Rusty brain rejuvenated

It was a rainy morning. A perfect day to go buy our weekly raw materials at Pasar Tani Shah Alam :)

First stop.....a fruit stall. Bought RM13.30 worth of fruits and gave the seller a RM50 note. She asked me back how much the balance should she gave me. Huh? I was very tempted to say RM86.70...just to see whether she'd just trust the customer to do the math. But thought better of it so I just grinned and said RM36.70. The seller happily counted the money and handed me the requested change. Guess that if i were to say some other amount, she might just gave them away.

Proceeded to fresh section. Selected my various fishes (wonder what their names were), prawns, squids and some other sea creatures that I thought I might know how to cook. If I didn't, many kitchen goddesses were just a YM buzz away anyway. The seller weighted them all and packed in many small plastic bags while at the same time telling me the weight and the cost of each. After the third item, I noticed he expected me to add them up. Gulp! So..RM8.50 + RM8.20 + RM16.00. Okay...so far so good. The man paused in the middle of it to toss my big fish to his colleague at the back and asked him to scale it. Proceeded with counting. Paused again. Tossed my fish head to his friend and told him to cut into smaller pieces. I used the time to frantically double checked my calculation. Based on rusty memory, of course. No prices was written down anywhere. Proceeded with addition. Done. 11 types of various sea animals at RM63.20, all that I added up myself without calculator. He gave me 20 cents discount. Perfect.

Made my way to poultry stall. Asked for daging batang pinang. It was RM20 per kg so simple math. Not that any was expected from me. Bought a chicken later without cracking my head either.

Next...vegies. A few different types as usual. The seller had his math in top form. Unfortunately, while in the middle of weighing and counting and stuffing the greens into plastic bag......his assistant interrupted him. Continued. But not before he asked my confirmation on his last sum. Was it RM6.90? Errr.....think so.

I was so hungry after all those counting, I felt a wee bit dissappointed when I saw hubby bought just enough food for breakfast. I needed more.

I was good at math actually. Or used to. Though I once sent an add math teacher crying to staff room and sulked for days. And annoyed a lecturer during my stage 1 CIMA to no end, until she was forced to announce that I was too playful to pass any exam in my life. But then, years of working with calculator and spreadsheet and those amazing softwares had somehow put that part of the brain into sleep mode. I needed a calculator to count 19+5. Untill recently when I started working from home. Under the same roof with two boisterous boys. Who thought calculator was one of their toys. One by one the calculators ended up in their toys chest and drawers. The calculators naturally comitted suicide as soon as they reached there. Till I ended up with none. Then I was forced to mentally count because driving to stationary shop to get another calculator took longer time than trying to use my head for once. It was free too. There was also this hi tea event that i was co-organising where the other committee thought it was fun to have a meeting while dancing to Hips Dont Lie and left the number crunching to me, the ex-accountant. It didn't help either that these bunch of ladies were so full of ideas that they had to run what if scenarios every few minutes with the cost revised accordingly. It was a wonder I never run into a wall or the pillar yet. But I had millions of misstep in the beginning. If that was not enough, I had a husband who did his number crunching at breakfast table and if I didn't follow from the beginning, I wouldn't know where it would end. And of late, I had this habit of mentally doing business plan in the middle of high impact aerobic. Funnily, that was the time when my rejuvenated brain was most alive.

My add math teacher @ jenan would have been very pleased.

Cardio Circuit Training

Do you want to go to the gym but feels encumbered by anxiety & self-consciousness? Do work & a hectic schedule prevent you from having a physically fit & healthy lifestyle? Are you away from home often & miss you your regular aerobics class at the gym? There is no need to fret anymore because cardio circuit training is the answer to all your troubles.

Cardio circuit training is a type of cardio exercise where the individual completes one set of exercise & immediately proceed to the next set in rapid succession & with hardly any rest. Cardio circuit training is unlike any other exercise programs because it is not dependent upon equipments & machines to accomplish the exercises. This means that you can do cardio circuit training in the comfort of your home. You no longer need to worry about beating the traffic just to get to the gym in time, because you know no matter what time you get home you will still be able to do your cardio! The best part of cardio circuit training is the psychological motivation that you give yourself. This time around, exercising will be a personal commitment & not a must-do.

