Not a bad Monday afterall!

Oh! What a day I have today. It's didn't start on a good track. This morning, my husband forgot to take out my parking card from the other car. As per my morning routine before I leave for office, I will check my smart tag and parking card in the car. The smart tag was there but unfortunately, the parking card was missing. 

Since my husband was the one transferring all my things from the Grandis to my VW Golf, I called him.  "Yang, where did you put my parking card?" I asked him. "Oh!  I forgot to take it out. It's in the other car.," he said. "Where's the key?" I asked knowingly that he has taken the key with him. "It's with me," he said. "Argghhhh...The parking is going to cost me a bomb," I told him.

The traffic was good this morning and I reached office in time. I switched on my laptop, launched my email and was about to answer one important mail when my lappy decided to go on strike. It just went to freeze mode and few minutes later, the famous blue screen appeared.

"Damn!" I said. "Not my day I guess." It took few minutes for my laptop to be up again and by this time, it was almost 10am and I have to leave to go for my site visit by 10.30. So what can I do in 30 minutes? Nothing much.

Normally I charged my phone early in the morning but since I have problem with my laptop, I have no time to charge it. As a result, my battery was running low and I have to limit my usage of the phone. I was really frustrated because I can't follow the Academy Award result.

However, in the afternoon, my day started to change. I guess sometimes a good customer services can make your day. That's what happened to me when we went to our second site visit. The customer services were first class and the whole place was very warm and welcoming. You feel that you belong there. By the time we left, we were really impressed with their customer services.

By the time I reached office, it was 5pm. Since I was away for almost a day, definitely there were few things I need to do and I totally forgot that I didn't have my parking card. By the time I realised it, it was 7.15pm. "OMG! The parking is gonna to cost me a bomb," I said when I realised the time.  True enough, I have to pay RM40.00 for one day parking in KL Sentral and this is more expensive than parking in KLCC. 

But one thing I realised that even though it cost me a bomb, I didn't really feel upset. Maybe the warm welcome and the excellent customer services that I received earlier make me in a very good mood or else my hubby has to compensate my RM40.00.

So, how's your Monday today? Excellent? Lousy? or Bolehlah...

When I'm not in the mood...

I seldom listen to Malay songs but when I do, it is normally an oldies. It helps to bring back good old memories especially when I'm not in the mood. Since past few days I been having this feeling, the song 'Sekuntum Mawar Merah Sebuah Puisi'  by Alleycats really helps to lift up my mood.

This above video is by Hattan but the one below (Audio) by the original group - Alleycats is my go to song. Enjoy the song!

 The original song by Alleycats

Salam!

I Don't Know....

I don't know why but I have been feeling something is missing from me lately. The things that I used to love to do is now becoming like a chore. I simply lost interest. 

Work is no more a joy. It becomes a routine to me. I find it mundane and not challenging anymore. I have been dragging myself to work lately. Is it a sign of old age? I don't know.... 

Reading is also no more a joy. It is not the story not interesting but the moment I opened up the book, my mind will be wandering somewhere else. I used to finish a book in two days but lately it took me a week. Is it a sign of old age? I don't know..

Watching tv used to be fun but lately sitting in front of tv is kind of miserable. It is full of depressing news. Maybe because of that I seldom sit down and watch tv. Is it a sign of old age? I don't know...

Is it my spiritual needs crying? I don't know. Have I neglected my spiritual needs? Don't think so. But I might need to spend more time to zikir and reading Quran. Is this the sign of old age? I don't know....but one thing I know for sure, reading Quran helps me to feel calm.


Is this a yearly feeling that i have to go through? I don't know but last year I did feel the same way. But will I get over it? Insya allah. 

Please! Not another one....

Today, I left office quite late but I was not the last one. There were still quite a number of people in the office. Not that I was busy with work (anyway it was after 6.30pm) but I was busy checking for traffic summons online. There were two outstanding summons that I yet to settle.


As I was trying to pay the summon via on-line, it didn't accept my cards. First I tried my favorite HSBC card, failed. Tried another card my faithful MBf's Lady Card, failed. I tried a few more times but every time, i got rejected and finally, I saw a message that one of the reason is that I must register for secure payment. Duh!


I called the bank customer service centre and they told me I need to register for internet banking. I tried to register, but when it requested for my pin number, hmmm...I quit because I can't remember where I keep the pin number.  


