my brain dump

So far, everything's perfect. We had an amazing weekend Alhamdulillah thanks to Mum and both families, nikah and reception were everything I hoped for, even better.

Can't express my gratitude enough, now that I'm a Mrs.

The husband? He's a new level of a great man, masyaAllah - I can never ask for a better imam for me, he'd put my convenience first before his in everything; food, house, family, etc - I must've done something right to deserve him.

Today, I'm back at work but pretty sure my heart is still on cloud nine. Yes I know how cheesy that sounds. Even the husband, I think he's overwhelmed by how amazing these past few days have been and how happy I am everyday (I'm nicer when I'm happy) that he said,

"I wonder how many days it'd be before I screw up and you get cranky with me.."

Let's give it a few days months. Until then, I'm a happy wife.

So in a few hours, I'm going to be a Mrs. God knows how many dramas I've had this past few days; but I'd take it as a "complimentary gift" upon this status-changing ceremony.

Firstly, my grandpa (arwah Atok's husband) passed away last few days, so I had to take emergency leave to go back to Penang despite having planned to start my holiday on the day I finished my training this week.

Tahlil was done the day after, and despite not having my grandpa with me on my special day, I know he's in a so much better place right now in God's blessing. And that he's not suffering in pain anymore. So that alone, gives me so much comfort than I could expect. Seeing him in pain on his wheelchair, him trying to move around would break my heart.

Secondly, my nikah was supposed to be at my house but there were rumors that the tok kadi is unwell - hence Mum was hesitant to held nikah at my house. "We should do it at tok kadi's convenience", she said. That alone kind of changes the whole plan - but today the tok kadi contacted me and ensured that it'd be at my house as per planned. Alhamdulillah!

Who says getting married is easy? Haha.

Thank God mine would be in just a few hours!


Fetched my classmate in Japan, Erica from the airport as she's coming all the way to Malaysia for the wedding woohoo. Can't believe she's here!

Now back at home and Mum refused to let me out until tonight. WISH ME LUCK.

Ok so I've been all over the place this past week due to Penang-KL traveling, going to see the wedding planner, settling the door gifts, sending Mum extra invitation cards she wanted, etc.

Had to take last Friday off so that I could be in Penang and back to KL today to settle some of the last-minute things.

The aftermath?

Last few months, we decided not to buy goodie bags since Mum said she we've learned our lesson not to overspend and buy so many candies and food to pack in the goodie bags cause it would be time consuming; but at the last minute i.e. yesterday she said "ooh we will have to buy some goodie bags. Cannot NOT have goodie bags. Elders prefer goodie bags"

So off I went to the store to get another hundreds of goodie bags, as per her request.

Then, last few months I told Mum that I don't want lavish cake - just a simple wedding cake would do, or I would be fine without one. She said OK, no need to spend much on the cake.

Yesterday, my sister broke the news to me "ooh Mum ordered a 3-tiered wedding cake with a candy buffet for you"

WTF.

Our budget list, which we have prepared in an Excel sheet complete with items and price and payment date and all? I call BS.

Less than a week to go and I'm already going bananas.

Lesson learned : if your Mum ask about anything, note down what she agreed to so that you can show her when it's less than a week before the wedding. Too late for me, but save yourself.

So..last weekend I just realized how my life would turn 360 degrees.

We started moving things into the new house, and it seems like a whole new world to me.

We settled on this one place after going from a place to another and started getting tired of all the viewings, but Alhamdulillah, soon after looking at this particular place, we knew that was it. It has spaces we wanted - extra small room, nice squeaky clean toilets, clean kitchen - it was all we wanted!

So after the deal was sealed, we got our keys a few weeks back and he told me to start packing my things since I have more junk. Sheesh.

To be fair, I get scared too looking at my stuff.

For now we're using his car to load the stuff to the new house, but I have a feeling that we might have to contact the movers soon. He cares about his car too much that I think at some point he would just dump my stuff somewhere just so they won't scratch his car.

Upon reaching the house and unloading the bags, he frowned at me and said,

Men can never grasp the concept of extra small room, can they?

Since this is only the first phase of moving, I have a feeling we might have some problems during the second phase.

That's when I really bring the rest of the stuff he hasn't seen yet.

The kakak dobi I've been sending my laundry to has been calling me this ever since day one I sent my laundry; but today I just realized she really meant it haha.

Makes me realized why she hasn't asked for my name, all these while.

I do think I have split personality sometimes; cause recently at work I've been receiving this from the colleagues.



And who would take this as a compliment? Me. Our boss is one of the stereotype scary-iron-lady at our office - she's the boss everyone is scared of. Even the men. She has this air about her where everyone would shiver at the thought of her coming to our office for a meeting, or when she calls someone "please come and see me at my office", or when we have to go ask for her approval for something.

And as if it wasn't enough, she's dubbed the "fashionable one" (among the managers) because of her scarves-styling.

Now I don't know which trait reminded the colleagues of her, but I sure as hell don't have her charisma. Still such a longggg way to go! So I'm guessing they're categorizing the girls with scarves as "fashionable" in contrast to the girls with tudung bawal just because it's rare (at least in my office), hence why they think I resembled her, if that made sense.

One of the colleagues didn't think so. She said because sometimes, I like to voice my opinion especially when I don't agree with something even with the male colleagues. And that's why it's scary, she said, because there aren't many girls in my department would do that.

That's when I think, I might really have a split personality. Me, speaking up among the overpowered colleagues? Seriously no.

