it.could.be.a.good.excuse

Of hobbies and pretty things

forever charmed

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charmed

im in a reading relapse mode. this always happens after i read a real good book or a book which impacted me alot. and the past three books which i read is doing this to me. it made me feel like there is no other book which is as good as the previous. i read Quiet, Aleph and The Messenger, and these books had impacted me in some ways that now i couldnt get them out of my mind and i couldn’t quite figure out what book to read next. bear in mind, i have lots of unread book on my shelves. i picked one, i read a few pages and i put it back on the shelf, pick another, same ritual and for the past week, that’s what i have been doing.

Latest book i attempted to read was Mitch Albom’s The First Phone Call from Heaven, but past few chapters, i decided the book is going to be such a drag to read at this point of time. it’s plain boring. repetitious. it’s about death and we all know there is not going to be an answer at the end of the chapter. i should have known. i never did really like Mitch Albom. sorry.

so i ended up picking up a non-fiction spiritual book on Du’as of the Superstars by Alima Ashfaq in the hope that it will inspire me perhaps. i don’t know how it’s going to be like, i’m only past the preface. it’s the charmed season, to me, now. haha.

Anyway my mind is so much distracted by CHARMED. yes, i am rewatching Season 1 back-to-back. I can never get bored of Charmed. forever will be my most favourite drama season. i still remember the first time i saw its trailer on TV, i decided right there and then that i am going to love this show! and i did. i remembered my excitement and anticipation waiting for that very first episode. and i am hooked. till now. and once i started watching the first episode, i will continue one by one. i did that before, twice, gone through all the episodes until the end of their final season. and deep in the fans’ hearts, we still hoped they will bring back Charmed. it had been prue, my first love, but in her memory, i persevered and watched all the way.

and! i just found out there may be works on new seasons of Charmed! and after so long, i realised there is Charmed Season 9, comic version. hehehe..

forever charmed.

steampunk bookmark

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i have been having visions of this bookmark for days! and i realised i had to do it, otherwise it will continue to haunt my mind! so out of impromptu-ness, i did it right about 10 minutes ago! and the feeling! it felt like a craving satisfied. i love how it turns out though :))

my brain could finally stop thinking about it. i was glad i had the stuffs that could materialise the bookmark, or dare i say i would go straight to PS or 313@Somerset tomorrow and find the items that fit the vision. although, it has always been, i have a vision or a picture of it, look through my scrapbook boxes to find the flowers, papers whatever that fit the picture, glue them here and there, and it just happen.

just me. just like writing. i can go for days or weeks without doing any writing or scrapbooking and when the sudden ilham comes in mind, it just goes pooff and i really need to sit down and do something about it.

happy bookhoarder

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i just had the best power nap i think.

im at my first home and just had a rest in my sisters’ room which is now installed with an air conditioner! its been a long while since i get to sleep with the cool nice aircon on. me and hubby have been going ‘green’ with just the good ol’ fan. (of course its just because the air con in the other home has gone bonkers and hubby thought its not economical for a new one, not yet though :/)

and sis’ pillow feels just nice. my headache disappeared the moment i lay my head on it. ok that’s exaggerated. i think i just had such a nice nap i am appreciative of the things that contribute to my deep sleep half and hour power nap.

anyway this house is totally zombified. everyone is watching Walking Dead. even my parents!

i just received my 1001 inventions book!! and guess what, no surprise, i go and buy some more books. tsk tsk tsk. but i just saved 30bucks on my book purchases! i am so happy with opentrolley online bookstore! i found out about it recently and i received $10 off voucher with $80 purchases. so the story goes is that i have some books in my amazon cart which i didnt get to buy because they are a bit expensive, especially the shipping, oh dear, the shipping is more expensive than the book itself and mind you, it’s in US dollars! so i have been waiting for the right time and the budget to get them. so since i got this voucher email, i tried my luck from opentrolley. searched for the exact same books on wishlist from amazon and i was so happy that they are available at opentrolley!! bought all three titles and surprise2, it just add up to about 83 $ing dollars. i got my three books, i got them eligible for $10 discount, and delivery of only $4.90 which was waived due to payment via dbs cards. i paid only slightly above $60! you have a happy customer opentrolley! no..this is not a paid advertisement. i am just happy thatbi will get my books which i have wanted for so long!! and i hope to receive them in the next 4 days! i cant wait!

