stila curse

i cannot believe i went crazy over stila. and after all that rambling about not liking stila, about not ever going to buy stila, about being totally uninterested in stila, bla bla bla~ (yada yada yada, yeah, what a load of total crap).

i blame stila for bringing out items one at a time.
i blame stila for not bringing out the items that i want.
i blame stila for tempting me to get other things apart from what's in my list.
i blame stila for making me wait like an idiot at the counter just to get first dibs on hot selling items.
i blame stila for making my wallet emptier.
i blame stila for closing down in Malaysia.

hahahahha. i should blame myself really. but they're going really cheap. sigh.

anyway, here's a photo of my stash!


damages incurred:
1. kajal eye liner in amethyst
2. stila makeup case
3. angel fit whitening powder foundation + compact
4. eye shadow trio gold glow
5. stila petal infusions eye makeup dissolver
6. long wear lip color in flushed
7. convertible eye color in indigo and onyx
8. stila oil-free sheer color tinted moisturizer
9. stila blush brush #1
10. stila pink tin (collector's item)

i guess i'm gonna hafta postpone my plan to get an SSC =P.

eight month old Dayana

my little girl is 8 months old! but Daddy's in Dubai at the moment, though. don't worry, will take more photos of her to show (and i really need to get around to developing them).

here's her 8 months milestone:

1. i dunno how much she weighs because her next immunization isn't until her first birthday. so no weighing machine available.

2. she sleeps on her side sometimes. before falling asleep she will twist and turn for a bit before she settles herself to sleep. sometimes she overdoes it and flops over on to her tummy. usually i'll have to stop her from doing this if not she'll never fall asleep. she sleeps with her Chewy =D

3. she doesn't smile at just anyone now. she'll peer at you very carefully at first before deciding if you're friend or foe. if you're friend, she'll give you her gummy grin. if you're foe, she'll keep giving you the icy stare.

4. despite the smile-factor, she's more accepting towards strangers, i've noticed. i find it amazing that she didn't kick up a fuss with the maid on the first day she arrived at the house. if we go to my inlaws place it'll take a while before she warms up to the members of the family.

5. she just found out that she has a very powerful voice. the past week she's been testing her voice power by belting out mariah carey screams. hahahaha. i noticed this development last week when my maid first started taking care of her while Mommy and Daddy go to work.

6. apart from screaming, she meniaraps at every opportunity. so far we need more than 2 pairs of eyes to keep tabs on her. if we put her down on the floor mat, the next thing you know she'd be stuck under a table or the nearest piece of furniture. beats me how she does it. backward slither, perhaps? =P

daddyy i'm stuck! =(

7. she's more accustomed to eating now. and in bigger quantities too. my maid feeds her porridge twice a day. she poops twice a day as well, i think. i noticed when i get home from work there will always be a dirty diaper waiting specially for yours truly to change. i think she does that on purpose, haha *shudders at the thought of having to wash a poopified CD*.

mommy stop taking my photo and put on my diaper now please~

8. she wants to play with other things apart from her toys. i suspect she's bored with her collection already *hint hint*. and everything must pass her QC - mouth first.

9. she had her first hair fringe trim! her hair texture is really fine and soft, curled into little ringlets, a trait that make babies seem even cuter. in fact, i think she looks just like her Daddy when he was little. but i hope that it'll eventually straighten out. wouldn't want her to inherit the curliness from the other side of the family. wavy pun dah cukup.

see how funky my hair is! lol

10. recently i tried giving her milk using her MAM bottle. when she was younger she'd accept any bottle. but when i handed her the bottle, she only chewed on the teat and refused to drink. when i transferred the milk into her usual Avent bottle, mau pulak she minum. haiz.

11. she's outgrowing most of her clothes already. now she can fit Carter's 6 months, and is about to outgrow Mothercare 0-3 months (lol). her grandparents have already bought a couple of sleeping outfits for her, 6-12 months size. i'm on a mission to utilize every single outfit that she has before she outgrows them completely.

mommy now that i'm about to outgrow this dress, can i get new ones?

did i miss out anything? when Dayana turns 9 months old i plan to get her some stacking rings and a soft shapes sorter. and some boardbooks too =P.

excuse me. i want to go nuts over stila first.

my new ring sling

this is just great. i'm addicted. i just wish i had gotten addicted to this first before cloth diapering. i'd have done my money better justice =P.

