turning point

i had this sudden and strong need to blog as i was doing my asar prayer. needed to just express and release my thoughts and feelings that have been playing in my head and on my mind the whole day. 
i have reached the turning point in my life i suppose. i am about to pretty much give up running my public relations business full-time to take on the task of studying for my masters and that is no easy thing to deal with. the business or agency will turn eight years come this august and there are so many good and bad memories attached to it. vanessa and i worked hard for it, went through good and bad times, laughed and cried, went through trying times time and time again...  but we have also had really good times that can never be replaced.  ask me if i would do it again and to be honest i would say i don't know.         
however, despite it all, despite the troubles, the difficult and horrid clients, the employees that came and went, the associates who after a while turned their backs on us, the clients who love to repeat "long term business" to us when asking for a big discount or cut in professional fees, and then dissapeared...for all that we have gone through, i guess i would have gone through it all over again, maybe with a little twist here and there of course, so that i can make things better. that impossible scenario aside, i would do it all over again because in spite of all the troubles and problems, we learnt a lot of things, we learnt who our friends are, we learnt to be steadfast in our principles eventhough we realised that would never make us rich, and for many parts of it, inspite of all the problems related to it, inspite of sometimes going one or two months without taking a cent of salary, we have never traded our conscience in exchange of money.  we have also had many happy moments, times we laughed until we pleaded with the other to stop, days when the whole day was just happy and wildly wonderful.... there were many days like that inspite of just having to face the most horrible client. most of all, it tested the friendship that vanessa and i have shared for many years. and i would like to believe that we both got through with flying colours - passion and deepest thoughts shared, fears and sorrows whispered and embraced with renewed strength, laughters that trail and cling to us as hours pass, same exact words spoken at the same time, or sometimes one in english and another in malay but bringing the same meaning, sentences started by one and completed by the other...how can i ever ask to change that?
now that the time to move on towards a different direction has approached, slowly but surely, i can't seems to get rid of that sadness that lurks in my heart. it gnaws at me slowly, resulting in this surreal feeling as i looked for another job for josephine. and thank God i managed to get her a job which she, after the interview attended on saturday, seemed to like and is hopeful about. she will be leaving us with friday being the last day and starting out at her new place on monday. i am thankful that we didnt have to leave her in the lurch once vanessa and i have decided on continuing on with our business based on project basis. i am totally glad she has a new place to go. to be able to find her a decent and probably even better job than the one currently lifts a little of the burden off my heart and shoulders.
it will be vanessa and i again... the way we started - just the two of us. and even this time, it will be a lot different in the sense that my priority has diverted a different way and we will not be together in one place, she being at home and me being... i don't know, home, library, here and there where i can study and carry out my research work.  and eventually will we go separate ways?
how can i be so sure and yet so unsure? i am left to face all the changes that i have to deal with but there will be that indesribeable kind of sorrow that lingers on when i move forward to embrace the changes in my life.  this is no longer about making a better life for me when i move over to the US. this is about me and the life i make for myself and my boys regardless where we end up, who we end up with and even if we end up just the way we are and have been - me and my three boys here in KL. who can tell the future? and why worry about it now when i have to deal with today?  ah... if only it is as easy as that. if only i listen to my own advice and put all my worries and restlessness to rest...

a potted plant

I pull a sun from my coin purse each day.

And at night I let my pet the moon

run freely into the sky meadow.

If I whistled,

she would turn her head and look at me.

If I then waved my arms,

she would come back wagging a marvelous tail

of stars.

There are always a few men like me

in this world

who are house-sitting for God.

We share His royal duties:

I water each day a favorite potted plant

of His--

this earth.

Ask the Friend for love.

Ask Him again.

For I have learned that every heart will get

what it prays for

most.

taken from Hafiz's "The Subject Tonight Is Love"

translated by Daniel Ladinsky

macaroni cheese anyone?

when in dire need to prepare something quick that will go down well with the kids, this recipe might be of help. found this on nigella's site today :

Macaroni Cheese

image via nigella.com

ingredients
250g macaroni
250g mature Cheddar or red Leicester or a mixture of both
250ml evaporated milk
2 eggs grating of fresh nutmeg
Salt and pepper

method
Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7. Cook the macaroni according to the packet instructions, drain and then put back into the hot pan. While the pasta is cooking, put the cheese, evaporated milk, eggs and nutmeg in a processor and blitz to mix. Or grate the cheese and mix everything by hand. Pour the cheese sauce over the macaroni, stir well, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Tip into a 25.5cm-diameter dish (wide and shallow is best) and bake in the very hot oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until it is bubbling and blistering on top. Serves: 4


oh yummm... the boys will love this. thanks nigella...