By the time I went down to the lobby, it was already 7.30pm. As I reached the lobby, I saw the road was wet. I didn't realised it was raining earlier. It was not heavy but enough to get the road wet. I kind of worried because I don't want to be stuck in the jam.


But I was wrong. The traffic was good. I was speeding on the NPE until when I reached the exit to KL-Seremban Highway. I wondered what causing the cars to slow down. Then I saw police traffics what else, catching traffic offenders.


They were flagging those cars  coming from KL, who were caught driving on the emergency lane, and asked them to stopped at the roadside. When they did this, they also stopped the cars coming from NPE. I didn't realized that they were doing that until, this young policeman stopped me.


I was panicked. Did I do anything wrong? Did I exceed the speed limit? So I thought of moving to the roadside when the policeman shouted at me. I signaled to him that I want to go to the roadside but he was grumbling and pointed to a taxi that was flagged down.


"Phew!!!" I said when I saw that. "Luckily it's not me. Kalau tak habislah aku," I said with relief. I can't afford to get another summon when I have two  outstanding summons that I need to settle by tomorrow (24th Feb) if I want to enjoy the 50% discount. I guess I was lucky this time but tomorrow I have to settle the two summons online again or else, I will be poorer by RM450.


Wish me luck...salam.
. 

Beauty and the Beast, Petals and Thorns?

Okay, how many of you have read Beauty and the Beast? I bet almost all of us have read it either to our kids, nieces or nephews or for yourself when you were young. Remember Belle, Beast, Mrs Pott, teacup, clock and candelabra. It is a very nice story for kids but there is another version of Beauty and the Beast. This time it is for adults.


Petals and Thorns is a book written by Jennifer Paris a pen name for author Jeffe Kennedy. This book is not my normal type of book that I read but I became interested to read it after Tawna Fenske blogged about it.   


Since this book is available online, with a few clicks I managed to download it to my iPhone. Yes, it is in the ebook format. You can download it to your eReader or ipad or iphone. Not that difficult eh to buy this book or any ebooks!


Well the story was fun to read and I finished reading it within one afternoon. It is still about a beautiful woman and a beast and how the beast finally won Amarantha's heart. How he won it, you have to find out yourself. The only difference between this version and the kid's version is that instead of having Mrs Potts and clock, they were replaced with invisible character. Imagine in the middle of the night, you see a floating candle moving towards you. Don't you feel scared?


Oh! I'm not going tell you more about this book, as I'm not a book reviewer but I think this book is a fun book to read and if you are looking something new to read willing to try a new genre, you may want to try this book. If you do, you can go to here to purchase it.


Even though I'm not a book reviewer, I have rated this book 5 out of 5 in www.GoodReads.com or equivalent to A.


So why wait? Go and try this. You may like it.

How good is your imagination?

I like to look at the sky. The formation of the cloud and the different color shades of the sky always fascinated me. Last sunday, while on my way sending my helper back to her place, I asked her to look at the sky.


Me: "Bibik, look at the cloud? What do you see?"
Bibik : "Hmmm...is it going to rain?"
Me: "No. Look careful. What do you see?"
Bibik: After looking around for few minutes she said, "Don't know." 
Me : Pointing to a cloud that look like a man's head. "Look at that cloud. Does it look like a man's head and shoulder?"
Bibik: "Ha ah!" she sound so excited to discover that.
Me: "What else can you see?"
Bibik: "Hmm...'


I like to do the same to my kids. Whenever we go out, I will ask them to look at the sky and see what they can see. It is interesting to see each and every one of them have their own interpretation from one cloud formation but the common one that I heard , Dragon.


To me, this is one way of challenging my children to use their imagination and to be creative. This is also what I did when I was a kid. I will lie down on the grass or underneath a tree and looked at the sky. So many things I imagined. I guess because of that, I'm now more of an observer rather than a talker.


Do you think it is bad to be an observer? I don't think so because it gives me a lot of ideas. Before I go, what can you see from the picture below? 

Happy Birthday, Amir

Eleven years ago, I woke up wet not from peeing on the bed but my water bag broke. It was on Sunday morning and I coolly showered and get ready to go to hospital. I didn't panic but my hubby was. Luckily, there were not many traffic on Sunday morning.


