Stay big or move small?

So I''ve been hunting for my 'pot' for sometime now and there's a possible one around the corner. It's not as big or attractive and doesn't have a lot of flowers compared to the one I currently have. Many have their reservations as well, but I'm pretty comfortable at the sight of this pot.

Although small, it has already bloomed to a certain level and there's still much room for more growth. And who knows, with the right amount of sun, water, TLC and prayer.. it could flourish into a beautiful garden. 

Am going to continue seeking for clarity if this is the right 'pot'.

Image taken from here

Bathing a 3-month old

Babies.. They are such a precious gift from God..

Went to vist my newest niece last week..

She's 3 months old now and it had a been a good 1.5 months since I last saw her. Oh my how she had grown and look at the amount of hair on her head!

She's such a chubby lil marshmallow that I couldn't get enough of her.

Snap snap snap!!

Showered her with kisses.. lots of em! Check out those cheeks!

Then it came time for her bath.. and my cousin's like "Go and bathe her la". My reply "But I've not bathe a baby this young before". Mind you she's only like 3 months. Still a fragile little being. Then my cousin's like "It's so easy la, put her in the tub.. wet her with water.. put the soap... voila!"

So I took her to the bathroom and my cousin showed me where all her bathing stuff were and I figured 'ok lar.. since he's going to be standing there with me, I can do this'. Then... he walks out of the bathroom leaving me with baby Judea and her oldest brother who was such a darling to help.

So scrub-a-dub-dub, few kicks in the tub (I really think this one is going to be a good swimmer) and a few minutes later she's done. All fresh and smelling like Johnsons & Johnsons. Wiped her down and changed her.

Now thought to myself, that wasn't too bad. I mean I've bathe many of my nephew and nieces before, tons of them but none this young. And I enjoyed every moment of it. Am so looking forward to her next bath!

I love my cousins for having such confidence in m.

Naledi Thophego

I've sent many people off at the airport, many of whom I know are going back to their home for good or migrating to a different country. But 1st September 2011 marked the hardest and most emotional send off ever!

I sent her off.

Her name's Naledi Thophego. A Botswana scholarship student who was in Malaysia for 4.5 years, then she graduated and it was time for her to head back to her homeland.

I remember times when we used to talk about her possibly settling down in Malaysia, and trying to convince ourselves that God's call for her was to be in our land. The perfect situation was for her to marry a Malaysian man. And after time, we realised that that was not happening and God affirmed over and over again especially months before she left that her calling was to go back to Africa and beyond to serve.

The entire 2011, I hardly spent as much time with her as I did in previous years, also because I knew she was leaving. I should have spent more time with her but work got the better of me and left me with hardly any time. When realization drew nearer that she's actually going to leave, it was a hard truth to swallow.

I cried so much weeks leading to her farewell and at times would just not want to think about it because it hurt too much.

The day she left, i teared a bit at the airport and stayed at the back watching as she said her goodbyes and hugged everyone. But when it was my turn, sigh what a waterfall.

The ride back was the toughest. I usually have her in my car when we send people off and we would drive back together. But this time, she was not in the car.

Thank God the peeps in my car didn't ask much and carried on with their conversations even though they knew I was just crying like a baby, couldn't help it, couldn't stop it.

But I'm thankful for the assurance that it was not our last goodbyes, and that I'll see her again. At least I know the next I'd see is for my 'big' day.

These past 3 years have been a time of building an awesome bond with a sister-in-Christ. She's someone that I knew I could count on no matter what even if it's just to cheer me up, listen to my dramas and whining or to just cover me in prayer. I can't help tearing even now as I'm typing this as it really brings back all the memories together with her. There have been so many students that have come and gone and that I've also developed a relationship with, but this was extra special.

Planning

I love planning and organizing events. It's one of my passion.

Coming up, I have three birthday parties to plan, back-to-back, or which two are a very big deal. All three parties are going to be held at my house and the earliest one is coming up next Saturday.

