Where did the four days go?

It's 4:05a.m on my last day of the CNY break, and tomorrow it's back to work again. If only time could stand still and we could enjoy the 4-day break like there's no end to it, huh?

Anyway, it has been quite a relaxing extended weekend for me. Relatively, that is. Something which I could not say about the extended Raya weekend which would normally be filled with activities having to do with BINGEING most of the times, and of course visiting families and friends, and clearing and cleaning the dining table and kitchen, and bingeing again... :)

So, what have we been up to this CNY long weekend, then?

The usual stuff.

Friday

Friday evening, while driving the kids home from school, I received a phonecall from Ab*d, one of my MT friends. Apparently, On*ir (another MT friend) had asked her to organize a dinner outing for that night just to jump-start the long weekend break. It was either at The Curve, or at Ab*d's. Biasalah...MT outings and gatherings are normally memang terkejut-terkejut like this. Most of the times memang unplanned, and last minute. Tu yang lagi kick tu! Hehehe!

Abid called just to ask which option I would prefer, and I was fine with either. And we decided that it was to be at her place - a Potluck thingy. I called Dar to defrost the chicken, boil some egggs, and prepare the ingredients for Szechuan Chicken and Sambal Tumis Telur. By the time we reached home nearly an hour after that (yup - Friday evening jam sucks big time...), everything was ready for me to start cooking.

After solat Maghrib, the bersilat session in the kitchen started and I managed to finish cooking around 8:45p.m. Of course I had to take my shower first as I could not be going to Ab*d's smelling like Sambal Tumis Telur, could I?! The drive to Villa Damansara which normally would have taken only 20 minutes, took us nearly 40 minutes (again, dang the Friday night traffic along Persiaran Surian right up to Kota Damansara :() and we only reached Ab*d's place at 9:30p.m! Ayah was still stuck in clinic and was only able to join us much later.

Ibu's Ayah was already there with their heroes, while like my Ayah, Ibu was still stuck at work. J* and Iz*am were not able to join us as they were leaving for a diving trip in Sipadan the next moring (just the two of them) and they wanted to spend some time with their kids. Re*a and Ta*s pulak were already on their way back to kampung that night. Ibu and Ayah only managed to join us after 10p.m. And lo and behold - On*ir who was the one who suggested the dinner could not make it at the last minute, as she was stuck at a meeting in Putrajaya until 10:00p.m! I guess everybody was trying to wrap things up before the long CNY break.

Saturday

Anyway, we were at Ab*d's until about 1:45a.m. The kids had fun. The Moms had an even bigger mega fun watching AJL 23 AGAIN. Couldn't get enough of Faizal Tahir the first time around you see...Hehehe! By the time we reached home, it was already 2:00a.m. And I went to bed with my contact lenses on. Dang. I knew there was something I forgot to do before my head hit the pillows...

Remember the Cross-trainer which we bought last week in our attempt to lose weight and tone our bodies up - me, Ayah and Hanna? Well, it arrived at 10:45a.m on Saturday morning just as I was about to send Hasya and Hilman to their Chess Class, much to my dismay as it was supposed to be delivered between 11:00a.m-12:00p.m! I couldn't just leave the delivery guys alone with Dar, as I needed to make sure the machine was assembled correctly, and that it was in working order, etc. I didn't have much choice but to call Gr*ce to ask if the kids could go to the afternoon class instead, and she was fine with it. (Thanks, Gr*ce!)



Our First Floor Family Hall-cum-Mini Gym :)

The kids' Chess Class was rescheduled to 1:30p.m and right after sending them, Hanna and I went to Mak's place to kill time before fetching them at 3:00p.m. Ayah decided to finish work early and volunteered to fetch them instead, and thereafter fetch Hanna and me from PJ. We decided to go to One-U to continue searching for a fridge for Ayah's office.

And we came back. With a guitar instead...

Yup - we did it again : coming back with an item which was never in our shopping list in the first place. Remember last week? The Cross-trainer?! This time, no fridge in the bag. No fridge in sight. At all. In its place - a Classical guitar.

