b.o.d.y.a.c.h.e.s

Ouchhhh....

Yesterday bodyworks was fantastic (at that time). Haven't done serious strength training for ages. And today I'm paying for it...kehkehkeh....feels 90 years old on every single inch of me.

Ouch again. Especially on stairs part.

Decided to skip step aerobics today. Need a break from body torture. At least until I get me strength back. Quite a long way to go though...am still at 2 kg dumbell. I so want to be able to pump iron bar like last time.

The gray area of striking a balance

I read an article today about how some top executives were lamenting about their so called over flexi working arrangement which ended up with them working 24x7.

Well.

I worked 24x7 too but unlike them, my annual package is definitely not 7 digits. And unlike them, my 24x7 working hours totalled less than 40 hours per week. Heheh...you win some, you lose some.

I worked for a multinational organisation which runs like an ER. Almost everyone is on call (the cleaner does not). There is always emergency at any one time (read : revenue). I go everywhere with blackberry attached like an appendage. I tot around laptop during holidays. I do not have any specific working hours. I read and reply to emails at ungodly hours. I've had to recrunch numbers that already been crunched beyond recognition on Saturday morning because someone is US did not agree with it on their Friday. But I love it. I love every boring second of it. And most people find it hard to believe. Those few who believe, asked me for time management tips.

Anyway. There is no specific tip. I just got lucky to stumble into a kind of environment that I thrive in . I managed to mash home and office nicely. The famous flexi hour allows me to fool around with my boys (young and old) and occasionally with girlfriends while sticking to my 40 hours per week. I work from home occasionally, when I think I can stand Aqil bugging me. Most time, it is wiser to hide in office and bring part of your home affairs to workplace. Things like organising birthday party, stalking the boys facebook, harassing the husband, searching for recipe, emailing the teachers, online shopping or holiday planning are best if done at office. Again, must remember 40 hours/week rule. Integrity must always be intact. Anything less will deign you a thief. Work at 3am if you must but the pledged 40 hours must be accounted for.

But of course, I take some measure to ensure this from the beginning. I can still remember years ago, after being offered a job here, I made a call to office at 5.30pm, for a few days straight and again on Saturday. If someone pick it up, then I was going to turn down the offer, or at least, will not stay past my probationery period. Thank God the phone kept on ringing. Thank God, a few years later, no one is staying in office after 5pm (save for a staff who carpool with his brother so has to wait for the other).

So far so good. I get to attend all school functions, be home/school in a jiffy if one of the boys is taken ill, have time for parties with my girlfriends, occasional lunch date and movie with husband, read tonnes of books and whenever the mood strike, put on my mad cook hat.

All this at the price of having a rather significant less pay than my friends at KLCC...muahahahaha.....but seriously, my leisure time is priceless. No way i'm giving it up.

The rare race to office

Phew!

Almost thought I couldn't made it. There was a webex session scheduled at 8.30am. I rarely arrived at 8.30 am, much less with enough time to set up my laptop for video conference. And i wasnt entirely sure whether my new blackberry could handle web conferencing and even if it did, no way i'm showing my face while driving.

But the boys were fuss free this morning and by 7.00am both of them were already in the car. No last minute toilet call or missing smartcard. And the road was clear all the way. The boys clocked in at 7.23 am - the earliest this year. Hopefully they stay put in their respective classes until HRT showed up.

The road to Sunway Damansara was okay too. Queue jumpers havent arrived there yet, I guessed. So I managed to make it to office by 8.00am. Had to move to meeting room since I was told to invite 4 other staffs to join the video conference and my minuscule office could only accomodate the not so minuscule me. Some 20 minutes later, everything were up and running. Laptop nicely connected to projector and a speakerphone, BB put on silent, crap instant coffee made, make up and jacket put on and madam sit back and prepared to listen to latest company strategic direction whatever from the other side of the world.

Tuned out (while looking sharp and clever)

Regress aging

Honestly.

I have more pimples now (a month before 38th birthday) than when I was 18.

Anyone want to analyse my blood and hormon to find cure for aging and wrinkles?

Overheard

Last night, while I was putting Aqil down to sleep, I heard Amri asked his father whether he could bring the laptop during our holiday trip this coming Wednesday. And for the past few days, he was coming up with numerous excuses on why he should not be travelling with us. H1N1 was amongst them.

I guessed he ran out of excuses and simply resigned to the fact that he will be stuck with his vacationing family for five glorious days. But if he can't escape, the least he could do is improvise. His idea of entertainment are FB and a few gazillion online games.

Hmmm...

And he is only 9. I wonder what is in store five years from now.

In a way, he is very much like me. Except, at 9 years old, I had my nose buried in a book. A few gazillion books.