You know when you hear your soon-to-be-married girlfriend getting pampered by her friends; taking her to high-end spas, getting manicure, pedicure, facials and mandi susu and all - you'd think that when it's your turn, you'd get one too.

Wrong.

Where they took me about a few weeks before getting hitched?

Bukit Larut. And definitely not in a glamorous way.


We went on a road trip to Taiping a few weekends ago to attend a colleague's wedding, so while we're there, they decided that we should go mountain hiking at Bukit Larut.

They were adamant about it that there was no way of talking them out of the whole thing, so I had to say yes. My ideal road trip would be sleeping in the car, lying on the hotel bed watching TV, going swimming at the hotel's swimming pool and getting pampered at sauna. As for them, I believe I heard they were talking about some "mountain hiking, water rafting, diving" and some words I'm terrified of.

Not sure why we're even friends.

But am so glad I went with them on the trip. Bukit Larut was amazing.


I rarely ever exercise so my stamina isn't so good, but now at this moment I'm so proud to say I've conquered one of the famous hills in Perak. We managed to go on hiking trails as soon as the sun is up, so we reached the hillside quite early and gave up going further up to the top.

"Next time we'll go further up to the top okay?"
"Dude, next time? This is the last time I'm going with you guys I swear"


If you're going to Bukit Larut, it is recommended that you go up the mountain by jeep (provided by the keepers) and hike during your way down. But since we're rebels, we decided to go hike during our way up using the hiking trails people rarely ever use.

After 20 minutes, we were so scared that we're lost. Haha. Thank God for an aunty and uncle who hiked past us, took one look at us, and said "don't worry, there's a tar road about 100 metres ahead, you can go down from there". They're as old as my grandparents though.

"Damn, I'm so ashamed being 20-something years old"


SO PROUD.

On our way back to KL, I was dead asleep in the car when they decided to stop by this place called Mee Udang Mak Jah (apparently famous in Taiping) and dragged me out of the car.

Regardless the sport stuff, I had fun with the girls. Am so glad we did it before the wedding, cause it saddens me somehow to think I won't be able to join them doing these things as much in the future. But thinking how I can just see them everyday at the office, the sadness just goes away LOL.

And I'm down with fever and sore throat the day after we were back in KL.

No surprise there.

(photos from Kak Yana's camera)

So this brunch thing has become a routine for us now. Every so often, each of us would nudge our dying Whatsapp group to update albeit a liner - just to remind that we're alive and well - and asking about our next brunch date.

So after a few weeks of postponing (I was mostly away in Penang or busy looking for potential new house or moving, Fiqah was mostly busy with her family's events while Jua was mostly away due to her PTD training. Or just MIA) we finally decided to block our calendar for this date.

Had brunch at Levain. Haven't been there for quite some time since I have to work Bangi - Tower 3 now that I really miss the atmosphere. Managed to get a table upstairs which I'd have to admit, I'd opt for the outside view anytime cause it's a lot nicer than boring tables inside.

The aircond was nice though. And the food. The topics of the day? Ministries, starting a family, marriage, working experience after 2 years, little brothers' graduation ("yawn, we're too old for this"),  Paris, spending halloween at United Studios Japan, playing match-maker, Jua getting good with her Malay language proficiency..HAHA.

Upon reaching home, I realized something and quickly Whatsapp-ed them.

It's been ages since I last bought or read a chic-lit book, so recently when we went to a book store I decided to pick up this one book by Sophie Kinsella.
In fact, I've even read it before that when I entered the 5th page, I get this weird familiar feeling..

It can't be, I thought. But there it was, the old one I kept in the cabinet since last year when I got it, which has vanished from my memory apparently.

THE SAME ONE.

This can't get any blonder, can it?

So it's quite obvious work has taken over my life lately; that I had quite a few number of meltdowns on my own, without I'm even realizing it.

Let's zoom in to this one event, a few days ago.

We were at the town hall event at KLCC, proudly showcasing our project to the potential stakeholders whose money we're going to buy in. It was a busy, busy day - I was practically running around in heels with a laptop on one hand and a bag on the other - going to Tower 1 to settle some legal issues, Tower 3 to open my laptop and reply some emails, and back to KL Convention Centre again to our booth.

Feet was killing me that I could cry any second.

Then it was the presentation time. Most of it was taken over by the bosses, so I thought I'd let them have their moment and space, and walked around to see the other booths. I was in charge of the poster so once it's done, hung and ready; I felt more comfortable to get around and mingle with people.

Which is basically a terrible idea since my feet was hurting already. But oh well, couldn't hurt to walk around for a few minutes, I thought.

And then when the showcase was over, my boss called us to gather and said,


I almost fainted.

So swiftly we started packing all the stuff at our booth; the prototype model, the poster, all. At this point, it started raining and I got worried since I've promised le fiancé that I'd drop by his office to have dinner together.

Still, my colleagues were all determined to have all the stuff ready packed to load into the car by that evening, so there we were, boxing all the stuff at one go and me covered in cello tapes and everything.

When it's finally done, we said goodbye and I ran off to the parking at Isetan to my car trying to make it in time for dinner. And then a text came from the boss, saying,


I didn't know why but I just started crying in the car. It felt really good to be appreciated when you least expected it - I would have thought that it's part of my job and responsibility; but being recognized for it is different.

Felt as though a giant load lifted off my shoulder. Thank you, Boss!