my first baby carrier i bought for myself is Littlepods pouch, made by a local Malaysian mom. i made this purchase about 2 months after Dayana was born. i was still blur to the whole idea of babywearing and i had yet to get addicted to online forums so i wasn't very choosy over my first carrier. lol. i wanted one in red but they didn't have it in my size =(. the store owner suggested buying L size, saying that some mothers prefer pouches that were a size bigger. when i went home to try it out, i could practically fit three Dayanas in there. hahah. i immediately took it back to the store to get an exchange, settling for S size. but even S size was still big for me (that's the problem with small lean people. people envy us for having a high metabolism rate but i don't see what's so great about it because it's difficult to get sizing!).

now that we have a maid to help with the housework and the baby while i'm at work, i've loaned the maid my pouch so that she'll be able to look after her as well as getting the household chores done. but the idea of sharing a pouch isn't too appealing to me as i'd have to wash it everytime i wanna use it. at least i had a reason to get a new baby carrier =P. so the search for a second third baby carrier began. lol.

been eyeing Hotslings pouch for a long time, but because of the hefty price i decided against it =(. Molina carried Hotslings in her store, but the design i wanted in my size wasn't available. then i looked into ring slings. indonesian maids would usually gendong the little ones using kain batik lepas, but i have no idea where to get one. since ring slings have been getting very good reviews in the forums, and they're adjustable too, i thought of giving ring slings a try. after asking around for information from some of the local moms, i decided to get one from Syaz. she was having a sale on her blog so i managed to grab one before they were all out. my intention of getting this ring sling was for my maid to use so that i wouldn't have to share my Littlepods anymore.

Everyday Hostling in NYC

but i fell in love with the ring sling as soon as i opened the package and laid eyes on it for the first time. the ring sling was made from linen material in an earthy color (more guni-ish if you ask me =P), with pink trimmings to match its hot pink sling rings. terus tak jadi to give it to my maid to use, hahah. went back home immediately to try it out. Syaz helped me to alter the tail to a shorter length so that it wouldn't sapu lantai. the ring sling had a handy pocket sewn on the tail to chuck in small items like your purse, keys, etc. i like =D.

my new Jumpsac RS!

me and my little girl!

however i don't think i've quite mastered the technique of using a ring sling yet. i wore my daughter in the ring sling to Ikea with my mom and sister earlier today, and i started to get mild back pain (or was it shoulder pain?) after an hour or so. and when i do the hip carry position i notice Dayana gets slight reddish marks on her legs. i wonder if that's normal or not. i have yet to get her into a comfortable sleeping position in the sling too, because she fell asleep in the sling for a while, but my mom commented that she looked a bit uncomfortable with her head flopped to one side.

there were sooo many people at Ikea, i really don't know what is it with people and Ikea. there were alot of families pushing strollers with their kids in tow, and some parents were walking around carrying their sleeping child in their bare arms. i didn't bring my stroller because 1) it's bulky and too heavy for me to handle alone, and 2) it's a niusance to maneuver a stroller among the throngs of shoppers in Ikea who don't even care whether they ram their shopping carts into your feet or not. i wonder why those parents would rather carry their kids until their arms fall off instead of investing in a decent baby carrier. and most strollers will end up carrying their store purchases instead of the baby! i did notice one lady carrying her sleeping child in a nice dark blue ring sling. but i think she's foreign. i like wearing my baby. for one thing, it keeps my arms free =P.

i ended up buying a Quilt for Dayana. my mom ended up buying like no tomorrow at Ikea =P.

anyway, i didn't want to spend too much for my first ring sling, so i didn't really care about the design or color. however now that i've tried one, i've fell in love with a whole bunch of ring slings, in such yummy colors too! actually i've fallen in love with wraps that have been converted into ring slings - slingified wraps!!! =P. i don't think i'll ever fancy a wrap because it looks really difficult to lilit around yourself and i know i don't have the patience for that. haha. but some mommies (like Ito) who are really good at it make wearing a wrap seem so easy. and look cool too. some wrap designs i've started to fancy are the Storchenwiege (Ulli, due to Aida's unbelievable carboot find), Vatanai (Maruyama, due to someone's photo post in one of the forums, i love the pinkish color tone), and Girasol (no thanks to Syaz promoting her Chococabana which is a lovely shade of blue, ahhaha). but wraps are really expensive! sigh.

