reading is good

it's been awhile since i've read ANY book... blogs don't count.

i wonder when i'm going to make time to khatam all 4 books in the Twilight series @_@. Significant Other suggested buying the box set while we were in US last time, but many of the stores said they were out. so i improvised... bought my own 'boxed' set - individually bought. lolz.

i just hope i won't throw up reading the book. i'm still not a Bella fan. Edward and Jacob, yes, maybe =P. probably a Renesmee fan, but we'll see. i'd rather wait for the movie than khatam the last book.

all 4 books

there's another Book i've been trying to look for but until now can't find the exact same one: my sister's Tafsir. it's so cool, it's just the right size, it's fat, and i think the font is still bearable. i've come across a lot of small ones with ridiculously tiny font; i'd need a magnifying glass to read it @_@.

my dad has been pestering reminding me to read at least twice a week. God knows how long since my last, sigh. i must remind myself to do better this year. well, let's hope i'm not just hot hot chicken shyte, eh?

Myra's

the best i could find. that's Wine Chartres, btw.

earlier today during lunch while waiting for a friend, me and Maz dropped by a couple of shoe stores - Ecco, to compare shoe prices (she just got a pair from overseas, much cheaper i presume than if you buy it here), and since Aldo was just opposite the store, i decided to step in for abit. and fell in love with these:

velvet + colorful = i loike!

the height is still within one index finger =P but the price range isn't. so... i can only snap a photo and continue dreaming =P.

p/s. i found out that you can encash a cheque without having to wait the usual 3 days, provided you a) get approval from the cheque issuer (you need an extra signature for that), and b) you encash at the cheque's issuing branch. they'll call up the person who's issuing you the cheque for verification purposes btw.

tomorrow is Federal Territory holiday! weehoo! if you're a territory employee and smart, you would've planned your leave so that you'd have the 1st until the 7th off. aso?

mua skincare

i'm bored, so today i'm gonna further bore you with my daily skincare regime. i'm simply writing this down with hopes that i'll continue being so the very rajin in slathering gunks of cream on my face on a daily basis.

ever since i'm a mom i very more often than not skip my daily facial routine. i'd always leave the house looking like i just woke up (wahahahahah) hence my products would last wayy longer than they should, teruks kan? getting the kids ready is stressful enough, i barely have enough motivation to put on my makeup after all the hassle. aaaaand i don't dress up for work either. if we do, they'd ask us whether we were going for an interview, or whether we were attending a party after work. poyo kan. lol.

the husband would just ask me, 'why are you wearing specs?' T___T.

'you sponsor me lasik first, boleh?' i'd retort back.

well anyways, since i'm entering three series i might as well start somewhere, right? i'm not getting any older (although to most i still look like i'm in my early 20s, childless to boot =P)

my forced usual skincare regime:


1) facial wash - Olay
2) toner - Amway? (only when i feel like it)
3) pre-essence - Loreal
4) moisturizer - Olay
5) mac thingy (it goes on before foundation for a smoother finish) - MAC
6) foundation - MAC
7) blusher - elianto
8) eye shadow (only when i feel like it)
9) lipgloss / balm

nightcare:

1) facial wash
2) toner (only when i feel like it)
3) pre-essence
4) moisturizer
5) eye cream - clinique

i went for a free skin analysis about 3 weeks ago (the day i bought my mom's birthday present) and the lady condemned me for not using eye cream and skipping sunblock. hahaha. she said whatever protection from the UV u slathered on your face in the morning would be gone by lunchtime. so reapplying was the key.

i don't even bother reapplying my makeup during the day, do you actually think i care about whether my my makeup was still in place, or if my moisturizers have dissolved completely? (haih. teruk punye perempuan T___T). i don't even bring a makeup bag with me around, only the basic compact powder, and lippies. tu pun buat berat beg, i rarely reapply.

i don't use toner either. if my results were correct based on the questionnaire that i took, the Skin Type Solution mentioned that my skin type didn't need it.

after the analysis was completed, the lady said i'd benefit by adding 3 products into my daily regime, can you guess which ones? - pre-essence (for pigmentation), sunblock AND eye cream (duh. the ones i told her i wasn't using hahah). and guess how much the pre-essence cost: rm295 *faints*.

told the lady i'd think about it. the next day i headed to Guardian and bought Youth Code, at a much cheaper price, haha. both products claimed to have a visual effect after 7 days usage, well, i'm not really sure. but i did realize the day i stopped skipping my skincare routine, some people started to notice that i looked slightly different than normal. haha.

