Turn Over A New Leaf

After 1 year and 1 month, I finally go back to working life again. This is my first week, as usual, mixed feelings again. Nothing seems perfect.

Happy
1. Praise God, I got a job that I like
2. Less diaper changing
3. Only cook for baby in weekends
4. No more daily poop handling

Sad
1. Definitely less time spent with Chloe
2. No more afternoon nap

A New Light To Give Away

My reno contractor had given me an extra ceiling light that I didn't order. It's new and still in good condition. The light is good for balcony, entrance or wet kitchen area. It's FREE if you want it! Some of you ask for pictures, there you go ...

A Story About VAN

We had a short trip to USM Nibong Tebal yesterday. The reason was to bring back our baby crib from a friend's house there. In order to carry the baby crib, our little Iswara definitely cannot do a good job:) The only option was to borrow the van from the church.

That was my frist trip in a VAN.

When we were on our way back with our crib perfectly fitted at the back of the van, something unexpected happened at the bridge tol when we attepted to pass through the Touch-N-Go lane. From far, we saw a malay girl (tol worker), quickly came out from the counter to stop us at the lane. She waved at us and pointed her finger to other lane, she was asking us to move to the lane on the left. The first thing that came into our mind was "What a bad luck! This Touch-N-Go lane is out of order!". With a CRV followed behind our car, hf tried very hard to reverse the van out of the lane and planned to go in the next cash lane on the left. Guess what? I don't understand what is in the mind of the Malaysian drivers. The cars kept coming into the cash lane, none of them gave way to our van. What an selfish act! They acted as though they cannot see such a BIG VAN!!!

Finally, we managed to make into the cash lane. Who knows, the same malay girl stood right in front of us, giving us the same hand signal again. This time I really lost my temper, what's this man!

We reversed again. JL thought, maybe van has different rate. This time, We followed after a bus, a bus lane couldn't be wrong. The TRUTH was finally revealed --> Yeah, JL was right .... coz the meter showed RM9.60!

Now we understand, even though MPV and Van have the same capacity - 7 seaters, but Van != MPV, VAN is VAN, perhaps from the outlook sake or price sake:) I guess that's the reason why the eyes of the malay girl were so sharp. A van needs to move through all the lanes horizontally, endanger itself just to pay 4 more dollars for the TOL:)

Back To Malaysia

FINALLY!!! I'm back, thank God I'm still alive! Actually I was back to Malaysia since last month, but I was too occupied with many things:

(a) 1st week - we were hoping that our apartment reno would be done in a week time, however, only master room was ready. It was not 100% ready also, curtain also tak-dak. We slept on a king size mattress with queen size comforter somemore. (self-pity*)

(b) 2nd Week - all the faulty electrical points and issues were fixed. However, it caused some of the walls need to be repainted. Then, the contractor sent someone to clean the house, I nearly fainted, I asked that guy to wipe all the glass doors and windows, but they ended up like never been wiped before. I asked him to use thinner to remove some sticky stuff on the kitchen top, he took 1/2 hour but the sticky stuff was still there, hai yo! In the midst of all these, my sis-in-law moved in the apartment. The next day, my another sis-in-law came back from UK. My father also came to visit me that night .... so excited huh :)

(c) 3rd Week - shipment from US had arrived, ended up my house was full with boxes. The carpenter was supposed to remove the TV rack and divider before the shipment arrived. Really hopeless, they came at the wrong time, in the midst of all the boxes, the TV rack and divider were scrapped. Despite the frustration, we were so happy coz no more ugly rack. However, a lot of holes remained on the walls, even on the tiles ......

(d) 4th week - Finally I unpacked all the shipment boxes. Another story had just begun. Coz, we arranged lorry to carry our stuff from Taiping to our apartment. Another unpacking to do. The good thing is, THE CURTAINS WERE FINALLY HERE!

(e) 5th week - Finally got a better contractor to plaster and repaint the wall. The broken tile was replaced too. What a major milestone! However, my house was so dusty ever since .....