Hanna had been begging (or should I say "bugging") us to let her go for guitar lessons for the last one year or so, but, both Ayah and I had never had the chance to really sit down and think about it UNTIL last Saturday. The guitar shop was just beside Be*t De*ki which we went to to find Ayah's fridge, and after a fruitless effort (yet again) to find a fridge yang menepati kriteria-kriteria yang telah ditetapkan oleh Ayah, we decided to just look at the guitar collection at Gu*ta* Co*le*ti*n and ended up buying an Alhambra C3 Classical guitar for Hanna AND enrolling her for guitar lessons there starting the first week of February! Talk about being impulsive, huh?

The guitar costs a bomb, but we were advised to get it as it will be easier for Hanna to make the transition to other guitars if she starts with the Alhambra. And I guess, it's not Hanna's exclusively as Ayah will be able to play it, too. So, pejam mata ajerlah... We just hope Hanna is serious about the guitar lessons and not HHTA ajer. I could have bought myself a nice piece of jewellery with the amount we paid for the guitar, okay?!





Hanna with the Alhambra guitar (which was supposed to be a fridge actually...)

Anyway, we had dinner at Se*re* Re*ci*e that night, and only reached home nearly 11:00p.m Saturday night.

Sunday

Sunday morning, Hasya and Hilman had their usual traditional dance classes, and later in the afternoon, we went to Al*a and Ay*a's birthday party in D'sara Heights. They're my biras' nieces. Beautiful twins who turned 5 that day. We were at the party until about 6:00p.m, after which we went to get my car which was left at Mak's the day before. We had to rush back to SD as we had bought tickets to watch Inkheart at GS*C One-U that night. I had earlier planned to cook Sambal Udang for our neighbours, The Kangs, for their Reunion Dinner, but due to the time constraint, we just bought them a cake from Se*re* Re*ip* instead. (And it turned out that they didn't have the Makan Besar at home that night pun, but had bought a table and gone up to Genting to have the feast there while enjoying a concert by a Taiwanese star :))

We left the house again after solat Maghrib, and as all of us were still full from the party earlier on, we just had some Bi* A donuts before we went in to see the movie. It was okay-okay la for me, but the kids enjoyed it tremendously. Can't say Dar felt the same way, as I think she slept through half of the cerita! Can't blame her - the subtitles were not in Bahasa Indonesia...Hehehe! We left One-U just after 11:00p.m, and had Maggi at home for supper before hitting the sack.

Monday

Monday morning was spent tidying up and mengemas our room. Remember the tongkang pecah in our Family Hall after the girls' room makeover that day? Well, the 'wreckage' was still there until Saturday morning. And I had to clear the space so that the Cross-trainer can be parked there, right? So, all the 'wreckage' was transferred to our room, and the last couple of days, Ayah and I had to sleep in the living room downstairs as our room was, well...err, like a wreckage scene :) We can't be sleeping in the living room three nights in a row, can we? ;) So, I had no choice but to clear everything yesterday. Macam nak pengsan! :(

I managed to do some major grocery shopping at TE*CO with Hasya, Hilman and Dar later in the afternoon, while Ayah stayed home with Hanna. After TE*CO, we went to send some of the stuff to Mak's place to replenish the kids's food stock for when school re-opens next week. They normally have their lunch (and sometimes dinner) there, and I would stock Mak's fridge and freezer up every 2 weeks or so, knowing how kuat makan my kids are :)

By the time we reached home at 8:45p.m, Ayah had already left to send Hanna to a khenduri doa selamat/BBQ at her friend's place in Section 14. He decided to do some work at his office at PP*M while waiting for Hanna to finish. They came back around 10:30p.m, with some BBQ chicken and cakes which was basically our dinner last night :).

Tuesday

I fell asleep on the 2-seater sofa right after dinner, only to wake up at 2:45a.m, and only to find out that Ayah had also fallen asleep on the 3-seater sofa in the living room. Hmmmm...looks like we're getting too comfortable sleeping in the living room now. Hehehe!

