oven. I stayed in there for a while. I wanted only to burn some fat..not bake myself. Mom & friends came over for lunch. I sent them later to Concorde Hotel for their Hi-tea. ABE & I later went back to Seremban for a kenduri at ABE's mom's house. Arrived back in Shah Alam at almost midnite.

Today - Sunday 17.02.08

Lazy day today...Finished my beading. Searched high and low for my Strawberry Shortcake recipe book. I was so sure that someone (ABE, of course) had done some cleaning up and the book was "cleaned" together with the other things. Dah jual kat paper lama lah tu...I told bibik with a bitter tone in my voice.

Anyway, bibik later found the book terselit under the wing chair. Kena mintak maaf la cam ni to ABE for misjudging him.

Went for S&S in the afternoon. The place was packed with the Le Tour de Langkawi guys. Officials, cyclists, media..the whole gang.

And tonight, the highlight of all...I baked cupcakes. This time I created my own recipe. I added a few new ingredients to the original recipe.

Nasib baik lah they turned out OK.

And my new invention got Nissa overwhelmed with joy. She ate 3 of those fresh baked cupcakes at one go!! So I guess my baking will continue...at least for now.

Chocolate Chip Cookies - 1st Attempt

I made these chocolate chip cookies on Saturday. Got the recipe on the Internet and I decided to give it a try. They turned out not too bad but a little too sweet for me. Next time I make them, I'll make it a point to remember to reduce the sugar. Otherwise, it will definately backfire on my "waist line reduction" efforts.

Faris' 19th Birthday

We celebrated Faris' birthday at Mom's house in Seremban. It was a day later from his actually birthday which was on 7th February.

Yummy..yummy the blackforest birthday cake

As I wanted it to be a surprise, his cousins from Kinrara helped to get the cake.

Kids eager to have a bite of the cake

All happy faces...

CNY Holidays

The Chinese New Year holidays was on 7 & 8 February, a Thursday & Friday. Stretching into the weekend, it became a rather long holiday for all of us and a much welcome break for both children and adults.

We deliberated if we should go on a holiday somewhere close. However, the thought of bracing the "back-to-the-city" traffic crawl when we come back, automatically put the idea aside. In the end we spent the 4 days at home, doing some spring cleaning and kids catching up with school work. I was bouncing between the living room and the kitchen, the tv and my old and faithful oven.

Hot in the news are stories of ministers giving away land titles to the people and mentions of the government's generosity in increasing the allowances of almost everybody. The PLKN kids are getting more allowances and last night it was announced that even the tok imam in the mosque will get a 100% increase in their allowance. Huyooo......semangat ler tok-tok imam kita lepas ni..poket penuh beb!!!

It's obvious that the election is very close coz' you see none other than the ministers' faces on the tv. I do not want to dwell much on politics lah. Not my cup of tea. If I get too sick of seeing one too many of them on TV3 Buletin Utama, I will just switch to the many other channels on Astro.

Now that the new lunar year has rolled in, the week ahead will be worth looking forward to. After the mandarin oranges have been eaten (and yes...me getting a sick stomach from those succulent little fruits) , after the yee sang have been tossed, everyone will now be eagerly waiting for Pak Lah to announce the date of the next election.