I'm still scouting for the perfect caterers because I want to have different cuisine for all three parties. Caterers are now just so expensive, but I don't blame them, with the inflation of food prices I guess it's just a circle we have to go through. For a nice good buffet line, it'll cost easily between RM13-20 per pax.

Then there's the task of coming up with the guest list and calling everyone up to invite them, to get them to rsvp, then to send them a reminder a week before the event. Once the guest list is prepared about 90%, I need to figure out how much food to cater. If I have 70 people coming, it's not advisable to order for 70 because that would just be too much food. But the right number has to be catered because you don't want to have less food as well because that just would just be unacceptable. So usually I break my list down to adults and children and then order about 20% less of the confirmed adults coming.

It's best to book the caterers about a month or two before the event, especially when the date is near a festive season. It's safer to book and then cancel if you found a better caterer or alternative then to end up with no caterer at all.

Sometimes if there are side dishes that are being prepared, then the amount would reduce because not everyone would take a portion of each dish, and we'll just end up having too much leftovers.

With a large group of people coming, there's a need for tables and chairs to be setup in the porch. I'm also looking into putting a canopy up in case it rains, plus it'll add a warm touch to the house.

Paraffin Wax Treatment

I bought this promo from Groupon sometime back and went for it last Monday as it's expiring soon. It's been sometime since my last manipedi session and my cuticles felt like it was overdue for a treatment.

This promo included a paraffin treatment for both hands and legs but somehow I only got it for the leg, hmm feel slightly cheated now.

After they've cleaned my cuticles, scrubbed and moisturized your feet, they then put some on hot paraffin wax.I liked the hot sensation on my feet.

They covered my feet with clingwrap and then with these booties and left it for about a good 30 minutes. It's supposed to whitened and moisturize my feet and has some vitamin benefits too.

The whole mani pedi session took about 2 hours cos there was only one manicurist to tend to me. So after sitting in the chair for about 2 hours, I was kinda glad that I didn't have the wax treatment for my hands too, cos that would have easily taken up another half hour.

The clutz that I am, went and ate banana leaf rice with curry using my fingers and now I have my left hand in pink shades and my right in gold shades.

Assurance

God's assurance is something that is so precious to me.. Even in this season of uncertainties, with many decisions needing to be made, He never fails to assure me that He sees the bigger picture and only has the best in store for me.. He's written out all my future plans in His calendar and everything's laid out well, now only to wait for the right timing and 'pot'..

Such comfort..

Facials

I signed up for a facial package last Monday and I know by the end of next month I am going to be so broke when the credit card bill is due.

Been having nasty breakouts for the past few years and every time I go for a facial, which is only once is every 2 or 3 months, I get the same comments or rather advise from most the beauticians - that I need to come every 2 weeks for about 2 to 3 months to clear my face, then subsequently once it is clear I can go probably once a month. My colleagues and friends were also giving me the same advice. Such consistent info and I've seen the results with my colleagues, so figured I'd give it a try.

Bought this promo last month and it was a steal!

I decided to then sign up for a back treatment and being the first time, I got 50% of the rate. Pretty satisfied after both my treatments at the spa, I signed up for another promo that they set up especially for their Groupon customers.

So for the next 3 months, I'll be going every 2 weeks and hopefully my face will clear up. Of course I still got to watch my food intake.

Didn't sign up for the back treatment package cos that was just way more expensive than the facials and so will treat my back on my own for now, with mum's help.

Kuching - Aug 2011

A trip with my colleagues that has been in the planning for more than a year finally came to pass. N wanted to go somewhere for her birthday so in less than 3 weeks we made arrangements for our holiday. Why Kuching? Hmm cos I was on a budget and it was the cheapest ticket at that time. Going overseas would have cost way too much for me, although my colleagues wouldn't have minded that but they were sweet enough to stick to my budget.

Sadly, what started out to be a trip with 3 adults + 2 kids turned out to be only 2 adults as one of them fell terribly ill and decided to stay back and rest in KL.

The journey started with a really early flight from KLIA. Thank God the flight was delayed by 1 hour and we were informed earlier, had an extra hour to snooze.

