Being Azury

I’m sad to
announce the demise of our beloved pet tortoise, Nexus who passed away peacefully
(I hope) two days ago. May his gentle soul rest in peace.

My condolences goes to his owner, Miss Aisya. Next time please don’t ask again for anything alive as a birthday present. It’s not cute anymore when this time around you shriek "My birthday present is dead". Alamak, nak tergelak pulak! Sorry, i know it’s not funny.

Now… I just recalled
the shop owner mentioning something about money back guarantee…

That’s Nexus
on the right. Rest in peace dude.

(This post was written last nite)

Ok, I have
a confession to make. It’s silly, it’s ridiculous and embarrassing… especially
for a woman who’s turning 28 yrs old (yes that’s me!) but I desperately need to
clear my head before I go to bed… so here goes. Remember the tortoises we
bought for Aisya a couple of days ago? Well, previously I always thought that
tortoise was the most boring animal in the world. They’re slow, they’re shy, they
all look the same… so what’s really exciting about having them as a pet? In my
mind I thought probably Aisya was trying to be cute, asking for tortoise as her
birthday present so that she can shriek “I got tortoises for my birthday!!” to
everybody she meets.
 
I was
wrong. 

On the nite
of Aisya’s birthday, I was introduced to each tortoise. I picked up April, put
her on the floor and she just stayed there like a rock, her head and legs
neatly tucked in her shell. Boring! So I picked another female tortoise, which
at that time wasn’t named yet. As soon as I touched her she started getting
restless, her head and legs are sticking out and when I placed her on the
floor, I swear I never seen a tortoise walked that fast! She quickly got under
my legs and climbed up my pants. Afraid that I might crush that little fella, I
put her back in her aquarium and the moment her legs touched the water, she swam
forward, climbed over a pile of rock, crossed the bridge and got back to the
position where I first picked her up. Wasn’t that amazing? This is a tortoise
we’re talking about! And I also realized that she always stays in the same
spot, right between the aquarium wall and the plastic grass (That’s her in the picture). So does Forrest,
whom favourite hang out is under the bridge. 

The other
male was named Nexus, after Nafis’s hero Ultraman Nexus. He’s the smallest one,
he got the palest green and he’s also limped. Nexus only uses 3 legs because
the left one in the front was stiffed and seem swollen compared to the other.
At first I thought maybe we should return him back to the shop and get a new
one. But all of us felt that it’s totally ‘inhuman’ and the right thing to do
was to just accept him the way he was. Nexus truly breaks my heart… 

From left: Nexus, April & Forrest

That nite I
was given the honour to name the nameless female tortoise. I came up with
‘Jellyfish-zip-zip-a-a-a’ (it’s our favourite tagline at the moment, long
story!). So everybody agreed to call her Shelly.. or Jelly. Cute! 

So.. that’s
about it. I’m declaring to the world that I now love tortoise! They amazed me
with their intelligence and I’m also surprised to know that each of them got
their own feature and characteristic, just like a little baby! I’m really
looking forward to meet April, Forrest, Nexus and Shelly again because right
now, I’m missing them already! Maybe I should get my own tortoise too…

I’m
soooooooooo in love! This picture was taken by Lieyha on Kak Azu’s
engagement day. Lieyha, you’re simply brilliant and Kak Azu, thanks a million. See how Dania was caught red handed biting her nails, and Nafis pulling
strands of her sister’s hair. And I can’t believe how much similar
my lips are to Nafis!

I’m H A P P Y

Lately I’ve
been wondering why my hubby was not his usual self these past few days. He got
home from work looking like a sour grape, moody and cranky all over. PMS ye
bang? :p I’m sure something must be messing about with his mind but when asked,
he just said dunno. So for a while, I sort of kept a distance from him, gave
him some space and prayed hard that he’ll recover from this mystery madness… fast!!
 
