Good Bye 2018

Sigh..

I begin this with a “sigh”…

2018…was a pretty difficult year to me, to be exact..a every emotional year to me.

I began it being pregnant, for half of the year. My third pregnancy, one that I felt the most difficult, took control over my self-bringing, daily productivity and motivation. I was tired all the time, I blamed the age-factor. I easily got annoyed over tiny issues and instantly got mad at people. The hormone went haywire, I was stressed like most of the time.

I was diagnosed with GDM the pregnancy diabetic so I had to control my sugar intake. It’s such a bore to have to be on diet during pregnancy, when our appetite was at peak. Well I just had to…for the sake of my baby.

In the middle of the year, my family was shaken with a very tragic news, our beloved Uncle passed away due to a fire incident in his home, that was due to a handphone blast when charged on bed. Well, that’s what we were told off. A month later, the police reclassified the case as a murder. A murder case happened in my family? To my Uncle which I knew such a nice person? How can I believe it?? And the investigation goes on and on until now, until a few more years may be…

I was so deeply impacted from the tragedy. I wasn’t personally very close to my late Uncle. But his oppressive passing had blown me with so much deliberation of life beyond my common understanding before this. Such a priceless way of Allah sending His messages to me. I can’t praise Him enough and I pray that my late Uncle’s soul rests in peace and justice will prevail for him…Ameen..

We moved house, in November. A house of our own.. my dream has come true. However, the reality of this dream-come-true dream is that it actually comes in a package of 1001 problems. Or challenges I might say. But unmanageable challenges eventually become problems overriding each other and a lot more things I’d better leave them untold..I’m so in a mess! And this is how I’m ending my 2018…..

I feel so down of all the bad things that happened this year but worse is I feel bad for being ungrateful.  It’s so conflicting.. I realize I have lots of things to be thankful for but at the same time I also had to focus on the problems I don’t get to solve immediately. Sometimes, I clearly know the reason why things happened the way it happened but I also have no control over it, like I can’t do anything about it. It’s going on and on..and currently every day is a struggle to motivate myself to move forward. It’s unseen, but the struggle is real.

Today I woke up and told myself its just a few days away to the New Year, I took a moment to count my blessings despite the clutters tangling on my head. Somehow, they created a smile on my face; a real one, a meaningful one.

This year, I welcomed a new member in my family; the ever dearest baby son ERRYSH ERDHEE. I remember the time before I got pregnant of him, when thinking of having another baby, I thought its just about what I want. I mean, it’s about me-wanting another baby just to grow my family with more kids and Allah grants me anyway. But actually now, when I look at him I realize that Allah grants me with him is not just to fulfill my prayer for what I want but actually…for what I NEED. Yes, I need this boy to be in my life now…in a way that I can’t explain. When I look at his cute pleasant face, I’m instantly happy and my heart is full. And so my other kids and husband..I love them all so much!

I processed this year on bumpy roads and wavy oceans. It wasn’t easy but along the way there were always pit stops for me take a break and reflect a moment. I keep hoping for better days to present in front of me and for it to stay long… in the next year, maybe!

Thank you 2018 for everything. Good bye….

As ever,
SALZY

Recap 2017 (Part 2)

READING, BLOGGING & LEARNING

In overall, I can summarize my focus of this year is of the above three things. I surrounded myself with many books and had a non-ending reading list; I’m a happy me. I blogged as I intended and I learned some things. It’s a contented year I must say despite losing myself at some points of time but all in all, Alhamdulillah.

In the past few years, I was in search of things that I could do to improve my wellbeing and upgrade my financial. I decided to get involved with businesses that I thought could make a side income for me. I was influenced by other people’s success but I forgot that money was not a wise driving factor for me personally. Other people can be very positively fervent being money-driven and can love what they do if it’s promising dollars but me? I’m just so spoilt and being in business is actually not my thing.

When thinking of 2017, I decided to do things that I love and will make me happy. I did just that and I can feel the beauty of following my heart and living simply.

UMRAH

My Umrah Trip in January was the most treasured memory of my life. I’m so grateful for it because what makes it be more meaningful to me was it happened after a huge crisis I faced in the end of 2016. It’s like a gift from Allah and 2017 will forever be a special year to me because of this.