actually i want to talk about another thing, but another post coming along. this is so off topic already haha!

well a happy nap makes a happy book hoarder!

the hipster’s learning

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i am finally done with my mosque officers course. well, it had been a good learning experience, this one. and like a true sacrifice-during-studies drama, my parents were warded one after another, to and fro the hospitals, rush to and fro work. SubhanAllah. today was a final assessment and presentation. our group did way better than expected. great.

such a turnaround of expectations on this course, it truly had been useful and engaging, trainers were great too. despite taking away two working days every week for the past 6 weeks, i felt that it was put to good us, and hey, a good escape too at times. the dread is the amount of work left pending and truly i have pending tasks which would have been completed much earlier. so now it’s back to normal working routine. i probably would miss the monday-tuesday learning escapades.

my learning journey does not end here though. i may have mentioned it somewhere around here, i will taking up a specialist diploma on children and youth counselling. it was a decision of do or die, or in my case, its either do or be intellectually stagnant. i wanted this and alhamdulillah had my husband’s support. and the course will start this friday night! i am nervous-excited as people normally do when they start their first class. i hope they dont have too much group work because i dont think i can handle anymore groupworks at the moment. was pretty lucky i had a good group for mods course, although there were some personality clash but it worked out great at the end.

and this weekend, i will be attending an NLP course, something i had always wanted to attend as well and another just do it decision. so it’s going to be an enriching week!

now what’s left to do is to sign up for as much Islamic courses or workshops available out there. i dont care even if the speakers are my acquaintances or people i used to work with. for learning sake. we are never perfect and we will always need reminders. and hopefully, going to these courses will spark interest from my siblings and hubby as well…

on a sidetrack. i am listening to warpaint and chvrches while typing out this post and i am beginning to regret not going to laneway last month (there were chvrches and daughter among the lineup). so say perhaps warpaint reach this tiny island, i may just go for it. i am a closet hipster after all, so they say.

video disclaimer

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please know that i have no intent to go back to my rebel teenage days of posting my fave bands on my blog. Warpaint’s Billie Holiday was just a test post. but they are awesome arent they?

in another life, i could have been a guitarist. i played the guitar but then i stopped. between what i enjoyed and what i have become. i actually could play for an audience. well some small audience. between what i would have loved doing and what i think people expect of me. i guess life is always about choices. i do sometimes have all these ‘what ifs’. maybe i should turn those what ifs into short stories. oh gosh, im excited just saying it out loud. but i dont know if i have the time or the talent for that anymore.

anyway, i have left the guitar by the dust. i would love to pick it up again.

oh well Billie Holiday sounds like a nice song to be dedicated to my husband, if i understand the song correctly.

cycle noob

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one thing about turning 30 is the ability of knowing your body well. I am more in tuned with my body, I listen to my body and what I need and/or capable of. i know when to stop and when i can push my self further.

you see I was never a sporty person. I didn’t do sports back in school all the way to high school, hey, my school don’t have sports back then, being an all girls’ school. the sports we had was all self initiated. there was that occasional badminton games we play among friends and for a while, a soccer fever in the all girls’ school with kains and all until the teachers couldn’t say anything to us all because we were always playing ball! I knew then I was never going to be interested in soccer. back at home, dad was an avid badminton player. he was our unbeatable badminton hero. 🙂

and then there was ye-ye, an old school game rubber bands tight together to make a rope and two persons will hold each ends going up from the knee to the highest level while the rest will take turns to go over it. i can say i was among the best in the game.

so i was choosy. but what i know now is i love badminton, second only to cycling, and always will be, archery. (Now, archery, I am so going to return practising that, I had so much fun during Uni years and I never regretted taking it up as part of my extra curriculum activity, and its a sunnah plus point).

I have always loved cycling. the funny thing is, i only realised my body relationship with cycling today. it helped that hubby loves cycling too but he has more stamina and he cycles much faster than I can. so it always makes me wonder (I just realised I am an analytical person anyway), what works and what don’t for me. Cycling is almost becoming like an art that I need to learn.