So last
weekend, I finally discovered the source of the problem when hubby showed me some
of the sms he received from his boss and colleagues. For those who don’t know,
my hubby is working for a company that maintains the north-south highway. And since
they have hundreds of projects scattered along the peninsular, the company had
set up a centralized messaging system; you send your message to the centre and
everybody registered in the system will get the sms. I guess the purpose of the
system was to ease communication between HQ and region, and to make sure
everybody is regularly updated on the progress of works at all time.
 
But
unfortunately, some people define ‘at all time’ as it is: All the Time! To
make things worse, the boss was forcing everybody to reply to each of his sms. Since
then, hubby’s phone has been beeping endlessly.. day and nite. Some of
the replies to boss’s message are so pathetic because it’s written for the sake
of nak jaga hati boss. Message from the boss pun I think a bit disturbing jugak, irrelevant and emotional sometimes. I understand if it’s an urgent matter but if it’s not, esoknya kan
boleh cerita kat ofis? (Oh, btw… most people in the system are from the same
office, hari2 jumpa. Duh??). Jadi mana la laki gua tak tension?

So Mr.
Boss, if you happen to be reading this, first of all please don’t fire my
husband because he has no share in this post. As a matter of fact, I don’t think
he ever read this blog. Secondly, incase you don’t know, some people prefer to leave
their work behind after office hour and look forward to spend the rest of
the day with their family. This sms thing obviously isn’t helping at all. We do
have a life you know, so please leave my hubby alone. You can have him back by 8.30am sharp! :p (except on weekends and public holidays of course!)
 
And to hubby, I want you to know that I love you no matter what. I believe you can handle with this problem. Take your time (tapi jgn lama sgt!), relax… take it easy (sing it like mika). And please smile more ok, tak larat i tengok muka moncong tu :p Fuhh.. I feel a lot better now. Chiow peeps.

This
morning my mom received her Pingat Kesatria Mangku Negara from the Agong @
Istana Melawati, Putrajaya. How cool is that? She just made me soooo proud. Bravo mommy!!

Beaming Ummi posing by the singgahsana, simply gorgeous in her kebaya

This
morning I woke up feeling very dizzy, so I sms my officemates telling them I’m
gonna be in late. But unfortunately by noon the wooziness still won’t go away..
it literally drove me crazy! I lost myself and became this cranky grumpy headed
monster. Nafis kena marah a few times because he hit his sister. In this state
of mind, you better behave and don’t cari pasal dengan mama ok! But overall, today was not
so bad after all because I got to spend time with my children. These pictures
sum it all.

Portrait of
Mama by Nurdania (thanks baby!)

Nafis trying to be a baby

Another baby, hehe :p Won’t think the walker will be around by the time the 3rd baby arrives.

My youngest sister
turns 18 today.. not so young anymore. Hard to believe bcos she still looks and behaves like a school
girl! For her birthday present, she specifically requested for a pair of
tortoise (what??) and she already named them even before we agree buying it for
her. The female tortoise was named April, obviously after the month of her
birthday, and the male was named Forrest; so that she can cheer ‘Run Forrest run!’ every
now and then. One funny girl, slightly undeveloped mentally.. ngehehe ;p 

Aisya dearest, wish you have a happy and smashing birthday! And hopefully April, Forrest and siblings (we bought two pairs just now, wonder what she’s gonna name em?) won’t be growing into a giant! Love you sis!!

My
grandfather passed away last Friday morning at his house in Temerloh, Pahang at
the age of 80 years old. Cause of death was described as sakit tua. My grandma
said he passed away peacefully in his sleep. Semoga rohnya dicucuri rahmat, Al-Fatihah.

