Fabric Obsession - SMH @ TBL

Assalammu'alaikum family, friends, readers and followers of this blog. Behind the scenes of blogging, I have been spying fabrics and had probably purchased more than I had wanted to..

I mean puh-lease.. How do you even begin to resist these??

I wasn't even there, these are pictures taken by a friend who went there to look at the sale collections which are going at $8/y. Well, with so many fabric hoarders in a chat grp, we all ended up looking at non-sale prints and bought bolts to share. Crazy we are, and so am I..

Oh these sales are at Sing Mui Heng at Tan Boon Liat Building only. The strange thing is, when I visit them I get so blank headed and always exit empty handed. but when someone else is there, EVERYTHING is so PRETTY!!!

Look! Some are good deals going at $6-8/yard!

And their Fat Quarters are going at $2.50/each

And I ended up getting these

And 4 pieces of FQs chosen by my friend because it would be endless for me to choose myself and limit myself to just 4 pieces. LOL!

And with the sewing network I have and every single members going crazy, don't be surprised if you walk in to an almost empty shelves over there, ok? 

Happy Shopping!

Until the next sale,
Jun

Wassalam

Marriage and its purpose

Assalammu'alaikum family, friends, readers and followers of this blog. So it is midweek eh.

I wanna touch on marriage again. In my last post I mentioned abt this note that I shared on my facebook:

A household where a mother is made known of her battle and sacrifices, and where a father is made known of his share of battle and sacrifices is usually filled wit love and respect. In that household, children learn that in marriage, every flaw of the spouse is to be their own little secret and that all their good deeds shall be remembered.

And its caption: Marriage is about upholding each other's honour and integrity. If the one person you had trusted your life with turns around to tell anyone of your flaws, then who else can you trust?

Let your spouse's shortcoming be your secret to keep, and focus on her/his strengths that enlightens and makes you happy.

You dont need to tell the world, just tell your spouse, because he/she should be your world.

 In many household, I see mothers instilling to their child some hate to their fathers or the feeling of irrelevance of a father figure, and I can't help but feel hurt for the father. I know there are hopeless fathers but they still hold a role somehow, without him, they will be no child of yours whom you had with him. 

In my household, as hopeless as my father can be with the household chores and what not, my mother never taught us to hate my father or to ignore his requests at any time, even today. As much as she complains more now, she will be inserting some good point about my father knowingly or unknowingly. And this has taught me a few lessons that I can imply onto my marriage. 

We are a team

Yup, I think I have mentioned this many times in many posts, and many fb statuses. We are a team, we don't need to outdo each other, no need to compete with each other. A marriage is to complete each other. 

If you are racing and you speak of your partner's/assistant's/navigator's shortcomings or flaws, wouldn't that give  your REAL competitor a clue on how to win you at the race? Likewise for marriage, if that one person whom you would trust your life with turns around to speak evil of you, then seriously, who else can you trust?

Lets get real, when children outgrow us, become adults, get married, they will be busy. And they wont occupy your time like how your spouse would. Children cannot replace the void a spouse leaves. Marriage is special, you know. A child can't be hugging and kissing you and sleeping with you all night to keep you secure. 

Secret

A lot of things are to be kept secret between a husband and wife. Be it the flaws or shortcomings, or the birthmark you have between your breast, or that scar you had between your legs. These things are to your own little secret. Noone should know you more than you spouse, not even your mother. 

So forget and forgive your spouses' shortcoming, focus of his/her strengths, the things he does in his own special way to keep your smile on your face, to keep your heart skip a beat, to make those butterflies making backflips in your stomach. Aren't those special? 

So ya, I guess I keep it short this time. Now time for you to wonder and ponder. Oh, have you hugged, and said I love you to your spouse? Or perhaps tell him you appreciate him. 

I know I hardly do that, but sometimes I talk to him in his sleep. And when he wakes up, I pretend I sleep talk. 

So much about women ego eh? 

Oh wells, until next time!
Jun
Wassalam

Long Weekend with #anakcucuPakMasnollah

Assalammu'alaikum family, friends, readers and followers of this blog.

So.. what's up? A super long weekend is over, and it will be another 6 weeks before another long weekend. So what has happened the past two weekends?

CNY weekend was awesome. We (the #anakcucuPakMasnollah entourage)  booked a pit at Changi Beach Park, all hyped for night to come. Happy is, when we all managed to surprise our precious girls with the whisper challenge thingy.. And my husband managed to record the moments and had uploaded it up to youtube. Link later as you read. :)

It was a teamwork involving two external resources, namely, Dhiyya Delights/Ainal Dhiyya for the awesome 2-in-1 cake, and the guy from Run My Errands who picked up the cake and deliver it right to our pit.