even Significant Other did, ok. well, that's something. the Statue Of Liberty could be relocated right outside our bedroom window and he wouldn't even notice.

ntah la. i've tried a couple of different brands of skincare but i've never noticed any difference after usage. so to me it made no difference if i used the higher end or the lower end skincare products *touch wood*.

i guess i inherited good skin. amin...

a little something before i head home

a funny snippet i took from Facebook's newsfeed.
pssst. Dini, this is for you! =P~


aaaaaaandddd.... meet my annoying brother-in-law, the one that came back to Malaysia for just 6 days before going back to the UK T____T.

he's currently holidaying in Bangkok, hopefully not going 'bengkok' as what his mom keeps telling him not to become while there.

p/s. isn't the cutie pie in the pic with him adorable???? =P~~~

and now... the kids

- the kids love eating telur rebus you get at weddings. the downside is, they only eat the egg white, and ignore the egg yolk. the other day Dayana ate nothing at the wedding except 5 eggs. Mak Teh had to donate hers to Dayana, apparently our 4 bijik tak cukup. she refused to eat rice @_@. go figure.

- Dinara knows how to say 'nak aiiii' (nak air). she says that each time she wants a drink from our cup.

- the other day Dinara saw Dayana drinking vitagen, she eagerly walked up to her elder sister and said 'nak!'. after waiting expectantly and getting absolutely nothing, she tried reaching out her hand for the vitagen (kedekut benor Dayana hokeh). so instead i brought her to the kitchen to get a new one for her. she had no problem drinking from the tiny straw, but she loves to play with the straw. then tak reti nak cucuk balik straw. if normal big straws she'd take a long sip and dribble the liquid down her front T__T.

- one time Dayana saw me staring at her and she told me, 'Mommy, jangan tenyok!' i was blur at first, until she put out a hand to block my line of vision, while the other hand she sneakily used to korek hidung. wahahhahahahaha. she has now learned how to pronounce 'tengok' properly, because one night she came up to me as i was playing Smurfs on my iPhone and asked, 'mommy, can i tengok your iPhone?'

- as what i mentioned in my previous post, after tiring herself out walking, or just because she doesn't want to anymore, Dinara would just stop and plop herself onto the ground. she thinks it's a free country to just rest anywhere she wants to. haha.

- according to Dayana, she's the Princess, adik dia pulak dia kasi jadi Pirate -____-

- Dayana just found out the existence of Bananas in Pajamas. if before she'd ask for Dora or Alvin on the iPad, this time it's Bananas all the way @_@. if not mistaken, Disney Junior will be showing it soon next month. somehow i am not a Bananas in Pajamas fan!

- Dinara knows 'nak', 'no', but not 'yes' T___T. big fan of Fresh Beat Band, no thanks to her elder sister. bukan main seronot meloncat depan tv whenever the show is on.

more if i can remember later on =)

just because he wants me to

like the title of this post says. someone's flying already, and he loves it.
he passed his JAR Phase I, so on to the next phase. don't ask me what comes next. i just go with the flow.

the other day he asked me to rehearse his conversations with the ATC. and now each time i start the car, he'lls start parroting away like my Insight is the long lost brother sister of the D40.

i get alot of questions each time someone asks me what's he currently doing now.
sometimes i think the easiest answer would be 'he's pursuing his midlife crisis'. hahahah *ok lari sebelum the husband reads this!

long overdue family outing

so how was ur CNY? i didn't have to endure the traffic rush because i spent my holidays at home. Significant Other came back for the weekend again, and surprisingly the brother-in-law showed up out of nowhere (and for less that a week pulak tu, seriously that's one express holiday) so the mil was, as expected, super happy to have her bickering family all together under one roof.

mil complained that we weren't bonding even after sitting under one roof, so we decided to haul the whole family to Ikea. and it's under these circumstances that Significant Other then and there starts thinking of getting an MPV for the whole family @_@.

he tells me to sell my car (which is barely 6 months old) and get an Exora.

i tells him, 'what for???! MPVs are only useful during weekends when the whole family is around. IF everyone is around!'.

then i tells him, 'driving an MPV to work is sooo not cool ok. i'd be downgraded to makcik from hot chick!'.

true. whoever drives an MPV i automatically label them as a family person. goes without saying.

