Time is relative to the one who is experiencing it.
For a person who is stationary, time moves in a steady stream. For a moving person, it will seem to be experienced differently.
Of late it has become a sort of a habit for me and wife to head to the kitchen after putting the kids to bed to just have a cup of coffee and chat about things. Sometimes I'd take out some snacks or ice cream to go with it.
We'd talk about the kids, our ideas, the past, the future.
Tonight was no different.
She had her almond shake. I had my coffee. We sat at the table opposite one another.
9 years it has been since we got married to each other. 3 kids.
Yet I still feel like that we haven't changed that much.
Went to KLCC earlier this afternoon. Brought the kids to the playground, had lunch at Chili's. A few days earlier I had a team lunch just a few tables away. Nelly Furtado's song was played back then. Never gets old.
She talked about the couple a few tables away from us, having lunch peacefully with their bigger kids (in comparison with ours). She wondered when we could do the same.
Muja threw a tantrum when we decided to head back to the car. All the way from Kinokuniya to the open space carpark beside the Mandarin Hotel. He was crying, screaming and hitting me throughout our walk back to the carpark.
Me and wife laughed it off. Wife said she wouldn't want it any other way.
Yeah... this is our story. Our kids, our journey. Why swap it with somebody elses'.
The kids grew up fast we thought to ourselves.
Too fast.
In this stationary situation that we're in, where my wife and I seemed stuck in a perpetual time loop in our own little bubble - everything around us seems to be moving by so fast. Work. Family. Kids.
Looked into her eyes as she was rambling about something else. We're still that pair of teenager who longs for each other's company.
I do that sometimes. Freezing time and just trying to capture the moment.
I told her that I love her.
"I know.", she cheekily smiled.
For a person who is stationary, time moves in a steady stream. For a moving person, it will seem to be experienced differently.
Of late it has become a sort of a habit for me and wife to head to the kitchen after putting the kids to bed to just have a cup of coffee and chat about things. Sometimes I'd take out some snacks or ice cream to go with it.
We'd talk about the kids, our ideas, the past, the future.
Tonight was no different.
She had her almond shake. I had my coffee. We sat at the table opposite one another.
9 years it has been since we got married to each other. 3 kids.
Yet I still feel like that we haven't changed that much.
Went to KLCC earlier this afternoon. Brought the kids to the playground, had lunch at Chili's. A few days earlier I had a team lunch just a few tables away. Nelly Furtado's song was played back then. Never gets old.
She talked about the couple a few tables away from us, having lunch peacefully with their bigger kids (in comparison with ours). She wondered when we could do the same.
Muja threw a tantrum when we decided to head back to the car. All the way from Kinokuniya to the open space carpark beside the Mandarin Hotel. He was crying, screaming and hitting me throughout our walk back to the carpark.
Me and wife laughed it off. Wife said she wouldn't want it any other way.
Yeah... this is our story. Our kids, our journey. Why swap it with somebody elses'.
The kids grew up fast we thought to ourselves.
Too fast.
In this stationary situation that we're in, where my wife and I seemed stuck in a perpetual time loop in our own little bubble - everything around us seems to be moving by so fast. Work. Family. Kids.
Looked into her eyes as she was rambling about something else. We're still that pair of teenager who longs for each other's company.
I do that sometimes. Freezing time and just trying to capture the moment.
I told her that I love her.
"I know.", she cheekily smiled.
I think it's fast becoming a trend with me to only write a few blogpost each year. More often than not I attribute it to not having enough time to write about my life. I guess who'd read it right?
But alas - I would.
A talk with a friend recently reminded me of how interesting this blog used to be, and wondered whether I would continue writing. I really didn't know to be honest. While I was busy keeping track of all the social media feeds, podcasts, books to read, family, work, kids - guess I somehow lost myself along the way and forgot about this fortress of solitude.
Blogging has always been a way for me to express myself. Or rather - writing/typing has always been my best medium.