Found me a Cafe Barbera in KLIA! My airport waits won't be so boring after this.. Nothing to start of your morning like an affogato..

We stayed at Damai Beach Resort which is about a 45 minute drive away from Kuching City. On the spur of the moment, we decided to be adventurous and rent a car. It served us well for the 3 days there and turned out to be an excellent idea because we save a lot on cab fees. It's much cheaper renting a car there than to take a cab which would be a minimum of RM70 per way from the hotel to town.

Our supersized room in DBR. Could have easily fit 4 people in the rooms. The beds were humoungous! Pillows were not too great though, gave me a neckache. 

We were looking for good seafood for our first night there.. and the lady at the front desk told us of this restaurant in Kg. Buntal to go to. It's about a 15 minute drive from our resort. This restaurant is a must-try when in Kuching. They were kind enough to cook smaller portions of variety for us, which most restaurants may not do. *Oh this reminds me to write in a compliment for that lovely lady*

Eagerly waiting for our food.. Thank God it's a picture and not a video or you would have heard our tummy's rumbling..

Kangkung Belacan.. Somehow tasted way better there.

Butter prawns

Sweet and sour fish

Chilli crabs.. These were the bomb-diggidee..

We experienced thunderest rain both nights we were there.. On the first night, it was so bad that I wanted to crawl into bed with N but I knew she would have killed me if I did so lol. Saw this fallen tree on one of the mornings on our way out.. 

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre.. What an experience! We hardly got lost getting there except from reading one of the signs wrong and ended up taking a longer route. It was great that we got slightly lost because we saw some amazing buildings in one of the tiny trunk roads. Sorry no pics cos we too focused on finding our way.

Feeding time is at 3pm but we reached around 130pm. Initially we thought of driving out and coming back at 3pm just in time for the feeding but around 150pm, the ranger said that there was one Orang Utan.. In about 20 minutes, there were 4 of them.. They came early for their supplements..

This picture reminds me of J

Meet Delima and her youngest of 2 years old. She has 3 kids so far, and we met 2 of them in total. She made our experience there totally worthwile. After having their snacks, she decided to take a walk to where we were, slowly making her way from the feeding area, to the bench where we were sitting and finally to the carpark area.. The rangers were very cautious and kept asking us to move back but you can see from the picture below, she came pretty close up to us.. Eventually the rangers led her further up and into the jungle.. The rehabilitation centre houses 26 Orang Utans and we had the privilege of meeting 10 of them..

Mount Santubong.. This was the sight that we saw everyday as we drove back and forth from the hotel.. There's a hike that you can choose to do up the mountain, either a 2 or 6 hour hike but we decided not to because the weather was really bad.. Probably on our next trip.. there are some really beautiful waterfalls up there.. 

The first evening we were there, the sunset was exceptionally beautiful! It was breathtaking but unfortunately, N and I were in the waters with no camera in our hands.. The second evening we tried to capture the sunset but it was not as pretty as the day before.. I love sunsets though, so I thought this was just beautiful as well.

Jojo came to visit us at our resort.. She looks so gorgeous in this picture..

The resort had it's own Cat Feeding Area.. Numerous cats running around in the resort.. Well it is 'Kuching' afterall.. lol

 I did up some research on places to visit and eat at while we're there.. But missed out on this one. Kuching Festival Fair 2011 - Jojo told us about it and took us there on our last night. This was definitely a treat!

With literally hundreds of stalls like this lined up row after row, we were lost and didn't know which we should try first..

Fried Durian! This was apparently a must-try but we didn't get to try it. 

Because the line was just too long. We didn't feel like lining up for over an hour for it..

 We opted instead for the local favourites.. Sarawak Laksa.

Kolo Mee

Got me some durian pancakes. They were costly! RM10 for 4 pancakes but the pancakes were too thick and not too tasty. At least the durian made up for it.

This is like my only picture of N and me... She's a great travelling buddy.. We had rough plans of what we wanted to do, but it changed everyday.