Now that I think of it, I am a lot worse than he is at the moment. I have half a nose buried in a book and another half stuck to a laptop. Perhaps I should take up new hobbies, like watching tv and bake cakes. But,I am just afraid that I will end up doing all of above at the same time and forget to turn up at work.

a mokcik point of view

Some times ago, I read somewhere (probably newspaper) about a telco client who was not too happy to receive his refund via foreign bank cheque. He was saying something along the line of patriotism of using local bank which had more branches everywhere.

Point taken. We all should support local products.

For one thing, bank negara regulates the number of branches these foreign banks are allowed to open. For another, an organisation as huge as the said telco might need more banking facilities than just issuing cheques. Probably for the ease of internet banking especially when your organisation has huge number of outlets and branches but one centralised finance / cash management unit. You'll need the ease of swapping all cash from all location to be invested overnight and returned to their respective location on the next day. And the need for secured and reliable foreign currency remittance for overseas investment or payment to overseas suppliers (or payment of loan/other debts). Or probably that bank also offered the best rate for financing. Plus corporate credit card. And probably, for the reason of outsourced cheque printing and delivery. It was easier and cheaper to generate the list of creditors to pay, send over to the bank and have the bank print the cheques, payment vouchers and mailed them out than to hire an entire department of accounts payable staffs.

Of course, local banks offered all those cash management thingy too. Only you'd have to be very, very patient and often had to grit your teeth. Or in my case, I was grinding my teeth on top of the first two. So, afraid that my teeth would soon turn to powder, I jumped ship. That is, I changed to foreign bank. But of course, for the obvious reason, I still maintained local bank for payroll purpose. Needless to say, my teeth are no longer in any danger of dissappearing except for biological reason.

But then again, it was just my point of view, a mokcik who rarely venture out from the comfort of her finance world.

Recharging

Look at Adam. Isn't he sweet? Hanging toys at Aqil brand new playgym. A gift from hubby's friend. Aqil is now 3 months old and still receiving gift....I am so jealous. Honestly people, how about giving a gift to me as well? I am badly in need of everything new too.

The closest I can get to a smile. He was not going to smile actually but rather, fretting noisily.

My life has started to return back to its normal, pre-pregnancy routine. Almost. Saturday morning is about going for a breakfast with Amri, send him to Dyslexia Association at USJ then straight to Section 6 wet market. Breakfast would be better if we could go to Amy Cafe TTDI Jaya like old time but both of us had spent too much time in the bathroom thus had to make do with BJ mamak restaurant.

Hope I can do some serious cardio and weight training soon. 6 months seems rather too long to wait.

I had a bad day

Hmmph! I declared today as the worst day of the week. It started at 9.30am with a conference call and went seriously downhill afterwards. At the end of the day, I was a complete wreck and longed for nothing else except to curl into a ball and weep pitifully. Privately of course. Instead, the tears refused to wait a bit longer and I broke down inside the car. Thank God I was not driving. Oh well, I guessed it made no difference whether I wept in the car with my husband or at the privacy of my room at home. He was bound to come across me sooner or later. As it happened, I received no comforting words from hubby, who apparently had plenty of issues of his own. Nor did I expect any. It would probably made me weep longer :) But, but ...a big bear hug would be very nice wouldn't it. Though I wonder how we were going to manage that while speeding down NKVE highway in heavy rain.

Okay...time to restartegise. Do it different way. Get some help from other bosses since my own boss decided to leave me in the mess and go for a vacation instead. 2 weeks, no less. And froze my leave from 21st Dec onwards.

Haha.

Very funny. I did not really have any new strategy up my sleeve. Nor did I have the energy to think of one. I would just enjoy the weekend, play monopoly with the boys and go see some movie. And only worry about my future after 8.30 Monday morning.

By hook or by crook, I have to wrap up everything by Tuesday. Because, by Wednesday we'll be off to Langkawi....woohooo......about the only cheerful thing I have at the moment. The last thing I want is holidaying with a laptop attached like an extra limb. And it is not even for a pleasurable endeavour of playing chef at FB cafe or blogging :)

I am still seething over the frozen leave though. How could he? True I do not celebrate Christmas and I had just came back from 'enjoying' 2 months break. But I was saving the leave to spend with the boys during school holiday. Help....

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...

And I am furious enough. With one cancelled anniversary lunch at 1world, one cancelled birthday party, one cancelled weekend class, one CP204 that i have to re-do (fortunately not for the main company) plus a secretary and a despatch that have to cancell their annual leave and numerous other cancelled smaller events....

Yep...you bet that I am channeling all that negative energy into formulating revenge. Not just one off revenge but more of a lifelong payback. Just you wait...

I've been married for 10 years!