And I guess not everyone can do this - this blogging thing. Which is quite surprising for me actually, since it seemed to be easy for me. Well...it's easy if you're writing it to and for yourself with no particular audience in mind. Especially not to sell ads - that'd be harder I suppose.
Reading my past blogposts, I'm especially glad that I did write extensively when I was young (..ehem..). My nostalgic self appreciates it much. Looking at past pictures, the ones with baby Safiyya, playhouse and all - you tend to forget that those happened more than 5 years ago.
The playhouse now look more or less exactly the same as I've recorded it years ago yet Safiyya is now totally different.
Time.
Time flies.
At heart I still feel like I'm stuck in my early 20s. My body is aging, though not apparent. It has lost much of it's elasticity..but other than that I guess it's pretty much the same.
There's something about blogging that triggers this certain emotion. Like a whirlwind sucking you into a room of despair and hopelessness, provoking all those nostalgia, forcing you to reminisce about time long gone.
Or maybe that's because I'm a Pisces (we tend to sometimes get stuck in an emotional rollercoaster).
At the moment I have a plan to blog about the books that I read as a way to reinforce the things that I've learned. Perhaps that's one way I could get back to personal blogging (I also maintain www.hafidzzulkifli.com as a career-fronting blog).
But alas - I would.
A talk with a friend recently reminded me of how interesting this blog used to be, and wondered whether I would continue writing. I really didn't know to be honest. While I was busy keeping track of all the social media feeds, podcasts, books to read, family, work, kids - guess I somehow lost myself along the way and forgot about this fortress of solitude.
Blogging has always been a way for me to express myself. Or rather - writing/typing has always been my best medium.
And I guess not everyone can do this - this blogging thing. Which is quite surprising for me actually, since it seemed to be easy for me. Well...it's easy if you're writing it to and for yourself with no particular audience in mind. Especially not to sell ads - that'd be harder I suppose.
Reading my past blogposts, I'm especially glad that I did write extensively when I was young (..ehem..). My nostalgic self appreciates it much. Looking at past pictures, the ones with baby Safiyya, playhouse and all - you tend to forget that those happened more than 5 years ago.
The playhouse now look more or less exactly the same as I've recorded it years ago yet Safiyya is now totally different.
Time.
Time flies.
At heart I still feel like I'm stuck in my early 20s. My body is aging, though not apparent. It has lost much of it's elasticity..but other than that I guess it's pretty much the same.
There's something about blogging that triggers this certain emotion. Like a whirlwind sucking you into a room of despair and hopelessness, provoking all those nostalgia, forcing you to reminisce about time long gone.
Or maybe that's because I'm a Pisces (we tend to sometimes get stuck in an emotional rollercoaster).
At the moment I have a plan to blog about the books that I read as a way to reinforce the things that I've learned. Perhaps that's one way I could get back to personal blogging (I also maintain www.hafidzzulkifli.com as a career-fronting blog).
Recently my brother noticed my name popping up in a blog by Recomn. It was about a post I did on wood prices circa 2012 - back when I built the playhouse for Yaya.
Since then I did a couple of projects, but not as extensive as the playhouse.
I did build an IKEA KURA bed for Yaya from scratch (like 3 years ago) - though I was really (like REAALLLYY) lazy to jot it all down in the blog.
Having gone through the earlier mentioned blog - I guess it's probably a trend nowadays to build your own furniture. So to those out there looking for a how-to : I hope you'll appreciate this post.
1. Get your dimensions from IKEA. Like seriously. I went to IKEA a few days before I started the project with my measuring tape and got all the dimensions. Thinking back about it - I'm glad they didn't kick me out of that place for stealing their ideas. :P
2. Buy your pieces of wood as per your measurement, cut, and sand them.
3. If you did the cutting right, you'll realize that piecing them all together is really not that hard. In fact it's more or less like assembling an IKEA furniture. For those who are lazy, you could just nail them the pieces together or screw them up. In my case however, I've joined them using a bolt and barrel nut (update: and dowels) so that I can disassemble them later without worrying whether the joined parts will loosen up or something.
