SAHM

I am officially a SAHM. But...when I quit my job, I was under the hallucination that I could be a lady of leisure. Or so I thought. Turns out I was busier than during my working days. What with the ex-external family day and my assignment, even the trustworthy Compaq decided to give up on me. So people, my birthday will be in April and I'd like a new notebook as a birthday present. Flowers not necessary since I wouldn't have colleagues to show it off plus the delivery man would collapse if he were trying to follow trailblazing kinda day.

I am still waiting whether one fine day I could wear tai-tai shoes.

Reunion 2005

Well......I am the organisor. But right now I wished I were not the organisor. Because by becoming an organisor, automatically I would be disqualified from entering any contest and I did not qualify for lucky draw as well coz I'll be the one who would be drawing the lot.

Too bad...really bad coz the prizes are tempting. I did want the dvd player in my room coz I am sick of fighting over the right to use it with Amri. Plus..I want to watch dvds in peace alone in the comfort of my room and my many pillows. Too bad.......


Hampers courtesy of Crossworld Management boss - Shamarul


DVD player courtesy of Zalghani & Co and another hamper and gift from Crossworld

Oh well...maybe next time somebody else would be organising the reunion and I will get to join the lucky draw contest. Not that I have much luck to begin with.............

A place only Amri loves

I had to admit it....Amri loves Agrotek Resort and keep asking to go there again.....but only him. I definitely am not going to step in there ever again. And many people keep asking me about the place too and whether it is suitable for a family day kinda gathering. Well...it depends I guess.

I for one, found the place not up to expectation....especially the electricity part. Umm...maybe a decade ago the lack of 24x7 electricity would not deter me at the slightest. But as at now, I have 2 small kids who need my tender loving care, one of which would sweat profusely without aircond during his nap time, which would lead to ugly rashes. The rashes that after the trip needed days of Elomet to go away instead of the all rounder Bephanten everybody could use last time. So, I must say that if the kind of family day that you have in mind involves kids that has not gone through NS training yet...then this is not a suitable place. Because apart from aircond and fan, kids usually need plenty of warm water for their milk. Oh...by the way, the resort did not provide tea making facilities. And even though they mentioned in their leaflet that their restaurant is open 24 hours and no outside food is allowed inside the resort.....by all means..bring your own supply of foods and drinks because the restaurant only operates after 6pm.

But the part I hate most was the karaoke at night. It was so ever annoying, like paying my way to lose a good night sleep.

Amri however, totally disagreed with me. He slept through the night like a log, and woke up all geared up for another dip in the river.


Amri testing the water


Amri taking a dip


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Adam not too happy with icy cold water

Helppppp!!!!!!!!!

I am in serious trouble. My dateline is getting dangerously too near and I haven't been writing a single line of the book. Duhhh......and the Compaq decided to crash at this time...of all the time in the world! Oh my....oh my....and whatever I am supposed to write, business plan I am supposed to submit, cashflow I am supposed to project...crashed together with the harddisk. Who in this part of the world is good enough with antique notebook please raise your hand. I need to recover whatever files in there. They are my life and my future $$$$$. Help!!!!!!!!

Southbound trip

To JB...of all the places! But we have many friends and families there. Tok Mie and Tok Kie tagged along for this trip, supposedly to meet their many cousins. Amri was very thrilled, thinking we'd be going to that no-electricity-jungle again.

We stayed at M Suite, a very nice and spacious hotel for a very reasonable price. And...it has electricity...hehehe! Whatever happened to good old Nae that can slept soundly on the ground with twigs and thorns for mattress.

JB did not have much to offer, I'd rather shop at any of Klang Valley spacious shopping malls. But whattheheck...we're supposed to visit people. And I managed to see Kak Azu, her hubby Ali, their son Aiman Haziq and Lela plus her husband. All these peoples that I haven't see since my graduation but very close to my heart. I'd love to meet Yati too but can't seemed to get catch her on the right time.

Despite the warning by Yati to watch over my little tornado, he still managed to create havoc at..of all places...the crowded City Square. To JB people....please forgive us...coz my little tornado decided to wee wee on the basement, while waiting for the slow lift to arrive at basement and brought him to the toilet. To add to the excitement, it was the last piece of clothing that we had. And Kak Azu had to bring us for cloth shopping. Can't believe I ended up buying clothes at City Square....duh! And Amri, Adam and Aiman simply could not stop bickering for that one balloon. Trust Tok Ki to buy only one! The basic rule of thumb is...if there are 3 boys on board then get three of everything.