I still find it hard to believe. Even after 10 years, I felt like I barely knew my husband safe for the fact that he is everything I ever wish for a husband.

Thanks dear, for the lovely gift. What I really want is one of those ridiculuosly expensive diamond ring but my fingers are still not back to their normal size. So, this will do very well indeed.

Happy 10th anniversary.







p/s - we'll do our anniversary lunch some other time, okay :)

Turning nocturnal, painfully

*sigh*

Night feeding sucks.

I guess most mothers with an infant are nocturnal creatures at least for the first 6 months or so. Myself included. With a couple of additional catch. First, I'm not able to fall back into sleep after the first round of night feeding. Or if I'm lucky enough to be able to do that, it will be hours afterwards. Second, since I'm wide awake at 3 oclock in the morning, my stomach will demand breakfast about one hour later. Naturally, I'll just ignore it. And by 5 am, i'll be rolling over in pain because my gastric problem has now decided to make a major comeback. By 8am, i'll be eating a nice hearty breakfast and by 9am, will be vomitting them out into office toilet bowl.

Repeat the cycle again in 24 hours.

Really, I haven't vomitted that much during pregnancy. And i wonder why, with that much pain and vomitting, I haven't lost any weight. And i also wonder if i avoid breakfast, can i avoid the vomitting as well. Surely bibik will be very happy if i tell her that i'll only be eating antacid for breakfast and please don't bother with all those scrambled egg or toast or nasi goreng.

*sigh*

I sure am cranky, sleepy and dehydrated (and somewhat deranged) woman today.

Warning - big fat whining lady is here till 9 Sept

After weeks of keeping my mouth firmly shut and my fingers away from keyboard, I've decided that my blog is the best place on earth to whine about my pregnancy blues. I'd rather talk with human but I can't seem to find anyone non-judgemental or one who could listen without giving me a religious sermon instead, family members included.

So there, you are forewarned. Please go away and come back one month from now if you can't handle this. Or organised a street demo.

Feeling the blues

I skipped my 6th month appointment with gynae today. Reason being - I was beginning to feel like some sort of a single mom. Always showed up alone for appointments. Sometimes with one of the boys, which did not help much to cheer me up. Moreover, I feel absolutely fine (read: no less miserable than the past 25 weeks)

On the other hand, I rather enjoyed having the big bed all to myself.










Amri serenading Ibu

My new baby

Not of the human species though...:)

My much awaited built in shoe cabinet. Finally installed on Sunday. Ironically, my last shoe purchase was wayyyy back in February, when I needed something flat and sensible (read: boring). I've also noticed my feet was going to get bigger and I really did not want to spoil the shape of the shoes I have at that time. Especially my boots.

I've stopped buying shoes since then. But looking at this shoe cabinet, I'm getting the itch again. Adoila. If I buy any shoes now, I might not be able to wear it post delivery, when my poor feet shrunk back to their normal size. Hmmph. And now, since all the shoes are housed in the same cabinet, i've noticed that hubby has more shoes than I do. How come? I'm feeling rather shoes deprived right now, which can't be good for the unborn baby, don't you think?

I've located two more nice cozy place to put another shoe cabinets but put it away as 2010 project. We'll have another tiny person to buy shoes for and hopefully I'll be back to the previous size that could accomodate high heels without having the risk of broken heel.

Looking forward to add built in bookshelves next.

The day I turned 35

Today I am one year older and still none the wiser but of course, grumpier than ever.

Adding to the grumpiness is the fact that i had very little sleep last night in between sneezing, gasping for oxygen whenever both air passage were blocked and get this, i let my not so little darling adam slept with me. On my bed. Reason being, he injured his feet during one of his cycling stunt.

Now here, I am not one of those supermommies who enjoy having their kids co-sleeping with them. Honestly, I'd have put the kids in their own room from day 1, if not for the inconvenience of stumbling around all night long for nightime feeding and diaper changing.

Anyway. Adam does not have Amri's high threshold for pain. He looked so pitiful that I finally gave in and let him sleep beside me. Big mistake. King size bed or not, there was no escape from his super active limbs. He slept like he was seriously practising tae kwon do and gymnastic at the same time. I was sorely tempted to push him down to the carpet.

This morning he declared he was not fit enough to go to kindy. I agreed because his ankle was kind of swollen and I doubted he could wear his socks and shoe. But a YM to hubby later revealed that he was cycling outside all morning and now was watching the contractor fixing our auto gate. Hmmph!

Blissful Sunday

I woke up in the morning without headache and just a very mild stuffy nose, which was a rarity indeed. Maybe I should do this every morning - gradually inched my way out of bed sometime after 9 am.

Feeling a lot better in weeks, I gave bibik the day off and sent her to giant for her monthly shopping. Then nagged the big boss to drive me around town. Managed to buy one thing out of a few hundreds that i planned to buy plus a whole lot more that I've never intended to purchase. So far so good.