ME-TIME

My kids are growing; they’re not babies anymore. I can feel that motherhood gets easier and less demanding compared to the years after birth. My husband can now handle the kids without me so they always had boys’ outings without Mom, doing boys thingy. And me, I’m having so much (or enough) me-time alone at home! I believe mothers would agree with me that me-time is such a luxury for us. It’s something that I really struggled about in the early years of motherhood. This year was such a honeymoon for me and I know this comfort won’t last. Soon my kids are going to school and that will add new responsibilities to me and I’m ready for that.

TOASTMASTERS

I joined Toastmasters in May 2017 and it’s the beginning of another notable journey for me. Speaking in front of many people, speaking impromptu took a lot of courage in me and it’s not just a piece of cake. I’m glad I did it anyway and I’m very consistent in attending the meetings. I happened to join the new Pathways programme and I’m quite clueless about the new format. I hope the momentum won’t drop and I’ll be more proactive in planning my speeches.

 MOVING HOUSE

It’s something unpredictable, gave us headache but made a good shift, anyway. For the record, it was our first move after 5 years of marriage with two kids.

FINANCIAL

I remember ranting about this in my Recap-2016 and too bad, it is the same again this time. Oh my God. I don’t mean to complain but for real, life is getting tougher and tougher financially. Look at the economy, the cost of living in KL nowadays honestly its killing. When it comes to money, it’s all about surviving months to months and every payday makes a “phewwww, we survived!” kinda relief. Or is this just a phase that we have to go through? We began building life for a better future but it’s also taking its toll on us. This is just a phase, I keep telling myself. I don’t mean to blindly rant but I want to remember this significant chapter of our journey. Things will change sooner or later and after all, it’s all about the rezeki that we totally have to rely on Allah and rezeki is not just about money! Shukr for everything.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Alhamdulillah, it’s another healthy year for us with only slight illnesses sometimes. The kids were down to fever about 3 times this year and the worst was in September during Hajj Eid. We didn’t really raya that time. The rest was okay.

My parents turned 59 this year. They’re in good health but of course not as perfect as they’re oldster already. My dad’s diet is quite affected since a year ago; he’s turning very thin. My mom has been fine except recently she’s having problem with her ears or hearing and it’s causing her vertigo and had to undergo some tests. It got better after medications and didn’t have to further any more procedures. It’s kinda worrying to hear such things. Turning into 6 series next year, I pray for their health to always be in the best condition. Ameen.

My beloved Abah & Mama

BIG FAMILY

In summary, my side welcomed a new niece in August; baby Amanda Sofyia – my brother’s second daughter. And another brother got engaged which means we’ll be welcoming a new in-law next year. May Allah ease the plan. No new addition on my husband’s side, everyone is growing existing families.

NEW PET

Should this be a highlight? Of course! Haha. We have a new resident in this home and it’s a bird. It’s a small type of parrot called a Budgie bird and my son named her as “Somey-somey”. Haha. It’s supposed to be “Comel-comel” but Edhany lisps the letter “C” so that’s what happened. It’s all about the kids anyway; it’s what they wished for because kids love animals! Except me when I was a kid. Haha. Began on 4^th December of 2017 and more updates on this in later post.

Somey-somey 🙂

KIDS GOING TO SCHOOL

Or actually, kindergarten. Last year, we were contemplating about sending our 4-year-old son to school this year. There is a choice whether to basically start them at 4 or 5 years old. We were totally not mentally ready for the new commitment and decided to begin in 2018 with both boys going at the same time. It was just kindy but really a big deal for us to actually decide the best for our kids. I cannot imagine determining universities later. We studied things carefully, tawakkal as much and signed up this one. Next week is the time and I’ve been having mixed feelings knowing the fact that my babies are heading to another phase of life!! How time flies.

Kindy stuff  of Little Caliphs

I’M PREGNANT

I’m pregnant of baby number 3. Alhamdulillah :). After months of contemplating whether or not we should be adding a new member in this family, it finally happened at the time we least expected it. I discovered this pregnancy in November and now I’m in the 12^th week. Since then, morning sicknesses got so dominant I don’t have control over my body anymore. It happened to be in the year-end – the time of the year that I usually got really eager preparing for the New Year from the planner-stuff, goals settings and recapping memories all that but this time? I was just all lying down at home for many weeks and gone on MC for many days. Too bad, too bad but finally in this final week of 2017 I get up and fight all that. The whole year has been so good I can’t just end it like nothing happens. So here I am, wrapping up my 2017 in two posts that I will want to re-read one day. Now let’s keep all the pregnancy stories of the first trimester in a special post in 2018! Maybe this blog will return to its original purpose which was a Motherhood blog, right? Will see…! Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah and welcome “Lil’ in Me No. 3”.

