Bonding, Laughter and Intimacy

The story on the Makcik Bloggers meet went onto cyberspace a few days back. I think it was Kak Ezza who first wrote about the do and a few other ladies followed suit. I have been wanting to say something about the joyous event, but my busy schedule has completely kept me away from blogging.

Work front has been a challenge off late. Tough times call for tougher acts to keep going - where business is concern. I've been in out of meetings for the past two days. Some meetings had good outcomes, while some ended with a not so nice taste to wrap up the day with. But we must all stay resilient and brave the storm. I believe the rainbow is somewhere out there, waiting to appear when the time is right.

Anyway, on a much happier note, I'm still ecstatic and excited from our Makcik Blogger meet last Saturday. It was a blast. Nothing deterred us from enjoying ourselves, not even the heavy downpour that came halfway during our meet. Hujan rahmat, I’d put it, as it helped cool the hot and humid afternoon and permitted us to enjoy the scrumptious food spread.

One word to describe the afternoon. It was totally AWESOME. The bonding, laughter and intimacy was apparent in everyone.

To the Makcik Bloggers:

Wanshana - sedapnya kway tiau goreng & sambal tochu, makan tak nampak sesiapa lalu belakang
MrsN - anggun sungguh in that green kurung and yesss…lurv the new hair do
Zai - ayooo…both fruit tart and cheese cake were mind blowing!!
Silent reader, Zay - hey…now you have been officially accepted into the group
Madam Principal - thank you for the umbrella, Bibik & Nissa have put it to good use yesterday morning when it rained
Chahaya - you are so petite and so young, plus orang kampong…..I LIKE!!
Kak Ezza - what can I say, you show love and lots, lots of love
Bella - wooo…the roast chicken was mouth watering and you are pretty cool, sis
Jabishah - you are so sweeettttt, se sweet dessert that you brought and got dimples some more!!!
Waterlily - really, really glad you made it, mana taknya even after di “bomb” many times, still you made it to my place
Aida & daughter Ainul - so happy that you managed to join us, all the effort, despite the long detour and last but not least,
my sister TM - thanks for the t-shirt, ABE complimented on it, so pass QC Inspector Sahab.

Thank you, everyone!!! Thank you for the lovely afternoon.

Observing Earth Hour

Three, Two, One.....lights off!!!

I must say it was kinda fun during the one hour when we sat in our dimly lit living room. We lit candles of all sorts, you name it, yang scented, tak scented and even those from the mamak shop – those blackout candles. The girls were excited about the whole jazz of helping to save the earth. In school they said there were talks about appreciating Mother Nature and why everyone should be united in observing Earth Hour.

So how was the one hour spent? Bibik, as usual, was busy with her cleaning in the kitchen. The girls were occupied with their cameras, taking pictures of each other in the dark. Me?? If only the mosquitoes were a little kind towards me, I suppose I would have had a good time observing the Earth Hour. Nonetheless, it was pretty cool just chilling in the dark, catching up with ABE on what happened earlier today and hoping that ABE would get “ideas” from the sort of romantic ambiance. But….ABE being ABE, hah..hah…dream on!!!

Two Weekends in Comparison

Right about this time last Sunday night the slide show that I created for my cousin brother’s wedding was aired at his reception. Yes…amidst the beading, I was also doing slides for the wedding. When the request came from my aunt, again, I just didn’t have the heart to say no. So I was beading, picture cropping and video creating at the same time. (Giler kuasa la pulak kan, nak buat semua benda…)

The video that I created...

Just as I was finishing the video, another request came from my uncle.

“Ida, can you help write my speech for the wedding?”

“Urr…write speech?? If you want to have it in English, boleh lah.”

“Tak pe lah..in English pun boleh.”

So, add one more task to the existing three, tulis speech la pulak. I figured, dah tolong aunty, tak kan uncle tak tolong.

After googleling info on wedding speeches, I was well on my way writing dear uncle’s speech. I had wanted it to have a good mix of both English and BM expressions and also pantuns to give it more spice. Lucky me coz I had this thick pantun compilation book which I used as reference.

The two flower girls...Nissa & Alina

Farah, Nissa, Alina & Ayna

Both the video and speech were well accepted during the reception. I simply had to put my signature (in a subtle way so to speak..) in one of the pantuns.

One of the opening pantun sounded like this.

Dari Juasseh ke Seri Menanti
Singgah sebentar membeli kuini
Gembira sungguh rasa di hati
Bertemu semua di malam ini

Where is the signature one may ask? For those who know our family, they’d easily guess that the writer must be someone of the immediate family. The clue was the two kampongs (in Kuala Pilah) mentioned in the pantun - Juasseh and Seri Menanti. Juasseh is my kampong and Seri Menanti is where ABE hails from. Kenalah kan letak identity sendiri..heh..heh :)

My closing pantun had the guests smiling away, and left them guessing which one of the host’s children is next to tie the knot.