I woke Ayah up to go and sleep in our room, and while Ayah fell asleep again almost immediately, I just could not bring myself to doze off. To while away the time, I went FB-ing and finally decided to update this blog of mine. And the result is what you're reading now - this rather looooong posting.

Sorry to have bored you guys with all the mundane stuff happening over the last 4 days. But, I'd rather bore you guys, than bore myself looking up the ceiling trying to sleep while listening to Ayah snoring beside me...Hehehe!

Anyway, to those who are going back to work tomorrow, accept the fact of life. Extended long weekends do end.

Sigh...

Another fact of life, those who work in the FT, it's another long weekend for us next weekend, huh? Yippee!!!

So, to all the Selangor people out there - deal with it ;)

And in case you guys are wondering...NOPE - I have NOT been on the Cross-trainer. Yet.

Aching-feet Sunday...

Whereas Saturday was a "lonely" day, Sunday on the other hand, was an "exhausting" day for me - but, I didn't mind because we got to spend the whole day as a family :) We brought Dar along, too - kira her off day lah yesterday. Normally on Sundays, her kerja kat rumah pun tak banyak. Besides washing the cars, she would just do a bit of ironing aje because most of the times we would eat out, or tapau our meals, and with the kids tergolek sana-sini all over the house, it would be quite difficult for her to mengemas, etc anyway on Sundays :)

The day started off with us leaving the house at 10:15a.m to go to UMSC as Ayah had to discharge one of his patients. What was supposed to be a 20-minute wait in the car while Ayah went up to his ward, turned out to be a 45-minute wait. The kids didn't complain coz' dah biasa dengan kerja-kerja menunggu Ayah ni... :)

We reached Mid Valley just before 12:00p.m. To find a parking slot was pure madness around that time, I tell you. We went round and round the P2 parking bays before Ayah decided to drop us off at the South Court entrance while he continued going around searching for the impossible parking space. We managed to get 4 items while waiting for Ayah (talk about efficient shopping, huh? Hehehe!). Ayah managed to finally park the car around 12:30p.m, and he went straight to TCRS to book a table for us to have our brunch there. It's amazing to see how people sanggup wait for an empty table to dine there. Ayah said if it was him, kalau dah nampak queue so panjang, he would just go to another joint. But, with us boycotting most of the American eating places, we were left with not much choice...

We continued with our shopping (mostly "beli tingkap" ajer :)) until about 5:30p.m. Itu pun because our feet were killing us! We didn't get the main thing that we set out to get yesterday, i.e. a small fridge for Ayah's new office, but instead we got a new vacuum-cleaner for myself (or rather, for Dar because I'm so not into doing any housework while she's around. Hehehe!) AND, check this out - a cross-trainer machine, you all! (Hmmmmm....alangkan our treadmill kat rumah dah bersawang, ni nak tambah dengan cross-trainer lah pulak...Another waste-of-money item to add to our collection, I wonder? Hehehe!)

But, semalam our semangat was really high - Ayah's, mine and Hanna's, that we would put the machine to good use. We have set our minds to start going on the treadmill more regularly to burn the calories, and on the cross-trainer to tone our bodies up, insya Allah. And another thought came to my mind - "So, what's gonna happen to our Lifetime membership at CF in One-U??!" Hmmmm...going to One-U to work-out is so not as exciting as going there to shop, kan?! Maybe we can de-register ourselves and get some refunds from them? I hope.

Ayah was so excited yesterday because he was at his lowest weight ever (since 15 years ago, that is), i.e the weight he was at before we got married, okay? And I pun tak nak kalah, and tried to be excited because I managed to reach the weight I was at after Ramadhan last year. Hehehe! This means there aren't many kilos standing between us now, okay? Only 9 kilos to be precise, okay? A year ago, the difference was 20 kilos, okay? Ahaks! Pressure...pressure... But, I'm very happy for him. And of course, I'm very happy that the reduction in the gap is not because I have gained weight, but rather because he has lost 11 kilos! Well done, Ayah :)

This should be a good enough reason for me to SERIOUSLY discipline myself to work-out, maaan... Anyway, the cross-trainer machine will only arrive this Saturday. Maybe, I should defer going on the treadmill UNTIlL the cross-trainer is here? Biar sekali harung kan? Hehehe!