=P. and just the other day he was telling me that he needed to keep up with reputation by buying an Audi right after he graduates T__T.

i tells him, 'seriously you'll be too busy painting the skies you won't have time to enjoy the ride. and who cares to even know what car you drive, anyway?'

seriously, if anyone does care, feel free to let me know.

OK anyway, as always we dropped by that mini Ikea cafe for the usual ice cream and curry puffs. the cafe was still chairless, with only tables for people to perch around while eating their hotdogs and curry puffs. the last time i was there, the elder kids were abusing the baby chairs by sitting on them @_@.

curry puff Ikea... nyumm

the three stooges

Auntie Enn teaching us how to camwhore using a mirror

lately i notice during outings whenever Dinara's tired of walking or refuses to (i'm not sure which one), she'll squat on the floor, and to add extremities she'll just land her butt on the ground tengah2 medan tak kira wherever. worse come to worse she'll just lie down flat, tanda protest tak mau jalan dah kot?

Dinara penat jalan, so she found a pillow and decided to landing kejap

dinner was quite depressing. most of the stores at One Utama were closed for the holidays. pfffft. that's one thing i dislike about this particular holiday. Dayana decided to throw up her dinner all over the floor after running around and coughing exaggeratedly. sigh.

the morn of Chinese New Year, we dragged the whole family to Empire for breakfast.

La Bodega

she was so hungry she starting chewing on the sugar packets

Significant Other's <3 latte

my Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise sauce and smoked salmon

Auntie Enn with her breakfast

Big Breakfast

accidentally switched with Amal's poached eggs, oops

everyone! sans Uncle Akmal

the bill for 5 adults + 2 kids

at 6ish or so dropped Significant Other off at KLIA.

the next day i went to have lunch at my parent's place. i managed to do abit of spring cleaning - getting rid of old bags, old purses, momentos yg kecik2 that i kept for some reason (like keeping the glass bottle of this sparkling juice i had during a lunch marathon with a dear friend), salvaging my old photos, my old letters received from my pen friends, rescuing my stuffed toys, etc.

i also used to have many notebooks which i would either a) sayang nak pakai, or b) i'd write the beginning of my so-called novel, but never got around to finishing it T__T, so there'd be alot of empty pages in the book. so i flipped through them to see which ones i could give my mom for her to copy down recipes (and do sudoku puzzles i expect) when i came across a page in one of my books, in my own handwriting:

was a big fan of calligraphy

at night we had a mini farewell dinner for the brother-in-law at Chillis. i am such a big fan of salmon, btw. i just don't fancy it smoked because it'll taste weird.

and that was the end of my CNY hols. the end =P

wordless - holunder aqua

Didymos Holunder Aqua
60% cotton, 40% linen

Didymos, please make more! =(

i still don't know why i still bother... the best company would be the one that listens to its customers, right? well... take a look at this:

aaaaaaaa.... bite me.

year of the dragon

pic source: Google

wishing all the Chinese out there a very prosperous Chinese New Year
and Happy Holidays to the rest of the nation...
=)

the Chinese calendar is ushering the year of the Dragon this year!
very good year to make babies! (so they say =P).
no baby from me though.
to single parents handling >1 kid on their own: i salute!

i'm sorely tempted to watch this movie again though. haha.

can i keep him?

Dayana likes school

my Dayana is a big girl now.
she doesn't throw a fuss whenever she gets ready for school in the morning.
she takes her breakfast every morning (although after 1 week of coco crunch she started to mogok, errr sape tak boring? lol).
she puts on her shoes, sometimes by herself, sometimes we assist her because she is suchhhhhhhh a siput.
then we get into the car, and off we go to her school.
once we get out of the car, i give her a hug and a kiss.
she doesn't need me to hold her hand.
we walk up to the school gates together, and she waves goodbye.
"goodbye mommy!" she says cheerfully to me.
and in she goes, a teacher would be there awaiting the students at the gate.
she knows she'll be back home a few hours later.
and she goes home with transit.
my little lady has grown =)

sometimes Dinara will insist to follow, poor her, she never gets to go anywhere.
so when Dinara comes too, she'll get a kiss on the face from the elder sister.
and sometimes she asks, "adik nak ikut, ke?" rather excitedly.
not that she cares really, lol.
i just tell her adik is still small, she won't be going to school just yet.

you know how i know she likes school?
i remember the first day i was there, the teachers were singing songs with the kids.
she refused to participate in anything then.
so one evening we were in my room, hanging out.
then out of the blue she started singing... humming. words weren't clear.
but it sounds exactly like the song the teachers sing every day with the kids at school.

