When the going gets tough...

Had a rough day at work yesterday. As much as I tell myself that work ain't everything; it's diffcult not to get affected. Been convincing myself this morning that there are so many other aspects of my life that has more substance and are more important in my life. But I can't help it when I spend 9 hours at work everyday.

Yeah, I know...this is just part and parcel of working life. Everything has its ups and downs, right? I guess what I'm missing is that someone to talk to at the end of a hard day at work. Someone to tell me that everything is going to be alright, someone who actually appreciates me. I need to hear these sweet words.

Well, I certainly do not want to be ungrateful. Alhamdulillah, there are many things that I am thankful for. Hiccups happen. I need to move on. The cookie must not crumble.

and you would've been 41!

we last celebrated your birthday on August 3, 2006. that was FIVE years ago! stay young, my love... miss you lots! Al-Fatihah

21 Feb 2007 - 21 Feb 2011

Today marks four years of your passing. In my heart I know that you're doing alright for He is looking after you. May you rest in peace and be blessed with His Rahmah in barzakh and in the ever-after. Ameen.

You are missed. Always.

Epilogue

After 2 years, 2 months and 2 weeks later, it is time for me to conclude My Monologues.

I have met some very wonderful people here, we shared stories... good, happy, and of course sad ones too. I even shared my most intimate feelings here and you had always been generous with your words of comfort.

I cherish each and every comment made, jokes shared, compliments rendered. Thank you for your friendship!!

To my silent readers who have logged in day-in and day-out even when I've left this blog idle for the last month or so, thank you for taking the trouble to check on me!! (thanks to the site meter I know where you're logging from and how often you come here :)

Thank you and God bless all of you.

Our dearly beloved

Beloved husband and father

3 Aug 1970 ~ 21 Feb 2007

1095 days of missing you.

May you find the ultimate happiness in paradise. Ameen.

Al-Fatihah

My first hantaran cake

I'm pretty pleased that I pulled off my first hantaran cake. The design is simple je... the flowers on top were designed to cover any flaws... but stretchmarks appeared everywhere except the top where it was going to be covered!! thankfully remembered a tip/trick told by fellow baker... to gently rub shortening on the marks.. and it works!!

alhamdulillah... i am happy

i refrained from writing about this as i just wanted to let it be. but i guess i succumbed to my own thoughts. am always one who is weak when it comes to self-control anyways.

had a long chat with a colleague yesterday. she was also his ex-colleague. she told me to stop berkabung. she said i've berkabung (mourned) long enough and time for me to move on. go out have fun, she said.

this and that

I have no plans whatsoever this CNY break. Purposely did not make any plans to go out of town since we know its going to be crazy out there on the highways, hence we went for our family holiday two weekends ago during the FT holiday.

Nak buat apa ye?? Terlintas jugak di hati this could be the weekend to start my exercise regime :) yelah..dah free, kan? the recreation park in surrounding neighbourhood pun dok memanggil manggil... but awat I ni dok degil?? :)

Anyways, this morning main masak-masak... Misha bought a cute Minnie teaset during our hols in HK last December and I had wanted to try the heart-shaped pancake/egg ring from Daiso so that's what we did... and had for breakfast.

Kids went out after breakfast with my cousin who wanted to get belated pressie for Misha... I am planning to clean the kitchen drawers and cabinets... now just how many spatulas do I need? planning to give extras away...

Ice-cream tubs, plastic cake knifes, bottles and bottles of plastic, leftover biskut raya (yes!! ada lagiii).. they gotta go!!

I should mention that maid is extending her contract!! alhamdulillah... she's into her fourth year and had been divided between staying and going home. Finally berjaya to pujuk her to stay at least until Dec... with a RM100 pay raise. I think she gets paid quite handsomely for the amount of work she needs to do... yelah, anak i dua orang je... dah besar... rumah cute miut... on weekdays we leave the house at 7.15am and the girls don't come back until 5pm... pendek kata kerja senanglah!! i'm just glad she's staying coz you know the risk involved in getting a new maid... tak payahlah i nak citer panjang lebar... almaklumlah!! talking bout maids, my heart goes out to this sista!! :(

also, this CNY holiday ada kisah tersendiri jugak... it was three years ago on CNY break that we had spent our last weekend with our beloved. cuti panjang sat-tues and he left morning of wed, on the first day of work after the long break. i try not to think about it too much, try to numb this heart and not give in to my emotions... but yes, i miss him and think about him everyday. at the end of a bad day, i need that someone who looks into my eyes and tell me, "it's gonna be okay".. and I'd totally believe him. i need that pat on the back, the fingers that runs through my hair when i feel helpless like a little child... hmmmmm... alhamdulillah He's been good to me... and I shan't complain. I do think that i am tougher now, emotionally... more redha with whatever that comes my way... more accepting of the ways of the world and the people in it.... I digress!!!