4. This is what it looks like once you've pieced them all together. I bought the bed support slats at IKEA since I wanted to fit an IKEA mattress on top (ok..that's a really lame reason i know. Actually I was just lazy to piece them all together.)
5. The rest are just aesthetic I suppose. I bought some laminated plywood and nailed them to the sides.
6. Some painting... (thanks Bibik)
7. Some wood finishings...
8. And we let it dry off.
Finally, one happy customer.
After all said and done, I'm sure most of you might be thinking about the cost. Fret not! After digging up my old notes, here's what I found:
At this juncture I'm thanking my old-self for being so anal about documenting things. A check at IKEA's website showed that the KURA bed itself costs around RM 749 (without the other accessories) - so I guess you're still saving some money. Plus I was using the Balau wood for the bed - which is way stronger than pine in terms of durability - I'm hoping that it'll last for decades.
After awhile we've decided to flip the bed over since ... well I can't remember the details since it was like 3 years ago. In any case this is how it looks like when flipped.
Update: I used to have this habit of using Evernote for my projects. Luckily, my account is still active. Hop over to my notes for more insights (ie wood pieces dimensions, research notes etc)
Since then I did a couple of projects, but not as extensive as the playhouse.
I did build an IKEA KURA bed for Yaya from scratch (like 3 years ago) - though I was really (like REAALLLYY) lazy to jot it all down in the blog.
Having gone through the earlier mentioned blog - I guess it's probably a trend nowadays to build your own furniture. So to those out there looking for a how-to : I hope you'll appreciate this post.
 |
| Tools of the trade. |
1. Get your dimensions from IKEA. Like seriously. I went to IKEA a few days before I started the project with my measuring tape and got all the dimensions. Thinking back about it - I'm glad they didn't kick me out of that place for stealing their ideas. :P
 |
| Busy helper. |
3. If you did the cutting right, you'll realize that piecing them all together is really not that hard. In fact it's more or less like assembling an IKEA furniture. For those who are lazy, you could just nail them the pieces together or screw them up. In my case however, I've joined them using a bolt and barrel nut (update: and dowels) so that I can disassemble them later without worrying whether the joined parts will loosen up or something.
| Barrel nut. |
 |
| Bolt |
5. The rest are just aesthetic I suppose. I bought some laminated plywood and nailed them to the sides.
6. Some painting... (thanks Bibik)
7. Some wood finishings...
8. And we let it dry off.
Finally, one happy customer.
After all said and done, I'm sure most of you might be thinking about the cost. Fret not! After digging up my old notes, here's what I found:
At this juncture I'm thanking my old-self for being so anal about documenting things. A check at IKEA's website showed that the KURA bed itself costs around RM 749 (without the other accessories) - so I guess you're still saving some money. Plus I was using the Balau wood for the bed - which is way stronger than pine in terms of durability - I'm hoping that it'll last for decades.
After awhile we've decided to flip the bed over since ... well I can't remember the details since it was like 3 years ago. In any case this is how it looks like when flipped.
Update: I used to have this habit of using Evernote for my projects. Luckily, my account is still active. Hop over to my notes for more insights (ie wood pieces dimensions, research notes etc)
As of recent, I often read FB statuses of my friends lamenting that given the choice; they really wish that they could quit their day job, stay at home and look after their kids.
As a husband who's fortunate enough to be able to let his wife do exactly that, I thought I'd share a word or two on the subject. An op-ed piece if you will.
1. Can you afford it? Since your husband will be the sole breadwinner of the family, ensure that his salary can accommodate your family's monthly commitment. This means making some significant lifestyle changes along the way as you guys are now earning much less than previously.
