Raya to me

Last year was the first raya I celebrated as a wife.

This year is the first raya I am celebrating as a mom-to-be.

Next year insyaAllah I will be celebrating raya as a mom.

The past 29 years? When I have always been celebrating as a daughter. Lain sangat semuanya.

When I was young, Raya to me was all about new baju kurung (I always had at least 4-5 pasang each raya, tailor-made), new baju casual (always Guess or Esprit), new baju tido (sepanjang malam ada kat kampung mesti pakai new pyjama), new undies (always start pakai new undies first day raya, perasaan dia...sangat best, hahah)  wearing jewelleries (every raya eve, mama will pakaikan rantai, gelang kaki and gelangan tangan to be worn sepanjang raya), collecting duit raya (always been getting almost a thousand every year).

As I grew older, slowly, semua jadi berkurangan. Baju kurung maximum tempah 3 pasang je. Baju casual only a piece or two beli dekat Pakson sale. Baju tido baru sepasang je beli kaftan dari Kelantan. New undies pulak beli dekat Scarlet Jusco yang jual 5 pieces for RM10. Kadang-kadang mama terlupa keluarkan jewelleries from the safe, so, pakai je rantai mama yg ada yg besar gedabak, panjang giler. Duit raya.. hardly reach RM400 a year.

Bila dah start kerja, slowly, semua semakin berkurangan. Baju kurung masih 3 pasang tapi some tempah, some beli ready-made je. Baju casual, baju tido, seluar dalam semua beli kat FOS. Jewelleries, takde pakai yang baru...pakai apa yang memang tengah pakai hari-hari. Duit raya, I give out RM1,000, dapat blk dalam RM300.

Bila dah kawin, semua dah takde. Baju raya cari kaftan yang dah siap je jual kat ruang legar shopping mall. Baju tido, seluar dalam, baju casual dah tak beli dah for raya, pakai apa yang ada. Jewelleries pakai barang hantaran dari suami, my barang kemas yang simpan dalam safe dah tak pernah kelar-keluar dah. Duit raya keluar double than usual, tapi tak dapat balik dah, because my dad stop giving me duit raya sejak kawin.

Yes, everything fades away as you grow older and older, you get less and spend more, you buy less things for yourself because there are other important things to spend on.

Tapi semua tu material je. Each phase of my life has given me different meaning of raya. More meaning of course. We appreciate raya better each year. Dengan penuh rasa kesyukuran, rasa rendah diri meminta maaf dan ampun, saling menziarahi all our family members. And alhamdulillah, I could not ask for a better raya, now that I am a wife and carrying a child in my womb, semua ni memberi erti yang sangat bermakna. Takde baju tido and undies baru pon takpe.. haha my raya will still be complete.  

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri kepada semua. Maaf Zahir dan Batin.
    

Ramadhan 2012

Alhamdulillah, we are now reaching the end of Ramadhan.

Initially before Ramadhan starts, I was very much worried that I could not tahan the fasting. Mana tak nya, bila tak puasa, hari-hari kene makan, kalau tak kene heartburn wooo!! Sejak membawak budak dalam perut, makan kene on time, if not... gastric la jawabnya...!

Tapi, syukur la, bila niat berpuasa, Allah permudahkan semuanya. I managed to puasa penuh....so far! I still have 2 days more, but insyaAllah... kalau takder sakit, I shall complete my puasa this year.

I find this year's Ramadhan quite different from past years'. Mainly because my husband is now back in KL, and we buka puasa together almost every day.

Tahun ni jugak, we don't really buka puasa outside. We enjoy buka puasa with each other at home so much, that we seldom thought of makan outside.

Towards dekat nak raya ni, lagi la, kerja belambak, everything gotta be settled by Friday evening, before I go on raya leave.

Bank Negara report, Interim accounts, RBC report, Ofin Reconciliation, EVERYTHING by Friday. It's crazy man!

Takpe, biar stress sekarang, raya boleh yahoo!!!

Selamat meng-complete kan puasa anda.. lagi dua hari!

1 year old marriage

We celebrated our first year anniversary pergi holiday, no fancy dinner, no fancy hotels. We just went to Cherating.

We booked ourselves Eastern Pavillion by Holiday Villa in Cherating.

It has villas that are named according to the states that we have in Malaysia. Ours was Johor Pavillion.

This is our private villa...

With private pool..

This is the hall of the villa. It has a separate toilet from the room's

The room with attached bathroom

Ini tepi laut, ada tempat lepak-lepak. 

Different from our first honeymoon at Tanjung Jara, laut dia putih. Which I personally prefer Tanjung Jara's laut yang sangat biru warnanya. 

