back to reality

it's been a week since we came back from Perth, and reality has also sunken in..kids are still recovering from their cold and cough and hubby too. while the once perfectly fine me am getting the residues of their virus only today...i'm now getting the pre-cold and cough symptoms of block nose (now both of them are blocked!), feverish, and irritable throat. but nevermind that, we had such a great time in Perth that I think was one of the best rayas i've had in years.

we arrived in Perth at night welcomed by a chilly weather. my sister in law and hubby were already waiting for us and drove us back to their place. fortunately for us, there was already nice warm mee kari waiting for us and we wasted no time indeed. we were really hungry. next day was still another fasting day, so we woke up at 3.30 for sahur (subuh was at 4 something!) and ate some more...

Raya day was spent praying the solat Aidilfitri at the King's Park. This was my second experience performing the solat out in the open, with the nature. The first was i think in Janda Baik. Anyway, we could hardly hear the sermon as by then, children swarmed around the park like bees and the distance between the imam and us were just too big for the voice to travel without any loss. so my sister in law and i just hung out for a while, took pictures and said hellos to some of her friends.

After that, the day was filled with house hopping! we went from one house to another, and each house we went, we ate, and ate, and ate...i was quite suprised at how much i could eat, given that the stomach was still accustomed to sahur-time and iftar-time only. the day of course ended with me swearing not to eat the way i ate today, and a worn out pair of legs, body, etc.

the next day, we did our touristy things...like the one below....cruising on our very own rented boat with no one else except us! the guys took turns to be skipper while us girls took in the cool breeze..it was just like in the movies! heh heh...

on the leasurely boat ride checking out canal houses and taking in the cool air..

Other than that...well, nothing much...i have to admit...the facebook buzz has also caught me and that's where i've been hangin out lately. lame isn't it? even friendster seems so ancient now. there's something about facebook features that's just plain simple yet entertaining, not that i bother too much playing around with them. in fact, i just couldn't be bothered and ignored most of the bizarre requests. i just stick to the plain and simple photos, add friends functions, etc..

ok then..see u on the other side..ha ha ha...i'm so lazy to write here...

Selamat Hari Raya AidilFitri

In just a couple of hours, i'll be making my way to down under, along with hubster, nazim and aishah. this year we're spending the raya with some family members there. can't wait to board the plane and catch on my Zzzzzsss..Feelin quite excited this year actually..maybe coz my kids are little bigger and they too (at least nazim does) know that raya is something to look forward to..

yesterday was the first day in a long long time i've taken leave from work to just do what i wanted to do instead of taking the day off because i have to go outstation, etc..so it was really nice..i put my feet up on the couch at 10 and caught Martha Steward for a bit, which was really nice. i haven't done that for a long time. used to catch her a lot back when i was in between semesters in NY, at my parents' house. the feeling of being at home like that once in a while is nice..but i'd go crazy if it were an everyday-thing!

gosh, this year has been like a lightning..i was going thru my calendar to see what i've done since January...and i couldn't believe it..it started out pretty slow...then somehow or rather, it got all speedy in April, then before you knew it, Oct is here!! and i only have 2 more months before 2008...what did i set out to achieve this year? hmmm..nothing specific..personal life? didn't really have any big plans for the year...career wise? did the necessary things to add on to my CV..travel-wise...this year beats the record hands down! we're just happy travelers, looking for something out of the ordinary in our lives...

oh, i got a new raya hair too! heh heh...which came with a funny twist of incident before it actually look like this. you see, i already set my mind to get my hair straightened (as if it wasn't already straight) for the raya..so off i went to the salon, even brought my laptop for i know i was going to be there for hours! so the lady gave it a little trim and towards the end, she suggested i did a curl instead.

mistake #1: her opening up a suggestion like that when she just trimmed 1 and a half inch of my hair

mistake #2: i agreed to her suggestion!

so she took out her curls, and started to roll up my hair...

mistake #3: i knew the curls were a tad small and wouldn't give the big curls that i had imagine in my head...but i never said a thing because i trusted her judgement

so when the curl was ready, and it turned out to look like maggi mee, my stomach began to shrink to half its size...

mistake #4: i still had the patience for her to prove that it will reveal the big curls once my hair is dried

.....and when it did....the big curls never got to be big curls!!! the maggi curls were still there!!!!by this time, she saw i was a little uncomfortable...so she suggested a machine (she said it's a spa perm machine) that had all this wires hooked up to the electronic rollers on my head...which started to oooze heat after a while..

mistake#5: i still thought this was going to work....

and when she took out the fancy machine off my head...the worst has yet to happen!!! the maggi curls now have dried up and formed into clumps that resemble cotton balls..so, my hair which was supposed to be at shoulder length now has contracted its length to just below my earlobes..and only by this time, i realized that i looked like a goofball..literally..so i said i wanted my hair straightened, i don't care how you do it, i just want it to look back like normal..that's it...this is not a good start to my raya holidays...

she was quite perplexed that i didn't dig the new look (hello...what were u thinking??!) she said some people would think it's nice..and even showed me the way to twist the curls around my finger so that the curls would look like marie-antoinette-like curls..no thank you i said...and please make me look normal again...

two hours later, i ended up with smooth, silky, shiny, just out of the oven hair...hi hi...now my raya is looking a little brighter =)

i told the story to hubby..and he cracked up...he wished he saw me with the dried up curl balls on my head.

Lessons learned:

1. Always stick to your original plan
2. Never trust other peoples' opinion, especially when it concerns you and your hair - only you know your hair better - they only see you once a year, you're the one stuck with it for life!
3. Always tell the very moment you're not happy with something rather than wait till it's done with

Oh, on another note...the launching of the Soyuz was really something wasn't it? i felt proud being a malaysian seeing that rocket took off last night...Well done to all Malaysians!

Selamat Hari Raya everyone!! Have a good holiday!