Anyway, after Mid Valley, we went to TMC as Ayah had to review his patient there pulak. The kids and I waited in his clinic while he went up to the wards. And it was quite amusing to see the kids playing doctors with all the gadgets they found on Ayah's table. Ada tokoh semuanya, I could see :)

We went back to my parents' place in KD after that. My sister Yong, who has been going to some cooking classes prepared a couple of desserts which was so yummy! (Errr...somehow there's a huge dichotomy here, huh? Talking about Cross-trainers and workouts in one paragraph, and then sinful desserts in this paragraph?! Hahaha! Biarkan I terjun dengan my labu-labu, okay?)

We left KD at 8:30p.m. Ayah tapau-ed our dinner from Be*ag*s, and we spent the next 3 hours veggie-ing out in front of the TV watching AJL 23. A BIG HOORAY and well done to Faizal Tahir for getting the Best Vocal and Best Performance Awards. You truly deserved them, Superman. Too bad tak sapu bersih... But, I have no issues with Meet Uncle Hussin winning the Best Song. It IS a good song. No doubt about that :) Congratulations to MUH for bagging the RM25k and also the RM10k for the Best Pop Rock Category Award! :)

So, that was my Sunday. Kaki memang sakit, but, it was well worthed it :) Hope you all had a great day yesterday, too!

And I'm so looking forward to next Sunday. HOPEFULLY, it'll be the beginning of a meaningful relationship between me and the Cross-trainer machine. Insya Allah ;)

Lonely Saturday...

It's 9:03a.m, and I'm veggie-ing out on the bed, under the duvet. Voon's worker is finishing up with the paintwork on the roof-garden walls upstairs, and it's pretty quiet around the house this morning, except for the sound of the air-cond softly purring itself away.

Ayah has gone off to work - straight after sending Hanna and Hasya to school this morning. They have replacement school today. Hilman will also be going to school this afternoon. As I'm writing this, he's still asleep in his room. Went to check on him just now - he looked so gebu and so peaceful in his sleep! Tak sampai hati nak wake him up. Peluk dia tadi, and he still smells like a baby laaah! I'll be sending him to school around 12:30p.m, fetch Hasya at 1:00p.m and then go to Sr* Am*n to fetch Hanna pulak.

Even though it's a school day today, I let Hilman and Hasya play with their PSP and Nintendo and watch DVDs till quite late last night because their punishment was supposed to end yesterday. Kesian la pulak - dah 2 minggu they had been deprived of all these gadgets "fix". As for Hanna, right after we reached home from my MIL's at 7:30p.m, lepas solat Maghrib ajer, terus terkam her laptop! And I had to call her to come down to have her dinner several times last night! Nasib baik steam did not come out of my ears... Truth be told, I'm not even sure what time they went to bed last night! But, both Hanna and Hasya didn't have any problem getting up this morning. So, that's okay.

Due to their replacement school day today for their extended CNY break later this month (and I think a lot of other schools are also having it today), their Chess Class and swimming lessons have been cancelled for today. But, Hanna and Hasya are having their piano theory trial exams this afernoon, from 1:30p.m until 3:00p.m. And Hilman will only finish school at 5:50p.m today.

Ayah will be going to hi-tea with his STANDARD 5 friends from SSP this afternoon (buleh?!) which I'm sure will continue until quite late, and he'll be fetching Hilman from school straight after that.

Hanna pulak will be going to her friend's birthday do in TTDI after Maghrib and we'll only be fetching her home after 11:00p.m.

