Highlight of my weekend ..... visiting mak....

It's almost 7.00 pm. Am still in office - the usual time during weekdays. Will not be home until 9.00 pm. Tiring isn't it? Anyway, trying to make the best of all, be it in the office or back home.

Weekend had been okay. Saturday pergi visit mak di Setapak. Had not visited her quite a while. Rasa bersalah tiap-tiap tiba hujung minggu. Alasan yang diberikan tiap-tiap minggu - tak sempat. I know it was not right, not at all. But last Saturday, aku cari jugak time, paksa kakak and adik. I had to do it. I miss mak, seriously. I just had to see her. Dipermudahkan Allah - hubby ada golf, so we girls had our girls day out. Had lunch at DD, terjumpa kedai sports pulak belakang cafe tu. The girls beli volleyball. Hmmm.... kasi can kat dia orang. Then terus ke Setapak. Alhamdulillah, dapat jugak tengok mak. Everytime jumpa mak, walaupun happy, but deep down I felt sad. Mengharapkan keadaan sebegini selama-lamanya, tapi tak mungkin kan? Sama ada mak pergi dulu, mungkin juga aku. Takut menghadapi apa jua kemungkinan, namun apapun jua, Allah lebih mengetahui. Doa aku semoga segala-gala dipermudahkan Allah swt. Rasa puas dapat picit2 tangan mak, peluk mak yang semakin kurus, bergurau macam dulu2 and for once I felt like a young kid again. Itulah dia hubungan anak dengan mak. Hubungan hati, hubungan perasaan. Left Setapak almost 7.00 pm. Took me close to half an hour to reach home.

Lepas solat isyak, waited for hubby to fetch us to go for dinner at Showru KJ. Tengok football match - Kedah vs NS. Sokong Kedah bagai nak rak (dah aku orang Kedah, kena la sokong orang kampung, tak gitu!). Kalah pulak.... Lain kali rasanya patut aku sokong pihak lawan, so mungkin team aku buleh menang. Tukaq cara, tukag tactic....

Overall, weekend had been okay. The highlight of the weekend was my visit to Setapak, meeting mak. Alhamdulillah. Everyday, I will make a point to call mak. Ada jugak hari-hari yang miss. Kalau dua, tiga hari tak call, mak akan sampaikan komen2 yang panas/pedas through posmen2nya. Ramai posmen dia! Ada jugak kadang-kadang tu plan nak call dah ada, then my sis kata mak bad mood, so takut pulak nak call, takut kena smash. Selalunya kena lah. Itu lah dia mak, memang tak menentu mood dia. But I am happy - I have called her today. Aku mohon pada Allah swt semoga diberikan peluang untuk menjalankan tanggungjawab sebaik mungkin sebagai anak in whatever ways, dihujung usia ini, sama ada mak ataupun aku. Semoga Allah swt memberikan yang terbaik, buat mak, buat aku, buat keluarga. Ameen....

"Dan rendahkan dirimu terhadap mereka berdua (ibubapa) dengan penuh kesayangan dan ucapkanlah : Wahai Tuhanku, kasihanilah mereka keduanya, sebagimana mereka berdua telah mendidik aku sewaktu kecil". - Al Israa', 24

The farmer and the mouse .... the moral of the story.....

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. 'What food might this contain?' the mouse wondered ---- he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning : 'There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!'

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said 'Mr Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.'

The mouse turned to the lamb and told him, 'There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!' The lamb sympathized, but said, 'I am so very sorry, Mr Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it. But I will thinking of you.'

The mouse turned to the cow and said, 'There is mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!'. The cow said, 'Wow, Mr Mouse. I am sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose.'

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap .... alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house ---- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbours came to sit with her round the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the lamb.

The farmer's wife did not get well, she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember ----- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life.

We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.

"Remember ..... each of us is a vital thread in another person's tapestry; our lives are woven together for a reason."

Aiming for the best....