Upon reaching the hospital, they sent me to the labour room but not long after that, I was pushed to  my gynecologist room for scanning. The outcome of that scanning, indicated that my baby position was in tranverse position and doctor said he has to do c-sect. Was I scared? I don't think so.


At 11 am on 20th February 2000 (20/02/2000), four weeks earlier than the due date, weighing 2.75kg, Amir Luqman was born. He is the lightest among my four kids and the only one who was born through caesarean. This boy has one trademark that no one in my family, whether my side or my husband side has it. He has a small patch of white hair on top of his head that will distinguish him than others. What does it mean? No one knows except Allah.


Amir, happy birthday and ibu doakan Amir semoga menjadi anak yang soleh dan berjaya di dunia dan akhirat. Amin....

Weird or Magical Moment?

Today, as I was on the way back from servicing my car, I saw a very fascinating cloud formation. I didn't realize that there were three layers of clouds until when my hubby stopped by at the stall to buy pisang goreng (banana fritters). Since I didn't have my camera with me, I used my ever reliable iphone to capture the cloud.


Below is the first one that I saw. I called it Three Layers Clouds. As you can see the bottom most layer was made of very dark cloud, whereas the middle layer was made from a group of gray cloud and the top most was very bright white cloud. Nothing unusual except it reminds me of the spaceship in the Independence Day.

Look at the very bright cloud

As we turned toward Kajang Mewah, to buy some coconut drink,we saw a beautiful clouds at the edge of the Three Layers Clouds which consists of red, green and yellow colours. I was so excited as this was the first time I saw it. I asked my hubby to stop but he only stopped about 400meter from the spot that I first saw the cloud. 

See the red, green and yellow clouds - taken from inside my car

More coloured clouds 

Some of the green and yellow slowly disappeared

And after the colored clouds disappeared, I saw an aircraft flying across the sky leaving behind two streak of chemtrails. I can see it clearly from my car and since this is very unusual, I snapped a picture of it using my iphone camera. Luckily I can zoomed in to the capture the aircraft.

So what do you think? Is it a magical moment or something cooking up above the bright cloud? I'm not sure but for one thing, I waited and waited to see what happened next but all the clouds disappeared including the dark clouds. No rains either. Weird eh?

Blessed or Purely Coincidence?

Yesterday, there was a lion dance at my office. I blogged about the lion dance yesterday but I'm not going to blog the same thing today but somehow it has some relations to it. The Chinese believe that the Lion Dance will bring in prosperity, good health and others good things but for me, it was fun to see how they danced to the drum beat.


But in the afternoon, after the dance, bad thing happened to me. As I was busy looking for parking space and talking to my friend, without realising that there was a Proton Exora behind me, I reversed my car into it. I was lucky because it only caused a little dented on both cars and no major hoo hah.


As I was about to sit down at the meeting room, I received a call from my hubby saying that our sofa is ready for delivery but we need to pay the balance. I asked him, "Can't we just issued cheque?" He said, "Nope. We have to bank in to their account." So after I got the account number, I found out that I can only transfer RM4K." Oooopppsss, we are in trouble," I said softly. Since I have the guy's number I called him and he said to pass the balance to the delivery guy. "Phew!!," I called my husband. "Good news as we can pay the balance with cash." 

So the new sofa was delivered as per our orders but there was some glitch. When we ordered the sofa earlier, we also traded in our old sofa and the delivery guy has to take back the old sofa. Unfortunately, it was still in the old house, which is about 10km away from our new house. My husband has to negotiate with the sales person and finally they agreed to collect the old sofa from Saujana. Otherwise, we have to pay another RM600 to them. Oh second good news.


When I woke up this morning, I saw a tweet from my Brazilian friend saying that she has received the package that I sent to her before Christmas. It has been missing for almost two months and I was worried about it "Ahhh...good, Finally it reached Doris or @RanchodoSol," I said to myself. Third good news I received and the next one is the best thing to happen.


Normally every morning, I will have a battle with Zaki to get him to school and today while I was preparing breakfast , I heard him taking his shower and getting ready to school. Yup this is the best thing to happen because he has refused to go to school since three weeks ago. I just hope, he will go to school on Monday next week voluntarily.