she was also really really happy with the new Deuter bag i got for her.
all pink and girly, exactly how she likes her things to be - PINK T__T.
sometimes her milk bottle remains untouched at the end of the day.
we put a bottle in her bag, for one of those cranky days.
a sign that she's too preoccupied at school to even ask for her milk bottle =)
let's hope she doesn't lose any belongings.
else labeling might be in order.

school's rubbing off her. in a good way. amin~.

here's Dayana's first work of art in school =)


and Dinara?

well, she gets to conquer the iPod Touch sorang2 at home while the Kakak's away, hehe.

world without free knowledge

...is uncalled for.

T__T

Intellectual Property, such as movies, music or writing that, in the digital age, can easily be copied and transmitted online without payment to their creators. hence:

SOPA - the Stop Online Piracy Act

PIPA - the Protect Intellectual Property Act.

you can read the gist of it here.

well, this is about the only interesting news for today. apart from a high rise building under construction that caught fire in the wee hours of the morning, which might have caused the uncalled for jam on Federal Highway on a supposedly smooth Wednesday morning...

less words Wednesday

the following photos are in no particular order, just a few photos taken during the past week or so that i'd like to share here =)

someone started flying yesterday

it's tougher than it looks, says he

what i found hidden in my drawers

i wanted this but i was too slow

the furthest mileage i have ever pushed my car to achieve on empty

what we did Saturday night while the kids dozed in the car

ada orang tu kempunan Garrett

Daddy sibuk membeli Garrett, anak sibuk berposing with Reese

Garrett Garrett Garrett...

and... i want this too tapi sudah sold out T__T

happy Wednesday =)

hanging in lcct

so i'm here waiting for Significant Other to arrive. i've been here for almost an hour already. his flight was supposed to arrive at 10pm but somehow he got bumped up a flight, due to arrive at 9pm instead.

if only there were better choices of food at the terminal. i felt like going for old-style nasi goreng *ahem* in comparison to the modern-style kopitiams. but in the end i randomly chose this Asean food corner which looked more like a mini food court. the food is so-so but it'll have to do. the terminal had a proper food court but it's located at the further end of the terminal T_T.

i just finished a plate of nasi lemak and i still feel hungry.

ooooooh, gtg. his flight's just flew in. have a gr8 weekend people. Sultan Kedah's birthday is this weekend, so someone is going home a day later than usual.

speaking of which, if you notice, it doesn't really matter who reigns as the Sultan or Agong, the birthday for the respective states is still the same date every year. i was just thinking about it because someone posted on FB asking that since the current Agong is the Sultan of Kedah, couldn't the other states get a holiday too? hahahah (and obviously that person doesn't work in Kedah). but i wouldn't mind if the Agong's birthday gets shifted to a different date. it always fall on Saturday, which means we employees who work for companies who don't acknowledge Saturday holidays will rugi one day leave. aihhhhzzz~~~ =P

mommy's birthday

it was my mom's birthday yesterday.
sorry no cake this year, tukang sponsor kek tengah jauh nun di penang.
probably next year mommy boleh dapat free dental inspection once the aspiring doctor comes home =P.

happy XXth birthday Mommy! we *heart* you!

had a small rushed birthday dinner last night. some pics:

the birthday person

cik kiah #1

the sleepyhead

Daddy!

the menu (the restaurant name was Islamic something)

muka terkexut tengok waiter

kids food; Dayana bantai pizza, Dinara munched on fries

spaghetti vongole, a bit too oily

anakku curik minumanku

sleepyhead kelaparan sebenarnya =P

highlights of the day:

1. each time Dinara finished a fry she expertly wiped her greasy hands all over my jeans

T___T

2. after downing a slice of pizza, Dayana came up to me and threw up all over my jeans

T_________T

3. Dayana hid behind my mom's chair to do her 'business'.

T_____________T

but the best highlight of all:

4. the mom's look on her face when she thought only a card and dinner was enough. lol.

sorry mommy, didn't know what you'd like, but i hope u love it anyway =)

wishful thinking

meet Dinara. lol.
erm, her name was not inspired by this ok.


.
.
.
.
.
.

just for the curious, her name was actually inspired by this:


if size does matter, you could go for this.


one thing: WISHFUL THINKING!!!

photo source: my friends (do pm me if u'd like to remove them)
this is as close as i can get to actually seeing one for now =P