And then it was time to say goodbye to JB people.....thanks Kak Azu and Ali for the special lunch. May I have the recipe for that blackpepper prawn please :)

Amri decided not to let me know that his shoes was wet as well and he did not have anything to wear until we arrived at our first R&R stop. Fine....then we went barefoot...which was allright with him too. And he went barefoot happily until we reached our final destination - Nilai 3.

Nilai 3 did agree with me...being the cheapskate I am. First thing I bought was a pair of shoes for Amri. Then I went on a binge with Ummi...grabbing a lot of cheap kids clothing and whatever we could lay our hands on. Cool...... think I'll make another trip soon.

Agrotech Garden Resort

Finally...the much awaited short gateaway was here. And it was so full of dissappointment. Oh yes....there was a river. But not the kind of river I had in mind. Growing up in kampung, I was kind of looking for a very wild, untamed river. But I got a timid, shallow one instead. But the kids love it. Huh.....city boys...what did they know!

The chalet was okay though....with frilly bed, a daybed and another daybed at the balcony and clean bathroom. But of all horror.....nothing could be worse than not providing electricity during daytime. Halloooooo.........much that I love the wilderness, I badly needed a fan (aircond would be too much to ask), a powerpoint for my charger and notebook and light in the bathroom. It was so boiling hot inside the chalet that we decided to dip in the river until dinner time.

Now..the river. Back inKedah, that kind of river would be called alur coz it can't qualify as river. It was too tame, too shallow and too commercialized. They built a concrete bank for it which was so ugly. Moving forward, we discovered that the restaurant drainage system was let out to the river....double eeewwwwww.... We managed to find a perfect spot but it involved carrying two heavy kids via rocky stream. Dunno how...but we managed the feat.

The nights were even more horrendous. Instead of the sound of night creatures singing you to sleep, we got a sound from generator plus the fumes, an equally bad sound from water pump and mother of all horror....karaoke!

That was it....from now on I'd go back to holidaying in hotel room.

Not another manic monday

Coz my supposed workplace was closed for cny. Shall I call it workplace or ex-workplace? Kinda like the idea of playing SAHM for a while...though the title was too noble to me. I might ended up causing permanent phsychological damage to the boys.

Decided to go for an outing with Amri and noticed that when the attention fell on him completely, he could be the most angelic kid on earth. Made a pit stop at Giant and Amri asked whether I was going to buy a gold bangle again.....geee.....how much you think it cost dear? And I certainly not going to buy jewellery on my own.

A Sunday to laze

We were supposed to wake up early and shop at pasar tani for our weekly supplies. But heck.....it was nice to wake up on Sunday morning and went back to sleep. And that was what we did. But then...bibik was on her day off today and if I did not move my butt off the bed then we might have starved. Grudgingly, I made breakfast with Adam while dear hubby went shopping with Amri.

The kids and I lazed around the house for the better part of the day while dear hubby presenting his piece of mastermind at uitm. Getting bored out of my mind so I decided to take the kids for a drive. Ended up at Azida's house. Ended up discovering that another baby is on the way.......wooowwwww....congratulations! Mannnn...that was real fast :)

Timing...Malaysian way

We were invited to a birthday party at 3pm which we agreed to attend, rsvp days in advance and promptly showed up at the doorstep at 3.00 pm. Nobody was there to greet us, I had to practically asked whether this was the correct house and the right date. When we were finally ushered in, the party did not look like it was going to start within the hour..or within 2 hours. The host dissapeared to the kitchen, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Not even drinks of plain water was offered. 15 minutes later, another guests appeared and fared no better than us. Another 15 minutes, we were offered some cold drinks and cold food. We ate, we talked among ourselves and decided we couldn't be bothered to wait for the birthday cake or cake cutting ceremony. At the rate things were going, we might ended up waiting for a zillion years before we get to sing birthday song. So we made our exit.

Perhaps the host had never throw a party before. Or perhaps the invitation email that was sent to me should have read 3 hours after 3pm instead. But sheesh.....I was looking forward for an afternoon of good food.

Time to go

And say goodbye. It has been nice to be around but when to choice was between the three love of my life and big bucks, I did not even have to think. The choice was already made. I knew what made me happy.....so I said goodbye. And felt good about it

Seperation anxiety going to seperate with us?

Looks like it because last night I managed to have a shower without Adam gone to hysteria. Though after the shower I found him on the dressing table , transfering my brooches into the Bali lamp with Abang Long pretending to babysit him.