The body is divided into different zones, the Upper, the Middle & the Lower zone. Your goal is to target all these zones one at a time & one after the other with as little rest as possible in between.

• Upper Zone – There are different exercise that focus on the upper zone. Push-ups have always been favored for developing chest muscles, triceps & shoulders and has spawned many variations like the half push-up where elevation only includes the torso & ends at the knees. Dips are also great for shaping the triceps & the chest.

• Middle Zone – The abdominal area has always been a focus of both sexes. There is nothing worse than seeing a bulge in your midsection ruining a great outfit. Crunches & sit-ups have always been revered as the ultimate solution to an unwelcome paunch & it still retains its reputation as the number one abdominal trimmer. Bent knee leg lifts, although a little bit more difficult than sit-ups & crunches, are also very effective at working at those lower abs.

• Lower Zone – The leg is one of the sexiest part of the human anatomy. But a flabby pile of fat wiggling somewhere in your lower zone is never attractive. Cardio exercises such as running, jumping rope & spot running are great ways to firm your lower zone. For additional toning you can also use free weights when you do your lunges & squats.

Cardio circuit training is great for women who want to lose all those extra fat but don’t really want to gain a lot of muscle mass. Women tend to store more body fat than men do, its not their fault that’s just how they are made. Losing weight is therefore a whole lot harder for women than it is for men but cardio circuit training can change all that!

All women want a slimmer, well-toned body that emphasizes a tiny waste & all her womanly curves. And she knows the road to her ideal body is dotted with bumps & obstacles, but with cardio circuit training no woman need to be afraid of exercise anymore! This is the time to say goodbye to those dimpled thighs & wiggly love handles!

Well....easier said/wrote than done though. I've done it twice. First, on early April when huffed and puffed and panted halfway through then practically dragged my feet a quarter of the time before finally gave up the final quarter of the training. Second time was today. I had the benefit of two months worth of exercises to build up stamina. Needless to say...I breezed through the most part of it. But slowed down the last few minutes. Still......nak pengsan!!!!

Truth is...this stuff is great and I'd be happy to do it once in a while, just to see how far could my body could go but, really, not everyday. Not even once a week :)

Apartment for sale

Service apartment for sale:

Apartment Indah, Prima Damansara. 750sf. 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom. With security guard & swimming pool. Selling at RM95k.

Till next holiday...

And so it ended...the shortest balik kampung trip. Amri woke up in the morning and promptly started whining and crying. Fortunately, Tok Kie has already left on a business trip so Amri cut it out pretty quick.

Alif was in tears when we were leaving and refused to come out from his hiding place behind the sofa even though Amri was giving a million of promises about being back again very soon. These two boys had become almost inseperable.

We drove straight to Shah Alam with a few pit stop along the highway. By 4.30...we were already home. By 5pm...I had dinner bubbling on the stove. By 6pm, I was at aerobic class....dancing the accumulated holiday fat away.

Happy Birthday to my other half

No need to mention figures here :)

But all the same, happy birthday to my wonderful husband, banker, best friend, chauffer and basically.... centre of my universe. Aboh & Ummi are surely the happiest and proudest people today. They raised as good a son as any parents could ever wish for.

However, this birthday guy insisted that no birthday cake is good enough for him, which I agreed. So we get full set nasi tomato cooked by mak su for 40 pxs. Plus a side dish of sotong goreng tepung. The best part was that, the ever blur moi finally learnt to make dalca from mak su. She was the fifth person who taught me and the only one who managed to get the message across. The first teacher was of course, my mom. Second was my late Mak Caq, third was my Mak Andak and fourth was my Langkawi Mak Su. All four already gave up on me loooong time ago.

Now...lets just see whether I could cook that dalca for 4 person, instead of 40 (as taught by teacher..hehehe)

Another birthday wishes to my brother in law, Nan, who shared the same birthday with his brother as well as to another brother in law, Abg Fazli whose birthday is on 6th.