Storchenwiege Ulli

Vatanai Maruyama

Chococabana Girasol

so for now... i think i'm just gonna daydream at the moment and just settle for drooling over all the yummy ring sling images that i've saved into my laptop.

ever-crazed stila

my friend mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago that stila was going to close down in Malaysia. i couldn't care less because i wasn't that big of a fan of stila, despite owning a couple of lip glazes (which i've sold off because i realized i don't like wearing sticky lip gloss) and the stila scarlett swarovski christmas pallete (i only use the blusher now, haha). i used to crave stila during my first trimester last year and after i delivered my baby girl, the enchantment of stila seemed to diminish altogether. lol.

so every outlet in Malaysia is busy clearing their stocks now. being the girl that i am, who can resist items going at half of the original price, despite not liking the brand? =P. i was hoping to get one of their Stila Convertible Eye Color because according to Miu, it's one of their best sellers. i wasn't really an eye fan before because i always end up looking like a racoon in my attempt to use eyeliners and eyeshadows (i wear glasses too, so my eyes are less noticeable. and i hate wearing contacts). i didn't realize how many crazy stila fans were out there. by the time i decided to visit the stila counter at KLCC, most of the items and colors were out. i was lucky enough to grab an Eye Convertible in Onyx from Miu though. thanks Miu =D. i was also interested in the special edition makeup case going at RM50 only (because it's purple! so sweet) but as you can guess most of the stila-crazed mob snapped them up already. there are even some of them who grabbed as much as they could haul and resold them to people at double the price. geez. i'm beginning to think that this is a gimmick stila's pulling to get rid of their stock.

there are still bits and pieces left, but i wouldn't go as far as visiting every single stila outlet just to see what is still available (gone were the days where i would stalk each and every vincci store outlet in Malaysia just to get that particular shoe model that i fell in love with at the time, hahahah). there was one thing i was willing to buy though. i bought the stila mug. hahahah. it's selling for only rm15. some stila fans would add the mug to their museum of stila collectibles, but not me. i plan to use it in the office to drink. hahahahah! i should've bought more. i could make a collection at home. hahahah.

my Stila mug in the office

on another note, i bought some stuff at shiseido yesterday. i know i shouldn't have, but to be fair two of the items were on sale =P. oh, someone please kick me.

Significant Other will be going to Dubai tomorrow.

the meniarap deal

you know the question people usually ask you once they know you have a baby, the 'baby pandai buat apa sekarang? dah pandai meniarap?' question? well, i didn't really know how to respond to that at first because at the time my daughter was quite contented to stay put wherever and however i placed her and occasionally exerted to twisting herself onto her tummy should there be anything lying around to tempt her to do so. and even so she'd start to complain because she wasn't used to be placed on her tummy. so... i didn't really understand what the big deal was.

well, when bringing her home from my parent's place last weekend, i finally understood the whole big deal of 'meniarap'. heehee.

it seems that during previous week with my parents she managed to master the art of meniarap. at every chance she gets, once placed on her back on the floor, she'll twist herself around from a lying position to an upright tummy position. my mom told me one time Dayana woke up in her crib and couldn't see anyone around so she rolled on to her tummy and reached out her tiny hand to pull down the crib bumper just to see if anyone was about. haha. when it's time to go to sleep she'll still insist to turn around on her tummy even after i turn off all the lights. but she won't sleep in that position, nOoOoOOo. she'll start wail really loudly because she can't see anything in the dark and refuses to go be lulled to sleepyland.

even during nappy changing time it's a war between her and me, where my challenge is to get a nappy fitted on her properly while she attempts to wiggle away from my grasp. haha. her most favorite place to roll is on the bed, where we really need to keep an eye on her, or we build a barricade around her by creating a pillow fort for protection. else she'll do a rolly polly olly and fall off the bed. which i know it isn't recommended to put her on the bed of course, the uneven unsolid surface not good for her development and all, but our room has limited floor space and if we put her in another room, there isn't anyone around to watch her. she watches tv on our bed too (frankly i think it's the theme songs that she enjoys rather than the shows itself, lol).

my maid commented that since she has now mastered the art of meniarap, we need to keep many more eyes on her than before. haha. and she hasn't even turned fully mobile yet, haha (maybe i should pasang a GPS tracking system on her to keep tabs, hahahahah). i'm contemplating getting a playpen for her, but i dunno if it's practical or not. what do you think? we haven't even babyproofed the house too. and our house staircase poses one big potential hazard for the baby.

i'm getting good at this!

the meniarap stage passed and checked. coming up next: the crawling stage.

