love

thanksgiving

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counting the days before it gets to 2018, arent we?

its a quiet grey morning today. christmas public holiday. hubbylove still wakes up at 5 in the morning. i was stirred awake at 5.30am. Subuh then dozes on and off with hubbylove.

holidays are precious to me. read a book. watch an episode from a series or two. watch a movie. catch up on anime. blog. read again. browse pointlessly through facebook. read the papers without rushing through the headlines.

and if i feel a bit more productive. i can do some spring cleaning. i have been aiming to clear the wardrobe for the longest time. complete my photo journal before the year ends.

i was ready to dismiss 2017 as a stressful year for me. with what i presume as so many heartbreaks and tension. i realised that was 2017 The Work. it somehow did not start right. i only remember all the difficulties i faced. it had been shitty, to be blunt.

while browsing through my phone for photos to print and my traveler’s journal for dates to highlight; i then realised, hey Seri, it is not a bad year after all. it had been quite a whirlwind journey of emotions. but of togetherness and what it means to be a family.

we lost two family members from hubbylove’s side. two family members in 48 hours. one of which, a most beloved aunt. i deeply felt the loss. such strong kind motherly lady. we were supposed to have a family gathering for that weekend. indeed it had been. just, without her. but we revel in one another’s comfort, in staying together, in remembering her.

that same weekend, a close girlfriend got married too. how such plans are not within our control. i wanted to be with friends. but i need to be with my family. how can that be a choice to be made?

i got to live in my own house PV for a month or two. pure bliss and happiness in the simple thought of getting to stay in one’s own house. you asked, why? well i mostly stay in another house. my own house is vacant. but due to a major renovation in this current house, we all get to stay in my house. complicated? i guess so.

but i loved it.

the clearing and the packing, no. weeks of saturdays and sundays filled up with packing, driving to and fro to the storehub where we stored our stuffs for close to three months. lugging boxes and bags of stuffs. throwed away many things, kept a lot more. the only comfort: i was just happy to be hubbylove’s shadow during those weeks. everywhere with him.

i injured myself twice this year. fell outside of the toilet, terribly hurt my right side. and within the week, misstepped and hurt my left ankle. i had to pray in the sitting position for weeks. that fall though. for a moment, i knew how it felt when people said a reel of your life and questions playing in your mind in those life and death moments. i am thankful it was a ‘normal’ fall. nothing major.

i had an amazing trip to Switzerland. a test of strength and patience. beautiful, beautiful country. a lovely family there. of train rides, boat rides, furnicators and cable cars. of hiking trails and quiet walks. and that search for beautiful shots of mountains.

my little sister got married. a beautiful marriage and wedding. and pregnant now as i am writing this down. my baby brother got engaged to a sweet kind girl. i had days of fun and love with families and friends.

it was not a bad year, 2017. it had been a good year. and i am at peace.

i have a feeling 2018 will be a change. a change for love. a change for happiness. a change for wellbeing. a change for joy.

grateful

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second weekend of raya and i have to say i am tired from all the visitings. of course, of course, it is good and only appropriate and despite all the exhaustion, it is truely a once a year thing. i have truly nothing against it. i pretty like it still. just tired.

but alhamdulillah, visited the important people, uncles and aunts and then some, cousins who have had new houses. i actually found this year’s visits a bit more satisfying in a way. perhaps it was due to the week’s off i had on first raya week. and then spending that weekend with husband side of the family, and this second weekend with my side of the family. i did not have that’stressness’ of having to choose or feeling torn and angry at myself. even with having to go to work in the mornings of this weekend (as we just re-opened madrasah classes), and then continue on to the outings in the afternoon all the way to evening, even that does not stress me out. so im grateful. im happy. family’s happy, my parents are happy. that’s what matters.

and somehow, i loved all the dresses and baju kurungs i wore these few days. and somehow, i looked nice enough in the photos. haha. like i dont look too tired like previous years’ pics and the lipcreams ive been using also helped alot because i dont look dark lipped in the photos! im so going to keep using these lipcreams. they don’t cost a bomb either.

surprisingly, this year, celebrating my 33 years was nice too. surprise cakes from two separate occassions, one from colleagues and the other from the tweevran family. so again, alhamdulillah. for the love and care, for making me feel i deserve to be celebrated.

alhamdulillah. Thank you Lord. please protect all the people that matters to me.

sister love

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i dont know if pms is coming. but i am listening to my wedding song on repeat mode but i am missing my sisters at the same time.

i will forever see them as my baby sisters. oh all the memories. all the times we went through. the fights and the laughters. the hugs and kisses. the frustration and the longing. the naggings (that should come from me) and the sharings. we hate and we love. we are so different but yet we are alike in so many ways.

i miss you so. and i pray that my sisters loves will have a good life, full of hope and faith, full of love and strength. i will always be here for you.