The good news didn't stop there. As I was driving to work, I received another good news. A book that I have wanted to is finally available for me to buy it. Yes, this morning as I was driving to work, I received a tweet from Keri Steven, you can find more about her here, that her debut book Stone Kissed is available on Kobo. "Yes!!!," I said to myself. For your information, I have been waiting for this book to be available on KOBO since end of December. And the best thing was that I purchased it using the promotion code that KOBO sent to me on Thursday that entitled me for 20% discount. 


As I was reading my mail and answering few queries, the mail boy came and told me, "Kak ada package untuk akak. Nanti saya bawak masuk." (There's a package for me and he will bring it to me). My response to that, "Oh!! Ya?" as normally we have to collect it from the mail room. And the package is the one I have been waiting for - the latest book by Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Call Me Irresistible. Wow another happy thing happened to me and for the rest of the day I feel very happy and good. I was also having fun teaching @JeffeKennedy some malay words today.


Is it because of the lion dance or just coincidence that all these goods thing happened to me today? I believe it is purely coincidence because I believe Allah knows best what in store for me...
Okay before I go, stay positive...Be Happy...Salam


BTW BSS, here the video clip of you and the lion

Blessed by the Lion....

Today, we have Lion Dance performed in the office. Every year, the management will invite the Lion to bless the office. This is part of the Chinese culture where the lion is called to bless the office and bring prosperity and wealth. Enjoy the video where the Lion blessing the workstation of the ISD folks. Enjoy....

Tale of the Land of No Name - The Engagement

The Queen was very beautiful and rich. So many men wanted to marry her but she was so choosy and picky. There were Princes, Barons, Knights wanted to court her but none has caught her attention until a Prince from a Down Under called on her.


The Prince from the Down Under was very handsome. He was very charming and friendly. His was totally difference from the Queen. He dazzled the Queen. He courted her, dined her and sang to her. The Queen fell in love with the Prince. The Prince not only won the Queen's heart but also the people of Land of No Name.


The Queen changed. Since she met the Prince she became more friendly with the People. 


"Ahh.. The Prince is such a good thing happened to the Queen. She is more happier now," said Jonas.
"Yes, she is but when are they going to get marry?" said Joseph.


The people continue to pray for the Queen to marry the Prince. After waiting for months, then came the newbearer, "Hear yea! Hear yea! The Queen has decided to marry the Prince from Down Under. The wedding will be held in a month time."


The people was so happy and so was the Prince and the Queen. The Prince and the Queen decided to throw a party to celebrate their engagement. All the people, young and old, from the Land of No Name were invited to the party. 


On the day when the party was held, everybody went to the party. The women wore their best dressed, painted the face while the men shaved and cleaned themselves. There were so many foods for the people. There were jugglers, fiddlers entertaining the crowd. The Prince and the Queen walked and mingled with the crowd.


"Congratulation, my lord, my Queen," said Adam.
"Thank you," said the Prince but the Queen only look at him.


The Prince and the Queen continued to walk. The Prince will stop and chat with the people but the Queen looked bored when the Prince did that. Suddenly a small boy accidentally ran into the Queen and spilled his drink on the Queen dress.


"Sorry my lady," said the boy scared.
"Ahhhh!!!," shouted the Queen angrily. She pointed to the boy. "You has spoiled my dress. Guard took the boy away."


The guard quickly took the boy away. The boy cried, "Momma, Momma, help me." His parents knelt  and grovel in front of the Queen, pleading for the boy to be release.


"Dear Queen, please forgive my son as he is only 5 years old," pleaded the mother. " He didn't meant to spill the drink."


The Queen just ignored the parent and walked back to the castle. The Prince looked at the Queen and then to the parents. The poor mother cried and pleaded further but the Queen just ignored her. They then turned to the Prince.


"My Lord, please help us, my lord. He didn't mean it. He is just a child." pleaded the father.  


"Don't worry," said the Prince. " Let me talked to the Queen and get the boy back for you," he said and walked after the Queen.


The festive moods changed after the event. People became more conscious, afraid of the Queen temper. Suddenly, the Prince came out and stood on the stage. A horn was blown so everybody looked at the Prince.


"The Queen has asked me to say this. She was sorry that she lost her temper. She has agreed to release the boy," said the Prince.