2. Plan for the what-ifs. Going back on my first point, your husband is now the family's sole breadwinner. That means if he's dead (I'm very blunt like that...) , you (and your kids) will lose your only source of income. How prepared are you for that? Assuming that you're not from a very well-off family, this means that you'll be getting yourself in some deep, inescapable shithole. Reflect on that. Hence, ensure that your main source of income (aka your husband) has a nice fat life insurance policy to ensure your family's survival if he's no longer able to work or earn as much as he normally does. Reinvest his insured sum so that you could get a continuous flow of income every year.
3. Learn how to cook. This goes a long way in cutting down the monthly expenses. Especially in these post-GST days.
4. Learn how to educate. Tuition fees cost a lot these days, so it'd be great if you could cover some of that by yourself. Instead of sending your kids to that premium kindergarten, maybe you could (actually you really should) try teaching them the basics at home instead. Make use of online teaching materials. Maybe you could teach your daughter piano yourself by self-learning about it from YouTube (If you're up for it - maybe you could even home-school your kids. There are some communities here in Malaysia that does this, but it hasn't really taken up traction yet).
5. Learn to manage the household. Let go of that maid. You probably don't need her to begin with.
6. You will have no social life. Well I don't really mean that in a significant, literal sense. But you will tend to miss your lunch buddies a lot. The banter at the office. The occasional trips to the mamaks. The simple things in life. What you'll have instead is a banter with a 4 year old, an ad-hoc meals whenever time permits you to, and occasionally you'll be lucky enough to be able spend some quality time, by yourself, in the toilet. Try to absorb that fact. Such is your life.
7. You will get to enjoy the finer things in life. The previous point being said, you will now be able to see the other side of life you didn't get to enjoy before. Waking up late by your newborn son and seeing how he would start to wake up at the break of dawn. That first roll-over. That first wobbly steps. The creative side of your daughter. The smart-ass questions. That moment where you all just lay on the lawn and just do nothing but look at the clear blue sky..(ok..I'm exaggerating a bit here - KL's sky is never THAT blue to begin with)
8. Get a hobby. I've always thought of the brain as a very awesomely powerful tool. As we get older however, it will get rusty. Since you're no longer at work, your will find that your brain is going to get stimulated lesser and lesser every single day. From experience I know that I often feel sleepy when I'm babysitting the kids, and I realized that this is actually due to my mind not being stimulated enough to be able to stay awake (probably I'm not wired for these stuff). And that is just for a couple of hours. Imagine doing this 24 by 7, 365 days a year. So to me, mental stimulation is very crucial. Learn a new language. Maybe sewing. Build your own cabinet? - why not. Get a masters degree - even better (smarter parents make smarter kids - no?)
9. Of morality and ethics. I think one of the main reason that convinced me that this was the way to go is the fact that I've became unconvinced that the school system or society as whole would be able to teach my kids the importance of having good moral values (so maaayybbeee social media is partly responsible in overblowing this fact - but I'm still a concerned parent. Especially when you have a daughter - take that concern and multiply it by a million). To form a good country, you need a good society. To have that, you need good citizens. Maids don't have any obligation to nurture good citizens. They're obligated to clean up your house, but they don't really need to ensure that your kids behave at home or teach them how to properly interact with elders. It's just not part of their KPI. At some point in the past, teachers were empowered to do this (but sadly not now anymore). So I suppose I felt compelled to get back to the basics, nurturing morality from the home (as it should be). And to do this, thus, someone needs to stay at home. Someone needs to be that role model and show them what is good and what is not, how to talk and what not to do. It all seems fairly simple and it actually really is. It's just that it is a very time consuming process (hint: it never ends) - which lead some parents to tend to outsource this aspect of life lessons to a third party. Kids learn by repetition, and there'll need to be someone to do the enforcing and encouraging. This someone hence - in my very fortunate case - is my wife.