So basically - there goes my "time-with-the-whole-family" Saturday :(

But, I can see some potential "windows" for some shopping today (which most probably might end up being a window-shopping trip anyway :)). I might be able to squeeze 1 hour or so to go to the new shopping mall in PJ - Tropicana City, while waiting for the girls to finish their theory trial exams, AND after fetching them, boleh singgah One-U on our way home to continue with some more shopping...

Nice...

Excellent :)

As he takes the new road ahead...

Ayah is into his 10th day of his annual leave today, and he has another 60 days before he cuts his umbilical cord totally from UMMC/UMSC. Quite scary, really - to totally be on his own once he finishes his annual leave in March nanti.

Even though he's officially on leave, he still goes to UMMC/UMSC to perform angiograms and/or angioplasty on his patients there. And he'll continue doing that until his official last day as an employee of UMMC - i.e. on his 41st birthday, 15th March 2009. From then onwards, there'll be no back-up in the form of his guaranteed monthly pay anymore. As Ayah himself puts it - it's like "kais pagi, makan pagi" from now on. However, his cheques from UMSC which normally come 3 months late, would mean that, insya Allah, they will see us through while Ayah builds up his patients base at his new place at least for the first three months at TMC.

So, to prepare for life after the tag "government servant" is taken away from him, for the past 10 days, Ayah has been extremely busy setting up his new clinic and trying to establish his patients base in a few places, and putting his foot here and there. Whenever we call each other, I would first have to ask him where he is. He would either be in Co*um*ia As*a (Puchong), Ch*ll*ah Diagnostic Clinic (PJ), UMMC, UMSC OR TMC. And on some days, he would be at all of the places mentioned at different times of the day! And he'll always be at TMC at some point or another. If he's not at any of the clinics, he would then be doing a bit of marketing around Ko*a Da*an*ara. Apart from that, he's also working on articles to be published in several newspapers for the past week as part of his efforts to reach out to the public on the importance of cardio care.

I'm already getting some rough ideas as to how it's going to be in the first year of Ayah being his own boss. Already he's fast losing weight, losing his sleep, losing his hair (?!) and in fact as I'm typing this, he's also losing his voice! It has been quite a while since he last had his dinner at home with us. He has been working really hard the last couple of weeks ni, and his health is being sidelined somewhat. And last night, I think his slipped disc was also causing him some discomfort and pain. And as he was sleeping last night, kesian lah pulak I tengok dia... I don't think he was even aware at some point when I gave him a back massage. Memang zonked out habis...

Physically, his clinic is slowly taking shape. The sofa has arrived. So has the coffee-table. We've also got a nice rug which goes nicely with the furniture. We are now in the process of getting some book racks and TV cabinets which can match the rest of the furniture. We might just get them custom-made IF the carpenters can actually find the same material as the coffe-table for the racks. We are also trying to find a nice painting (oil preferably) to brighten up the main wall. Anyone has any ideas as to where we can get a nice oil painting from, please? I'm also trying to dig up some nice deco pieces from the many boxes which we brought back from the UK in 2004, to add some seri to his clinic :)

We're very excited about the whole thing, but, at the same time we are prepared for whatever it is that might be coming Ayah's way. Whatever it may be, we make do'a that Allah will limpahkan His rezqi onto Ayah as he continues to do what he does best - giving his all to his patients, albeit at a new place. Insya Allah. Amin.

Steam is coming out of my ears...

It is STILL the time of the month, and because of that the younger kids got a mega punishment from me today for being so irresponsible. And I feel they deserve it.

It has been a LOOONNGGG day for me. I was at a meeting which lasted from 9:30a.m until 5:30p.m, with only our lunch break as a breather. Going to the meeting meant that I had to cancel all my classes scheduled for today, which in turn means that I have to reschedule them to another day, which means I would have to double up my classes one of these days. And, it doesn't help when New Year also fell on Thursday last week. I also have to reschedule ALL the classes I missed last week, too! And it is not easy to find a time which ALL the students would be free to attend all the replacement classes.

