7

We hit year 7 last Saturday, you guys. What an amazing ride so far. 

The sweetest goodbye

We always joked that we'll rot in this officer together but hey, you can plan a picnic but you can't predict the weather they say. Said goodbye to my favorite colleague for the past 8 years. She's family now and I pray our path will cross again - sooner or later. This is not a goodbye, definitely.

if-Thor

Everything I cooked last night turned out to be disastrous. So much for listing down the ingredients! \o/​

 

Had buka puasa with my siblings over the weekend. Good fun. Of course the kids ignored me the minute they hang out with their cousins and made my brother buy the super delicious murtabak from the Taman Ehsan's pasar Ramadan. Yay! We also cut cake to celebrate my eldest's sister and nephew's birthdays.

 

Then as usual we shared photos and a video over the group whatsapp chat. I couldn't even open the video because I started bawling. From the screengrab it was a visual of my eldest sister and nephew. And for a second I thought I saw my mother smiling. My sister's smile looked exactly like Mama's.

 

Sigh. I miss her so much. She is with us every single day.

24/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre: Instant hug dispenser.

Rumi: Been giving me attitude the past couple of days but that's okay.

Menu of the day

Royale Chulan Damansara // a staycation

The boys simply love staying at hotels. When they were small, I tell them we're staying at 'rumah ibu besar' so everytime we stay at a hotel somewhere, we are actually staying at my big house hehe.

Things at work, as you know, have been really challenging lately and if there's one thing I learned the hard way is that - the Company won't crumble without you. Sure, your colleagues will panic a bit, but please, for the sake of my sanity, I try not to care so much about work. OK maybe a little. Just a teeny weeny bit. ;p

We stayed at Royale Chulan Damansara yesterday! What's sweeter was that we were upgraded to their Duplex Suite, which means two floors of goodness! A small room is good enough for us but hey, we couldn't really say no this. Bila lagi ne~...

Le master bedroom.

The kid's room.

The living room oy!

Ibu, just chillin'.

3 TVs for duplex suite.

In the master bathroom.

Kids' pool. There is also an infinity pool for adults overlooking, er, constructions.

We are now back to our humble abode where the laundry and the organized mess keep growing but nothing beats staying at home. <3

circus

Made the right decision to take the little fam to see the Swiss Dream Circus at Mutiara Damansara on Friday night. It was the kids' first time (including the Ayah hehe) and the last time I saw a circus was when I was five. But this one is more like a acrobatic circus, thus no animals.

We bought the cheapest tickets but that's okay because the circus' venue is pretty small and even if you're at the far back seats you can still see clearly. And boy we were mesmerized! I don't even know what they're called because I only know jugglers and the clown hehe. 

Ok lemme quote from TimeOutKL:

"Marvel at awe-inspiring acrobatic feats, aerial trapeze hoop acts, foot juggling and a fearless display of rope acts."

There you go. We all enjoyed it so much! Rumi gave a standing ovation a couple of times and Emre laughed his heart out whenever the clown came out. I was so happy to see them that happy I nearly cried! Ibu is such a sap. Heheh. 

23/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre: So amusing to see him tickle a friend's baby like he does to a kitten! :D

Rumi: Lover of live performance, like me, this one. His reactions at the circus recently were priceless.

eventually

erase // rewind

we will wait til YOU get caught. in the meantime, keep erasing.

Vibes

I'm a big fan of loud music / live performance. Those who know me enough would understand that I love going for concerts. I may not enjoy the queueing up bit - queued for 4+ hours for Big Bang concert few years back - but once I'm inside the venue nothing else matters. It's just me and my music. 

Can't remember the last concert I went to so feeling that I needed to immerse myself in good music again I literally begged my friend to give me a ticket to Pentatonix. ;p Not that I know much about them but when you have a group that makes a living by singing acapella, it's got to be aca-mazing!

Aca-mazing indeed. Enjoyed their flawless harmonization and Suzie & I also enjoyed watching a bunch of mat sallehs with terrible dance moves in front of us.

And! Life would not be aca-perfect (oh god stop it Nate) without kpop! I've loved Park Jimin, eh I mean BTS since they debuted in 2013 and it would be not right if I gave this a miss. No, make that I WOULD BE VERY DEVASTATED.

Attended a wedding in Melaka in the morning (mind you I have never driven that far!), reached KL around 3, got ready, reached concert venue at 4 only to realised I GOT THE WRONG VENUE!!! Thank God the real venue was just 15 minutes away! Managed to get there on time and god, the concert was perfect. BTS is proof that you really don't need big budget concerts *cough Big Bang cough* to be the best, because BTS was flawless.

Absolutely flawless.

I'm a happy noona. :)
I think one of these days I'm gonna drag the husband to once of the kpop concerts, ya know, just to experience how awesome it can be. yeah. 
(if only they don't cost so much!)

Franco @ The Curve

Girls. We sometime crave for dessert like we're constantly pregnant. Settled for this when pretty much most things that we want at Franco was "out of stock". It wasn't that great - save for the chocolate love letter and nutella at the bottom.

p/s: No 53 project this week. Didn't take photos of my boys this time around! ._.

Ayam Kampung Publika

Food post! Oh just putting it out there why I never lose weight. Arwah Baba was a big fan of ayam kampung - which i dread the most - but now I don't hate it so much.

Colleagues and acquaintances have been talking about this place in Damansara Perdana (opposite 99 Speedmart) because they say it's cheap and hey the air sirap is free! But they were not wrong either when they say the food is good. Oh yeah, good wholesome Kelantanese dishes - although not much variety - but oh yummmmmmm! Havent had a good gulai telur itik for quite a while.

Ayam kampung not pictured here because we had to wait about 5 minutes or so for the chicken to be ready. Worth the wait.

Find them on instagram: @ayamkampungpublika

Reflect

Podgy & The Banker +

In good faith, I believe that whatever seemingly good opportunities I have surreptitiously passed up or missed either by accident, by choice, lack of confidence or procrastination are just minor hurdles for me to achieve greater things in the future. You know, that silver linings behind some clouds sorta thing.

Quite sad that my colleagues are leaving me sooner than I thought.

The choice that I made is not mine alone, because I had to take into consideration feelings, expectations and calculated risks. Of course that question "what if i took it up" & "what if it was approved" will linger in my head for a few weeks but I'm just gonna look forward and not dwell on the past for now.

Focus on the good for now, although they are scarce.