10. Challenges. Of course there will be people who disagrees with you. You're basically cutting your earning power in half. You're putting yourself at risk if your significant other leaves you. You'll be left less empowered than now when you have a secure, day job. They are all valid concerns and you will need to be able to address them rationally and confidently, or you'll be asking the same questions later to yourselves. The people highlighting these concerns are not being negative for the sake of being negative - they're concerned because they care, so you should too. Go through with them what your plan is and how they think you could get there. Maybe they think that it shouldn't be done too soon and you need to do some preparation first. Something is better than nothing. Involvement in decision making sometimes ensures the acceptance of your idea.
I am not really an advocate of stay-at-home moms or anything. While I think that it has its merits, different people have to deal with different life circumstances so my thoughts and opinions are I suppose strictly limited to my family. For those who's yet to make the jump, I bid you all the best in your journey. For those who'll not, I'm sure you have some good plans of your own to raise your family. At the end of the day, we're all parents who wants the best possible outcome for our children.
*Update* While it's easy for one to say or come to a conclusion that one wants to be a stay-at-home-mom, one also needs to realize the responsibility that comes with that. Your role (the one that stays at home) effectively will now be more supportive rather than leading (or co-lead, as some feminists would probably put it). Reflect on this. Understand what this means. If you can't, among others - it means that your husband might be compelled to work late into the nights to get that promotion, it means that he might be pursuing that certificate or postgraduate degree to enable him to climb that ladder quicker - and that would mean that you, needs to take care of the kids more and probably during the weekends as well. His sole focus would be to ensure that your family would be financially stable and if he's ambitious, he would still want to retire early and enjoy life during both of your golden age. That would mean he'll work even harder (since he's doing it alone now) to accumulate the necessary wealth to enable him to do that within his planned timeline. On your side, you'll need to shift your focus on the kids, nurturing them and providing the necessary attention that they deserve. I'm not saying or claiming that the breadwinner would be entitled to simply ignore you and the kids and just focus on his/her career - on the contrary I'm just trying to state the potential things that might occur along the way and how as a family, role and responsibility will change and expectations need to be amended accordingly (so that you don't keep on clinging to that what-ifs).
*Update* While it's easy for one to say or come to a conclusion that one wants to be a stay-at-home-mom, one also needs to realize the responsibility that comes with that. Your role (the one that stays at home) effectively will now be more supportive rather than leading (or co-lead, as some feminists would probably put it). Reflect on this. Understand what this means. If you can't, among others - it means that your husband might be compelled to work late into the nights to get that promotion, it means that he might be pursuing that certificate or postgraduate degree to enable him to climb that ladder quicker - and that would mean that you, needs to take care of the kids more and probably during the weekends as well. His sole focus would be to ensure that your family would be financially stable and if he's ambitious, he would still want to retire early and enjoy life during both of your golden age. That would mean he'll work even harder (since he's doing it alone now) to accumulate the necessary wealth to enable him to do that within his planned timeline. On your side, you'll need to shift your focus on the kids, nurturing them and providing the necessary attention that they deserve. I'm not saying or claiming that the breadwinner would be entitled to simply ignore you and the kids and just focus on his/her career - on the contrary I'm just trying to state the potential things that might occur along the way and how as a family, role and responsibility will change and expectations need to be amended accordingly (so that you don't keep on clinging to that what-ifs).
Who doesn't like a chalk board right? Especially those huge ass ones that can make every kids go crazy doodling stuff and what not.
I finally went and did it after we've decided to redo our family area (i.e TV et al) and turn it a place where our kids can play around and stuff - a play area/nursery of sorts.
Colours for our wall..picky picky...
The catalyst for this was actually our tiles flooring. It somehow managed to expand and burst itself off of our floor - creating a very unpleasant sight to behold and a hazard for kids and adults alike. So it went from redo-ing the flooring, to talks about "why not we change the paint as well?" and then "a chalk board over here would be nice wouldn't you think?" and later "this futon set can use a paint job - yellow would look nice actually".Things have a way of evolving I suppose.