Well, I better go clean that kitchen now!!! have a good break, y'all!!

Happy New Year!!

Cuti lagiiiiii!! But hey, I'm not complaining!!

click here for photo credit

My first time doing CNY-themed cupcakes... a box for a classy lady and another for a typical Chinaman. I was given the freedom as for the theme, so found inspiration from pretty pink and white cherry blossoms. The background was turquoise, supposed to represent the sky... asked a Chinese colleague if cherry blossoms were ok... whether got pantang or not... coz just the other day when had our CNY e-greeting published with a picture of a tiger, she commented to have it removed as apparently only businesses in trouble/ailing are supposed to show the tiger. If your biz is thriving don't show the tiger!! now, did you know that?? :)

But last night AFTER i had done up the box of cherry blossoms, received sms from client NOT to have anything in white - pantang!! as it represents death!! huh?? there was no way i was going to do it up again.. habis kuat replace the white flowers with all pink... but tak lawalah!! so, smsed colleague again and she said should be ok. legaaaa...

but because of that comment, i decided to just go all Chinaman with the next box. Put aside all my preferences and change mindset to Pua Chu Kang mode!! haha... so here goes!!

Happy New Year, y'all!!

Friends Who Bake

I wrote about getting a group together to take on a baking quest and now it's taking shape!! (wish could say the same bout my figure haha)...

We started a blog, my friend J and I, where we would post our bakes for the week and also post links to fellow baker's bake of the week from their blog. Fellow blogging bakers are now part of the group, i.e Kitchen Guardian and Shahieda. Glad to have you be a part of Friends Who Bake!!

We would love to have any of you out there join us too... something to do on a free weekend, and definitely not meant to be added stress!! Email us at friendswhobake@gmail.com. In the meantime, check out our blog!!

Misha turns 9!

My not-so-little littlest daughter Misha, born 03.02.01 turns 9 today!! We celebrated her birthday during the 3-day weekend family holiday in Malacca.

What did the birthday girl get as a present from mommy?? A new pair of school shoes!! haha... she called me at 5 in the afternoon yesterday and reported that she lost her school shoes!! someone must've mistaken hers for theirs (it happened to her sis before and the shoes were returned the next day). When I asked her what she wore home, she said she and her sis both wore the latter's shoe each and jalan terlompat-lompat!! LOL... kesian and funny at the same time when I pictured that image of them terlompat2!!

See, the kids remove their shoes as they enter the school building and place them in dedicated shoe bins all day long before putting them on again as they leave the school building at the end of the day. Mesti ada yang terambik tuh! I seriously don't think someone would want to steal someone else's stinky shoes!! hope she gets her shoes back today :) had to get her a new pair as she only has one - coz it doesn't get (or look) dirty so much (they're black).

I haven't bought her any presents yet.. told her we'd get it today after dinner... she has requested 'colouring pencils yang boleh paint'... oh! selamat duit mommy!! :)

Happy birthday, my girl!!

Calling all bakers!!

If you read my earlier post, you'd probably remember I mentioned about a baking quest my friend J and I are on, based on Martha Stewart's CUPCAKES book... we were talking and we think it'll be fun to have others join in the quest.. (no, you don't have to own the book).. we're in the midst of creating a blog for the baking quest.. so if you're a baking enthusiast, whether seasoned or amateur-ish (like moi!!) or even if you've never ever baked in your entire life, we'd be pleased for you to join us... wherever you are!! (J's residing in the Bay Area, CA) we think it's going to be FUN!!

If you're even mildly interested and want to know more, email me at thecakeboxx@gmail.com

Now let me share our second bake last weekend ~ Red Velvet cupcakes! (J's pick this week) It's my first time with RV and my... what lovely colour it turned out!! Kids were happy to play with the 'bloody' batter too :)

As for the taste, I don't think it is something I'd bake again and again (tho J wants me to do that, just so I'd acquire the taste)... it is quite nice on it's own but with the creamcheese frosting... hmm... my tastebuds didn't quite welcome them!! The combination left a tangy aftertaste, I feel... maybe I had put too much vinegar... IF I were to bake it again, I'd definitely go easy on the vinegar (or omit altogether) and add more cocoa...

Here are my RVs... Misha likes it but Maira only eats it without the frosting and I'll need to acquire the taste before I can fully enjoy it!!