The outcome of today's meeting also means that my colleagues and I would have to sit down (AGAIN!) to work on some corrections and amendments to some documents which we had been working on for the last one year! And it doesn't help, too, that I've also been given an urgent dateline to meet by the end of May this year for a MAJOR MAJOR piece of work even when my initial proposal was to finish the work by the end of July this year.

I really had A LOT on my mind today...

Anyway, I had to go back to my office to get my stuff and tie up a few things after the meeting. I left the office just after 6p.m., already feeling like a kain buruk, and reached Mak's house at 6:25p.m. Hasya and Hilman are having their mengaji session here tonight, and so, we're having dinner here.

The first thing that I did when I saw Hilman was to ask him if he managed to get his seluar sukan from the school shop today. I had given him RM20 to buy the seluar and RM2 for his duit belanja today. And he told me that the shop didn't have any stock for the seluar sukan. Not wanting him to lose the money I gave him, I asked for the RM20 back for safe-keeping, because just the other day, Hasya LOST the RM20 I gave her to get HER seluar sukan. Apparently, she said she brought the money back and left it on our bed in PJ, and forgot all about it when we went back to SD that night. And the next day, the money was gone. According to her lah.

I was still okay with it, and told myself that she might have misplaced the RM20, and that she must have put it somewhere else but had forgotten where exactly she had kept it. One of these days, the money might just re-appear (?!). Anyway, giving her the benefit of the doubt, I gave her another RM20 today for her to get her seluar sukan.

So, not wanting Hilman to lose HIS RM20, too, I asked him to give it back to me. He took a piece of RM10 note out of his pocket, and gave it to me. And I asked him, "Where's the other RM10, Hilman?". And the reply was, "I dunno...I thought you only gave me RM10".

My kepala dah start panas dah...

"What do you mean? I gave you RM22 just before I went to work this morning. RM20 for your seluar, and RM2 for belanja. Where's the other RM10?!"

Telinga I dah merah dah ni...

And he came up with, "Uh...I dunno, Mommy. I put all the money you gave me on the dressing table this morning, and took everything when I went to school this afternoon".

Pantang tok nenek I when I asked the kids anything, and they come up with all sorts of "I dunno's"!

Dada dah makin berdegup kencang dah masa ni, and I could feel my blood rushing up to my face...

"Where....is...the...RM10?" - teeth already grinding...

Realizing that I was VERY upset with him, Hilman kept quiet and just looked at me, and I stared back at him before I turned to Hasya, and asked,

"Hasya did YOU manage to get your seluar sukan with the RM20 which I gave you to ganti duit semalam?", and she said, "No, they didn't have any stock this morning, too."

"Okay, then, where's the RM20?"

And she took all the notes from her school bag, and gave me all RM20 - all crumpled.

(Asap dah keluar kot hidung I dah masa tu...)

And I looked at Hilman, and repeated my question, "Where's the other RM10, Hilman?"

And he kept quiet.

"I don't care, I want both of you to find the money you lost! Hilman you'd better find the RM10 now. Hasya, you'd better find the RM20 you lost the other day. NOW! I don't care! NOW!!!"

So, because Hilman lost the RM10 today, Hasya who got away with losing the RM20 hari tu, ALSO has to face my wraths this evening.

And both of them got a mighty flick on their ears.

And I started berleter - "That's the problem with you guys. You never appreciate money. You do not value duit sebab senang nak dapat. Anything you want, you can get. You don't know how to take care of your own money!! You never take responsibility for your money!!! (and yadda, yadda, yadda...bla bla bla...)

"Don't you DARE ask Mommy for anymore money for your seluar sukan. I don't care - both of you just have to wear your old seluar sukan. I don't care if dah senteng ke, or dah koyak, etc. YOU WEAR THEM! UNDERSTAND?! And no TV or Naruto or PSP or PS2 or DVD the WHOLE of this weekend. Until Sunday. Paham??! In fact, your punishment starts tonight! And you guys are NOT getting any new story books for the next 2 weeks! PAHAM???!!! And tomorrow, you two are NOT getting any duit belanja from me! You have your lunch at home, and bring your bekal air to school. PAHAAMMM??!! (They'll only be in school for 4 hours tomorrow anyway...)