The boy was brought to the stage and the mother ran after him. She cried and hugged the boy.
"Thank you, my lord. Thank you," she said bowing to the Prince. She carried the boy down and everyone was very happy that the Prince has saved the day. 

I miss you, Abah....

Abah and mom on abah's 79 birthday

Today after almost two months abah left us, I cried. I thought I'm over it but I was wrong. I never cried like today. I'm not sure why suddenly I have this strong feeling about him buy maybe I haven't read Yaasin for almost two weeks. 


Well, I was having my tea at Old Timer Kopitiam with my hubby, Zaki and Zara. I was having Mee Soup and Kopi 'O' while my hubby had ubi rebus (steamed tapioca),  Zaki Kuew Tiaw Soup and Zara Roti bakar with Kaya and Butter. The three of them ordered milo iced even though outside was raining heavily.


Normally the coffee shop plays mostly 70's songs like D'Lloyd, Carpenters, and at one time Knock Three Times (my favorite song when I was young) but today the coffee shop played nasyid and salawat Nabi. The rendition of the salawat nabi was really good until I felt the loss of abah. Images of abah splashed in front of me. Without realising it, my tears started to trickle down my cheek. Luckily not many people around and the guy who was sitting in front of us, left 5 minutes before I cried.


When I reached home, I decided to read surah Yaasin for abah. As I was about to read, I feel very sad that abah is no more around. As I started reading the Yaasin, I cried and my kids were all puzzled why suddenly ibu was crying. One after another came to my room sitting next to me and wondering until I have to stop reading and explained to them that I miss abah. They said they miss atuk too. 


After I finished reading the Yaasin, I called my mom. Hearing her voice helped to ease the pain and I told her that today I felt abah was with me and I miss him so much. We talked for twenty minutes and I'm happy that mom is getting healthier and stronger.


 Abah, Zai doakan abah semoga berada di golongan orang-orang yang soleh dan beriman..Amin.

Tale of the Land of No Name

One upon a time, in the land of no name, the people were very happy. They loved their king and worked hard day and night. Every night the people will meet at the town square where they will drink, sing and dance. The land was very green and the envy of many. 


One night while they were happily singing and dancing, someone came and shout, "Hear yea! Hear yea! The king will be leaving to the land of no return." 


"What? This cannot be true. We love our king," said Jack.
Everybody started talking. "Who is the new lord?" "Will the new lord be good to us?"


The people were worried but they continued to work hard until someone said, "The new king has been elected. We have a Queen now."


"Who?" shouted Peter to the news bearer.
"Oh! She came from the land from the North?"


Everybody waited anxiously for the Queen to arrive. Meanwhile, the people paid tribute to the King, wishing him all the best in his new home.


As the people said goodbye to the king, the Queen came in. Nobody introduced the Queen to the people. Since the people love the land very much, they welcome the Queen but the Queen turned her nose on the people.


"Damn, that Queen is a snobbish," said Mary. "I smiled to her but she looked away."
"Yeah, it happened to me too. I wished her but she ignored me," said Jane,


Everybody were talking about the new Queen. To the eye of the people, she was not as friendly as the King. The Queen continued to be aloof and not mixing with the people. She also implemented new rules which caused people to be unhappy. 


Changes after changes were implemented. People were not happy. They resented the changes. The once happy, green land's people become miserable and unhappy. One by one left the land going over to the much happier land.


"Why are you leaving, Jack?" asked Simon.
"Oh, I want to be in the place where I will be happy."


As the years passed by, more and more people leaving. The land has become darker, murkier and lot of angry people. The once envied land has become the land of unwanted.  People avoided going to the land.


The people were crying for help, guidance but the Queen continued to sit on her throne, Not once she visited the people and asked them. The people prayed to GOD for help, and hope the Queen will be replaced. Their prayer was answered. 


People started whispering among them. "Did you know the Queen will be leaving soon?"
"Really? Oh God. Thanks for answering my prayer!" cried the people.


They waited patiently for the news but nobody can confirmed it until someone shouted, "It's confirmed. The new King is coming."


The people started to talk excitedly, hoping the King will bring changes and bring back the glory on the golden day for the land of No Name....Welcome oh Lord to the land of No Name....

My son and his fear of school.

My third son, Zaki, has problem going to the Agama school. He has not attended the school since 25th January. I have been asking him why but he will not tell me anything. He will just sit there staring at me. 