Halwa manis si kueh sugi
Tamat lah sudah majlis resepsi
InshaAllah panjang umur murah rezeki
Terima menantu kita ketemu lagi

One could not imagine how relieved I was when the last line in the speech was read. Mana tak lega nya….all that was entrusted on me, dah selesai….alhamdulillah syukur, everything went well.

Well, that was last weekend, all so packed and hectic.

Mom, Uncle, Aunty, TM and Alina

My aunty - Zizah, Mom, Aliah and flower girls

This weekend was the total opposite. In fact I started my weekend rather early. I took leave on Friday to be with the girls on the last day of their school holidays. We had a jolly good time bumming at One Utama, indulging ourselves to the scrumptious lunch at Delicious. Yours truly, of course did damage at her retail therapy. Nissa was happy coz she got the computer game she wanted. Farah had her equal share of new stuffs and moi….I got stuffs for the house. All smiles when we got home that evening..heh..heh.

Lunch today was treat from my uncle and aunty. They wanted to celebrate with Alina & Nissa, the two flower girls at the Japanese restaurant in KLGC*. So sessi makan la pulak…..rezeki kata orang tu jangan ditolak kan :)

We thought of hitting the mall, but ABE said he wanted to finish packing for his trip tomorrow. So we headed home straight. I managed to nap for a short while. Ohh…nikmat nyer dapat close eyes for a jiffy.

Nissa's acts in the pool

Celik dari napping, Nissa asked if we could go for a swim. Oppss…better ask Alina first if she’s game for we didn’t want to leave her behind. Alina said she didn’t bring her swimsuit. Ohhh…now worries, pakai je Nissa’s. Dalam pada we were busy getting our swim gear ready, ABE decided to come along. Wokey…lagi bagus, he could keep an eye on the girls when I go into the sauna later.

We had fun all right, one of those rare days when we had the day pretty much to ourselves. As for me, well…. I somehow still can’t quite make out which was the better weekend of the two – the c-r-a-z-y, running-around-as-a-wedding-helper or the laid back, food-indulgence-over-eating-easy-going weekend.

Jom Sembang-Sembang

I guess by now most of the Makcik Bloggers would have read MrsN's posting on the 2nd meet. Mahal tu invitation dari Puan President :). Dan as the tuan rumah, this is another invite from yours truly.

Date: 28th March 2009 (Saturday)

Time: 3-5 pm

Venue: Kay's House in Shah Alam

Theme: POT LUCK

Food?? Well, I leave it to you guys to fill up the table. But I am so, so hoping (harapan setinggi Gunung Ledang, Ms Hart a.k.a. Gusti Raden Ayu..) that Ms Hart would come with her signature dish Ayam Bali, so that my briyani ada partner nya :)

Besarlah juga harapan dari tuan rumah jika fellow bloggers like Kak Puteri Kama, MA & Brood, Jabishah, MyHeartBleeds, Roti Kacang Merah, Laracroft, Naz (kata dah check flight kan..heh..heh), dear Kak Teh (ohh..bila kita nak berjumpa agak nyer..), Madam Tai Tai and Waterlily (manalah tau..kot-kot ader travel home plans in this week or two) dan juga kalau boleh special apprearance by Pak Malim kucing ray yang alim, yang selalu menghiburkan kita semua with his brilliant gurindam.

Revert a.s.a.p (coz...kalau ramai as MrsN kata, nak cari khemah..heh..heh )

Pls email me your contacts so that I can provide you the map to my place.
My email is kay_noor@yahoo.com or YM ID kay_noor

Hope to see everyone yes!!!

Kita sembang-sembang sampai tak mau pulang.... :))

The Weekend that Was – Part 1 : Flower Girls’ Dresses

This post could be taken as a postscript to the one that Tireless Mom did last week. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, yes, last weekend was THE WEDDING weekend; the much awaited wedding of my cousin brother Shayariz and his bride Nadia.

Sometime last January, I wrote about my role in the wedding preparations (here for story..) Remember, I’m one of those who just couldn’t say NO and that landed me with the task of handling the flower girls and everything that came with that. No problem, easy peasy as how Kak Teh put it, nothing that I couldn’t handle.

Dress # 1

I had all planned properly, the tailoring of the flower girls’ dresses and the beading of the dresses. Anticipating that I was going to be stormed with work in the office, I had sent the girls’ dresses much earlier. It was before CNY that I took the materials to the tailor. She promised me that she would have them ready in three weeks. Fine with me, I thought coz I’d still have ample time to do bead work on the dresses.