happy birthday mak

mak at 20 years old
a police sargeant then

it was mak's birthday yesterday.  my beloved mom turned 77 yesterday at precisely 5am.  born on february 20, 1934, in Alor Setar, Kedah, Alhamdulillah she has lived a good life with the blessings of Allah.  with a loving husband on her side, she has been blessed with eight children, one of whom passed on at the age of 5 months in early 1960.  she told me that when my sister NorAishah returned to God, part of her went too. she had a hard time during the first few months of my sister's death, refusing to go into the house when she had the choice.  she would prefer to sit at the door, feeding my older sister and my two older brothers, playing with them... anything to avoid staying in the house. it was sometime until she let go of NorAishah's clothes, to which she used to hold on to, looking for the familiar scent of her baby which soon faded with time.  today, she tells me of how she rejoices at the thought of having her daughter wait for her in heaven and hopes to be someday reunited with her there. and how thankful she is for her children and grandchildren whom Allah has blessed her with.



oh yes, mak enjoys having 27 of her grandchildren around her and she is now also a proud great grandmother of three. just the opposite of my dad who cannot bear the noise, my mom welcomes the chatters, yelps, loud laughs brought about by her children who can amazingly speak in a criss-cross way to each other. so you virtually have everyone talking at about the same time on a few different things, and actually jumping into another's conversation with ease.  top that all off with the grandchildren running around, honestly it is such fun...

bak and mak
a few months after they got married

an opposite of my dad too when it comes to traveling, my mom's stiff knees will astonishingly get better when one of her children ask if she wants to go somewhere. my dad loves to tease her about it.  bak on the other hand will miraculously gets a headache when invited to travel somewhere and even more so when mak is about to leave for a vacation of sorts.  we tease both of them about it. for bak, house is his heaven - rumahku, syurgaku... and for mak, she wants to go anywhere and everywhere if she can. she teased my dad about wanting to take that long almost 24 hours flight to New York if i move over and my dad teasing her in return of how she will not survive it, will laugh so hard, his face turns all red. i love those moments, when they tease each other and laugh like what seems like forever...

flowers for her birthday

anyway, mak loves flowers. the trick to her heart is through flowers and i make it a point to get her flowers or plants on her birthday and other special days.  i believe i am like her in that sense, flowers wow me just like it does her.

oh did i say mak is amazing and really good at sewing and cooking? she is. she used to sew all our clothes including my dresses. she would design a costume and have me wear it for competitions when i was in kindy, and hey i actually won. she cooks so good, and she bakes. i used to sit next to her everytime she bakes when i was a little girl. waited for her to finish beating the sugar and margarine (yes, those days it was margarine and not butter and it tasted good no less), and once she has scooped them out, she would let me scrape the leftovers with my fingers so that i can lick them all up. and i would help her with cutting the dough and the rolling and the filling. i used to love watching her and she was such a natural when it comes to that. unfortunately for her, my sister and i are pretty much useless when it comes to sewing. my sister cooks for the sake of it these days and i enjoy cooking which i do not excel at unlike her but i sure love baking.

mak and thoriq
sharing a light moment

i love mak to bits. no words can ever describe what i feel for her. yes, we have had many moments when we disagreed with each other, and had tiffs over a number of things but i have never loved her any less.  i know too that i have hurt her many times which for whatever reasons that seemed justified at that time and even felt was no fault of mine, are regrettable. i wish i could take back every hurt i had inflicted on her, every harsh words spoken, every raised tone that should not have been. i love her deeply and as i get older, i know for whatever judgement she has made concerning me, despite sometimes being out of this world, or not making any sense or totally disagreeable to me, i understand where she is coming from, that it was made out of her love and concern for me. 

to my dearest mak:

As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her... 

happy 77th birthday mak

with love always and for eternity



cuppies overload

i have never been a fan of cupcakes. i find them overly sweet, flat in taste and every cupcakes seem to taste the same. none of them have ever given me the oomph i find in other desserts such as brownies, cakes and pies.  however they are so pretty and such a delight to look at. they come in all sorts of colours, designs and looks.  you have the sesame street character cupcakes, the obscene looking ones especially for the hen's night and bachelor's party, the football fan cupcakes, the romantic wedding or engagement cupcakes, the anniversary cupcakes and the list goes on. but as for the taste, nothing extraordinary, nothing sexy, nothing heavenly, nothing that makes me melt and go "omg".

