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.