At work, I was pretty occupied with my deliverables, and I somehow forgot to call the tailor to check on the dresses. In fact, I went to the tailor’s shop two weeks after the earlier date given to me. My mental calculations had it that I’d have enough time to get the dresses beaded.

It’s Murphy’s law I guess, for if anything can go wrong, it will. When I went to the tailor’s place to collect the dresses, I almost had a heart attack when the tailor said that she had completely forgotten about the flower girls’ dresses!!! Huh…say what??? I saw in her cupboard where she stacked the tempahan materials, the materials were still untouched. Oh my God….I was already panicking.

My tailor apologized for the slip up, and promised to get started immediately. She said she’ll have them ready in a week. I was pretty upset about the delay, and so much wanted to scream at her. But what’s the point??? And having an out burst was not going to solve the problem.

Three days later I received a call from the tailor. She said that the dresses were ready for collection. Fuhh…what a relief, but there was still a long way to go to get the dresses beaded, and the wedding will be in three weeks.

Late nights, busy weekends held me back from doing beading work on the three dresses. I remember one night I stayed up till almost 1 in the morning to finish as much bead work as I could. The next day, I woke up with a terrible headache – all caused by the strain on the eyes and not to mention the late night.

The bead work

Half way through by beading, I ran out of beads and when I went to the shop, they told me that they too have run out of the beads that I wanted!!! I could have kicked myself for not buying enough beads earlier. In the end, I had to make do with beads of a different colour. Nasib baik still okay, and still matches the dresses of the flower girls.

Beads were sewn on each of the flower of the lace

One completed dress

It was a mother – daughter partnership. Farah helped me a lot with the bead work. In fact she did most of the work and I worked on putting the finishing touches on the dresses. The last dress was finally ready like 3 hours before the wedding, with me sewing the last line of beads on it.

What a relief that was!!!

To be continued

Sneak Peek

It was an extremly hectic and HOT weekend. Yes, it was the WEDDING weekend. Will post the story later (coz nak masuk meeting in a while ni..). But I want to put up pics of the flower girls first.

During the rehersal yesterday morning

The three little beauties...
Sweeties....you all were simply adorable!!!

Nissa's Special Day

March 11 is a very special day for us. It's Nissa's birthday, and this year we celebrate her 8th. Fast forward the years, we see how much our little baby girl has grown.

Brave, bold, funny, smart and a happy girl with such great personality and love, whom without fail would continue to challenge me every day in new and surprising ways.

Happy Birthday Dear Nissa
Blow out the candles and make your wish
Have a wonderful day today!!!

Farewell Dear Friend

I'm writing this post with a heavy heart. We lost Hj N, a dear jemaah in our Haj group to big C today.

No words could express our shock, sadness and grief when we received the call about his passing this morning. All I could think of was his wife Z, and his three beautiful girls and how they have to be strong to face this test from God Almighty. In the car back from the funeral just now, ABE just has this to say to me, "I'm going to miss him."

We are all going to miss him. Farewell dear friend...

Semoga roh mu dicucuri rahmat dan ditempatkan bersama dengan roh-roh orang yang beriman.

Alfatehah.

Kitty Mommy

“Another five minutes, Mama,” my little girl pleaded with me.

“I want to be with Merci for a while before I go off to Sekolah Agama.”

“But, it’s already 8.25 and you really should be running along. Bibik dah penat waiting for you by the door.”

“Alah…just 5 minutes. Merci needs me to be with her.”

Errr…that’s it, I had to draw the line here. These past few days Nissa has been negotiating with me on the time she spends with the kittens. It’s like 5 minutes with Merci and then another 3 minutes with Brainy followed by 2 minutes with Fuzzy and a desperate 1 second to kiss Furry. Bibik tells me that she does that everyday, stealing any available time to spend with the felines.

On weekdays, Nissa’s routine is pretty packed, with Sekolah Agama in the morning followed by the normal school in the afternoon. By the time she comes home in the evening, exhaustion is written all over her, and there is still homework to complete. I pity her actually, but certain things are just best learnt the hard way, and this is one of them.

The kittens are obviously her close companion now. Every available time that she has, she’d spend with them and Merci, her favorite would be the one in her arms most. Do the shuffle, share her stories, play the PSP are amongst the things she does with the kitties. Guess she wasn’t kidding me when she told me that she’d make a good kitty Mom that time when she brought Manis into our home.

I caught her in action in her room earlier today with Merci…adusss…Mommy kucing nih!!!

Tengok tu...even the tudung senget dah coz dok guling-guling with Merci.