I look forward to hear from you baking people (and would-be bakers)!! :)

Weekend talk...

The weekend's almost over!! But I'm not complaining lah... it was quite a restful one... and I didn't make myself do nothin' I didn't want to do!!

Mom was hospitalised on Friday for high BP... she needed to rest. Ever since coming back from Makkah (with a cough), she did not give herself a break... attending this and that... and the week before last she was busy doing hantaran for my niece's engagement. Knowing her the perfectionist, I bet she slept very little that week!! And so the migraine and the BP shot up... nothing major, just need that well-deserved break... she was discharged today.

So what did I do this week... bersantai-santailah... after taking the girls to visit ther grandma yesterday, did grocery shopping and got my eldest her first training bra!! yes, my girl who will be 11 this year needs one already... she is... developing :) oh my, time flies... I think she may get her period this year too...

After we got home, I had the massage lady make a house-call... for 1.5hours... aaahhh lega!! see, I've been wanting to get one for the past week... but the urut lady asyik busy jek... I have been feeling under the weather for a week too, really... and been popping paracetamols... letih... tak tau apa yang letih sangat... keje banyak kat office and a lot people are sick too. Musim demam!!

This morning went out to get blueberries for my baking project... masa did groceries yesterday dah nampak blueberries and I almost put it in the cart but then decided it did not look fresh enough. So, this morning went to Cold Storage lah... ada pun yang fresher-looking, alhamdulillah!

My friend J and I konon-konon want to try out one Martha Stewart recipe per week, from the CUPCAKES book she got me for my birthday ari tu.. and for our maiden baking project I chose Blueberries-and-Cream cupcakes...

I halved the recipe and got 36 cupcakes!! thanks to J who had baked it yesterday and told me she was burdened with over 60 cupcakes heheh..

the cake was really light and easy to make... it was perfect timing to bake as my cousin was having his daughter's birthday party this afternoon, so bawaklah as buah tangan and everyone loved it!!

it's great to bake for fun... no pressure if it doesn't turn out as you expect it to, and you have all the time in the world to prepare it - no deadlines!! as opposed to baking for sale... sometimes it gets to be stressful to me :) takuuuuut kalau2 mengecewakan orang.. and worse, mengecewakan myself!! :)

talking about baking for sale, I am still taking orders tho' now I dah sampai hati to turn down orders if I'm really really busy... lemme share with you some photos of recent bakes... (sometime during raya/post-raya when I had my computer reformatted I lost ALL my cake photos :( thus, the hiatus in baking photos...)

this one down here was for a St. Mary's school reunion party...

best-seller carrot cupcakes...

everyone's fav, chocolate..

all-time fav, yellow cupcakes with buttercream...

ok, folks... gonna wind down and call it a night... before we greet a busy workweek (travelling to JB Wed/Thurs pulakkk!)

enjoy whatever's left of your weekend!! :)

p/s: yeay! managed to update this blog this week heeeeeee...

i wanna

i wanna have more time to:

• spend days at home
• cook
• bake
• travel
• do nothing
• wash and style my hair
• lose weight!? (need time ke for this??)
• go thru the kids schoolwork
• have 'me' time
• be more spiritual
• connect with the Creator
• socialise with friends
• prepare a personal schedule to do all the things above
• and oh! update this blog!!!!

Some stories from the last bit of 2009

Happy New Year everybody!! And how was your new year's celebration, if any? Mine was uneventful, got home from mom's close to 12am after a family meeting (niece getting engaged next weekend)... the thought of parking my car by MRR2 (just before the new Ampang Hilir park) to see the KLCC fireworks came to mind... in fact we slowed down the car and almost parked but decided that we were too tired (I was working on new year's eve - brought the girls with me to work too and they, of course, loved it!!). We gave it a pass, kids zonked out as soon as they got on the bed while I was on the computer. Minutes later heard the dentam-dentum of the fireworks exploding in the air... yeay, happy new year to me!! ;-) macam no feeling lah pulak this new year... no resolutions (ok.. that's a lie!!)... ;-)

Enough about the new year, this post is supposed to be about the last bit of 2009, kan?

Two days before Christmas we (10 of us family members) flew to Hong Kong with the airline that enabled everyone to fly :-) the trip was planned as early as Feb 2009... nak tunggu cheap tickets la katakan... we DIY-ed this vacation... anyways, hold on HK dulu and let me write about Macau first.