And they both just nodded and looked at me.

And they got another mighty flick on their ears, before they continued to search for the money.

And after laying down all their punishment for not valueing the money we gave them, Hanna came into the room, and asked, "What are you looking for?" (when she saw her adik-adik terkedek-kedek searching for the money from under the bed, etc.)

And I said, "The money they lost!"

And Hanna said, "Ooohh, Aunty Adek found RM10 under the sofa this afternoon, and she gave it to Wan!"

And Hilman looked at me, and said, "That must be mine!"

Mata I dah terjegil at him.

And I said, "I DON'T CARE IF IT WAS YOURS OR NOT!!! THE POINT IS - YOU LOST IT!!! YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHERE THE MONEY WAS JUST NOW!!"

"THE PUNISHMENT STILL STANDS!!! PAHAAAMMM???!!!"

And they looked at me again and nodded their head.

And as I'm typing this, Hasya is still trying to find her RM20. And I'm only letting her rest when Ustadz comes at 8:30p.m nanti.

Both of them could not have picked a worse day than today to ruffle my feathers the wrong way...

So you see, guys...There ARE days when I fail to see the glass as half full. There ARE days when I fail to tell myself that there are others who have bigger problems and heavier burden than me. And even though such a day may come far and few in between, they sometimes do come nevertheless (especially when it's that time of the month!) And today was such a day.

Maybe this is REALLY bad parenting on my part. But, I know they'd think twice about not taking care of their money properly from now on, Insya Allah.

Oh, puhleeez...

It's the time of the month and I'm so easily annoyed with things which I normally would not layan... So, please bear with me on this, okay?

I was waiting for my turn at the bank this morning, when this girl walked in. She looked quite "high and mighty", if I may add - wearing a black skirt and a white top, with her hair neatly tied in a bun. And my first thought was, "Hmmmm....she's probably a student from the Law Faculty, and she probably had just finished a mooting competition, or session, or training at the Law Faculty or something like that".

Yup, she looked THAT young, and quite inexperienced.

She sat beside me, and suddenly her phone rang, and this was what transpired -

"Hello? Yes...I'm at the bank now. You're still in court? I was there the whole of this morning. XYZ is till there. The hearing is still going on. I'm going back to court after this. Uh-um...Uh-um...Okay. I'll see you there later, okay? I should be back in court in about an hour or so, etc."

(Or something like that lah...)

And I think everybody sitting at the waiting area could hear every word she said.

Firstly - Hello?! You're in a bank, and you're not supposed to use your handphone, dear.

And secondly - you could surely lower down your voice when you answered the call, couldn't you? Or you could just answer your phone outside the bank? Unless of course you WANTED everybody to listen to your conversation?

(And I suddenly remembered what Phoebe said in one of the FRIENDS series when somebody asked her for a favour and she said, "Oooohhh, I wished I could, but I don't want to!" Hehehe!)

And I thought THAT was so applicable to Little Miss Legal-in-Black-n-White this morning.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to generalize here and put all legal freshies down, because I know for a fact that not all freshies in the legal fraternity are like that. But there ARE a few who act so like they're "Partners" already when they're in fact still chambering, maaa!! Why aaaaarr like that?

In fact, sometimes when I go to hospitals pun, some of the housemen act more terrer than their consultants!

Aiyyyoooo...Tak tahan...

Oh, puhleeez la, girl. Been there, done that laa... You were probably in court the whole morning doing a few mentions and some J-I-Ds here and there ajer pun...

And you were probably still in your diapers when I was called dulu.

Rasa macam nak bagi ajer kat lawyer hingus meleleh tu my call card tadi...But, then again, I'm not that cruel...

But, hmmmmm, in retrospect, maybe I should have, kan?

That should get it into her that there are so many out there yang dah makan asam garam longer than her. Tak payah lah nak aksi unnecessarily. Bukan boleh menang kes pun...

