December 2008 resolutions

I have been slacking in my baking and gardening for the past 5 months or so. The laman is now such an eyesore that my aunt winced when she saw it last week. The oven has gathered more dust than my bookshelves. I couldn’t even remember what I baked last. I am not going to come up with an advanced 2009 resolutions. For a change, I’m making a checklist of things to do for December. Let’s not be so ambitious now, I know my limit and capability. I also can anticipate the sudden rush of laziness that can come without warning.

Between 1st and 31st December 2008 I plan to (notice the word ‘plan’ is used instead of ‘will’ because I don’t make empty promises, even to myself.)

1. Bake at least 1 cake or a batch of cupcakes. Will also attend a cake decorating class.
2. Cook at least 5 meals for dinner (5 proper meals – heating up murtabak segera or boiling sausages don’t count). Heh, I’ve been slacking in cooking meals for my family too.
3. Give the TLC needed by my garden including getting rid of the weed that has grown bigger than some plants, replace the soil for most of the pots, buy and feed the plants with fertilizer and most important of all get rid of some of the potted plants (because they’ve been dead for more than 3 months!)
4. Make more room in the kitchen cabinet by relocating most of the old plastic containers, bottles, pans and whatnots. I know it has never been about storage problem; it’s always housekeeping issues that cluttered my mind most of the times.

Well, okay… enough for now and even those 4 items are way more ambitious than my 2008 resolutions. Anyway, did I make any? I’m still trying to remember.

If kemalasan masih melanda, I'd just settle with fake flowers aje lah...

By the way, that's the night stand flower in Che'gu Yati's kamar pengantin. I went to her wedding in Skudai, JB on Saturday, and was really glad to meet a few of my friends from college days. The girls have grown into women. We started gossipping right after the handshakes and cipika-cipiki (that's Cium Pipi Kanan, Cium Pipi Kiri uols!) Yeah, we are that mature now.

While the bride and groom was busy with their makan beradap, the girls and I  crashed the newlyweds' room.

Well, you know what they say.... old habits die hard. I used to crash Che'gu Yati's room during my college days, I found it appropriate to crash her bilik pengantin. Hehe. When we were 18 we used to cram in Che'gu Yati (and Nyah's) room whenever we felt like it. They had the most welcoming room in the whole of UPM. Food was always available, and whenever they ran out of stock, one of us would go down to the small college co-op convenient shop to buy bags of keropok, kerepek and biskut. No need to ask the secret of balooning anymore now, will you?

Nyah didn't change a bit. All smiles and laughter and warm as ever. Besides being one of the permanent 'musafir' in her room, I also used to borrow Nyah's sweater when it's chilly. (UPM was ever chilly? I must be kidding myself then.)

Took picture with Che'gu Yati after the makan beradap. I like her make-up, very natural and made her look like herself. I just hate some Mak Andam who always tried to make the bride look different. At times, I couldn't even recognize the brides. No wonder some people went to the wrong wedding.



Che'gu Yati and the lucky groom. Hey, it was not easy winning Che'gu Yati's heart, okay! Like they say - best man win. Hope to meet Che'gu Yati junior soon.

The Reluctant Engineer

Sunday afternoon, I flew by Malaysia Airlines down south to a customer’s data center for a system upgrade task. The task was supposed to resolve a system availability problem faced by the customer ever since February 2006.

I took the assignment half heartedly, mainly because the task had to be performed within a very short maintenance window – 1 a.m till 5 a.m. I just hated short downtime, why couldn’t I get 2 long days to settle things? Although I knew damn well that minutes of downtime can cause hundred thousands of ringgit loss to the customer, but WTH…. My task was supposed to be a preventive measure taken to ensure that the system will be 99.98% available in the future, so that the customer can avoid the loss of transactions worth billions of ringgit! IT world is filled with injustice and illogical decisions.


The eerie entrance to the customer's data center.


The empty office at 5 a.m. I was alone there, when the guys went for ciggy break.


Watched the sun crept in as we dragged out sore limbs to the car after the maintenance job.