As we all know, the cake baker is not a new name in my life. I stalked her for a long long while prior to my engagement, and because I just cannot risk having a pretty but not tasty cake, I engaged her service to bake a cake for the girls birthday some 4-5years ago. Seeing is believing, it looked good, and tasted even better than it looks! So I took the plunge and engaged her for my wedding cake and the gift exchange cakes. And like the first I had only told her what kindda cake I want, how I want it to be, and roughly how I want it to look. For most of time when I engaged her service, I rarely tell her exactly what I want, just excerpts of what I want, and she always always surprises me pleasantly by exceeding my expectations wildly. I am not exaggerating. Trust me, I don't get any special discounts for every time I mentioned her. This is sincerely my heartfelt appreciation to her work and of my satisfaction everytime I engaged her to bake for me. Yes, it may be pricey but it is worth every single cent for a cake beyond satisfaction, it looks great, but taste superbly awesome. Not stingy with her ingredients, which is why her small 5" cake is usually more than 1kg.

So this time all I had said is that the girls are worlds apart, with one loving mango and another one loving anything chocolate, and here is the result:

Lovely right? 2-in-1 cake!

Well, we booked the pit on 7th February, eve of CNY. There will be many couriers, but all would be off to celebrate the holidays as well. I went crazy, because I don't want to have myself out to collect the cake leaving the girls suspicious, and definitely not anyone else in the family because they will be suspicious all the same.

Then a friend suggested me to try Run My Errands. I browse thru the FB Page for a long while, after being very sure that all there is there are positive reviews, I private messaged and was instantly greeted well with a quotation. Pricey yes, but I have not much choice. I decided to confirm my details and see how it goes. All the while, from the first to the last message to inform him of some changes and all was promptly attended to and replied within the same hour.

On that day, I was anxious. It was approximately 7.30, that I got a message to inform that the cake has been collected. Few minutes later my baker confirmed that the cake has been collected. We were throwing random phrases to everyone and it wasn't the girls' turn yet when I received the call to confirm our location as he has arrived. Oh boy. he was discreet knowingly that it was meant for a surprise. It was a brief smile, a quick thank you and the cake is with us out of the girls' viewing range. So while my 2nd sis and BIL got busy opening the cake and getting it ready for the girls, I snapped back in the whisper challenge and got the girls to guess our special phrase!

Watch it here.

The look on their faces. so blur. What a random phrase right? Heh, then we gestured them to look at what's on the table and you can clearly see the glow on their faces. So special. So so special.

I can hardly believe that the mango girl is 21 and the chocolate girl is 19 going 20 this year. Their birthday is just 3 weeks apart, and they had always celebrated it together like twins. They are the first two children under my care, so they are special, too special for words.

I know I have wished you girls earlier, and I am wishing you girls again. Happy Birthday, Grow Wisely, Be Kind. I love you!

We didn't stay till morning, in the video you could tell the wind was extremely strong and some of us are catching the cold. We left a little past midnight for the warmth on our beds. When Monday came, I became extremely lazy, all I wanna do is lay on bed and sleep and sleep.

I was really suppose to sew two pairs of skants but it clearly didnt happen. The only thing that happened on Tuesday is my meeting with my insurance agent to update my policies and the trip to Bras Basah to get my Fossil watches serviced, and on the way back, meet a friend to get the VKen socks.

I dragged myself to the reality that it is going to be work day. Thankfully it is just for 1.5days. Then an accident happened to my dad, who had tried to hold the lift door open only to have his blood spurting out like paint, and he just shoved his finger to my face asking to put a plaster on it. So I dragged him to the clinic with lots of tissues pressed on the open wound to get it dressed. Too freak for me!

Thankfully, my bosses are understanding for trusting to my words. It was a crazy week with my injured father especially with his dementia. Every time he wakes up from his sleep, he seemed to wonder why his finger is bandaged and tried to open it, and even wash it before screaming in pain. And we all screamed the house crazy because no matter how often we remind him, he forgets. The battle is real. The horror to have Dementia is real. So real I am scared. One day, when he cannot recognize anyone anymore, I wouldn't be able to work full time, I will have to be on alternate days or half days so I can bring him out away from my very overly stressed mother. Life will be crazy.

On Friday night, we fetched our weekend baby. On Saturday, I babysat another three children and instantly became a mother of 4. Thankfully the older children are very giving to my weekend baby. The little baby was having a bad cough though.

