Chap ayam brand

I read an advertisement in The Star recently that says “Your skin is your brand.” I can’t remember the rest of the line but the tag line was too overwhelming for me to ignore. Wait a minute mister...if this was true then my brand is definitely the cap ayam one. The no class one you know...

This advertisement definitely adds to my (already) low self esteem over my severely damaged skin. The good news is after 2 sessions at New York Skin I could see some positive result...alhamdulillah. And of course, the beauty consultants tried their very best to push me to purchase other products that they say will speed up the recovery process - which of course would cost thousands of lemons (and as you’d expect it, monies that I don’t have, much less to spend). I feel that these people just simply don’t understand the phrase “I can’t afford it”. By the way, because of the severity of my skin condition, instead of every 10 days, I have to undergo treatment every 3 days instead.

I’ve also started taking tomato lycopene supplement to boost my skin recovery process. I am hoping and praying very hard to see dramatic result in the next 2 months, InsyaAllah. Otherwise, I may lose all hope at seeing my skin close to being flawless ever again *sob sob sob*.

Yesterday, my cap ayam eyes also had to be ‘repaired’ again. Looks like everything on me is chap ayam, none is top-rate brand except for my BRAIN...hahaha *perasan tahap dewa*. I suffer from a condition whereby I have excess calcium under my eyelids. But according to another doctor, it’s concretion of mucus. I seriously don’t know who to believe. But both think that the underlying problem is the lack of moisture in my eyes, and they both claimed that they have never seen such case during their entire career as eyes specialist - more specifically one is an opthamaltic surgeon and another is an opthamologist (fyi one of them is 70yrs old!) Camno tuh? My aunt once said jokingly that my dear husband is too good of a husband that I seldom cry. I need to cry more to cure my eyes...itu macam pun boleh ka?

All I know is once every 2 or 3 months, my eyes will start hurting because the calcium deposit (for the sake of writing this post, let’s call it as such) will start scratching my eyeballs. Imagine having tiny and sharp sands burried partially in your eyelids – that’s how painful it could be. It affects my eyesight as well, I've became super sensitive to light because the oil surface that protects my eyeballs has diminished significantly. Hence why you always see me wearing my dark shades. I wear them not just for the sake of gaya, but for health reasons too...please take note ok.

The only way to remove them is by manual extraction, i.e. using needles and cotton buds...got the picture? I say sudah nasib badan...*redha dan pasrah*

A meaty affair for my birthday

Alhamdulillah...yesterday I celebrated my 37th birthday. Although I wish the day would never come (ever!), it was finally here yesterday. For a day, I felt like a celebrity with so many birthday wishes on my FB wall. I have never received so many birthday wishes in my entire life! I feel so blessed to have so many friends around me. I love you people!!! At this juncture, I’d like to congratulate Mr. Mark Zuckerberg for a splendid job. I say this man deserve some sort of award for making friends around the world connect and reconnect (and turning millions into addicts, including yours truly)...ngeeee

My darling hubby took a day off to celebrate my special day yesterday. For my birthday lunch, I wanted to have some meat (this doesn’t sound right somehow) and I wanted to go somewhere farther than 1U dan kawasan-kawasan yang sewaktu dengannya. So we settled for Tony Roma’s at Pavillion. I had steak, hubby and the boys had rib – a meat eating family indeed we are. Ariana had her all time favorite fish and chips. Sophie was sound asleep when we had our lunch - it was such a bliss to be able to eat peacefully without having to chase her around the restaurant (which we still ended up doing so after she woke up just before we had our desert).

After lunch, we walked around the mall aimlessly. Being surrounded by so many outlets selling beautiful, gorgeous and stunning handbags *drooling* made me feel a little bit restless. I felt like I was surrounded by a buffet of mouth watering food but can’t eat them...huwaaaa! This is why I prefer to go to 1U. I feel more at ease there...hehehe.

Now come to the fun part of any birthday celebrations, the present. My eldest son bought me a mouse that I so desperately need to farm more efficiently at Farmville...hehehe (tak tau bila nak insaf). Thank you Daniel! Kyle made me breakfast in bed with help from his big bro. He also gave me RM90 cash (this boy of mine is rich!). Thanks Kyle! My darling handsome hubby got me a surprise. Just when I told him not to buy me anything coz I had charged his card for my New York Skin treatment, he still went ahead and bought me a present (you really didn’t have to sayang). Thanks for the present baby, it was indeed a surprise, love it love it love it!!!

My birthday surprise

Quest for flawless complexion (part 4 - New York Skin)

As an update on my skin condition, it didn’t get any better after I completed a full round of Dermalogica treatment. It in fact, became worse than before! Something is not right about my hormone, it has gone hair wired to the max. I feel like I'm metamorphosing into an ugly looking witch @nenek kebayan *sob sob*.