Later into the night, I made a few (hundreds) trips to the kitchen to cater for your highness (aka Amri) never ending requests for foods and no banshee wail coming from the living room. On one of the many trip to the kitchen, Adam followed us but stay behind later to play with fridge's tray. So far so good .....comparing to a few days ago where I could not even take three steps to the coffee table without Adam turning into a banshee. And it is not just the mengada-ngada cry babies are so famous off but a full blown earth shattering scary holler. Complete with Bollywood scene where he will cling to my leg with tears streaming down his little face, begging me not to go to the coffee table......as if I were going to leave him forever.

Much that I feel honoured with such VIP treatment, as if the whole world would stop functioning if I were to dissappear from the sofa for three minutes......it really stressing up especially if your other half did not notice that yours truly has not been moving for three hours and needed a glass of water like yesterday.

I really hope this is it....Adam's wobbly steps to independance. I do not mind playing the less important cast as long as I am free to roam about in my own house.

Differences between local bank and foreign bank

1. Local bank took at least two weeks to get back to you with a proposed financing rate tailored to your requirements. Foreign bank needed less than two hours

2. If you request something out of standard practise, say Overdraft at BLR+0.75% the officer will first raised his eyebrow, then stuttered to say that the request will be brought into loan committee meeting next week. Foreign bank officer said, "Sure madam, but there will be a locked in period of 5 years". By the way, the local bank loan committee will of course said no.

3. Asked the local bank officer for his email address and you'll get an incredulous look again. A foreign bank officer will point to his email address at his namecard and said " Email me if you need any clarification or you can also buzz me at my YM. Id is xxxxx"

4. Mentioned any feature about business ebanking to a local bank and you'll get answers like "Umm..ugh...actually..no..really...the mgmt said the features are not safe enough...you know lah..so many hackers on the net so we decided not to develope them" Foreign bank will replied with "Sure ma'am the features has been in used even before the internet banking came to Msia. We can syncronise the features to intergrate with your back end ERP system"

5. Asked the local bank officer " Can I place REPO?" The answer " Cannnnn....our rate is the best in the country wannnnn" Then asked again " Can I place Repo from our accounting system which we will connect to your e banking facility without any hardcopy but with full audit trail and the amount is pooled from our various subsidiaries current accounts all over Msia which is to be disbursed back into respective accounts upon maturity?" You will definitely get a stunned silence for an immediate answer. The definite answer will come to you three weeks later in a form of very formal full page letter just to say NO. Repeat the same question to a foreign bank and you'll get this reply "Yes madam, we are able to do that with a minimal fee. We can also do fund sweeping between different accounts for any length of period. How many currencies are we talking about here?"

Manners please

This is not about my kids manners because they are hopeless in this area. One will throw away his milk bottle to the nearest people's head after he is done and the other one doesn't understand the concept of Ps and Qs. This is about adults manner, as was discussed by a few people in my egroup. One member has a neighbour who think he is so above the common people that he can't open the front gate by himself. Instead, he blared his horn repeatedly until his maid opened the gate for him. Very convenient, huh! Except that the neighbours were so damn annoyed.

Not surprisingly.....I have that neighbour from hell as well across my house. I have absolutely no idea why neighbours from hell insisted to padlock their tiny gate at all time coz as far as I know, even Amri and his friends are able to easily climb the standard gate, let alone full height adults or well trained burglars. These neighbours must have thought they would die a painful death if they were to get out of their car and opened the gate themselves. To top it up, the poor maid must reached the gate within 3 seconds, otherwise a third, fourth and fifth loud horn would be blaring off repeatedly. I could just imagined, the maid, washing up upstairs bathroom and all the while tring to be alert to the sound of a horn and out of the blue, a horn was blaring and poor maid scurriying downstairs, fumbled with the many millions of front door keys, grill keys and what not only to realise later that the horn was coming from a cooking gas delivery lorry.
Why on earth can't the neighbours from hell install auto gate if they were so hard pressed not to step out to open the gate themselves. If it is a rented property....fine....take out your gate and autogate motor when you decided to move or your landlord chased you out (hopefully). If you still need your maid to open the gate within three seconds then call to remind her three seconds before you arrive. Otherwise, just wait for your maid to reach the gate without blaring the horn repeatedly because, unlike you, we lowly citizens do have babies at home. And babies need their nap. A napping baby does not like the sound of your horrible kancil horn, thank you very much. Even for some of us who do not have babies at home, we still do not like your kancil horn because it is so damn rude to be calling your maid with your horn. I believe good manners are applicable to all races.