Positive 🙂

THE END

That’s all about it. I love this year very much. Good Bye 2017.

Till the next post,
SALZY

Recap 2017 (Part 1)

It’s December now let’s recapppp….!! Wow it’s so overwhelming. It’s the time of the year that we rewind our minds to re-walk the year that we flipped day by day, we thought we’re moving slowly but actually 365 days have been folded without we even realized it!

What happened to our goals that we set up in the beginning? Gulp! I must cringe a little thinking of this cause I know I don’t accomplish everything in my list. Do you gulp too? Would you think to just forget it and it’d be better to start with a fresh set of goals for 2018? No guys! Stop right there. The New Year can wait and this soon-to-be an old year needs a proper goodbye. No matter how lousy we thought a year has been, when we look closely we could actually identify even more blessings in disguise. Maybe we don’t accomplish what we wanted to but something else slips in out of our expectation and makes the year be more meaningful than how we planned it to be. Who knows?

Earlier this year I posted my Goals 2017 in this post My 2017 Has Just Started. So let’s go through it again one by one. Don’t laugh okay? =D

SPIRITUAL – Learn harfiyah (Qur’an translation by words)
Not accomplished. Huhu.. My target was only to start learning and cover just three pages of Surah Al-Baqarah but still I didn’t manage to realize it. I did start and try to learn from a book I bought from the Pesta Buku KL in May but honestly I couldn’t follow the teaching, it’s not as easy as I thought and slowly it’s abandoned, I’m back to referring the tafseer as usual. And so it’s a mission not accomplished but, but.. I’m not giving up. I will try again, restart and find a more systematic way of learning the Quranic language. I hope I’ll make it someday.

SPIRITUAL – Memorize a number of surah in Juzu’ 30
Checked. I focused on this in the Ramadhan month revising the surah that we easily articulated when we were a kid but growing up? Most are forgotten, or just me in this case. Surah Lazim only? Because they’re short and within my ability. Hehe. I’m really so bad at memorizing. Another reason is that, those surahs are the ones that we usually recite in our prayers. In the book 33 Ways in Developing Al-Khushoo’ – Humility and Devotion in Prayer, it says that one of the ways to increase our khushoo’ when praying is by varying the surah that we recite after the Al-Fatihah rather than just repeating the same ones in all prayers. It will make us be more focused and careful with our recitation and it’s also a sunnah. It’s what done by the Prophet (pbuh). And so I had with me this book below that I bought from the Pesta Buku as well. It’s like a children’s book but it’s so good for us adult too because it has the Surah as usual, the normal translations and also translations by words. And also an asbab al-nuzul with conclusions of the histories. It’s making my memorization easier and more effective. Truly a good revision and I managed to cover a number of surahs that I have actually forgotten. This practice shouldn’t stop. I will have to continue with more surah and keep repeating the current ones too because forgetting is easy.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT – Learn lettering art
I did it!! Calligraphy was really an impossible thing for an ugly handwriting like me but slowly, finally I could flow the pen and create nice wordings at the very least! I actually joined a calligraphy class once just to find out that after all it’s a skill that I have to nurture and be patient with myself. It takes time and I almost gave up but the one who encouraged me to continue doing it was my own husband who joined my lettering activities at home and produced many pretty creative letterings and doodles too. I’m enjoying this!

My amateur piece of work

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT – Learn to ride a motorbike
In my dream. Haha. I don’t know why I set this as my goal because when I thought of doing it, I doubted my purpose. My husband was all ready to coach but I was so reluctant and kept delaying it. Eventually, this goal is buried.

HEALTH – Do health screening & dental checkup
Done health screening but missed my dental checkup. Oops!

HEALTH – Exercise regularly
Yes I did, which I mean by simple morning exercises. Regularly? Yes, but I did not track myself. Sometimes I missed it for many weeks but I can say, overall, for the whole year it’s something that I did constantly. I should track myself closer next year.