Secondly, (huuu huuu huuu!) I just added new ‘wood’ element to my laman and only got the chance to enjoy it for 20 minutes. Hmmmm, what a good excuse not to leave home. Waz1f was the one insisted that I buy the garden furniture. Although I’ve been contemplating on buying them for years, this time I didn’t think; just grabbed them, put in the trolley and went straight to swipe my just-recently-cleared Credit Card. Mr Hubby chipped in later (he gave cash.. hehehe!) The children’s reaction later, when I put the garden chairs and table at the patio, was priceless. They were screaming, ‘Jom kita main kat sini! Mak, nak makan kat luar ni! Mak, kenapa tak beli 4 kerusi? Mak, nanti beli bangku yang panjang tu!’ Both of them were not that excited when they got their first bicycles. They stayed and played on the patio until long after dark. My kids are the outdoor (and nocturnal) type, I can see that now!




The rare no-fighting moments of the Dynamic Duo.


To add more to their uncontrollable excitement, Mr. Hubby’s friend came that night bringing two of his three kids. Waz1f and Shawq1 were almost hysterical seeing their friends came. ‘Shahm1! Jom main sini! Ada kerusi baru!!’ Yeah, the whole neighborhood heard that, thank you Waz1f! So, the four of them played there for almost an hour, and I didn’t watch most of AF5 concert as they ordered iced Milo, grilled chicken frankfurter and French toast to be enjoyed in the garden – on the new table! Kids these days, they surely know what they want.

So, I was typing this in the hotel room after a long sleepless night. The upgrade task did not resolve the actual problem, by the way. *Sigh*. I know there’s going to be another expensive trip here, once we could get another downtime. I’ll take the plane, stay in 5 star hotel, order room service, refuse car pooling and do other things, just to make sure the trips will be expensive. Heheheh…. Is this one way of getting even with the industry/customer or am I’m just being the stupid/arrogant/selfish me? Whatever, I’m going to finish Adibah Amin’s book tonight – at the patio – on the new garden chair!

Roses are red, my love....

This is the result of First Phase of Garden Face Uplift at DNAS's house. I was not being too ambitious, put some effort in it (about 15 minutes every work day and 2 hours during weekends), spent like less than RM50 for the fertilizer, pebbles and some new pot stands. Weeding, trimming and manual mowing were the most time consuming activities. It took a lot of patience and perserverance to come to this.

So, next I'll be doing more researches on the type of plants that can survive well (unattended most of the time... hahahah) that produce huge, green leaves ( I am not that into flowers, except for roses... heh heh heh). Other than that, I'd like to find plants with dark red or yellowish leaves that would grow up to my waist's height, and of course, requires minimum attention from yours truly.
I have a beautiful, sturdy, 8 feet tall, 10 feet deep and 4 feet wide pergola in my mind eversince forever. That, I'm gonna have to ask around for competitive prices. I'm sure it's not going to be anything below RM2K. What if I decided to build one myself? Hmmmm... maybe not worth the risk. I haven't done any 'kerja-kerja pertukangan' ever since my Uni days. You see, I was doing a Diploma in Agricultural Engineering, so we had workshops doing gas welding, wood craft, drove tractor, tanam jagung, tanam padi, tanam kacang, membiak cendawan etc etc. So, let the 8X4X10 pergola become part of my wish list for 2007... ;)

This is the result of my first ever effort doing mini landscape. I was so inspired by Nik Farizah's advise in her blog, she said that any corner, any space, can be turned into mini landscape. So I tried this. The pebbles and stepping stones I got from Giant, very cheap one!

Here's a bunch of plants that I've had since I first moved in this house. They've grown sideways, searching for sunlight. I'm keeping them under the shades for they can only have about 30% of Malaysian's ray of sunlight. Once I move any of them under the direct sun, it will be dead on the third day.

So far 2007 looks good enough for me. Let's just wait for 15th Jan, 19th Jan and 26th Jan. Those are THE DATES that will determine what's waiting ahead. Those DATES will also help me decide whether I should do better things (careerwise).

Other than career, 2007 will be filled with lotsa gardening and writing, and who knows maybe suddenly another baby decided to come join the family. Heh heh heh... berangan. Yeah, that reminds me that I have to see my gynae and have a checkup. I have to know whether my tummy lining can stand another pregnancy. Time is running fast, my dearests.... if I want another child, it has to be before I turn 35. This year, I'm turning 33... I know it's going to a year full of decision makings.