Back to the chalk board. To make a chalk board - you need to main items: A chalk paint, and a board.
For the paint, I got myself a black chalk paint from https://www.facebook.com/CandyPaintAsia. If I recall correctly, I bought it at MBE outlet in Paradigm Mall. They sell it by the sqm covered. So in my case, I bought the one that can cover up to 3sqm for around RM120. Quite pricey - but considering that I don't make chalk board every so often - plus it claims that it's water based (the alternative being a spray can by Krylon, you can find those in ACE Hardware), it's "probably" worth it.
And next you need a board. Well you don't really have to have one if your wall has an even surface. In my case, it wasn't. So I bought a 3mm thick 4ft X 8ft (4x8 is the default size btw) for around RM60.
The alternative of getting a plywood would be to use a wall liner. That being said - I couldn't find any shop online/offline that sells this item in Malaysia.
Below are some pics that I've managed to take throughout my not-so major project.
 |
| Sand the plywood thoroughly. Apply primer if you want (I did). |
 |
| Paint several coats of the chalk board paint accordingly. (or just follow the instructions provided with paint itself) |
 |
| Cutting the frames. |
 |
| Lining the board up against the wall before hanging. |
 |
| Curing the board. |
 |
| And now - enjoy the show |
 |
| And what would a play room be without some Lego right? |
 |
| Sprayed my four-legged foldable table white so that we could see the Lego parts easier. Looks nice too! |
Guess it's been awhile (a long while) since my last post.
In case you couldn't tell (judging from the time I'm posting this blog) - I'm having trouble to sleep right now. So why not blog eh?
Just wow..it has been years since my last post.
A lot have happened in between.
A lot.
I probably wouldn't have time to fill in the gaps even if wanted too. Will probably try. Probably be in vain though.
Becoming a parent.
I've recently been blessed with a 2nd child - a son now. We've named him Alaa Mujahid, after one of our favourite speaker/motivator/cleric Sheikh Alaa Elsayed and Mujahid..well that one came from my wife since she's fond of that name.
So a pair - Alhamdulillah.
A lot more work now I suppose. :)
In case you couldn't tell (judging from the time I'm posting this blog) - I'm having trouble to sleep right now. So why not blog eh?
Just wow..it has been years since my last post.
A lot have happened in between.
A lot.
I probably wouldn't have time to fill in the gaps even if wanted too. Will probably try. Probably be in vain though.
Becoming a parent.
I've recently been blessed with a 2nd child - a son now. We've named him Alaa Mujahid, after one of our favourite speaker/motivator/cleric Sheikh Alaa Elsayed and Mujahid..well that one came from my wife since she's fond of that name.
So a pair - Alhamdulillah.
A lot more work now I suppose. :)
It's been awhile now (this sort of introduction to my blog is quickly becoming a cliche now...) that I've written here.
So far work has been great - in the sense that when you work at a three man (now reduced to just two) office there's no a lot of politics (not that it was a problem before mind you) going around. I mean you just have two guys doing their work - how fucked up can things get?
This rather sudden (well I think it was rather sudden) interest into woodwork is attributed to this website - Ana White. I'm sure pretty much all of us are into building things ourselves to suit our liking and all that - and I think the thing that we lack the most is actually just direction and guidance. So to actually find a website that gives you a step by step tutorial on how to build your own stuff (in my case a playhouse) is just really amazing (Ana White Playhouse (Deck)). You'll be amazed at the vast arrays of website that seemingly shows you how to do things - but don't really stoop down to the beginner level and explain things in detail on how things actually come together. (I really like the way she google sketched all her projects).
The thing about these articles coming from a US-folk is well...they're intended for Americans mostly. The lumber there are rather cheap, and so does their power tools. So sometimes it's not that easy to follow all those instructions to the letter.
That's where both of my dads come in.