We also went to the Cultural Village in Damai. It's my 2nd time there. The first time was during the Rainforest Music Festival in 2006. The village is very different when not during a music fest but I think it's overpriced. RM65 per entry. We managed to catch the cultural show of 45 minutes - showcasing performances by the different tribes in Sarawak. Then we walked through the village a bit to see the different homes by the tribes live in. We didn't get to explore the whole village because we were rushing for time as we needed to check out and catch our flight. 

I love Kuching and I definitely want to return. There were so many places I wanted to visit but due to constraint of time and the fact that we were staying too far from town and most of those places are nearer to town, we didn't to see as much as we wanted to.

Next trip will definitely include a 1 night stay at Bako Forest Reserve.

This weekend getaway was surely a fun, adventurous and memorable one.

First parents meet-up

Ok well not so 'first' since both sides know of each other and were even once seated on the same table at L&J's wedding. But last weekend my parents went over to J's house to visit the family, and it's the first time both sides have met since we got together, with the exception of course that our dads have met up a couple of times for business meetings.

I was not at all nervous about last Sunday.. I'm not sure how J felt about it. My parents have been wanting to go over for sometime and last week we finally made a date and stuck to it.

Dads went into politics and mums were having a get-to-know-you session and had exchanges of their Ipoh experiences. Both our mums are from Ipoh or Perak rather. It's always a joke that KL men find women from Ipoh more appealing, and I've got me some Ipoh blood yo!

All in all I thought last Sunday went by rather well..

The first of many more.. and looking forward to it..

It's back!

Ahhh so the drama last week was short lived. My account on Facebook is back ON, turns out it was going through some maintenance testing or something of that sort.

It's amazing what Facebook has done! I felt lost, that I couldn't be up-to-date with what's going on..

Somewhat unhealthy..

Gone, all gone!

I've been barred from Facebook.. by Facebook.

No reason given, no email sent to notify me just the same error message that keeps popping up everything I try to login, be it from my pc or phone.. used different browsers but it still won't let me in.

The silliest thing is that I'm not able to logged a report, because I keep getting that same error!

R logged a report for me and they replied him within minutes with a standard email, asking me to log my own report and click on a particular link to check for solution to similar problems. But guess what, the moment I click on it, I get the same error!

It's really sad because I have so many photos stored there that I cannot retrieve again, if they decide not to reactivate my account.My pc got corrupted and I lost all my pictures and FB was my only backup.

The idea of losing all my contacts saddens me too, as I communicate with most of them who are overseas via Facebook, as I don't have their email address or telephone numbers. Gone, all gone!

It's quite amazing how this silly thing of losing my account has affected me, but it does. It's been showing me that same error message since after lunch and I just assumed everyone received the same error till I found out it was only my case. 

O Lord, please get them to reactivate my account. 

I can't let him beat me to it

Even Obama wants to climb Mount Kinabalu. Read more here

Owner found

Remember my post of me being RM430 richer? Turns out that my best friend had transferred money into my account for my mum for her wedding cake order in September. But she only informed me after she saw my post on FB of me bragging that I landed extra cash.

Oh well, the cash still stays in the family. Maybe I'll get a pinch of it? Hahaha..

Mt. Kinabalu on hold

Image taken from here

I was supposed to climb this magnificent mountain in early October. But after returning from my presentation to my big boss on the progress update, we now have to defer this last Expedition to next year. There are 4 batches of climbers scheduled for this year, of which 2 have already completed. The 3rd one is to go in Sept and I was put in the 4th batch.

I've been training for many months now, quite inconsistent at times but still try to put it a once a week hike, swim or run. 

Thank God I've not bought my shoes yet, cos that was going to cost me somewhere between RM300-500 for a solid pair. 

Oh well, there's always next time I guess with friends. The advantage of this excursion by the company was that all the cost was taken care of. If I were to go on my own, it would cost me somewhere between RM1200 - 1800 depending on flight prices.

New season

Image taken from here

My new pot.. Where art thou? When will this new season take place? Awaiting patiently..

I’m RM430 richer!