Last week I
met up Dania’s teacher to ask about Dania’s performance at school. She said
overall Dania was doing well. She’s a bright girl and always got good grades. Although
a bit shy, Dania mixes well with her friends. But one thing the teacher highlighted
that worries me was her lack of focus. For example, I noticed she didn’t
complete a few pages in her workbook and her teacher said that’s because Dania was
either busy talking to her friends or doing other things. She easily got
distracted and her teacher had to repeatedly remind her to complete her works.
Well, I’m not surprise really because that’s my Dania I knew. She loves to take
her own sweet time… relax wa cakap lu :p

This
morning, as usual I have to ask her to speed up brushing her teeth, getting
dressed up, get her school bag ready, etc. Bila pakaikan dia seluar, dia masuk
kaki sebelah, mata dia tengok tv, kena kata “Dania pakai seluar” dua-tiga kali baru
la angkat sebelah lagi kaki. Kalau tak tengok tv pun she’s either busy talking
or doing her cute dancing or buat lawak :p Tapi bila dah banyak kali sangat
cakap “Dania, cepat sket” over and over again, rase agak tension la jugak. So I
decided I had to do something so I said “Dania, kita tak boleh la slow sangat.
Kalau slow susah sebab nanti kita jadi orang paling last, paling lambat.
Teacher kakak pun kata kakak selalu lambat buat kerja dalam kelas, selalu tak
siap”. She
replied back “Memang la kakak lambat, sebab haikal tu suka sangat cakap dengan
kakak, kawan2 kakak semua suka cakap dengan kakak”. Then I said “Tapi kawan2
kakak semua siap kerja, kakak sorang je tak siap kan?” She slowly nodded her head. “Kalau
macam tu bagitau kawan kakak kena siapkan kerja, nak cakap tunggu lepas habis kerja,
lepas tu jangan buat kerja lambat2. Mama sayang kakak, mama nak kakak jadi
bagus. Kakak nak jadi bagus kan?"

Dania was not giving any respond at first,
probably trying to digest what I just told her. After a while she said yes but
tears started flowing down her cheeks. Ya Allah sedih gile, rasa macam mak tiri
je. Felt guilty hurting my own daughter’s feeling but mommy just had to speak
up dear. Hopefully Dania got my message. I don’t expect her to improve immediately but
at least she knew now what I expect of her. Rasa macam tak percaya cakap dengan
budak 5 tahun but believe me, Dania is far more matured than her age. I know
she’s just a little girl but if I can help her improve herself, why not kan?

I love my
Dania.

I
realized that in this few months, my skin gets really oily especially around
the t-zone. Rasa kalau kumpul2 boleh buat goreng ikan kot.. hehe yucky! At
first I thought maybe it was caused by the facial cleanser, so I tried a new
facial soap brand Natasya. Don’t know why I bought this brand, probably because
of the ‘nano-technology’ the brand claimed using. Bunyi high tech gitu tapi
hampeh, my face got worse and jerawat pasir started berkerumun on my forehead.
Switched back to my old cleanser. Next in the line of my experiment was
upgrading my facial moisturizer from NV to Dermalogica. Cost quite a fortune
but the good news was the pimples started to subside.  However, I was not
spared from the bad news because after a week, the oil started piling up again..
huhu.. sungguh buruk. Ok now, since facial cleanser and moisturizer were ruled
out of the list, I just have to come out with a new theory. So I’ve done some
thinking and i rasa…maybe la  kan… it was caused by me sitting betul2 bawah aircond unit kat ofis ni. After more
than a year being directly exposed to the aircond I think it’s possible that my
skin becomes dehydrated, kulit jadi sangat kering so sebum works harder to
moisturize the skin and got overworked lalu berminyaklah muka. It does make
sense doesn’t it? (But for verification purpose; can’t u please confirm whether
it’s true that dry skin makes it more oily? I got this info from the beautician
at the salon). So now people, what do u think i should do? Does it mean that I
have to moisturize more or should I change my moisturizer again or it is has
nothing to do with moisturising? I’m at my wit end. To all beauty gurus out
there who are reading this, please.. i need ur advice! But please don’t suggest I move my
desk because it’s just impractical … and embarrassing if my colleagues find out
the reason behind it :p