I just wish that I could have more days like today. Then I wouldn't be so grumpy and whiny

Stuffy nose during pregnancy

Why do I feel congested all the time?

Believe it or not, it's pretty common to have a runny or stuffed-up nose during pregnancy. About 20 to 30 percent of pregnant women have congestion without having allergies or a viral infection like the common cold. This condition even has a name: rhinitis of pregnancy. It can start as early as your second month and last until you have your baby or even a few weeks afterward.Higher amounts of estrogen during pregnancy can contribute to swelling in the mucous membranes lining the nose and even cause you to make more mucus. What's more, the amount of blood in your body increases and your blood vessels expand during pregnancy, which can lead to swollen nasal membranes as well. Other hormones may also play a role.

How can I tell if my congestion is due to my pregnancy or to something else?
If you have no other symptoms, it's probably rhinitis of pregnancy. If your stuffy nose is accompanied by sneezing, coughing, a sore throat, mild aches and pains, or possibly swollen glands or a fever, you probably do have a cold or another infection.On the other hand, if you have symptoms such as sneezing and itchy eyes, nose, throat, or ears along with your congestion, then allergies are a likely culprit. Pregnancy can make your allergies worse or cause you to be sensitive to allergens and other irritants that never bothered you before.Of course, you won't always be able to tell what's causing your congestion, and it's possible that there's more than one cause. For example, you could be suffering from allergies as well as rhinitis of pregnancy.

What can I do for relief?
Remember to drink plenty of fluids and keep your head elevated at night. These measures can also be helpful:• Steam can temporarily relieve congestion and it's often very soothing. Take a warm shower and hang out for a while afterward in the steamy bathroom. Or moisten a washcloth with hot water, hold it up to your face, and breathe.• Try saline nose drops or a buffered saline nasal spray, available over the counter at the drugstore. Spritz or drip a bit into each nostril and within five or ten minutes you should be able to blow your nose more easily.• Use a humidifier or vaporizer to put more moisture into the air and keep it near your head at night. Be sure to follow the cleaning instructions that came with your humidifier. Change the water daily since it can become a breeding ground for bacteria. You'll need to replace the filter often as well.• Avoid potential irritants, such as cigarette smoke and alcohol (which you should already be avoiding!) and sudden temperature changes. Also avoid exercising outdoors on days when there's a lot of air pollution.

Are there any medications I can take?
If congestion continues to make you miserable, tell your practitioner about your symptoms and ask which medications are safe for you to try. It's generally best to avoid taking any medications during your first trimester, when your baby's organs are forming.If your practitioner says it's okay, you can try a decongestant. Avoid overusing decongestant nasal sprays, though, because they can cause rebound inflammation and make your congestion much worse

Source : www.babycentre.com

*sigh*

I'm living with this for weeks now. Nasal spray doesn't really work. And the so called safe medication make me drowsy but does not help me to sleep. I am so miserable that I felt like applying for unpaid leave until the day i give birth. But I guess, staying at home will make it worse since my next door neighbour is doing major renovation and across the road, contruction for dPuncak bungalows is in full swing. And so does the dust that come with it. Plus, not all part of my house is airconditoned. I'm better off in my office.

*sigh*

18 more weeks.

Halfway there

I have gone through a miserable 19 weeks.

Another 19 weeks to go. I'm due on 9/9/09

Hoping for better weeks to come.

eMBA6 reunion

We hosted a reunion for x-eMBA6 group at our home. Some of the photos are here, but the rest will be in the yahoogroup. I think I'll need someone to help me draw a proper road map. Giving direction was a pain.


Makan time. We had roti jala, meehoon, chili con carne and chicken kebab.

Some of the ladies















Some of the gentlemen

To mamarock, thanks for the heavenly brownie. It arived just in time when my muffins were almost gone. I didn't dare to bake a large batch due to the missing kitchen scale. And of course, agak-agak the quantity has never been my strong skill.

Faiz testifying mamarock's brownie. Serious, it was delicious. And it came with the porcelein bowl.

To the rest, thanks for coming despite the rain and the sesat all around BJ case. And many,many thanks for the gifts, though it was a reunion, not a housewarming party. Hope all of you had a good time.

Hiatus over

Quite a long break I have.

Well, to answer some questions...nope, I was not out of country. I was not even out of town. I was just busy baking little muffin. Since I was not much of baking person, this little muffin caused a big chaos into my not so orderly life. Many thanks to bibik who always came to my rescue.

But I'm slowly coming up for air. And, silly as it might sound, am back enjoying driving on the most right lane on nkve. Been out of action for quite some time.

Am glad to be back.