Dayana's first hair trim ever

last Sunday Significant Other went for a haircut. he won't be in Malaysia for three weeks, so decided to have a quick wash and a trim beforehand.

while waiting for him at one of the sofas provided, one of the hairstylists came over and decided to give Dayana's fringe a little trim too. here's the aftermath! lol.

Dayana laughing at Daddy's new haircut

Mommy wants a photo too =P

see how long her fringe has grown, lol

happy birthday yaya

this girl ah, ever since she finished Form 5 last year, i hardly see her around anymore. asyik jalan sana, jalan sini... one time i went all the way to her house located at the other end of KL for a visit, but she was A.W.O.L. in Singapore. cheese!

anyway, the birthday girl turns 18 today, so here's a happy birthday to you girl!

my cousin the most soughted after

me and the cheeky one... "nice view?" LOL

p/s. apa plan after SPM neh? jom naili's one day nak?

britains got talent

a colleague of mine sent me this link this morning. i find it very emotionally touching due to the reactions of the judges in the video that i felt like i just had to post it here. but unfortunately for me i am so IT-ignorant that i don't know how to accomplish that, and furthermore embedding for this particular video is disabled. so i just have to settle for posting the link, unless someone rescues the damsel in distress =P

your typical aged cat-lady...

transformed here:
Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables

goes to show that you're never too old to sing. or to make your dreams come true. hehe.

a strange coincidence

the other day i was ym-ming with Eiwa, demanding to see her engagement photos. i was unable to make the far journey back to Kedah (hmm, come to think of it, Dayana hasn't travelled beyond the KL-Selangor border yet), and summore Eiwa decided to choose an F1 weekend as her engagement date, so... sorry ek Eiwa =P

anyway, here's a photo she sent me of Mr Kian and Mrs Kian-to-be =P

congrats eiwa =)

wth oja, preggy wanza and normy

i didn't realize it until she mentioned it, but Eiwa pointed out in between her ramblings how similar it was that the three of us Asmarians ended up marrying husbands who were from the same high school (minus the difference in graduating year). and all six of us were from the same university - our beloved 'Toronto' - but only started dating each other after graduation. ironic? i dunno. similar? you tell me.

my guess is that it's all a matter of timing.

for me? that definitely was the reason for my case. haha. timing, and a whole lot of unexplainable decision-making.

for Eiwa? i have no idea under what circumstances did they get closer together. i tried asking her, but Eiwa told me that he was the one that couldn't live without her. what the heck?? hahahaha. cheh. mau tendang itu Eiwa. she'd better tell me the details, or else i'm gonna procrastinate her wedding gift! *evil laugh*

for Mahani? definitely the timing. one person in a situation, the other also in a situation, and they sorta got merged together. hahaha, can i word it that way? i don't really understand it myself, but i was kinda on the fence in this case, so i don't want to comment much about this. but i do have a conclusion to it: the universe has a funny way of paving the pathway that you were meant to be on.

anyway, Eiwa marks the completion of my crazy uni gang getting hitched, the seven of us. lol. now i wonder when my close friends from high school are intending to get hitched. until now they show no signs of wanting to do so in the near future... hahahahah.

of tyres & pc fair

i finally changed my tyres yesterday, with the help from Ozy - he helped to show me the way to the so-called famous 'Kedai Papan' somewhere in Klang (i looked around the building, but could not see any signs of 'papan' anywhere, hahahaha). i decided to change all four of Neo's tyres, they've been in service ever since i first received my car in 2006, a shocking duration of 2 years and 8 months. haha.

i find this place considerably cheaper if you compare to the other places near my home, where they're asking for rm250 for each continental tyre. and that price hasn't yet included alignment i suppose. here they charged me about rm190 per tyre, so along with balancing, alignment and re-ketuking one of my rims which Significant Other happily managed to kemek so long ago but never fixed it, the total bill amounted to rm830. i save roughly about rm250~ which i could use to service my car later on =D. not bad, don't you think? thanks to Ozy for taking the time to bring us to this place =).

btw, here's a photo of my daughter that day, taken by Ozy. i stole it from his blog, hope he doesn't mind =P (considering the object in the photo is my very own daughter, lol). cute!


