Surat cinta pertama daripada Dubai

Salaam namaste from Dubai!

Salam namaste? Dubai ni ramai orang india.. So kalau cakap salaam namaste sure ramai yang faham, betul tak? Hehe. Anyway, baru rasa2 nak settle down kat sini. All the packages and luggages dah habis unpacked. So, life's back to normal. 

(Ramai orang india ehh.. sebenarnya berharapan nak jumpa Aamir Khan ke, Shahid Kapoor ke, Kareena ke buat filming sini.. lol. Neil Nitin Mukesh tu.. paling hensem lah. haha)

Sure ramai yang tertanya, ok ke duduk rumah after 7 years of working? Boleh tahan ke? Soalan ini selalunya ditanya oleh mereka yang bajet careerwoman la kan.. atau nak ada anak tapi malas jaga sendiri. I know that feeling, haha. Walau lepas ada anak dah tak berapa nak bajet careerwoman, tapi kerana tuntutan bekerja and peer pressures tu, gaya mesti maintain, betul tak?

Ahh, melalut pulak aku.

Honestly stress kat rumah and stress at work adalah 2 perkara yang berbeza. Tapi I guess stress at home adalah lebih seronok daripada stress at work. Stress at work (setelah menganalisa diri sendiri dan whatsapp conversations from my colleagues) adalah amat tak best kerana merasa kebergantungan terhadap manusia lain, yang selalunya mengecewakan. Be them your beloved colleagues ke, your most hated boss ke, or just this lady from department lain yang takde kena mengena tetiba minta something that takes away your time from your pile of work (I would love to write down their names mannnn...), for now adalah lebih baik stress di rumah. Seriously I'm not kidding.

Well, at least, when habis masak (and stressed kalau Fahim tetiba terbangun melalak sebab mama takde), Zara will eat and look at me and say "mmm.. delicious, thank you mama.." Boss ada nak cakap selalu "Good job..!" ? Haraamm.. lagi bagi kerja on top of my already full plate ada la. In a way, the sense of accomplishment I can obtain more easily (and mmg akan dapat pun!) at home. Sense of accomplishment at work.. hmm.. the last real one was masa dapat TUV certification kot. That was 3 years ago!

Anyway, I don't know how long I will be staying at home of course. Tapi for now rasa nak kerja tu belum ada la lagi. Perasaan nak ambil masters tu memang membuak2. And the course has already been identified. Cuma I already missed the semester for this year because it started before I left Petronas. So tahun ni tak dapat la kan. It's alright. I'm more eager about my sister's wedding planned at the end of this year. So yep, really looking forward to that occasion. Mana taknya, kakak pengantin lagi bersedia daripada pengantinnya, haha. 3 pasang baju dah siap dah. And kasut sekali!

Dubai, presently it's hot here. Tapi tak lama lagi nak cuaca sejuk dah. These few weeks my life is about home, cooking, shopping malls and taxis. Lol. Belum beli kereta lagi. Pun tengah fikir2 nak beli kereta apa. But our new home is very near to restaurants and groceries, so it's really convenient. Baru nak kenal jiran2.. hehe. Slowly2..

Hello from Zara & Fahim! You lucky lots.

Oklah, sebenarnya banyak nak tulis lagi. Tapi masa tak mengizinkan (teruna dan dara di rumah memerlukan perhatian mama, hehe). Ada hutang post lagi kan.. hutang dengan FSI girls, and hutang nak bercerita macam mana saya berjaya menjual kereta Honda City saya. Pengalaman yang berharga tu.. hehe. 

Alright. See you in the next post. Adios from Burj Khalifa!

Things lately..

I'm now in my 31st week of pregnancy, woohoo! Time sure does fly. And being in beyond 7 months means that I can't fly anymore.. so no more traveling for me. Sebenarnya bosan to be encumbered at the office and to finish out all the necessary KPIs. Just waiting for the time to take annual leave and focus on the arrival of the new baby.

Ok, so how different is this pregnancy compared to when I was carrying Zara?

Well, not much. Just that the habit during 1st trimester came back: bread-and-cheese based diet. I dunno why but the idea of eating rice is just a no-no for me right now. Bukan berlagak mat salleh ye. Ladies yang pernah pregnant sure tahu apa rasanya when it comes to refusing and favoring certain food.

Yesterday's check up, my baby is already 1.3 kg. I guess he'll come out about Zara's size.

The thing I'll do differently this time, I don't think I will wanna have vaccinations for my baby. I guess Zara was just lucky despite having a full vaccination. I know there are many opposing parents to this idea, but if you were to think (even just logically!), looking at the ingredients of the vaccines is enough to stop us stop vaccinating our babies. Like hey, say I am feverish, and I am introduced to this medicine. The contraindications say I would likely get an asthma attack (if I were a sufferer, which I am!), a sudden whooping cough and possible migraine. I would say 'to hell with that medicine'!

As parents, are we even told of the vaccines brands that enter our hopeless babies' bodies? No. No doctors even bother to tell us. Not even how to administer the babies after the shots. Have we ever wondered why?

I would strongly recommend parents out there to do their research on this. Taking my words only is not sufficient; it can only induce your inquisitive mind. But trust me, the hard facts are out there; tonnes of them! Check them out. Be an informed parent.

 

The only thing undone right now is to secure cord blood banking for the baby. I did it for Zara with Cryocord. I am still unsure whether to do it with Cryocord again this time (no problem on the service, they are just fine). It's just that I wanna know if there's new technology or new benefits introduced by either Cryocord or other competitiors like Stemlife, so that I can make the most out of my investment.