HEALTH – Jog weekly
I did itttt!!! Allow me to be proud of myself as I managed to pull myself through the year doing something that I hadn’t been doing for years! Seriously I couldn’t recall the last time I actually exercise and jog regularly cause it’s been too long ago but this year I managed to drag myself down to the park at least once a week, sometimes twice a week and jogged until I feel tired. Hehehe. My office has this monthly Fun Walk & Jog programme after work so I never missed it. On Wednesdays and Fridays we’re allowed to wear casuals so always I am ready with sport shoes from home. My office campus is a pleasant area to jog around so I’d shut down early, go down and run before my husband arrives to pick me up. In June, we moved to a new apartment that has this gym facility so I started gym-ming with my husband but erm, I’m not used to running on a treadmill so I don’t enjoy it much. Jogging at the park is more fun! Well, I’m still not really fit physically as I don’t push myself so hard cause I don’t want to be demotivated. The point is just to get off my arse and keep doing it so once this has become a habit, I will increase my level of physical challenge. Chewah!

Fun Walk & Jog @ Bangsar South

ROMANCE – More dating (without kids)
Yes, we did it, everyday. Every morning at breakfast, on our way to work after sending the kids to the babysitter. Are those considered a date? Haha. We had movie dates twice and other couple times were usually in between running errands. Romantic much?

At our favourite breakfast spot in PJ

ROMANCE – Communicate better
Not properly defined so how do I evaluate this? Haha

FAMILY – Family holidays at Langkawi
Noooo… 😦

FAMILY – Playtivities with kids
Hurm, guess I did this only in the first half of the year. Was so enthusiastic with so many ideas from the Facebook I prepared one activity after another during the weekends. I lost momentum after the Raya period and did less fancy activities with the kids after that. Oh, Mommmm….!

CAREER – Move to other position or department
This was actually my main focus of the year. I really wanted to shift cause I was triggered by my close colleagues who left for better offers. But you know when you’ve tried but luck is not on your side, how would you perceive it then? Me, I simply thought it’s just not my rezeki yet and I was kinda disappointed. Until a friend told me that it’s not that it’s not my rezeki at other places, but actually my rezeki is there in my position now. So why should I leave? It opens my eyes and makes me realize so many good things I am benefitting here so why should I trouble myself at other unpredictable environment? I remind myself again that it’s really important to be happy at the workplace so if I’m now happy, what else matters? Can’t I just be thankful? Earlier today during the KPI review I told my leader that I cancelled my intention that I told her earlier this year and that I wanna stay with the team. Hahaha.

CAREER – Join events as committee
Yesss.. I am a member of the CSR Club in my office and I did involve in the programmes and it’s so much fun!

Wishing Tree Event by BP BSC Asia CR Club @ Pediatric Institute HKL, Nov 2017

FINANCE – Creative savings
Haha. What I meant by creative savings was actually saving money by keeping a particular color of notes and never spending it. It’s again an idea from the FB. For example, keeping all the green 5-dollar notes, or yellow 20-dollar notes so by the end of the year they’re gonna make a striking color mountain. So where’s my mountain now?? I built it! But volcano happened. Hahahaha failed!!

FINANCE – More sedeqah
Let’s keep this undisclosed, shall we?

FUN & RECREATIONS – Join volunteer activities for charity
Once onlyyyy.  I joined a friend go to a Refugee Centre to spend time with the kids teaching and playing with them. Nice one. I wanted to join more external parties a.k.a NGOs for these activities but at this phase, I’m quite family-bound so it’s kinda not practical for me to leave the kids for outside programmes. Well I should find something that can involve them as well, right?

At UNCHR Refugee Centre

FUN & RECREATIONS – Organize birthday party for Errasy
Also not done and I don’t want to promise anything next year. Huh!

SOCIAL – Outdoor potluck with Rockchicks
We had this! Yeay.. I really wanted to have this agenda with the girls but another friend has voiced it out earlier and organized such a fun picnic at the Botani Park, Putrajaya. Cool!

SOCIAL – Keep in touch with far friends
I meant not through Facebook, but through personal Whatsapp or calls. But hurm, I’m still missing many of my people.

OTHERS – Reading diet
Books on Religion – checked.
Biographies – checked.
Places – not checked. This answers why I am travelling nowhere, durh!

OTHERS – Blogging
As you can seeee 😉

Okay doneee recapping my goals list of 2017. Overall, it’s an average accomplishment I would say? Some checked, some not checked and it’s always like that for every year. Haha.

Heyyy…this post is too long already but I am not finished yet. I still have a lot to talk about this year, so? To be continued in Part 2!

Till the next post,
SALZY