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the weird sisters

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The Weird SistersThe Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

not a literary wow but it was nice to read something light and simple. a family good feel kind of story. i like the characters sisters and the narration makes me feel like i am really reading out loud their story.

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i am drawn to this book simply by its title. i have always liked stories about sisters, even better if its about twins.(of course you would know my head over heels over the Charmed sisters madness) so when i bought this book, no expectations although review wasn’t so well. i am glad i read it, and finish it within three days at that! as per my review, it was not literary wow and it doesnt really have a storyline of mystery or something, it was simply a feel good-happy ending kind of family story. simple and light reading.

but i found i rather liked the characters Rose, Biance and Cordelia. and i could no help sometimes understanding Rose more, being the eldest sister. i rather connected with her character. being the eldest, being there, leading the way, taking care of things and there to hold your back should you fall.

i hope i have been that sister for my sisters. i love them so and we have gotten so close. but marriage kind of bring me a part. i want to be there for them. i want to be their listening ear. i want to be the one they tell secrets too. i miss sleeping with them. i miss talking with them before sleeping. i miss all the annoying things they did like forever making a mess of the room and i ended up cleaning everything again and again.

sisters. love them. cant live without them. there will always be differences among us, we will sometimes hate each other, but at the end of it all. as sisters, we just want the best for each other. and yes, their opinion matters. a lot. and at this age, my sisters are the best friends. and we are not weird. we are charmed 😛

I love you Siti. I love you Nuri.

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.

post review: the end of your life book club

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I read it head on without any expectations, except thinking that it was about dying, and half expecting it to be a dread, and yes, blindly thinking it was pure fiction. Little did I know it was about a real person.It is also about love of books. I think that is what attracted me to read it and just couldn’t stop. I was eager to know what books that Will and his late mother would read and talk about next. It is about appreciating literature, learning from them, living the experiences of the authors. It teaches me how to really read books and appreciate them. I was so happy that at the end pages, there was a list of books that were mentioned in the book and quickly decided that there are some which I would like to read myself. Definitely going to be on the to-read list.

And Mary Ann is such an inspiration full stop. like a role model, a dear mother, a dear friend and determined to make a difference. reading on, sometimes I thought to myself, I want to be like her!

and I want to have a book club. although the end of your life bookclub is between a son and a mother, the discussions and reflections they had were very interesting, lively, thought provoking, reflective definitely and it make me want to indulge in those kinds of discussions. reading through it makes me feel like I am part of the book club.

So I have been reading three novels in a row, both about life and death, both about sincere love, care and concern towards the people you love. and this latest one, a lovely memoir if I may say. it is what inspires me. and I love books which inspires me to be a better person. to do something, no matter how little and make a difference.

in the book, much of it was reminisces of mary ann’s work in refugee camps, and I really love her mission to build a library at Afghanistan, I realized, it may just be something I had dreamt of doing. I remembered researching about social work in camps and all, and yes, admiring Angelina jolie for being able to work for and be spokesperson to relief works. it still is something I would like to do if given the chance. but as mary ann puts it, having no chance of not doing is not a reason for doing nothing at all. it may start small from a little donation. and it may move from there.

and maybe someday, I will. so anyone up for a book club??

how to fall in love

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How to Fall in LoveHow to Fall in Love by Cecelia Ahern
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have always enjoyed reading Cecelia Ahern’s novels. contrary to everybody’s favourite, PS I Love you (and no, I have not watched the movie) what made me a fan was If You Could See Me Now. I was hooked.
So it was surprise for me when one day I went into the bookstore and found a royal blue covered book (my fave colour nonetheless)written by surprise surprise Cecelia!

About this book, I think I connected with the protagonist Christine, who loves reading selfhelp books (raise up my hand at that), a thinker and a worrier (guilty of this as well) and in desperate need to help someone, in turn to help her self go through some difficult phase in her life.

I couldn’t stop reading the book. I laughed, I worried with Christine, think through things with her, and I had an amazing uncanny guess of what’s going to happen at the next chapter. and I definitely love how the story ends. I just thought Christine deserved the love she gets.

How To Fall In Love sounds cheesy but well, its kind of nice to read some light rom-com novel, albeit, actually talking about getting over depression and take back control of your life.

One Hundred Names wasn’t that too wow for me. I read that earlier this year, I enjoyed reading that although it took me longer to finish it, but How to Fall in Love brings me back to what I liked most about Cecelia Ahern’s books: ordinary people facing hard times, throwing away the ego to get help and see positive outcomes, all out sincerity and humbleness.

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