 

  

 Which to choose.. Cryocord or Stemlife?

What about Zara? Zara is progressing well in reading ABCs and 123s.. and the fact that she recognizes colors, being able to construct simple sentences and distinguishing the alphabets correctly simply awed me. I mean, yeah I know she can sing the ABC song really well, but to the extent of recognizing the individual letters.. that's a wow for me. Just that, lately she likes to play at the children playground in front of the house, which is much to my disliking. Yeah I know playing is a normal work for children. But the fact that the playground is always swarmed with big boys and aggressive children (and not to forget mosquitoes!) I rather distract her doing something else.

 Haih, Zara.. Zara.. you're going to be a sister soon!

Oh yeah, did I mention that she even calls herself 'kakak' now. Well, not really 'kakak'.. more like 'tatak'.. haha. Pelat K.

Soon we're gonna get our new set of curtain for the living hall.. and we're soo excited! Yeap, home improvement at its best ehh.. haha. 

 We feel bored of the striped curtain. Haih.. housewarming pun belum buat lagi okay!

HomeDec at KL Convention Center's gonna arrive soon. From 17th - 20th Oct (Part 1) and 24th - 27th Oct (Part 2). Kalau rajin jom la check it out!

Episod rumah baru: Garden Homes Bangi

1st October 2011. A fresh start for Papa, Mama and Zara. In our new home ;)

Finally.. after months of waiting, we have now moved to our own house in Garden Homes, Bangi!

The house was started to be renovated soon after Zara was delivered. We knew we shouldn't wait any longer since we already gotten the house key before Papa got back from the UK.

After like 2 months + of renovation, designing our own kitchen and TV cabinets (and getting them to be completed by the contractor pun lama jugak!) and a few weeks of scouting for furniture (believe me, we were sickeningly choosy..) we were ready to move in.. yay~! after all the hard work.. Sian Papa.. he was the planner, he was the designer of the bathrooms and cabinets (and I got to do the approving part je.. hehe.. was in confinement kan.. sure la tak larat) he was the project manager.. semualah. Really, kudos to you sayang :) Memang well-rounded habis.


Right now, the basic furniture are already in. Maybe if we have time to go to HomeDec exhibition this weekend, maybe we'll find more interesting things to buy. I just can't stop thinking about that Dyson fan... arrghhh..


So peeps, these are a few pics of the house that we took over the months.. and how it looks like now ;)

Renovation works ongoing. Everything was dumped at the car porch, huhu.. Belum scrub2 lagi lantai porch neh..

Air cond guy installing the mounting bracket. I think the guy in white was Acin, our plaster ceiling + wiring contractor. I call him Chuck Bass cuz he had the berlagakkss attitude.

I love the mosaic on the wall. The cabinet installation really took quite some time to be completed. Yeah, alright, impatient me.

So okay.. rumah dah siap.. So here's how it looks like presently..

The living room. Someone asked us if we bought the TV cabinet from Ikea. Haha, no we didn't. It was designed by Hubby and me, after doing a lot of googling on modern TV cabinets. The curtains were tailored by The Living Depot, Bangi. They measured, helped us with the curtain choices and installed them up. They have good discounts too. 

The dining room. Yeah, you must be thinking that we may have this 'white' fetish kan? Haha. not really anyway. Just suka dengan dining set ni. Tu je :)

The kitchen - my face place! While my Hubby was in the UK, I had lots of time to shop alone. So I did my share of scouting for choices of kitchen cabinet (especially!) among other things, and learned a lot from cabinet vendors. I was thoroughly educated on pressboards, solid surface top, granite top, concrete top, melamine door, acrylic door, 3G door, 4G door....etc. If you are a choosy lot, you'll find that there are many ways to minimize the cost (and many ways to increase the cost too, haha!). We chose to use quartz top, which costs more than granite top. Yeah, agak mahal la.. but it's worth it, because I know myself. I'm careless. Quartz top (and granite top) will not be stained by spills of turmeric powder or curry power. Ni pun dah a few times tersprinkle curry powder atas top. A lot of things I can write about cabinets. Tapi hm, malas la nak cerita lebih2. Just ask me (or pergi je la kedai cabinet kan :D) if you wanna know more.

The bedroom. The bed pun putih jugak. Ornamented divine bed and 11" Sweetdream mattress. Tilam memang sedap la kan.. Lesson learnt from the mattress in my room back in Sg Buloh.. asyik sakit pinggang je. The red background tu saja je. Nampak meriah sikit.

The main bathroom. We totally revamped this bathroom. The color was inspired by KL Convention Centre toilet (claimed by Hubby lah.. he usually has events going there.. and he actually snapped a few photos of the toilet there and bought the tiles to follow its color)

And my little darling Zara makin enjoy mandi in her Puj Tub. Got it soon after my boss told me I had to go outstation. It's like a mobile bath place for babies up to 6 months. Mandi kat sink je eh sayang.. kurang la sikit sakit pinggang mama.. :)

Housewarming? In the plan.. In the plan.. Hopefully before end of the year. Hubby says we might need to do it in batches, sebab kitaorg malas nak rearrange the furniture. Nape malas? Because we are the only 2 adults in the house.. and orang perempuan mana boleh angkat heavy things.. Especially after delivery. Lagi kena jaga tau. 

Hehe. Just wait for our invitation ya bebehs!