yesterday Significant Other subscribed for Maxis broadband at the PC fair. i think the telco operators in Malaysia have gone overboard during their broadband promotions at the PC fair. to be fair, i guess they're trying to reel in more customers from their competitors, but the number of promoters seem to outnumber the customers passing through. and they seem to take up most of the space of the hallway. grrrr. especially at the end of the exhibition hall, they somehow managed to occupy 3/4 of the hall area leading towards the exits.

anyway, after a minute's thought, Significant Other decided to go for Maxis broadband only because he's a Maxis subscriber. they had these really cool modem skins to chose from, but the one i had my eye on was already out of stock =( so i had to settle for the R&B design. back home when we opened the box and took out the modem i was a bit disappointed with the finishing of the modem skin, it looked like it was pasted on in a hurry, and the cutting was abit jagged and senget2. haiz.

i wanted to get this design but they were out of stock...

so we decided to get this design instead

p/s. guess what, Oz? yesterday my dad bought the very same phone model as yours, priced at rm475. not bad don't you think? been tinkering around with it and i find it not bad a phone myself =P.

wishlist time =D

it's been a while since i last created a wishlist =D. after going to the PC Fair (twice!) with Significant Other last weekend, accompanying him to get his new VAIO and helping Daddy to purchase his Nokia 3120 classic, i just realized that there are a lot of things i've been lusting after but have never got around to purchasing them because they cost a bomb...

1. rucksack change bag from mothercare

2. vaio laptop SR series

3. joanne's SSC or hotslings in shabby chic

4. nokia E66

5. honda jazz, lol

6. guess bag groupie collection

7. canon SD1100 IS =D

the maid process

i didn't realize the process of obtaining a maid is really tedious, unless you're willing to part with lots of money to get someone to settle everything for you.

anyway, just wanted to crap about my experience with FOMEMA (and as a reminder to myself the next time i decide to get another maid, haha). each maid is required to go through a full medical checkup before they are allowed to work in Malaysia. since mil was not around when the maid flew in from Jakarta, i had to bring the maid for the checkup myself. bil had volunteered to send her last week, but due to dunno what circumstances, he didn't get around to doing it. so i had to take EL half day yesterday to settle that.

mil only informed me that i had to bring the maid to a FOMEMA clinic panel to have her medical checkup done and have her do an X-ray available at DEMC. but when i arrived at the clinic the nurse asked me for the FOMEMA form, to which i made a blank face until she informed me that i first need to obtain a printed form from FOMEMA. so i had to go to the nearest FOMEMA office to obtain the form. once there the lady seated behind the counter told me that i had to first fill up a form, do a bank draft to be made out to FOMEMA Sdn Bhd for a total of RM190 for woman (or RM180 for man), and have the following photostated:
1) main front page of the maid's passport (personal particulars)
2) date of entry to Malaysia as stated in passport at immigration
3) the calling visa approval form

i was lucky in the sense that i managed to get everything i need under the Kompleks PKNS roof, but i had to run around the building to get everything completed. i was also relieved that there weren't many people waiting in line in any of the offices i had to deal with, so i settled everything earlier than i expected to.

i went to the Post Office to have a money order made out to FOMEMA Sdn Bhd, photostated the necessary documents, and then headed back to the FOMEMA office to submit everything. i finally received the FOMEMA document to be given to the panel clinic conducting the medical checkup. so off we went back to the clinic. our last stop was DEMC to have the maid's X-ray done, so by 12pm everything was completed. yay. phew.

now i have to wait for 10 working days to pass by before i can contact FOMEMA to check the status of the medical checkup. once everything has been verified, i need to go back to Immigration to obtain the maid's work permit. hopefully the next process isn't tedious. the Immigration offices always seem to be crowded no matter what day you go. haiz.