Nothing much nak review about this place. It has great villa and service dia so-so lah. I still prefer Tanjung Jara which has first class service. They treat you like King! Not in Cherating la of coz.

Food wise, makanan dia biasa jer. Not fair to comment coz we only had breakfast there. Other times, we eat outside or tapau KFC back to the villa. (Jauh wooo nak cari KFC, tapi teringin punya pasal...) 

Villa rate, I think that overall, Cherating ni more expensive. In Tanjung Jara, the rate was about RM2k plus for two person, makan 3 times a day, with 3 course meal, every meal. That is all inclusive. Although it was the cheapest room that we could get, it was good enough.

Eastern Pavillion's rate was about RM1k plus, just the room! Not even breakfast was included. If we were to eat in the hotel jer like we had in Tanjung Jara, ntah berapa la agaknya total bill. 

Chewah, asyik puji Tanjung Jara jer ni... ye lah.. berbulan madu pertama kali... Tempat jatuh lagi dikenang, inikan pula tempat bermain.. haha!

Tapi yang different about this honeymoon than the first one.. kali ni.. datang bertiga, bukan berdua lagi dah...

Yes, alhamdulilah.. ada seorang lagi dalam perut yang baru nak menjadi masa tu.. :) :) Bak kata orang, no more honeymoon... It's babymoon! Atau erti bahasa lain adalah, berbulan baby.

Welcome back! Hopeful

Dah lama kan tak post :) The last post i was writing was on 17 November 2011, another review of my reception..but it never get posted!

Reason? Because I ended my job as a temporary housewife and started my new job in KL. I became very busy, had to live separately with my husband... when we only had weekends together. Hence, I stopped blogging for a while.

I never realised that I had a lot of silent readers, left me so many emails, that I failed to reply. Some bride-to-be came across this blog and asked me questions and guidance through emails, and, I failed to reply them on time. Sorry sangattttt!!!

Truthfully, I seldom check my gmail since I stopped blogging. So its really not because i do not want to reply, bukan sombong, bukan kedekut nak share stories. But i reply all the emails immediately bila terbaca.

Friends also dropped me messages to continue updating the blog. Well, insyaAllah, I shall start again. But those who requested me to update my Bertandang review... I think..better not! Sudah satu tahun lebih woooorrr!!!

I shall just share some pictures, when I have the time to upload later. One of the reader who dropped me messages and wanted to see my baju songket bertandang, I have guided you to my FB page, I hope you found it!

Dah satu tahun lebih berlalu, I surely have a lot of updates about my life.

My new chapter begins.

The Reception Review - Before entering the hall

20 May 2011 - Friday

I woke up quite early in the morning (alone..hehe). Penat nikah semalam dah habis. Now is the new excitement. But my main worry about today was my wedding gown. I only got to see it first time the day before (My akad day) at 3.30pm for my one and only fitting.

Mula mula rasa terkejut, sebab first look nampak macam baju tu menonjolkan kegemukkan. It wasn't at all as how i imagined it to be all this while. Either Syaiful changed the design from the sketches he gave me, or my imagination on the sketches sux. Either or, I was not gonna complain. 1 day before reception, there was nothing much anyone could do about it.

The dress was super heavy at the top. Which I specifically said I didnt want my dress to be heavy because it will make me look fatter. But Syaiful said, I will look tenggelam in the hall because of Pak Abu's deco will be so gah, that it will telan my baju. Ok la fine..either that, or because of coz, the heavier the baju, the more expensive it will get kan? But takpe la.. I just have to trust the expert. Sebenarnya dalam hati sangat worry!!! Dah la bajet lariiiii...!!

 Everybody bersiap sedia to go to the hall because the rehearsal was scheduled at 10am. My beg ringan sikit sebab I didnt have to bring my baju yang panjang2 tu.. sebab...my wedding gown belom dapat lagiiiii!!!! hahah best kan?

Everybody reached the hall quite on time (special thanks to our pengapits and family yang ambik cuti on that day to attend the rehearsal)

Tapi yang paling best, my wedding planner (WP) yang have been organising weddings at Dewan Perdana, didnt contact and check with management if the sound systems are ready to be used. Apparently, the management had just recently changed rules that sound system will only starts after 2pm on any Fridays. Shoooshhh!! So guess what??? We didnt have a full rehearsal!!

Just some brief explanation on what should be done. Please do not get away without full rehearsals. The best is to do the reahearsal with music and emcee, and I believe that the bride and bridesmaids should wear the actual kasut (to test power, mana tahu kasut tu bikin kaki sakit). No we didn't do that. And I shall share with you what didn't happen that should have happened in my next review entry.