Yesterday morning, I lost my temper with him. I coaxed him, begged him, berated at him, whacked him, he still not budge from his bed. I gave up and finally I just ignored him. Being ignored works as it is most painful to him and being very closed to me he felt that I don't love him anymore.


Last night, when I reached home, he proudly said that he attended the afternoon session and he has homework. We sat down together and I went through his school work with him. He also promised that he will go to the morning school today with a condition that I send him to school. 


I further probed him last night, why he didn't want to go to school. He said he scared of the teacher. "Okay,"  I said. "I will talk to your teacher tomorrow." Do you know what he said? "Don't, ibu." He wanted to preserve his cool and macho look, I guess.


I just nodded my head and this morning, as promised, he went to school. When we reached the school, he went into the class and sit quietly at the back row. Since I need to pay for the school's fees too, and the teacher in-charge was late, it gave me the opportunity to observe the class and him. Well everyone sit quietly doing their work.


As I writing my check, I told the teacher my son has problem going to school because of the teacher. To my surprised, my son was not the only one scared of the teacher. There are other students who have the same problem. But the headmistress assured me that the teacher was replaced with a different teacher. The new teacher is more suitable to teach the year one student.


I also found out that the school also has a programme where I can subscribes to food package and they will provide food during recess. I like this program because my son still doesn't know the value of money.


Before I left him, I introduce him to the teacher and told him to behave in the class. He just nodded and looked sad when I said good-bye to him. I pray that he will like the new teacher and enjoy his lesson.

Our experience with Tutti Frutti

Hey Folks! Tutti Frutti is now in Bangi, to be specific Seri Bangi. They just opened there about three weeks ago. Do you know what is Tutti Fruitti? It is a frozen yogurt.

Since Tutti Frutti put up a banner in front of the shop lot, my husband has been talking about going to Tutti Frutti. So last Friday, after the Friday prayer, he told us to get ready to go out. As usual he will not tell me the whole thing.

As we left the house instead of turning to the usual road that will take us to highway, he turned the car towards Bangi. "Aiii.. where are we going? Thought we heading to Klang?" I asked him. He didn't replied but Amir said, "Tutti Frutti la tu"

True enough, he took us to Tutti Frutti and I looked at him. "Can I stay in the car?" He said, "Nope," and switched off the car engine. I have no choice but to follow them to the shop. When we reached there, the place was packed and most of the tables were taken but I managed to secure one table outside at the pavement.

My hubby walked into the shop and a short while later, I saw him walking back towards me. I went to him thinking that he managed to grab a table in the shop but it was not. Instead he asked me to order the yogurt. I looked at him and whispered to him, " You wanted to come here, why don't you asked the girl there?" As usual, when it comes to new place or new area, he will leave it to me to handle it. 

The girl was very helpful. She told us this is a self serving outlet and the machine is on the wall. Just select what flavour that we want and can top up with fruits or chocolate. She pointed us the cup and the smallest cup,in my opinion, is equivalent to the biggest Baskin Robbin's cup. The kids were very excited and Zaki wanted the biggest cup but I told him no. So everyone took the smallest cup each and when it come to the yogurt they don't know what to choose. So after debating, they decided they wanted vanilla flavour and chocolate. The kids were having fun pressing the yogurt machine. I forgot to warn them that this is not ice-cream but hey, let them find out the taste themselves. 

Looking at the amount that they have in the cup, I was worried. Not sure how much it going to cost me but I know it going to be expensive. True enough when the cashier weighed up all the yogurt, it cost me RM88.00. The price stated on the wall RM5.30 per 100gm.  

The kids were so happy and eager to eat it but after few spoon of vanilla and cholocate yogurt, the said enough.  It was not as they expected but for me I like it. Since three kids abandoned their yogurt, I looked at my husband. "You have to finish that," pointing to Zaki's and Amir's yogurt. "I will finish up Zara's." He looked at Syafid and asked Syafiq to help him. We did finished the yogurt but not all in the shop. Some we have to take it back with us.

Since my kids don't like it, I don't think I will go again unless someone want to belanja me. But if you want to try, please go. I can guarantee you will like it. So what are you waiting for?. Go and try the Tutti Frutti now- salam.