seriously alot of things have to be done when you want to obtain a maid. when the maid first flew in from Jakarta barely two weeks ago, we didn't know that we had to personally pick up the maid at Immigration. when my bil went to pick her up on Sunday morning at 10.30am, he assumed that the maid would walk through the arrival gates as any ordinary passenger would. he waited quite a long time before he had the sense to ask around for help. apparently only the registered names on the form were the only persons permitted to pick up the maid at Immigration, unless a letter of consent was issued. so my bil had to drive back all the way home from LCCT to pick me up. and by default the maid will always be registered under the husband's name, so naturally i had to come up with a letter of consent of which i wrote crap in it and got Significant Other to sign. and we had to bring along a couple of photostated documents which included i forgot what (will update this later when i remember to). and stupidly enough they don't even have a photostat facility at the LCCT. so we have to drive all the way out just to find a photostat machine??? LCCT is in the middle of nowhere okay! don't you have offices there? *rolls eyes to the sky*

i had to report at the front desk office somewhere at the first floor (simply crap. i dunno what you call this place) and produce the necessary documents before i was issued a daily pass, which i had to pay RM1 for. wth? at one point the lady behind the counter even asked me for my marriage license to prove that i was the wifey, which i haven't even picked up at Jawi yet. but luckily the letter of consent was suffice, else i would've strangled her in exasperation. i was given an armband to wear (like those you wear when you enter the Genting Theme park) and had to wait for an escort to personally escort me to Immigration because they don't allow people to simply roam about like nobody's business.

my bil stayed behind to take car of Dayana, who i also brought along. after walking through the various halls of LCCT, i finally reached the Immigration area where there were a number of foreign people waiting, presumably hired maids to work in Malaysia (i think). thanks to our benongness our maid had been waiting at the airport for us for almost 5 hours, poor thing. so we quickly had her passport cleared and her luggage picked up at the baggage area before heading back to the front desk office. i think the whole process took about half an hour. and i had to fork out rm20 for the escort service. bahhhh.

so that's about it. i haven't even started rambling on the process of submitting the initial forms to Immigration in order to get the calling visa for the maid to enter Malaysia which i did with my mil a couple of weeks before. that is also a tedious process, and i had to go there three times just to get everything settled. but my mil helped alot on that part (which required mailing a bunch of forms back and forth Jakarta - Malaysia) so i don't really remember what was required. but the photostated documents i handed to my mil, which were required from the employer (both husband and wife) included:
1) employers IC
2) salary payslip
3) EA form
4) child's birth cirtificate (if you're hiring the maid for childminding purposes)

i was lucky the Immigration offices opened as early as 7.30am so i could still get to work on time after that. then we had to wait for 5 working days and come back again to obtain the calling visa approval form, which would allow the maid temporary entry into Malaysia before the actual working permit is issued. i think we had to pay about rm400+ for the calling visa. sigh. and we had to mail a copy of the letter to Jakarta, and that process took days as well. and courier is expensive. not cheap!

confusing isn't it? but you save alot on total cost spent if you settle everything yourself rather than if you decide to pay the agency to do it for you. they charge a bomb.

just my two cents. now i'm just glad we have a maid to help take care around the house. worth it? i hope so.

my RuMe

Fifth Avenue Spring in NY & Greenwich Spring in NY

i'm happy with my regular RuMe purchases. so far i own two to start with. now after seeing Sarah's mini Rume, the Hamptons Fall in NY, and the size of it, i'm now thinking of getting one in that size too. the regular RuMe if perfect if you wanna do grocery shopping, but i find it kinda huge if you're only getting one or two things. the other day i bought Clorox at Cold Storage and chucked it in my RuMe, the weight of the bag in relative to the size of the bag felt a bit ridiculous.

yesterday i went to Tesco to get some necessities which totaled up to almost RM200 - mostly junk for Significant Other, baby essentials and lots of sayur =P. naturally two RuMes weren't enough to store all the items. so i had to bag half of them in plastic bags. haha. owh well. currently the maid is fully utilizing the plastic bags as trashbins, so i guess that's okay. i'm wondering if i should add more RuMes to my collection now. Sarah says i'm nuts because one RuMe is more than enough to bag all her shopping items. haha. she initially had only one RuMe (in a dull gender neutral color, Domain Silicon Valley). she was influenced to get another RuMe after seeing me using mine, the Fifth Avenue Spring in NY. and she bought the exact same color as mine. lol.

i'm glad Li put them up on offer last month, if not i wouldn't have gotten to know about them, let alone got around to try them! =)

bumps & mums babywearing

bumps & mums weekend poster

last Saturday i dragged my friends Aien and Noriza to the Bumps & Mums weekend held at Bangsar Village II. i wanted to attend the babywearing talk at 2.30pm. Sarah would be meeting us there as well. Noriza was already started on her long holiday and wanted to shop for baby stuff, and since we haven't met up all four of us together like this in ages, so we decided to drop by for the talk, if even for a while.