A day to eat

Felt so good to wake up in a different room to a different sound. Our room at Ummi's house was so dark and soundproof that I didn't realise it was almost 9! Hubby was already long gone. The boys bunked in with me and slept like a log. It was so cold......none of us felt like taking shower. So we had our breakfast first. Nasi dagang, of course. The boys immediately went missing after breakfast. No shower needed. It was, afterall, holiday at Tok Kie's house. If Ibu went mad, they could always ran to Tok Kie, or Tok Mie, or Ayah Long, or Tok Su...or the whole kampung for that matter. Hmph!

Time sure moved slower at kampung...dunno why. I felt like I've done a million things and yet, it wasn't even noon. Ummi cooked ketupat sotong for us but for lunch, we all went to two different kenduri kahwin. The whole family actually was bored to death with anything to do with sotong, reason being that this was 'musim mencandat sotong' and you could find all kind of squids imaginable. But for us, plus Cu Nan, all the way from Shah Alam....this was heaven. Couldn't help it but we kept coming up with all things sotong that we wanted to eat and of course, Ummi felt obliged to dish them up. My sis in law said, she couldn't even looked at the squid without feeling nauseated. Gee.....that bad? It sure would be fun if we could bbq some sotongs but still nevertheless, we had our ketupat sotong and sotong goreng today.

Adam and Amri were gone most of the time, alternating between their cousins house, Che Non's house and Tok Su's house.

Balik kampung......

to Losong.........

Birthday wishes to a brother

Dear Ajoe....

Happy 23rd Birthday!!!!!!! Hope you realised it in between your go-kart project as well as house painting project. Mak, Abah and Kak Cik wishes you the same too. And oh...all of us think that you should reactivate that handphone, ok. Sure, email & YM are fine with us, but nothing beats an SMS. Of course, Mak needs to nag about a few things too, so a phone no is of an utmost importance.

Many Happy Returns. Looking forward to see you at the end of the month :)

Apartment to let

Service apartment to let @Pangsapuri Pesona, Permatang Pauh, Seberang Perai Utara. 3 bedroom, 2 bath. Rent : RM400 pm. Deposit 2+1.

Amneties : Security guard, multi purpose hall, playground,
Near UiTM, Politechnic, Carrefour

All in a day's life

Caution : Contained disgusting stuff and terribly boring.

Amri had fever so he was terribly unhappy when I had to leave him in the morning. But as soon as I reached home, he demanded to be driven around for a ride. Adam of course, hopped in as well...invited or not.

We barely leave our street when Amri said he needed to pee. So okay, I made a u-turn to home and Amri was whining that he really, really needed to pee now. We reached home all right but..... hehehehe......guess what????? Aveo's backseat has been turned into a toilet. Partially anyway. Grosssss!!!!!!

Luckily bibik handled the cleaning up without too much fuss. So I proceeded with dishing up express lunch. Just after I finished laying out gourmet lunch, put away the marinated beef for dinner use and start up the notebook, hubby called and guess what???????

Yay!!!!!!!! We'll be going out for da vinci code at gsc midvalley.

Took out the premature marinated beef and nuked it for hubby's lunch. Took a quick shower, dressed up, pumped in some more paracetamol into Amri and ready for lunch. Only to have hubby said that he was not coming in for lunch but lets just go immediately. Kesian itu beef.

We had lunch at midvalley anyway. And bought the promised power rangers t-shirt for the boys. Two pairs each. So that bibik wont be harassed about the shirt every time she had to wash them.

Bumped into long lost friend...Che Diin! She saw me first and recognised me despite I was 15kg more than she remembered. That girl! She still looked like the mischievous 16 year old and sound like one too. Amazing!

Da Vinci Code was great. Only that Tom Hanks would always equal to Forrest Gump to me. The big, ugly hair didn't help either.

Went for a bit of window shopping after the movie. Hubby couldn't find his favourite CJ shop so we just went back to metrojaya instead then bumped into hubby's old colleague. Really, did everybody just hang around midvalley on wednesday?

Reached home quite late and found out Adam with a bit of temperature. Amri was a lot better.

And also...bibik informed us that Adam's formula was totally finished. Oppsss...sorry Adam. Ibu forgot to buy. Well....just drink all those free cans of formula, ok. Somebody gotta finish all those.