all throughout my baking experience, i could count with my fingers the number of times i bake cupcakes - one finger. yes once, only one time a few years ago during what was that?  my mother's birthday or was it for mother's day?  see, i could not even remember it. i wanted the boys to have a hand in baking for their grandmother and therefore thought of cupcakes. we baked and the boys decorated and that was it. i wasn't impressed with the cuppies and i can't even remember if i tasted it. maybe i just did just to see how it turned out but like i said, nothing great about it except for the looks.  and it has taken me several years before i bake another.  and that was last weekend and believe it or not, i baked more on tuesday, a holiday due to the prophet's birthday.

i looked here and there for a simple recipe. they are all about the same actually but one wanted milk, another wanted cream and all i wanted was a simple, no-fuss recipe which required only the simplest of ingredients like butter and sugar. i came upon this website, ordinary looking, no fuss or frills, no names of celebrity chefs mentioned. the buttercream recipe was there exactly the way i wanted it.  i thought that since cupcakes in the end all taste the same, why bother with all the extra ingredients.  and i used that recipe, prayed that it would turn out good and started baking that saturday afternoon.  i was feeling a little down after a small tiff with adam, despite having made up. so i was having second thoughts on whether to bake or not, because i have been told many times not to bake when you feel down as all your sorrows will pour into whatever you bake and it will come out bad... and sad.

i thought what the heck. i needed to bake to feel better. i needed to bake to distract myself from the sadness that was making its little rounds in the corners of my heart. it was easy, simple and quick. all it needed was no fuss ingredients such as butter (and not even unsalted there), castor sugar, self raising flour, eggs and vanilla essence. dump them all into a bowl and beat for a few minutes... voila you are ready to divide the mixture into the cupcake cases.  since the cupcakes were vanilla in flavour, i decided to go for buttercream topping and it was as simple - icing sugar,butter, vanilla essence and a little hot water.  the result was actually pretty good. infact the ex came over later that evening and complimented the taste as well. he is not into cupcakes either just like me but he had eaten two cuppies minutes after he got into the house and took four more away with him by the time he left. the cupcakes are surprisingly moist and the taste is just right. well i did lessen the sugar slightly for both the cupcakes and the buttercream topping.  i am not exactly exhilarated by the cupcakes, still not a big fan of them, but i must say that this recipe i used is actually good. and i for once actually ate more than one cupcake.  don't even talk about the boys, they were returning for more that i had to stop them.  anyhow, since i gave a big number of the cupcakes to a neighbour who drives thoriq to school every morning, with the rest left for the boys, i decided to bake again on tuesday which was a holiday. gave some to vanessa, josephine and amy and they too find that the cupcakes were good in terms of taste and nature... and by nature, i mean moist and not dry.

my cuppies
pic courtesy of josephine

anyway after two days of baking cupcakes and almost a week of having cuppies around the house, i am finding them a bit of an overload. i am ready to move on to something else although i am not sure what yet. savoury pies perhaps? *wink*

blessings on the beloved

Ubayy ibn Ka`b (may Allah be pleased with him): When a quarter of the night had passed, the Prophet got up and said, “O people! Remember Allah, for the first trump has resounded and the second will follow it. It is death that has come near.” Ubayy asked, “O Messenger of Allah! I frequently make supplications; then how many of my supplications should I specify for sending blessings on you?” The Prophet answered, “It is up to you.” I (Ubayy) inquired, “A quarter of my supplications?” The Prophet further commented, “It is up to you, and if you dedicate more, it will be better for you.” I said, “Then, let it be two thirds of my supplications?” The Prophet repeated, “It is up to you, and if you dedicate more, it will be better for you.” Finally, I said, “Then, I will make all my supplications for you!” The Prophet said, “Then, you will be saved from worry and your sins will be forgiven” (At-Tirmidhi, Ahmad, and Al-Hakim).

“Those who are most deserving of me (my intercession) on the Day of Judgment are those who used to increasingly seek Allah’s Blessing for me” (At-Tirmidhi).

Prophet (SAW) said, “For one who sends blessings upon me once, Allah will send tenfold blessings in return” (Muslim and others).