We took a ferry to Macau on the fourth day of the vacation, which took about 75 minutes. I had forgotten how seasick I could get. The first 15 minutes rilek lah, pastu when I was filling in the immigrations form, the insides of my tummy started to turn topsy-turvy... and then memories of puking by the buffet table on the Sydney Harbour cruise (yes! sungguh memalukan!!) and the dizziness I felt onboard the Star Cruise came vividly to mind... forms ke mana, pen ke mana... I put my head on the tray table and tried to 'shut down'. Seram sejuk pun ada jugak...dahlah the weather outside was averaging at 13C!! I just shut my eyes tight while praying I'd doze off... alhamdulillah, I tertido!! woke up 10 minutes before reaching Macau but I still had that form to fill, right?? (asked the girls to fill up their forms themselves earlier)... hmmm... so, isiklah form secepat-cepatnya while holding my breath!!

the girls happy je to take the ferry and were chatting throughout the journey, so I was told :-)

We chose to go to Macau as it was so near to HK - we had highly doubted that we'd make a trip just to visit Macau kalau tak pegi masa kat HK. The highlight of our Macau trip was no doubt watching Zaia - the show by Cirque du Soleil. We booked the seats online prior (the cheapest ones and alhamdulillah, cheap seats pun dapat enjoy the show sepenuhnya). No photos or videos allowed but there's the promo video here. Masya-Allah... it was fantastic -- all the time during the show I imagined the men and women practising, practising, and practising some more their skills... and thinking how wonderful it is the machine God gave us, that is our body. Masya-Allah!! the acrobatic performances, the special effects... really larger than life macam promo tu cakap.

a photo by Zaia's poster... the show was unforgettable...

First day in Macau was spent at the VenetianMacao ~ resort~hotel. We did not stay there but the resort provides shuttle buses from almost any other hotels in Macau (I think!). So, after checking in and having our lunch in the hotel room (food ration ada lagiii), we took the shuttle to VenetianMacao.

our hotel room... Macau and HK are very strict about the number of occupants per room so we did not have a party of 10 in 2 rooms!! I'm posting the pix here sbb nanti nak compare with our rooms in HK... at the same price, kat Macau terasa macam orang ada duit sikit after staying in a hostel-like accomodation in HK!!

that's the 10 of us!!

One word to describe the place -HUGE. The resort punya theme - Venetian, so konon-konon everything macam kat Venice lah... with the canals and gondolas (without the smell - my cousin lah kata, I tak pernah pegi Venice unfortunately). And these canals and gondolas are within the resort... siap dengan panorama sekali of Venetian buildings and fake sky. The sky was fake but the buildings were not... not entirely, though - the first floor which houses shops and boutiques is real but the second and third floor were only facades...though fakey, I must say it IS pretty charming (not as charming as the real thing, I am sure). But quite charming. Or maybe it was us yang jakun??!!

there were two canals in the resort, each lined with boutiques and shops from almost every brand imaginable...

the sky's fake -- not unlike the Marakesh@Sunway Pyramid

The kids wanted to ride on the gondola, of course. And how la to say no... come all the way, kan? So, on the gondola we hopped. The gondola attendants were all Filipinos and they were quite an entertaining lot!! Terubatlah juga waiting in line almost 1.5 hours waiting for our turn. As soon as we got on the gondola, our guy Stephano greeted us Ciao!, taught us a few words in Italian, told us the story of the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte de Sospir) and even sang for us!! It was a pretty superb 15-minute ride on the Marco Polo Canal (chewah, macam real jek!!). Thumbs up to the gondola management!!

The second (and last) day was spent sight-seeing. This we did not DIY but chartered a van to take us see places of interest. Among them were the Taipa-Houses Museum, the Fishermen's Wharf, the Senado Square and ruins of St Paul. Macau, being under Portuguese administration from the 16th century up till 1999 (this is quite interesting stuff, read here) had a lot of European influence. Tiny uphill cobblestone streets and some of the colonial architecture left quite an impression. Streets are named in Portuguese. But I do feel for the Macau people - most of them we met on the streets cannot speak and read Portuguese!! Apatah lagi English. That made it difficult for us to ask about places in their Portuguese names as the locals (at least the ones we met) simply do not know it!! Apa punya penjajah daaa... at least the British gave us education in English.

Some photos we took while sightseeing...

There were two distinctive sides to Macau -- there's the brand new, man-made attractions and the gaming industry which makes up it's main tourist revenue on one hand and the historical nostalgic past of bygone days on the other. I'm glad we saw both sides during our short 2-day stay.

Insya-Allah I'll be back with some more stories from the last bit of 2009!! Happy New Year to you again!!