Lotsa thank yous to hubby:
....for the wonderful date
....for the movie though I knew you were not really into that
....for my stock of S*II product (can't afford to buy them myself anymore)
....for the new reebok lycra pants and tops (my previous ones had become baggy, either from numerous washes or I had shrunk to one size smaller)

Movie matter

Many members were missing from class today, most of whom had went to watch da vinci code. I'd like to go too but certainly not on first day, or first week for that matter. And I don't really enjoy sitting in the arctic gold class. Brrrrr...... I'd be shivering from start till the end. Blanket???? I do not want somebody else's blanket, no matter how sterile. Plus.....watching movie bundled in a blanket did not spell fun time to me.

So I'll wait till next week and see whether I can manage to persuade hubby to go with me.

Sembang pagi

I was discussing some annual dance matters with a bunch of ladies when all of sudden this one kindly lady tap me on the shoulder and asked whether I've graduated yet. I gaped at her.

My first thought : I must have looked so young to be mistaken for fresh graduate

My second thought : Okay....maybe I looked like somebody finishing her phd or her 10th bachelor degree

My third and final thought : Could be mistaken identity case .....

Rearranged my face and told her that...no, I had graduated centuries ago but if she was looking for students, there are two of them in the club. One is Miss A, doing her master in medical something and is currently is attached at HKL. The other is the funky international student Ms S who is a superb dancer but I've forgotten what her major is. I think something to do with drama or theater. Rarely seen though...both of them.

The lady laughed and said that she heard from somebody that I was an ex accountant on looong study leave. And could the ex accountant please recommend any of her jobless friend for a vacancy at her place.

So it happened that she is looking for Internal Audit Executive. Anybody interested, email me your resume. Unfortunately, the company works alternate Saturday and the candidate is expected to travel extensively throughout Malaysia.

Err....I forgot to ask what was the company name. But, it was at Section 26 Shah Alam.

A day for teachers

HAPPY TEACHERS DAY

I helped Amri with present for his teacher as well as a card. He didn't want ready made card. Said he wanted to make it himself and draw his picture at the front and write a few millions words of nice things to his teacher.

After many discarded papers later, we compromised. We made a card using publisher, say a few nice things, inserted his picture and print in colour. He wrote his name and his teacher name by himself though I spelled out letter by letter to him.

A day for mothers

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL MOMMIES

Another trekking day

This time to the next door Bukit Cahaya Sri Alam aka Bukit Cerakah. Haven't been here for quite some time. The last was when hubby and I organised a reunion for x-PKL students last year. Amri and Adam seemed to enjoy the trip to FRIM last month and kept asking for more. I'm just glad they did. I'd just die if they turned out to be like Auntie Chik's students who peed in their pants during night jungle trekking. They were 12 year olds and for goodness sake, just a feet away from the pavement. Hardly a jungle. God forbid, my sons were not going to be anything like that.

Back to the trip....I planned to walk all the way in but Amri and Adam saw the bus and were so excited I didn't have the heart to say no. Adam especially. Never been on a bus, none that he could remember anyway. We board down at Taman Haiwan and paid a visit to all the animals there.
The kids had a great time feeding the deer. Hubby and I thought all the animals looked starving. They didn't have leftover food on their plate like those animals at KL Bird Park & Zoo Negara.

From animal farm, we took a leisure walk to the pool as well....our reunion spot last year. Luckily Adam & Amri didn't insist to take a dip. Things looked a bit better off than last year.

R&R


Canopy walk. The kids really frightened me by running all the way to the end. Gosh! Thank God the holes in the net securing the sides of the canopy were small enough to prevent the boys from accidently fall through them. Thing is, when they ran, I had to run as well to catch them. Then the canopy would sway like crazy. Imagine a hippo running on the planks...that would be close enough picture.

The boys were too tired to walk so we waited for the bus. Amri was exaggerating anyway.

Amri learning that rice originated from paddy, not tesco

Icecream on hot sunny day

June Tea Dance

Oookaaaay ladies....here we go. The annual hi tea organised by my fitness centre. Could be the last though because the owner is closing down the place *sob*.

Date : 17 June 2006 (Saturday - after school holiday)
Time : 1.00 pm to 5.30 pm
Venue : Holiday Villa Subang (anybody can help me get a better price here?)
Price : RM60 per pax
Dress code : Mama Rockers (die...die...i can't get into jeans yet)
Strictly ladies only

The members ruled out belly dancing because they already did that last year. So, it'll be hip hop and perhaps latin dance show by us. There'll be karaoke, games, contest, lotsa food, lucky draw and of course....dance till you drop.