Pukul 12pm, my door gift baru sampai from China, percaya tak??? But it was beautiful, I loved it!!!!

White porcelain with diamonds all over

When I went to SSF, there were no such item in the store, and nothing attracts my eye. So my WP said he will go to China and order for me. So technically, these pieces were the first few arrivals in Malaysia. When they reached the hall, they were all still in courier boxes with price tags!!!! So naturally lah, I didnt have the time to put the "Terima kasih" tag at the gift. So nobody would remember that this gift was from my wedding :( hahah, ok la, not THAT sad, but..terkilan jugak.. because there were no TQ notes.

After friday prayers, hubby and I went to check in dekat hotel Somerset, new hotel in Jalan Ampang. Nak book Double Tree, tak mampu.. hahah.. :p Somerset was sooo affordable and very nice too.. sebab hotel baru.

Managed to rest for a while, then had my shower and thennn, my wedding gown arrived. At 4.30pm!!! Wahhh... Tak try pon ok baju tu... Sebab janji dgn my MUA at 5pm di Perdana. Risau baju tak muat, risau MUA marah sebab lambat..

I was 15 minutes late for my MUA.

Tapi Su Cantik....sangaaaaatttt baik!!! I appologise for being late and I told her why I was late. Tapi he calmed me down and dia suruh I go and take a peek at my hall yang baru finished deco. He said sooooo niceeee!! So I went and take a look.

Breathless!!

Tenang sket hati nak make up.. And sgt tenang sbb Su Cantik sangattttt baik!! Alhamdulillah.

So we started to get ready.

Oleh kerana, I didn't know that the color of my baju was gonna be champagne, I didnt think of my subang and hubby's handkerchief that matches with my baju..They are very trivial, but VERY IMPORTANT!!! Nassssssiiiiiibbb baik, Tuhan tu Maha penyayang, nasib baik ada handkerchief gold and my bff Ira brought extra subang gold. Haaaahhh!!!

Hubby pon kene make up sekali ok, jangan ingat tak perlu.. nanti muka dull dalam gambar!!

Meanwhile, keadaan di bawah, agak kelam kabut di pintu masuk. Sebab my penyambut tetamu semua datang lambat. They were all my cousins. Although my father has given them place to siap at nearby Gurney service apartment, we didnt think of logistic very well. So transportation wise, agak terbantut. And since I hired a separate MUA for my bridesmaids (my engagement MUA, Kak Lela), tetiba ada la sedara lain yang nak tumoang make up, also contributed to lambat sampai. So when we get our family/friends to help us, it will be good to remind them in advance what are they expected to do so that they dun end up asyik busy menangkap gambar ehh.. hehe bila family/friend ni susah sket nak marah. Luckily my usherers/usherettes (tugas yang agak penting) adalah dad's office staff. So dorang tak berani la nak buat hal kan ;)

And please dun forget to assign someone to stay next to your parents sambil pegang big bag. Because your parents will be receiving money from guests, you dont expect your parents to hold the money, right? Diorang mesti la cantik dan bergaya, mana boleh pegang beg besar2.. :)

As usual, taking photos with the VIPs.


Sitting fr left: Hub's aunty, MIL, FIL, us, TPM's wife, mom's boss' wife, and my aunty
Standing fr left: Dad's boss, my uncle n wife, my parents, my dad's uncle, Hub's uncle and mom's boss


So here we go, walking towards the hall. Dah kawin, tapi masih berdebar-debar, takut terpeleot!! (Kasut 5 inchi ok, because my husband is so tall!!)


Awww, and this was the main entrance yang menyambut guests. I love the deco! And the fact that this was my idea!

The sacrifice

Tonight may be the last night I am spending time here in JB with my husband. It has been 1 month since I left Ernst & Young.

And it has been 1 month worth of thinking what am I going to do with my life. Am I going to be a housewife? Continue to find job? And where shall I start my new job?

For 1 month I have been living the life of a housewife. I cooked, I washed the clothes (machine and handwash), cleaned the kitchen and the house, ironed the clothes and there were other little things I did as a housewife.

I was ecstatic in the beginning (and still are whenever I have the opportunity to do those things), doing things for your husband is something very fulfilling as a wife. Seeing my husband happy, makes me happy.

He comes back from work, dinner is served on the table, after eating, I let him leave the dishes unwashed so he could watch TV. I prepare hot tea for him after dinner, and at night, when he is too lazy to wash up, I wipe his face with my facial wipes, and sometimes when he is lazy to shower but his body becomes sticky because of sweat, I wipe his body using wet towel, so he could sleep comfortably.