saw Iza there with her baby and hubby, although i don't think she knows who i am. duh. familiar faces included Liza of Snuggbaby (i just love how she wears her baby, sungguh bergaya =P), Jess of Peekaroobaby (the main speaker for the talk), Farid of Mei's Mei Tai, and a couple of others, just to name a few. we arrived just as the babywearing talk was starting. me and Aien registered at the front door and each got a goodie bag. haha. Noriza, as what a normal expecting mommy would do, made a beeline for the restrooms, lol. i wasn't really focused on the talk however. i had emailed Joanne a few days earlier asking if she had any more Littlepods sling in XS size left (i still tak puas hati my Littlepods sling can't fit me) and she said that she would bring them to the meet so i wanted to try it out. i also wanted to check out her new SSC.

Joanne's SSC L-R: Stripes, Carnival, Zen, Earth, Groovy

Dayana wasn't that keen on the SSC, i think it's a new experience for her since she's always been in a sling facing outwards before this, hehe. i find the SSC really nice, comfy and secure (i won't need to worry about her leaning too far out and accidentally falling out of the carrier, haha). it's all buckles so you wouldn't need to worry about the long straps of a traditional mei tai =). i also tried the Littlepods sling in XS size, which confirmed that my S is loose for me, bahhhh. i was thinking if i wanted to go ahead and purchase one anyway but the only available colors of XS were navy blue, light blue and dark brown. sigh. i wanted red or fuschia. does anyone know if they're still available in that size anywhere else? =P

after the talk was over me, Aien and Noriza headed off to Pyramid for lunch at Thai Thai, Noriza's treat =) (yey thanks Noriza!). then we went for a power baby shopping spree at Jusco. i say 'power' as in Aien simply throwing in the baby essentials in the shopping basket for Noriza, with Noriza carefully selecting the outfits for her baby. haha. i reached home wayyy later than the time promised. sigh. i didn't manage to buy anything that day because i was pressed for time. but i did see a yellow outfit which caught my eye. i think i'll go back for it later. Dayana is rapidly growing out of her current sizes and she'll need a new wardrobe makeover soon.

anyway, i hope Noriza wasn't bored at the babywearing talk earlier. Sarah and i noticed that she looked a bit bored sitting at the back of the room (oops), looking sorta like abandoned in some way (but not intentionally okay. huhu). one month to go and counting. i know she's excited. she's been waiting forever for the moment to come. i hope all goes well with her =).

a few hours of hanging out together just isn't enough. i wish we had more time to spend together. even better, i wish the whole gang was around to hang together. whennnnn, my friends? whennnn? =P

the most stupidest thing of all was that i totally forgot to bring my camera! huarghhhhhhhhhhhh... no use crying over spilt milk now. anyway, i forced Sarah to take a photo of the four of us with her camera phone =P. there's seven of us in the photo, if you can count =). too bad Husna wasn't in the photo. shy shy pulak... see the cheeky baby trying to ngorat my little one? LOL.

sarah, noriza, me and aien

p/s. congrats Eiwa on your engagement! sorry we couldn't be there, love. details please! =)

F1 disappointment

seriously, F1 GP 2009 this year was really disappointing.

F1 Sepang Circuit

Significant Other had been trying to find out how much a grandstand ticket would cost if purchased at staff price. if the price was reasonable he would've gotten one for himself. the last time we visited the Sepang Circuit was in 2006 i think, but we were seated at the covered hillstand area so the view was't really swell (if you know what i mean), and the weather was sweltering hot and not very shady, which was not unusual for Malaysian weather. Significant Other was hoping to get an opportunity to take photos at the circuit using his SLR. unfortunately after asking around, even staff do not know how much the tickets actually cost (which goes to show that staff can easily get them for free, jergh). Significant Other had already decided not to go when my mil called me up and mentioned she had two extra tickets and if we were interested to go. so off we went.

the tickets was only useable on Race Day, so that Sunday morning we got our stuff ready and headed off to my parent-in-law's place. Significant Other insisted on bringing along his laptop, his SLR, the videocamera, his bonoculars, his tripod, the works, yada yada yada (if given the opportunity he would've hauled his Samsonite travel bag. like that i thought to myself, why not bring the whole house instead =P). we picked up our tickets, as well as my in-law siblings, Alfie and Amal, who brought along his 'girlfriend'. my mil only had tickets for four so i have no idea why she was tagging along. she supposedly bought a hillstand ticket but during the race i saw her wandering around the main section of the circuit complex alone. if she did actually purchase a ticket, i think it was a big waste of money.