At first, I was really tempted to get myself SKII skin care range for a change. It came highly recommended by friends after my last post. However, after a deep thought I decided to take a more drastic measure – skin treatment. I don’t think any amount of cream could save my severely damaged skin at this point. Hence I signed up with New York Skin last week. For someone with no fixed income like moi, it is a huge investment indeed. I was literally sweating when I passed the consultant my supplementary charge card. If this didn’t work as well, only God can help me or perhaps I am destined to be ugly forever (not to mention hard earned monies going down the drain huwaaaa).

The package comes with 10 treatment sessions (every 10 days) plus 5 types of product to use at home. However, this first round of treatment does not target my pigmentation yet, it’s supposed to hydrate and rejuvenate my skin. Treatment for pigmentation would come later. Actually they wanted me to have both treatments concurrently, but I can’t afford it. To have both at the same time would cost me a whooping 8K! Where do I find such money lah...I’m so the very poor you know, ibarat melukut di tepi gantang gitu (betul kah peribahasa ini?).


(These are the 5 products that came with the package - milk cleanser, refreshing wash, hydrating toner, mosturiser and soothing cream)

I am hoping and praying for the best for my skin, insyaAllah. They say it’d take 5 months for me to see visible result (I wish they’d say 5 weeks instead...moi is kiasu tahap gaban nih, helpppp!).

An Italian affair for Kyle’s 9th birthday

For the first time in a very long time, I threw a birthday party for my 2nd son yesterday. The last time I threw him a birthday party was exactly 5 years ago. I’m not exactly a model mother any kids would dream of having when it comes to birthday parties. I am way too lazy and lack the motivation to organize parties at home especially birthdays - it calls for lots of planning from sending out the birthday invitations, ordering the cake (which I forgot to do so and we ended up getting one from Secret Recipe instead), organizing games, preparing party packs to food and lots more. In short, it’s not easy to plan a party for a kid, you need to devise a plan to keep them entertained throughout the party and ensure they have food that THEY like. I actually prefer short cuts like having it at their school or at my mom’s (coz then I don’t have to go through all the troubles and cook!).

Being a very resourceful mom, just before the school holiday started I gave 2 options to Kyle Harris, a fancy birthday present or a birthday party. He picked the latter. Just a week before his birthday, I asked him the same question again (hoping that he’d change his mind), but his answer remained unchanged – he wants his party. Hence, my journey to planning a perfect party for him starts.

The first thing that came to my mind was the food. I wanted to prepare the food myself rather than use catering services or order some fast food instead (yup, you are absolutely right - I like to trouble myself and make my life difficult than it already is). The truth is, I like the challenge. I wanted to challenge myself to throw a perfect party for my son. So I decided (and determined) to serve ONLY healthy and wholesome homecook meal at the party.

Kyle is a huge fan of Italian food – he loves pasta, particularly macaroni & cheese and lasagna. Thus, I thought the theme should be Italian (the food that is, not the party – how on earth do I organize an Italian themed party? By the way, I love everything Italian too, especially the soccer team….those who watched the last World Cup would surely agree with me on this one...hohoho). Oh in my attempt to masuk bakul angkat sendiri, I am quite good in preparing Italian food. My hubby said I could marry an Italian coz I could whip up decent Italian food - according to him, I passed the test...don’t play play arrr muahaha *perasan sendiri gitu*

Back to the food, on the menu yesterday was baked mac&cheese, spaghetti with meat sauce, seafood pasta olio and laksa Kedah (the last item is obviously not an Italian food, in case you didn’t know!). Lasagna was not in the menu coz it requires a lot more time to prepare than the rest. For side dish there were chicken sausages and wedges (these two were not homemade, in case you are wondering and thinking that I am a supermom already). I wanted to prepare kuih as well but during my trip to the wet market in the morning, I saw some yummy looking kuih talam. I couldn’t resist and bought 3 types of kuih talam instead. For drinks, I settled for packet drinks and teh tarik. I didn’t have time to prepare the teh tarik myself so my maid was responsible for it – and the result wasn’t so nice, it definitely lacked umpph.

Activity-wise, a few days before the big day, I had a brainstorming session with my eldest son on the games. We came up with 5 games: musical chair, the last man standing, burst the balloon, scavenger hunt and trivia questions. I prepared some exciting prizes for the winners. Daniel was put in charge of the games and music. My very resourceful son downloaded some music from the internet and SOS his two friends to back him up during the party (which fyi is NOT free. I paid them RM35, to be split into 3. My son being a good friend, only took RM5 and gave RM15 each to his friend). But I made them worked for the money and asked them to do some cleaning as well…smart eh?