And on Sunday, we went to the market, to the wedding reception and to the airport. And today back in the office again. It suddenly got me thinking of marriage, and what it means, but I guess that is for another entry.

Oh! And I just wanna officialize that #sewbasic won't be taking apparel orders. I just felt that we are better at doing bags and taking orders for that than we are up to taking apparel orders. Fret not though, I will definitely direct you to other better tailors around to serve you, insyaAllah.

Until next time,
Jun

Wassalam.

Delivery Review: Run My Errands

Assalammu'alaikum family, friends, readers and followers of this blog.  Once again, another review to write! Alhamdulillah..

Well, we booked the pit on 7th February, eve of CNY. There will be many couriers, but all would be off to celebrate the holidays as well. I went crazy, because I don't want to have myself out to collect the cake leaving the girls suspicious, and definitely not anyone else in the family because they will be suspicious all the same.

Then a friend suggested me to try Run My Errands. I browse thru the FB Page for a long while, after being very sure that all there is there are positive reviews, I private messaged and was instantly greeted well with a quotation. Pricey yes, but I have not much choice. I decided to confirm my details and see how it goes. All the while, from the first to the last message to inform him of some changes and all was promptly attended to and replied within the same hour.

On that day, I was anxious. It was approximately 7.30, that I got a message to inform that the cake has been collected. Few minutes later my baker confirmed that the cake has been collected. We were throwing random phrases to everyone and it wasn't the girls' turn yet when I received the call to confirm our location as he has arrived. Oh boy. he was discreet knowingly that it was meant for a surprise. It was a brief smile, a quick thank you and the cake is with us out of the girls' viewing range. So while my 2nd sis and BIL got busy opening the cake and getting it ready for the girls, I snapped back in the whisper challenge and got the girls to guess our special phrase!

Moments later I received a sms to inform that the cake has been successfully delivered, and subsequently invited to leave a feedback on their page.

Such service is hard to come by I must say. The guy was pleasant, greet us with a smile and very on time. Definitely worth the money I paid.

And guess what? Run My Errands also does grocery shopping for you. Oh and also shop at Ikea and fix it for you too! Don't hesitate to engage him, you can definitely mention me too, there is a discount for first timers who engage him. So why not?

Until next time,
Jun

Wassalam.

Cake Review : Ainal Dhiyya/Dhiyya Delights

Assalammu'alaikum family, friends, readers and followers of this blog.  Once again, another review to write! Alhamdulillah..

Thank you Dhiyya Delights/Ainal Dhiyya for the awesome 2-in-1 cake!

As we all know, the cake baker is not a new name in my life. I stalked her for a long long while prior to my engagement, and because I just cannot risk having a pretty but not tasty cake, I engaged her service to bake a cake for the girls birthday some 4-5years ago. Seeing is believing, it looked good, and tasted even better than it looks! So I took the plunge and engaged her for my wedding cake and the gift exchange cakes. And like the first I had only told her what kindda cake I want, how I want it to be, and roughly how I want it to look. For most of time when I engaged her service, I rarely tell her exactly what I want, just excerpts of what I want, and she always always surprises me pleasantly by exceeding my expectations wildly. I am not exaggerating. Trust me, I don't get any special discounts for every time I mentioned her. This is sincerely my heartfelt appreciation to her work and of my satisfaction everytime I engaged her to bake for me. Yes, it may be pricey but it is worth every single cent for a cake beyond satisfaction, it looks great, but taste superbly awesome. Not stingy with her ingredients, which is why her small 5" cake is usually more than 1kg.

So this time all I had said is that the girls are worlds apart, with one loving mango and another one loving anything chocolate, and here is the result:

Lovely right? 2-in-1 cake!

The cake as described by the baker: Choc cake, half filled with choc ganache the other half smbc with fresh mangoes.. Topped with kitkat and milo nuggets with mango rosettes!

To the next cake next time! 

Xoxo,

Jun

Wassalam

Are you ready to own your own flat?

Assalammu'alaikum family, friends, readers and followers of this blog. Today, I was asked, "Hey, you gonna get your keys soon, right? So are you ready?"

I stared blankly back at her and asked. "Ready for what?"

What preparations?

That is when it hits me, my own home soon.. What have I done? Nothing. Yup. Nothing like I am never going to shift. It was a strange phenomena to many young couples, or maybe only for those who never had to fight with other siblings for the morning bath and having to squeeze in a room to sleep and fight for privacy. Maybe. To be really honest, the only preparations my husband and I made was to save enough money, and nothing else.