so we left Dayana at my mil's and off we headed to Sepang. it drizzled a bit on the way there. luckily there wasn't heavy traffic getting to the circuit, just the usual congestion at the cicuit itself. we arrived at around 2pm. our designated parking area was PA2 but when we got there it was already half full and unfortunately the ground was already muddy due to the earlier rain and car tracks. Significant Other's car at one point got stuck in a mud hole so as he was trying to get the car free a whallop of mud flew in the air and decorated the side of the car T_T (luckily the windows weren't open, haha). i immediately regretted wearing my beige-colored Sketchers that day (i was also stupid not to remember that i should NEVER break new shoes during a long whole-day expedition such as this, haiz). we had to track across the muddy parking lot to get to the circuit, which i clearly did not enjoy. my shoes were soaking wet with a mixture of water and mud by the time we stepped onto the tar road.

traffic on the way to Sepang. note the dark clouds looming overhead

the sticker indicating our parking area...

... which eventually turned out to be a muddy pit

anyway, once there we went to Gate 2 and Gate 3 to get our tickets scanned and headed into the grandstand area. Alfie and Amal had tickets at Crystal that overlooked the Starting Lane, opposite the Pit Area. our tickets were at Tower 2 at Turn 15 of the track, located the furthest from the entry gates. we had to climb a flight of stairs to get to the tower. due to my stupid soaking shoes i developed blisters on my feet by the time we got to our seats, sigh. those seated at the tower were served lunch and tea, so we redeemed those with the vouchers provided. there was a couple seated in front of us who brought along a toddler, such a cute chubby little one. they stuffed her ears with pieces of tissue as earplug replacements to drown out the noise, poor thing. but the baby was looking pretty happy in her mother's arms. i guess the noise from the cicuit didn't bother her much. i hope she doesn't suffer from hearing problems when she grows up.

Significant Other and Alfie

Significant Other with his analog headphones

the cute little toddler's first F1 experience... i suppose

our tickets

the view of the starting line from our seats

fully utilizing my RuMe =P

for some reason this year's race was to start at 5pm, as opposed to 2pm like the previous years. some say it was due to the hot weather in Malaysia, some said it wanted to follow Singapore's lead of having a more 'cooler' race. i say it's just a bad judgment from dunno who's part. the trend of rainfall the past few days is rain during early afternoon, and another round of rain in the evening. so of course, it rained earlier at around 1pm+, and it started to rain again roughly about 45 minutes into the race. it started out with a drizzle which eventually turned into a steady downpour until the race was forced to be temporarily suspended. wth. i guess somebody's wish came true.

rain, as everyone knows, make the race more interesting as only then you will know who the skillful drivers really are. this is what Significant Other told me, anyway =P. but too much rain is... well, sucky. McLaren Mercedes and BMW Sauber each had a car retire due to the rain. lol. even the Safety Car wasn't exciting to see. haha. barely 31 laps was completed when they suspended the race. after leaving the crowd wondering what the heck was going on and whether the race was going to be continued, there was an announcement saying that the race would not be continued.

jergh. jergh. jergh.

that wasn't how i hoped the race would end, but what to do. the skies was already getting dark and the circuit was not equipped for night racing. sigh. me and Significant Other thought about all the people who had actually spent alot of money to purchase tickets to watch F1 and ended up experiencing such an outcome like this instead (sungguh anticlimax), which i think came to a total waste. i mean, you pay so and so and you expect to get a race worthy of your money right?

we trudged back to the car feeling rather disappointed. i didn't take alot of photos; i was feeling a little down myself. everything was wet and puddles were everywhere, it was steadily getting dark and we had to trudge along with huge crowds of people back to the entry gates. there was an after-race party but with the current circumstances we didn't feel like stopping by.

spectators seated at the hillstands, lepaking in the rain

the disappointed trudge back to the main gates

posing at the starting lane

last photo before heading back to the muddy parking lot

Dayana seems to be getting along better with my in-laws the dad's side better now. either that or she's growing up to be a big girl =D

clearly this wasn't the best F1 i've ever been to. i think watching the race in front of the TV would be sooo much better. even my mom, who's a fanatic F1 Ferrari fan, would agree with me.

let's hope for a better race next year.

thanks Mama for the tickets!