Checked my account this morning and was pleasantly surprise to see extra cash in one of my accounts. So I called up the bank and they informed me that their site is going through some maintenance however only the credit card portion is affected. The lady on the phone confirmed that the amount was credited into my account this morning at 6.42am. I then messaged my parents and J to see if they had banked in any money for me, they didn’t. I still thought that it may have been due to the upgrading of their system, so I went to the ATM and checked my account. The extra RM430 is there!

So where did this money come from?

The code was CDM, which mean Cash Deposit Machine and I’m not able to track the person who transferred the cash to me unless I go to the bank and go through their cctv footages. The person however will be able to locate me if he/she still kept the receipt of the transaction. Won’t touch the money for a couple of weeks in case the rightful owner of this money does contact me.

But still, it was an awesome start of the day!

Not to mention.. it’s also FRIDAY!

Bittersweet Goodbyes

It's been an emotional 1.5 weeks. I've never been good at goodbyes, and that's just exactly what I've been needing to do. Just last week, 3 batches of graduates returned to their homeland, Botswana. I was not able to send any of them of last week. They've been here for 4 years now and by the grace of God, have all completed their Bachelors degree and returning to bless their home country.

I've known most of them for more than 3 years now and it's been a great time with them. Sad that I was not able to send any of them off last week but I'm not going to miss the next batch that's leaving tomorrow.

Onneil came over to the house last Friday night to say goodbye to my mum. She invited him over for lunch on Saturday as well, and he had generous helpings of her awesome Indian food.

Last trek @ Gasing with Moriti. We'll see him again on our 'big day'.

Another painful goodbye is going to come in September.. This one I'm not looking forward to at all..

Clean bill of health

So after a 1.5 year break, I finally went for my medical check up. The routine blood and urine work up. Got my results a couple of days back..

Doc : So do you want the good news or the bad news?
Me : Yikes, my cholesterol is still high right?
Doc : Good news or bad news first?
Me : Sigh, let's go with the bad news.
Doc : There's none!
Me : Whattttt?
Doc : Yups, everything's looking really good for you.

Praise God! Compared to my previous check up, my cholesterol is now back to normal (5.0), calsium is up and no more ketones.

Mum took a look at my results and carefully studied it and her comment was "Although all's within the range, some of it are still on the low side. Must still boost up your immunity. Take more half boiled eggs and chicken essence." Mum knows best. So I've been diligently taking my half boiled egg and vitamins.

Now to just keep it up..

Larry Crowne

Watched Larry Crowne last night. Intended to initially watch Transformers 3 (Yes I've not watched it yet..) but tickets were sold out. Can you believe it? Even till now the cinemas are jam packed for that movie.

Larry Crowne was a good alternative.

It was a feel good show. Romance + comedy, my favourite kind. Definitely worth the watch if you're looking for a movie to chill back, relax and have a good laugh.

If I ever learn how to ride a bike, I wanna get me a scooter just like this one.

I think I would look really chic in it. Don't you?

Koh Tao

A holiday that was much planned a year back and awaited for has finally come and gone. It was an awesome week away by the sea. What initially started off to be a hardcore diving trip for me turned into a really chillax time.

So much was heard of Koh Tao and we even saw some really great videos of our friends there with whale sharks, but somehow we saw none cos apparently the whale shark season is from Dec - Feb. However, someone did just see whale sharks at Koh Phangan about 3 weeks back, so it's really hard to say. Whale sharks are now being sighted in so many different locations in Malaysia itself  (Tioman in March, Redang in Sept).

The dives were not spectacular in Koh Tao. I preferred my dives in Redang to some extent. But we did see some really cool stuff like a 1.5m Garoupa, over 1m turtle which was nestled so calmly in a cave (I nearly missed this fella if it wasn't for my friends who pointed out to it), the cutest juvenile Harlequin Sweetlips, a huge hermit crab. And I certainly will never forget some of the underwater 'stunts' performed by some of the buddies, of in the case of Ms Siow, the double out-of-water performance she gave us.