For the past few weeks I've been doing a lot of research on types of wood, joinery, finishing, etc..and having Evernote around on a tablet really helps get things in order. Here's what I have so far on my notes on things, Safiyya playhouse n slide. But don't take it too seriously though - it's supposed to be my notes, not a how-to guide.
 |
| Overall it took me around RM600 to be able to get from this stage... |
 |
| ..to this stage |
| Jenis Kayu/Type of Wood | Saiz/Size (in inches) | Harga/Price (RM) |
| Balau (ketam/planed) (sekaki/foot) | 4x4 '' | 12.50 |
| 2x6 '' | 10.00 | |
| 2x4 '' | 5.20 | |
| 1x3 '' | 1.60 | |
| 1x4 '' | 2.70 | |
| 1x2 '' | 0.90 | |
| Meranti (ketam/planed) (sekaki/foot) | 2x4 '' | 2.50 |
| 1x2 '' | 0.65 | |
| Kempas | 2x4 '' (treated) (tak ketam/not planed) | 1.80 |
| 1x2 '' (treated) | 0.45 |
I get my lumbers from Yisheng Hardware & Timber near where I live (in Kg Subang) - and to save you the additional trouble of trying to find what sort of wood is available with their prices, here's their number :03-78461590. Note: I don't really get anything out of this. I probably should though. They probably haven't heard about the internet yet.
I normally would just call them during office hours and ask them for so-so size of wood, what's the price for a feet? Or if you're really new to woodwork - just tell them what you're trying to build and they could probably suggest to you the kind of wood you should be working with (I don't really follow up on their advises though. Do your own research.)
Some other website that I consider to be useful would include Malaysia Timber Council Wood Wizard App. The tool there helps you determine the suitable choice of wood for various application.
There's actually a lot of stuff I've been meaning to write down about different aspects of the project - due to my love of documenting and also the fact that I like to be reminded from time to time. But it's getting really late now and I should really be heading back to bed (blogging is a luxury only an owl could afford now that Safiyya's around).
Safiyya is already 10 months old.
Times do fly rather quick I suppose. Or slow depending on how you look at it. She can't walk still, but it does sometimes feel like it was only yesterday that she just learned how to turn her self over.
Driving that Proton BLM everyday to work sometimes reminded me of the day when I was driving her and my wife back from the hospital back when she was just born. I was then worried about every bump on the road, about the slightest shock the car would make - worried that it would somehow have some sort of negative or detrimental effect to my newborn baby.
Fast forward several months, with a couple of accidents along the way - we now know that Safiyya Amani is one very tough baby indeed. Alhamdulillah is due of course.
It took Kak Aty to remind me that with some hard work and less complaining, I could actually get a lot of work done and have a more comfortable living space to breath in. For those of you who does not know who Kak Aty is, she is a maid who's employed with my aunt which I've borrowed a couple of weeks back. Having her around has basically made me feel more organized I suppose. Guess it was really about how to manage your time and get the stuff that needs doing done.
She's not with us anymore if any of you are wondering, but the impression that she made - lasted. So now I'm changing my routine. I've decided that from now onwards I could probably leave for work a bit later than usual. I've decided that I'm gonna spend more time with my Safiyya in the morning, because I'll probably end up reaching home late at night no matter what. So thats that.
Amazingly with that decided, I could now give her a morning bath, clean up the room, make some breakfast, iron some clothes, and at times - rock her to sleep. Not to shabby I suppose.
Of course, the getting back late from work part would need to be addressed as well - as it's not conducive for my marriage at all. But at the moment that's how things are probably going to be. I'm so used to sleeping early nowadays that I find it rather hard to do any work at all during the night - hence why I usually decide not to work at home and rather finish them at the office before returning. That part would have to change sometime later I suppose.
Owh - and we're probably gonna be able to move into our new house as early (well I guess I shouldn't call it early...its been months now) as next month! Yippee..(me in excitedness mode). And I think when Safiyya has learned to walk, I'll probably take her on a stroll as well every morning - just to let her experience the nature more (and she likes cats btw). :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