What's the plan, really?

Minimalist. I seriously plan to do very minimal and just the most basic renovation needs and nothing else. I want my flat bare. So bare that even a robber would leave me some tips when he leaves. Heh.

I guess the reality of owning our own flat hasn't sink in, so we just decide to wait till we get the physical keys, get into our physical flat, and walk in it before we jump in the wagon and start doing everything that is necessary.

How do I feel?

The feeling is rather blank at the moment. Definitely very mixed. At one moment I feel like I couldn't wait, the next moment I don't feel anything at all. I feel a lot of fear instead of the supposedly burst of excitement of having my own place. Not sure why, maybe because my parents didn't chase me out (not like I want them to). Perhaps it was just my comfort zone. I have lived in Clementi for 23 long years, I am somewhat attached to it, the comfort of seeing your neighbours, the comfort of knowing the market at the back of your hand, the comfort of just being in a place so familiar to me.

On the other hand though, I was looking forward to being a CCK resident. I would be nearer to my elder sister, cousin, and some friends. I look forward to having the master room, I look forward to the dedicated hobby cum sewing room, I look forward to challenge my husband to a dance, I look forward to welcoming my very first guests to my very own home. I look forward to stripping my house naked as I wish. Hey! Naked as in stripping it off any decoratives, so it would be easier for me to clean.

Then I remembered, my parents would be living with me, and we cannot go without a sofa in the living room. Or maybe we can with two lazy chairs just for them.

Here's the rough plan.

As with many other plans, things will change to suit when it comes. So let's imagine and dream for some things to become a good reality ok? ;)

Until I get myself into my own home,
Jun

Wassalam

Family and Reunions

Assalammu'alaikum family, friends, readers and followers of this blog. A long weekend is coming and what greater way would it be other than to spend it with the family, yes?

We would be in ghost town for awhile - perhaps the whole week with company closures and what not, so don't forget to stock up your food needs before the weekend, guys!

I just had an extended family gathering at my maternal grandma's place. I like how we integrated and mingled as one big family, each family defined by their boundaries, and yet open to talk and get to know each other a little better than before.

We do have comfort zones as to whom we are more open for conversations and maybe more reserved on others, but I am pretty sure we know who we are and who the other person is at any point. We have been through a lot, a good lot to say the least. And I guess it was that, that makes us special and more accepting.

Or maybe because we had children and our children taught us a whole lot of new lessons about relationship and how we should just leave the past and just make a new relationship afresh. Maybe. With children, we tend to be more friendly, and more accepting. We just do.

Their little hands so generous, their little cry of concerns so caring, how can anyone not see the child as a child and just love that child regardless who his/her parents are? Who can ever do something horrible to a child for what his/her parents do? I know I can't and I tend to forgive and just forget so I can love better.

I enjoy the day mingling and watching my cousins laughing and talking. I just find joy in that simple everyday thing. I enjoy listening to the stories my cousins narrate of his job, or funny moments of his children. I enjoy that moment of happiness that my little cousin had discovered after being a mom, I enjoyed everything I hear from them because it is genuine. The excitement in sharing experience and all that and I never wanted it to end. Even if I wasn't their direct audience, I still enjoy it from afar. I don't even know how to explain it.

I enjoy watching how children brings us altogether closer than before. I guess our children really do a lot of teaching to us than we would to them, eh? I wished I could just share the same happiness, but I am not yet a mom to my own child, and I was afraid I would be judged for being too nosey or being i know-it-all, so I kept silent and just smile at their stories. I was almost helpless and coming to probably desperate to be a mom, to carry an infant and have people congratulate me, and to just love my child.

I felt almost like an outcast because I am still not blessed. As much as I know it is my test and that I accepted it, I couldn't help but to feel the pain inside me when I see everyone with kids of their own and having someone else to love them just as much as you. I had baby M that day, and she keep reassuring me by keep finding and asking for me. I am glad for her presence, and I would not trade her for my own. I know, I am confused as well.

I guess people should just NOT compare. Maybe that would make me feel better. Like you know, stop comparing life without children and with. Or try to convince me that being childless is better than being with children. STOP.

Maybe if these comparison stop, then I would stop feeling bad for myself. I don't know. And stop suggesting IUI, IVF, adoption and what not. Those are not new to me, and we have definitely weight out the options and review them all. I guess... I just needed time away from Earth and humans, maybe I should just rocket myself out to VENUS and cry. I don't know...

Just hopeful that the upcoming long weekend would bring me joy and let me forget for a long while.

The broken self,
Jun

Wassalam