When the timing is wrong

Yesterday I went back to Seremban for my late father special prayer. On the way back, we decided to visit his grave. It was our first visit after the funeral. We left Bangi after the Asar prayer but instead of heading back to Seremban, we had our tea at Old Timer Kopitiam first. By the time we left Old Timer Kopitiam, it was almost 6pm and drizzling.


On the way to Seramban, the traffic was good and by the time we reached Seremban, the rain has stopped. The time show 6.50pm. We passed the quiet town of Seremban and when we reached the Tanah Perkuburan Tuan Hj Said, my husband turned into the cemetery.


As we drove in, there were two guys who were about to leave the cemetry. Since my dad's grave is quite far in, I told hubby to drive as close as possible to my father grave. He parked at the narrow road between graves and we walked over to my dad's grave. Because of the late hours and nobody else around, I was a little bit uncomfortable but I can't show that t0 my kids.


When we got down from the car, the boys were very excited. I told them that the area has changed and there are more new graves. They said they know the area and confidently went to search for it but when they reached there, they can't find their grand-dad's grave. They were looking high and low and were looking at wrong one. 


Since my mom has informed me about this and she asked me to look for a grave with a pink vase. She also told me to look for a board with my dad's name. I also remembered that next to my dad's grave, was a grave with a plastic bottle. Based on that two clue, I looked for it and viola, I found it. I called the boys and pointed to them. By that time, it was already 7pm.


As we gathered around the grave, my hubby and the boys were reading Yaasin. Since I was having a red light, I can't read Yaasin but I can only recited Al-fatihah. While waiting for them to finish reading Yaasin, I looked around and I can see people playing football about 500m away and I can also see the Christian cemetery clearly. Then I turned and looked to my left where, there are some undeveloped area, trees, bushes and some other things there. I feel scared and  uncomfortable.


I was looking at my watched and it was 7.10pm.  I know Amir will be taking sometimes to finish the surah so I stood next to him and urging him to speed up the reading. Whenever he stuck, I will read it out for him just to speed up. By the time he is through, it is almost marghib and we quickly packed and walked to the car. In fact we ran to the car as I don't really like what I felt there at that particular hour. 


Much later, when I sat with my sisters, they told me that the caretaker has advised them not to visit during noon or when raining because there are some restless soul there. In fact, not far from my dad's grave,  there was someone who killed himself. When I heard that, I said to myself, "That's it! No more visiting in the afternoon or evening. It will be morning." Luckily, none of my kids experience anything bad that night. Alhamdulillah, we were safe even though we reached there late.


Have you ever experience anything that make you unwelcome? Share with me...


Oh! Before I go,  I would like to wish 'Gong Xi Fa Cai' to all my Chinese friends...Salam

When mommy doesn't know everything...

All my boys attended religious school besides the national school. Since both me and my husband are busy working, we need to ensure that they learn about our faith and the best place to ensure they get this knowledge is from this religious school. It is not compulsory but most of the parents now opt to send their kids to this school.


One of the subjects is Arabic. I found out that Arabic is not that easy to learn even though some of the words has similar meaning with us. Since my knowledge on Arabic is zero, I really don't bother to go through my sons lesson until Zaki attended his class.


This boy loves to ask me questions. I have no problem in answering his question except for Arabic. One night while I was going through his class work, he asked me for some words in Arabic.


Son:  "Ibu, what do call eye in Arabic?"
Me:   "Ainon," answering him confidently because I know the word.
Son:  "Nose?"
Me:   "Aaaaaa...."
Son:  "You don't know?"
Me:   "I don't know."
Son:  "But I thought you know everything." He looked surprised.
Me:   "I didn't say I know everything."
Son:  "But you are mommy. Mommy must know everything."


Wow, when I heard that, I'm kind of shock because definitely I don't know everything. The same thing happened when it is related to my work. When they know that I work this %*&I$ company, they started asking me things that I also don't know the answer or start complaining about the services.


Sometimes when there is family gathering and someone has problem with their computer, they will asked me to look into the problem. Just because I work in IT line, they expect me to know everything but hey, I have not done technical for more than 8 years. I might not know how to resolve the problem but I can look and give advise.


Eisshhh...It is tough to live up to the expectation. What should I do? Should I pretend that I know everything? I don't think so but I can't let them down either. Ahhh tough..tough world we live in....


Okay, enough of rambling...until then...salam