Being a school holiday, it wasn’t actually easy for us to invite his friends. Only a handful managed to get the invitation. But I took the opportunity to invite a few (since my kitchen is not equipped to prepare food in large quantity) of my neighbors and friends to the party as I haven’t actually had any proper makan-makan at my home with the neighbors since the day we moved in. It was very delightful indeed having neighbors and friend at our home. I think I should definitely do this more often (but not sure whether mr. hubby would agree with me).

Post mortem:
1. It was highly successful. I am proud of myself. Since no one bothered to congratulate me on job well done, I have to do it myself - splendid job Azura! (Boleh ka camtu? Don’t care lah...hehehe)
2. Party should start at 3pm instead to give me more time to prepare for food presentation. I invited the guests to come at 2pm.
3. Guests should be invited at different time slots to give hubby and I ample time to entertain guests better and more efficiently. We had to split up to entertain different group of friends at the same time.
4. Daniel should be put in charge of photography as well. We didn’t snap that many pictures as both my hubby and I were too busy entertaining.
5. I need to get myself more huge cooking pots.
6. I need to invest in some serving dish for better presentation – you know the huge catering style.

My girl Nana is already excited when I told her that I will throw one for her birthday next year too. She said she wants a party like Abang Ayis’s. That will be another challenge; I am already thinking of clowns, face painting and lots more. Are you game for it hubby?

By the way, a certain someone who was assigned to take pictures of the food didn't do such a good job, so no pictures of my glorious food here...grrrrr.

Happy 9th Birthday Muhammad Kyle Harris. Momma loves you very much...XOXOXO!

What in the word?

I don’t know whether you are aware of the recent rave about the latest motor plate number in the WP of Kuala Lumpur - WTF. For the uninitiated, WTF is short for "What the F**k". Lots of friends joined in the craze by tendering for the number, even those who lived in the East Coast (and I’m sure they spend lots of hard earned monies to secure the plate number too). Tak percaya? Percayalah...

That got me into thinking, what makes people wanna have WTF in their car plate. What’s in the word or number for that matter? 4 years ago, I made my husband pay RM500 for my 1972 plate number that I love so much. If I were to get a new car again soon, I’d definitely ensure that it has a 1972 plate number too. Not that I love to let people know that I’m THAT old but the number carries great meaning to me. It was the year I was born into this world. What could be more significant than that? The year I reached puberty? got married? graduated? have kid? started working? (Oh by the way, in my life, these events are actually in chronological order, not your typical chain of event huh?) Na... I don’t think so. The year you were born is superlative.

But WTF, why?? Perhaps I’m not that initiated after all lah...somebody call 911!

Cuti!

These last couple of weeks I’ve been keeping myself busy enjoying the precious school holiday to the fullest. You won’t believe how happy I was when the school year ended. I think I’m way happier than the school kids themselves... muahaha!! The thought of not having to drive the kids to school from early morning to late evening and prepare lunch and dinner on time for school is really liberating indeed, more than you could ever imagined. Happy happy joy joy...

I’ve done a few projects since then, both good and bad *grin*. The most notable one was the second project rumah anak yatim with fellow tai-tais of Bukit Jelutong. A good neighbor of mine, Izza, did an outstanding job initiating a collection drive for the orphanage. We brought food supply and other necessities to the kids at Rumah Harmoni, Paya Jaras. This time I took my two boys with me to the orphanage so that they could see for themselves how lucky they are to still have parents to love, care and cherish them. It was heartbreaking to see how the kids have to look after themselves. A 5-year old girl has to care for her 3-year old brother, a girl just had a heart correction surgery yet there was no one to nurse her...sad isn’t it? Being in the state of unfortunate makes them mature fast, unlike my kids who still have to be fed, cleaned and bathed by the maid till they turn 6!

Anyway, I’ve also watched a movie during week day, went out with fellow tai-tais, had lunch with ex-colleague and lots more lah. In short, I’m having a vacation of my own...lalalalala. Talking about vacation, I have yet to plan any for this school holiday. In fact, I am not really looking forward to one this round. Why? Because (1) we have a huge problem with transportation. I hate having to travel in 2 cars (2) Sophie is getting naughtier by day. She’s giving us a hard time travelling long distance on land and I don’t think she’s ready for air travel yet. This little girl is a screamer and can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes (3) I have some writing jobs to finish before Christmas (4) Budget constraint. I’d love to take the kids overseas but my shallow pocket says an absolute NO to it *sigh, sigh and sigh again!*.

Oh, did I mention that we have 3 birthdays to celebrate this month? My 2 boys are celebrating their birthdays in December and yours truly too will be celebrating sweet 17th birthday mid of this month. OMG, 3 more years to the big 40!!!! *panic, seram & perasaan2 yang sewaktu dengannya*