All these were just the highlights of what had happened in the last few weeks, but actually the situation was much worse than that. So many sleepless nights. You couldn't imagine how bad it was! Plus it was done with Chloe around :)

I received an email from my best friend, hai ... kena scolded kuat kuat by her becoz I didn't contact her after I came back. My old hp no. was no longer working, and I didn't give her my new no. and she was feeling hurt with that. (I'm sorry ...)

THANK GOD for His strength to endure all these. It reminded me - do not look at the big mess, but break the big mess into smaller pieces and tackle one by one, take a step forward at a time, eventually the big mess is gone.

Sad News

I called my mom on Sunday to wish her Happy Mother's Day. While I was excited to share I had done for her, she brought me a bad news. I was speechless after I heard that. MY COUSIN BROTHER HAD PASSED AWAY.

Until now, I still cannot believe it really happened. My cousin brother was only 27 and he died of leukemia. It was too late when the leukemia was diagnosed. It has reached the final stage. The doctor suggested him to undergo chemotherapy immediately where a total of 4 shots would be given. However, my cousin brother started to be losing consciousness after the first shot of chemo. He even told his father (my uncle) that he couldn't take it no more. After he was given the third shot, he went into unconsciousness. In ICU, his body temperature and heart beats kept going down, down, down .... and he was gone ....

He was a very unfortunate boy in all his life, except he had all the love from my grandma because he was the firstborn son in the family. His parents had divorced at his young age and he had a broken family since then. His father had to work else where to make a living and left him with my grandpa and grandma. My grandpa was very strict with him, however, he had become a problematic child after my grandpa passed away. That time he was 12/13 years old. Everyone in the family blamed my grandma for over pampering him. Well, what do you think? A grandma who lost her husband and a kid without parents by his side, both of them depended on each other.

One day, we heard another news about his mother. His mother was diagnosed with final stage breast cancer. He lost his mom. I didn't know how he went through such difficult times. He life was never been good. And in the end, leukemia had become his fate, at age 27.

I still do not know what to say, and I couldn't even see his last face. I couldn't accept the fact that he just disappeared from my life like that. *SIGH ....

Brutal Baby

This is Chloe's new hobby. She is fascinated over the ponytail holder on ladies' heads. Unfortunately, A was Chloe's target because Chloe kept pulling her ponytail holder off her head! See. A was tortured by Chloe, "brutally":)

A: No Chloe.... OUCH!!!

There are 4 things that would catch Chloe's attention:
1. Food
2. Laptop/computer
3. Ponytail holder
4. Toys (not those belong to Chloe)

If you have one of those 4 things, Chloe will surely become your good friend:)

Celebrate Birthday

Last Sunday was my friend, Ying's birthday. I was so touched by the way her friends celebrated her birthday. She is from Thailand and she is studying in Portland State University now. Her ex-university friends in Thailand sent her a video to wish her happy birthday. The video is so special, see this!

The title of the video is "Where is Ying?". At the beginning of the video, it shows a guy was knocking on the door of room 616. The room 616 was Ying's room. That guy was looking for Ying, but he couldn't find Ying. Instead, it was Ying's ex-roomate who was sleeping on the bed. Then both of them went down to the dining place to find Ying. They thought that the girl whose face was covered by the newspapers was Ying. Obviously, they were wrong. So, where was Ying? Then, 3 of them stood up one by one behind the bar and there, they pointed at the video cam and shouted,"Ying!" THEY EVEN BROUGHT UP A BIRTHDAY CAKE!!! They sang her birthday song. In the end, Ying's ex-roomate pointed to a board with the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY YING" message.

I have mixed feelings when I watch this video. I was so touched by their friendship. She must be a special person to her friends, until they miss her so much. At the meantime, her friends were pathetic because they had to help Ying to blow the candles and eat the cake without Ying:)

Try this on your friends who are far away, he/she must be very touched!