But I know I was born a career woman. I can't just sit back at home watching TV during the day while other people working so hard to gain physical and mental input. I cant let my brain just die watching Desperate Housewives.

Not yet.

I feel that I am still young that I still have so much to earn and so much more to give. I cant stop my career now. I have to climb up that career ladder and reach my goal in life. And I believe it is a satisfaction as a person as well as a wife who can help to build the family together with her husband.

Now, I am not even halfway there.

My line of work do not give room for opportunities in JB.  And no, I dont want to work in Singapore, because this much of contribution I can give, I'd rather give it to my own people, to my own economy, to my own country.

And at this very moment I am so thankful to my husband for being such an understanding person by letting me work in KL. He understands my passion and never even once he thinks I am being selfish.

He said by being separated, both of us can focus on our work and give our best to our job responsibilities and then have quality time with family during weekends, where he would come home from JB. This is such a huge sacrifice that my husband and I are making.

Maybe bila dah ada anak nanti, I can start to think again whether or not to leave my work and take full care of my child. Till then, I will still continue to strive for excellence.

Terima kasih, Cinta.

Ijab Qabul review - Dia terima nikahnya

Memang berdebar. Sebenarnya yang paling berdebar kalau ustaz tu tanya soalan pelik-pelik and the groom cannot answer.. haha, but no lah.. it went quite smooth. Lepas the ceramah, terus diserahkan kepada my father, the wali.

Before mula, kene practice dulu. Sebab my father pernah practice before this and dia tersilap nak nikahkan the groom's father.. haha..

Saya terima nikahnya Izrin Irina binti Khairil Anuar....masa ni sebak la jugak sebab at this moment, i felt that after all these years, through all the ups and downs, he accepts me for who I am. And lebih touching, my father yang telah membesarkan anaknya ini took the honor to give me away.

Baca taklik

Ameen, selesai sudah upacara akad nikah. The groom, now my husband went up to the bilik pengantin to perform solat sunat.

Sementara itu, kami di bawah, sibuk tangkap gambar .

Then, there comes the groom, dengan hadiah hadiah to be given to the bride.

Ehem..the best man yg pakai baju brown tu still single ;)

Present the mas kahwin

Sarung cincin

Gelak bukan sebab cincin tak muat ye.. hahah..

Bracelet for me

 Ok, the final gift for me was my necklace. Agaknya suamiku ini tak pernah beli rantai untuk sesapa, tak reti nak bukak. Punya la lama. Ada la 2 minit nak bukak rantai tu.

Bila dah boleh bukak, kedengaran suara orang ramai "haaaaaaa" macam lega...Oh wait! But then bila dah pakaikan, nak pasang balik...lagi 2 minit!! Oh my god.

Tengok sikit muka semua orang yang menuggu.. hahah..OK next time for other b2b, if you have gifts like this, make sure you ask your fiance to practice bukak and pasang balik dalam masa yang singkat ;)

Next was my gift to him. Cincin kahwin (yang sekarang dah longgar, and dia pakai kat rantai ala-ala Brad Pitt)

Lepas tu macam biasa la kan, semua nikah pon ada. Although you think that you see this all the time during nikah, like it's normal. BUT, it's not normal to the pengantin. Salam and cium tangan yang pertama kali, like trying to tell the husband "saya akan taatkan awak"

Dan suami pulak menjawab "saya akan tunaikan segala tanggungjawab saya pada awak" :)

Lepas selesai, we started to go around to find our parents and grannies untuk salam-salam tanda terima kasih kerana telah memberi restu.

YEAHHH!!! I did it!!!!!!

With my bridesmaids

We waited for about 15 minutes sambil tangkap-tangkap gambar while other guests sedang enak makan (remember my previous entry, there were no meja pengantin prepared by the wedding planner?), I didnt notice what was not right at that time, I didnt notice that I wasnt eating. -_-

However, we had this upacara merenjis and terbuka kepada semua orang, sesapa yang mahu, bcause we didnt want to have too many people merenjis on the reception night, hence we gave opportunities for other family members to give their blessings on that nikah night.

Bukan saja orang-orang tua sibuk merenjis, the youngsters juga sibuk nak memberi their blessings, ok la fine, bagi la chance.

Ignore the kaki, this is the bunga telur untuk orang yang merenjis

The bottom bekas kaca is the door gift for all guests

Considering it was a Thursday night (esoknya kerja), it was a very good turnup, I must say. The whole event ended about midnight.

Merasmikan katil pengantin

Jangan terlebih fikir, tiada apa yang berlaku malam tu.. hahah

Kerana pengantin lelaki balik ke rumah mak dia.