Come and join the fun! I still have a lot of tickets to sell.

Parent Teacher Day @ Little Caliph

I used to dread this kind of day. Truth was...I still dreaded it a little bit. I knew Amri would never be one of those bright overachievers. Not yet anyway. I was not into pressuring him to excel academically...there will be enough time for that in the future. But I need him to be able to read decently and count money.

I went there late. In fact, i was the last parent. Well...no matter. Teachers could speak to me for as long as they wanted to.

Surprise....surprise! Amri had done fairly well. He read well, suddenly becoming good at hafazan & qiraati class, a lot less troublemaker and flunked math grandly :) Well...I guess I just had to teach him math my way. Somehow, he had acquired a longer attention span, perhaps due to maturity and peer influence. He was overpossessive of his stuff, which surprised me, because at home, he was a big mess and couldn't care less of his things. Teachers said he kept his things neatly at his locker and did not hesitate to get into fist fight if any poor soul ever touch his stuff without his permission. Really...that was new. Perhaps because at home he has bibik to pick up after him and his only rival is Adam...whom he considered to young to be punched.

I just hope that Amri would try reasoning many, many time first before he decided to punch anybody's nose. I'm getting really nervous now.....

Twist of fate

I went for morning aerobic and the instructor told me that the buyer for her fitness equipments was hospitalised for brain tumor. Emergency operation this Friday. Due to that, the instructor was postponing her plan to close down the centre until her buyer get back on her feet. Oh my....

I didn't know what to feel. It was bad that the buyer ended up with brain tumor. And a big one at that. She was just 42 and so full of life. Already had her fitness centre at Bangi fully decorated. Just waiting for the equipments. She'll either has to postpone or scrape it altogether.

Well...if she postpone than I'll have to postpone my plan as well. If she scrape her plan to open her own fitness centre, then perhaps I could buy the equipments from the instructor and do something with it.

Just wait and see.

Oh no....

Hopefully I wont get addicted into this. Found it at Elisa's blog, decided to try out and gee....can't snap out of it. Already Amri was harassing me to do him & Adam. Did the picture look like me? Perhaps so....after deducting 50% off my current weight and age :) Well...who cares. It was fun. Amri certainly agreed it really looked like me. Most probably because that was what I was wearing now...hihihi. The luxury of blogging and wearing whatever ridiculous clothes that took my fancy....aaahhhh.

That was not entirely true however. I was dressed up in gym suit because I needed to go off early to aerobic today. The ladies were having a meeting for annual dinner/hi tea or whatever they'll decide later. See....my fitness club has annual dinner :) And I was the committee member. Truth is, I'm not entirely sure of what am i supposed to do/organise. Belly dancing contest?

M.I.A

Nothing to do with chartered accountants anyway. I was referring to stuffs in our house that went missing-in-action from time to time. I have come to accept that as another facts of life when it come to living under the same roof with two undiciplined boys and not so competent maid. Many small items have went missing before...watches, cds, dvds, ring, feeding bottle, toothbrush, books, hairclips, broochs, screwdriver, lipstick, thumbdrive and a million other stuffs. More often than not, I'd be able to find them after I ransacked the places where the maid and the boys dumped stuffs in. Or they simply reappeared with no reason.

Well....not this time. The wretched pen decided to stay MIA even after I turned the house upside down. Not once, not twice...but many, many times. Every nook and cranny. Sheesh!!!! As if I didn't have anything better to do.

But then...the search itself was not difficult. It is a small house anyway. What made it a bitter pill to swallow was the fact that a peek inside my bags was deemed necessary in order to locate the stupid pen. Have I gone that absentminded not to notice that big ugly pen inside my bag which only carry a pilot pen at its most extravagant days?

Yes, admittedly...most of HIS belongings ended up as HER stuffs. Sunglasses, notebook, digicam, books, bank account, camera but honestly....a pen? Didn't it fell under the same category as belt and briefcase and shoes? Expensive and showy but hardly a unisex stuffs.

Maybe I should reconsider those web surveillance thingy. Or send the boys and bibik to 5S training.