At-Tabarani reported that the Prophet said, “Whoever says, ‘O Allah! Bless Muhammad and grant him the place closest to You on the Day of Resurrection,’ I will intercede for him.”

nota cinta buat Allah

ya Allah

sebenarnya hati ini cinta kepada Mu
sebenarnya diri ini rindu kepada Mu
tapi aku tidak mengerti
mengapa cinta masih tak hadir
tapi aku tidak mengerti
mengapa rindu belum berbunga

sesungguhnya walau kukutip
semua permata di dasar lautan
sesungguhnya walau kusiram
dengan air hujan dari tujuh langit Mu
namun cinta takkan hadir
namun rindu tak akan berbunga

kucuba menghulurkan
sebuah hadiah kepada Mu
tapi mungkin kerana isinya
tidak sempurna tiada seri
kucuba menyiramnya
agar tumbuh dan berbunga
tapi mungkin kerana airnya
tidak sesegar telaga kautsar

sesungguhnya walau kukutip
semua permata di dasar lautan
sesungguhnya walau kusiram
dengan air hujan dari tujuh langit Mu
namun cinta takkan hadir
namun rindu tak akan berbunga
jika tidak mengharap rahmat Mu
jika tidak menagih simpati
pada Mu ya Allah

Tuhan hadiahkanlah kasih Mu kepadaku
Tuhan kurniakanlah rinduku kepada Mu
moga kutahu
syukurku adalah milik Mu


from Raihan's Sesungguhnya

so kiss me...

 such a delightful poem from hafiz;



i caught the happy virus last nite

when i was out singing beneath the stars,

it is remarkably contagious...

so kiss me.

- Hafiz

breathe

cause you can't jump the track
we're like cars on a cable
and life's like an hourglass
glued to the table
no one can find the rewind button
so cradle your head in your hands
and breathe...

post New York ramblings

i am home from new york
i sometimes wish i am back in brooklyn looking at the snow falling, staring in wonderment at the snow caught and perched up on the branches of the trees all around - such a beautiful and breathtaking sight
i kind of miss listening to the muffling sound of the snow as i step on them whenever i go for my walk
i actually miss the cold and having my butt freeze to death...
but
i am happy to see my boys because ohh...i get to cuddle and kiss them again, and have their warm hugs in return
my boys... they keep me sane.  they keep me alive

i miss adam
i miss seeing him smile at me, how the corner of his mouth turns slightly upwards when he is about to tease me
i miss hearing him laugh, the resounding laughter of his that never fails to fill and lights up the room
the mischevious twinkle in his eyes
the way he says my name...

i miss that feeling of completeness...
the contentment when he is close to me

sometimes i get these pangs of missing adam so much, it hurts
the pain, it comes like a stab... a sharp pain in the chest
sometimes it stays... lurking around, creating a heaviness in my heart
it is not easy to shake off the heaviness most of the time, a challenge to even get over it...
when i miss adam, i feel this indescribable emptiness in me, mostly when i wake up and before i go to sleep at night
do you ever feel that?
feel the pain?
the heaviness?
the emptiness?

i tell myself i need and will get through this challenging moments so that adam, and i and my boys will have a better life when we finally move over to join him
i tell myself it is better for now, for me to be staying close to my parents especially when my father wheezes so much, and with both of them getting older
i tell myself to be strong
i tell myself to stop crying when the tears start falling
i tell myself that it will be ok, that i will be ok, but at times i wonder if i will be
i tell myself a while more, just a little while more
i find it such a struggle to cope sometimes...

i am considering leaving my job
work on project basis perhaps or being in the office a few days in a week
i need to go back to school to do my masters
and insyaAllah secure a good job, lecturing in the US when i move over
i do not know of any other way right now - i just need time to study and still have time for my boys
i need to complete this as soon as possible so that we can join adam not too long after he is done with his clinical rotation
this i hope would pave a way towards a better life for us
i am unsure how i will do this but it is something that needs to be done and i must see myself through
i have hopes that somehow things will fall into place once i start
i pray that Allah will ease my way...

do you think my brains will still work well when it comes to studying?
i just hope my brain cells are not dying yet...

oh, i am hitting the gym again...
and yes, still mulling over how i am going to be able to make it for dhikr every thursday night since big boy and middle boy have tuition and don't finish until after 10pm

by the way, that maid of mine?
she is driving me insane...