Well, today I realised that this bike hubby bought works best for me (I have tried many other bicyles, they don’t always come out as faves). It was not heavy, light tyres and the gears, thus far, I know I can go gear 5 and mind you, up a hill at that gear ok. I was smiling ear to ear when I could cycled up ok! and your noob here just realised that even the height of the bike seat also determines whether I can cycle fast because otherwise, it just feels terribly hard to pedal comfortably, your leg should stretch out the whole length so the thighs will not be too strained out when you pedal down. your posture as well, how at times you just need to bend forward to preserve a bit of energy. hah, it take me to be 30 to finally realise these! but i still havent mastered the art of breathing though. It was fun nonetheless.

psst, I have been cycling 25 km all this while. Yes, just found out about that too. 😉

Starting out as not a sporty person, I can finally say I am taking care of myself by doing sports, and doing it with the man I love nonetheless.

hmm no, no running please, my knee cannot take running.

there I know my self.

the time keeper

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The Time KeeperThe Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

this is my second time reading Mitch Albom after a long ‘hiatus’. i think the title attracted me to read him again.
i have many problems with this Time keeper. i cant say i don’t enjoy reading it. but its just that i think too much throughout reading it.

Like I want to know more about Dor. i cant picture him in my mind especially after he ‘descended’ back on Earth after thousands of years ‘hidden’ in a cave. and i still don’t understand why. i don’t see the significance of a teenage girl’s ‘measuring time’ just because of a guy. i can understand an old man’s need for time because he is dying. and the ending almost disappointing except i keep it positive with the knowledge that Dor reunited with his wife (i presume).

but the book did left me to ponder on some thoughts. on time yes.

View all my reviews

the silver star

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The Silver StarThe Silver Star by Jeannette Walls
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have been waiting for so long for a Jeannette Wells. and finally The Silver Star came up. I have always loved her writing style and enjoyed child experiences of simple living.

i loved The Silver Star although i keep wondering what this title star would refer to and all the time annoyed and angered at the girls’ mother for leaving in the first place and blaming her throughout for all the mess happening. and heh, im still angry at her way after finished reading it.

my only so called minus point of the silver star is that i just thought Bean is really way too mature for her age. i wasn’t expecting the ordeal Liz had to faced (and i thought it was quite an abrupt impromptu mid-suspense just because). i don’t know, there’s just something missing unlike the completeness, joy and happiness amidst a quirky family hardship of the Glass Castle.

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yours truly

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finally I did it! after much thought and a bit of research from wordpress blogs, as well as briefly consulting my colleague on whether it is worth it and affordable, I finally did it.

I am officially a domain!
it’s pretty!

I have been toying with the idea of having my own domain for my blog. I guess it’s a logical progression. believe it or not I have been blogging since 2004! and in May 2014, it will finally be my tenth year of blogging. this domain, is like a commemoration of that, although advanced because, well, im a bit richer in December usually. instead of buying stuff, I awarded myself with a domain of my own. 🙂

this means the name ‘livingseri’ has been a part of me for close to a decade already. and it has been the name I have been using everywhere, twitter, instagram, tumblr and blogger. of course, blogger is what brings me to well, blogging. I still love that site, still have my account there just because I do not have the heart to delete all my stories from there.

livingseri has witnessed my happiness and sadness, my struggles and achievements and even mundane daily stuffs. it just feels right to finally ‘owned’ the name in the virtual world. I have connected to this name for so long.

and I hope to do more with my blogging and this page. it has seen me grow. i have always been a diary person, but I stopped writing when I found blogging. I will continue to blog/write, perhaps more seriously now. I am not one to seek attention but if there is something that readers may gain from my blog, I would gladly share, well, its a risk to take. even if there are no readers, it will still be a page I can call my own in the midst of billions of netizens.

one thing need to do now, which may take forever, it to filter through all my posts since May 2004. there may be posts which is better left unpublic. this is all about moving forward and looking to the future with positivity and create memories and lessons learnt. perhaps, it will be a legacy for my children, from the internet generation, a page they can always look back and read through whenever they wish to remember their mummy.

inspired

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there’s a few things I am suddenly inspired to do.

one is to finally go pro with wordpress and probably do something useful out of blogging. I have so many interests and I feel like apart from blogging out of my own interest, I can probably gain by having people gain from it.

another is the sudden inspiration to do a reading project or a movement, or get involved with an organization which has reading as its mission. I found two actually online and I have bookmarked them to learn more about them. I am also thinking what I can do with the mosque as the platform.

and the education unit has to do more than just teaching. that’s for sure. and I must make time and not be tied down by mere paperwork. there must be something we can do. but that’s about work. plenty of time to think and plan properly. I feel like we can do so much more at the mosque. I must be confident of carrying them out. Lord help me.