Hmmmmphhh... Okay, dah lepas tension. Hehehe! :)

New chamber for the belles...

Remember when Hilman had his snip-snip and I took a 2 weeks leave to be his dayang? Well, besides being Hilman's dayang, I was also wearing a couple of other outfits - the girls' removal contractor and interior designer, when we decided that Hilman needed to have his own room as he's a big boy now.

The top-floor which consists of a nice sized bedroom with an attached bathroom had never been used ever since we moved in to SD in 1999 (well, at least not as a bedroom, that is). It also has a roof-top garden (which to people like me who can't even keep a cactus alive, makes no difference, really!) It has basically served as a storage room for the kids' unused toys, old clothes, and books all this while. Believe it or not, we even found Ayah's Form 4 books and exam papers up there in one of the many, many boxes! And the kids got all excited when they found all my love letters written to Ayah all those years ago. Ayah had kept them neatly in one big box. Aaaawwwwhhh... :) Suffice to say, both Ayah and I got teased by the kids when they read some of the mushy stuff I wrote him in those letters. Mega cringe moments, I tell you...Hahaha!

Thinking that 10 days would be enough for us to convert the top-floor room to the girls' new room, we took our own sweet time to clear the junks and whatnots from up there. Little did we realize that after 9 years of being the store-cum-hoarding room, we were actually heading for a giganormous task of sorting the treasures up there. There were things that we wanted to give away. There were things that we wanted to keep (especially some of the kids' cute little baby clothes which had some sentimental values to us), and there were things that DEFINITELY needed to be chucked out. TONNES of them.

Suffice to say that as we cleared the room upstairs, the rest of the house also became like a tongkang pecah. The family hall which became a transit point for all the junks, especially, looked as if Hurricane Katrina had passed through it at least 3 times! (The pic of the family hall in the slide was taken BEFORE Hurricane Katrina hit actually. So, you can just imagine how it was after it got hit ;))

After clearing the room of all the junks, we had it painted. The girls chose ICI 'Vineyard' as the colour for the feature wall, and 'Barley White' for the rest of the walls. And alang-alang dah cat bilik the girls, Ayah and I decided to get Voon (our trusted contractor) to re-paint the whole of the front of our house, including the fence/gate/grills, etc. Luckily I was on leave and was able to supervise the work.

It was supposed to be a minimum make-over of the room as we plan to move out to the new house in BJ at the end of this year anyway. The room already had its own built-in wardrobes and also a queen-sized bed. So, the only things that we needed to get were the girls' study tables, and of course - the curtains. Or so, I thought. But, you know lah, bila dah sampai IK*A tu, the list got longer and longer by the second... And we ended up buying shelves, storage boxes, scatter cushions, lightings, a carpet, and the whole lot of other jim-bangs for the room! We also had to instal an air-cond unit and also a water-heater unit for the girls. Maklumlah budak zaman sekarang. Kalau tak ada all those things, tak boleh tido and tak boleh mandi...kononnya lah, kan?

Anyway, Voon only managed to install the water-heater and also the shelves yesterday afternoon, and so, the girls only managed to finish tidying up the room late last night. It had been a pretty tiring experience for all of us - mentally and physically, but, it was all worthed our efforts and time. And the girls just love their new room :)

Here are some pics taken from Day 1 and as we progressed throughout the 2 weeks (or more, I think?!) of completing the project.

My next project will be to help Ayah furnish his new clinic at TMC, and I'm soooo looking forward to that :) I don't think it'll take too long as we'll be left with a free-hand to furnish and decorate a nice-sized EMPTY consultation room without any junks attached to it. I'm already playing with colours in my head for the room now. Can't wait!

Oh ya, by the way - if you happen to get Metro Ahad today, please flick through and read Page D6, ya. There's an interesting article written by my Tuan Doktor in it. (Promote....jangan tak promote!!! Hehehehe!) or you can just click here :)

And I now present you guys with....(drum-rolls!!!) - THE GIRLS' ROOM!!!

Enjoy the pics, y'all :)