I went for my 2nd night dive in Koh Tao as well. The first night dive that I did during my Advance course was a huge flop. We had a horrible instructor who didn't give clear instructions and I got stung big time by a sea urchin - not fun! So you can imagine my 'eagerness' to go on another night dive. But since all my other buddies were heading out, I didn't wanna miss it. We had a she-male as our Dive Master. She was a lot of talk but no action! My buddies were quite disappointed with her but I was oblivious to it all. I was busy trying to calm myself in the dark of the night. They say that it's so bright underwater with all the other torches and the light from the boat, but I still think it's freakin dark. This was the only dive that I held J's hand throughout the entire dive, especially during our descend and ascend. It's really dangerous to be holding your buddy's hand underwater but I was fearful of being lost, cos it was really dark for me and my rented torch wasn't all that great.

I only did 7 dives in total of my 5 night stay in Koh Tao. We were supposed to do a minimum of 10 dives but since the dives were so-so, some of us decided we'd ease up on the dives.

There were 12 of us on this trip, met some cool new friends and caught up with a few that I've not seen in over a year. 4 of them took their Open Water license, 2 got their Advance license while 6 of us did fun dives.

We rented bikes and explored the island of Koh Tao, found some really cool spots. We also managed to trek up to Two-View. It's called Two-View because it's about 610m above sea level (if I'm not mistaken, or was it 310m? hmm) and both sides of the hill overlooks this amazing view of the sea. One of which was the Sairee stretch where we traveled frequently and you could also see NangYuen Island, a really small island with a long white patch of sand.


I think I spent the most on food during this trip, apart from the dives. Each meal was a minimum of RM10 and we were having 3 to 4 meals a day. Some of them were pretty yummy meals, not to mention the regular chocolate-banana pancake dessert that we had every night. They call it pancake but it's actually roti canai.

One of the best meals was on our last night in Koh Tao, the rest had gone for their 2nd night dive but J and I decided to stay back and chill. We decided to try one of the restaurants that we pass by every night. Each time we pass it by, their BBQ smelled so good. We paid a good RM46 for 2 huge sticks of chicken kebabs complete with veg and fruits on it, roasted potato salad, coleslaw, Thai fried rice, huge portion of chicken with chilli and basil, a plate of white rice, mango juice and chocolate-banana pancake (this time the real pancake batter). I must say that that was one of the cheapest meal we had there for the portions we ordered.

I managed to not get so tanned during the trip but all failed on our 2nd last day there. We had to take a boat from Koh Tao to Koh Samui and the fumes in the air-cond rooms were really bad that we decided to sit out on the deck. It was a 4 hour boat ride of which 3 hours was spent on the deck. I covered my arms and legs with my jacket but a bit difficult to cover the whole face la :P So I came back tanned! I tan so fast but yet it takes months for it to disappear. Even my lips became so dark, which is so weird cos that has not happened before.

The only thing I liked about Koh Samui was their airport. It's gorgeous! Feels like you're walking into another resort. The people in Koh Samui were very cocky, simply because they know that they can squeeze the white folks dry so they don't really bother much with us Asians. Only managed to do some shopping on our last day there in Koh Samui, bought some goodies for the family members. We rushed through it all though cos we only had about 1.5 hours to finish our shopping before we had to wash up and leave for the airport.

Oh the massages.. How could I forget that! They're so cheap in Thailand, like a good RM20-30 for an hour, depending on where you massage. The prices vary from island to island. I was tempted to go for one everyday but managed to refrain myself to just 3 session throughout the entire trip.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any shots during this trip, so you and I'll both have to wait for the pics to be posted by the rest on Facebook :p Don't think I would return to Koh Tao or Koh Samui anytime again soon. Although we didn't get to explore the beach at Koh Samui, so may return for that.

Sigh I already miss the breeze, the taste of salt in my mouth, the waves, the reggae music by the sea as we munch away on our breakfast.. and definitely the company. So of which I know I won't see again till probably another trip next year. Holidays by the sea are one of my favourites! Can't wait for my next - which will probably only be next year, sadly.