Half of the week is gone. Time definitely whooshing past... Scary isn't it? Work definitely not getting any easier, any flexible. Everything is tough. Had just finished and submitted my performance planning & appraisal. Tak check apa-apa pun, went on-line, filled up all the necessary parts, terus submit. Terserah, boss yang nak bagi rating. To me I have done my part, my job, what is expected of me. And I am confident I have given my best. It may not be the best for the boss, though. Tawakkal saja lah. Allah knows best.

Talk about the 'best'... and aiming to be the very best at everything you do - not second best. A tall order indeed! And this is seriously a difficult thing to aim for. As a worker, you do your job as well as is humanly possible. As a parent, be the very best parent possible. Kalau tak, then what are you aiming for? If you set out to do something, anything, and you are deliberately aiming for second best, how sad is that, right? Consciously think about what you are doing and then aim for that, the best. Secret is to be aware of what you are doing and have some sort of benchmark where you, and only you, monitor your performance. Make your goals, your aims simple and obviously atainable. And more importantly, make sure you know what is, for you, best and second best.

Looking forward for another weekend, walaupun today baru Wednesday. Aiming for the best lah ni, kisahnya.....best weekend pun ok juga.

"Failing is fine. Aiming for second best isn't."

What a woman should have ..... what every woman should know.....

What a woman should have ....
An old love she can imagine going back to and one who reminds her how far she has come ...
Enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own even if she never wants to or needs to ...
Something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour ...
A youth she's content to leave behind ...
A past juicy enough that she's looking forward to retelling it in her old age ...
A set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra ...
One friend who always make her laugh ... and one who lends her a shoulder to cry on ...
A feeling of control over her destiny...

What every woman should know......
How to fall in love without losing herself ...
How to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without ruining the relationship ...
When to try harder, or when to walk away ...
That she can't change the length of her calves, the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents ...
That her childhood may not have been perfect, but it's over ...
What she would and wouldn't do for love or more ...
How to live alone ... even if she doesn't like it ...
Whom she can trust, whom she can't and why she should not take it personally ...
Where to go .... what to do.. in times when her soul needs soothing ...
What she can and can't accomplish in a day .... a month .... a year...

"Love wasn't put in your heart to stay, love isn't love until you give it away"

Busy week.... no, it's busy month...

Had been teribbly busy at work. Income Tax month! Just finalised the EA forms preparation for the top management. Due to the 'figures' with so many 'digits', had to be very careful in all calculations. Can't afford to make mistakes! Mati nak menjawab kalau salah. Habis EA, now in the midst of preparing the Borang E (Majikan). Mata pun dah nak buta tengok all the figures. Finishing this, nak prepare for the March remuneration pulak. A non-stop cycle! Planning to take leave this Friday depending on whether I can submit the remuneration pack by tomorrow. Hopefully boleh. Lepas all these nak kena buat self tax declaration pula, self & my other half! This is the scary part... hopefully tak kena tax lagi dah lepas the zakat deduction. The same thing year in year out sebenarnya. The other day I was planning to increase my zakat deduction to reduce tax tapi ni dah bulan March tak buat-buat lagi. Hmmm.... kena paksa diri ni!

Time management.... how good or how bad are we with time management? I am considered bad, sebenarnya. Paksa diri to be on time in all aspects. Hopefully dalam paksa I can train myself to time manage-able. Ha, ha.. dream on. Kelam kabut jadinya most of the time. Got myself some books on time management both at work, at home. Habis baca buku, lagi kelam kabut jadinya! Without the book pun boleh sebenarnya. It's just about training oneself, be committed to whatever laid upon us, be happy with what we do, at home, at work - personal or otherwise. Kerja jangan bertangguh. Kalau bertangguh, tu yang jadi kelam kabut. This is where the rule of life - knowing what counts and what doesn't - applies. Knowing how to compartmentalize things. But, no matter how busy, how hectic life is (especially nowadays!) always leave a little space for oneself each day.... There should be a little space for us, a breather, a time to sit still and do absolutely nothing. Just appreciate the pleasures of being alive.......

Signing off for now.

"The concept of that little space in us - keep it simple, keep it bare, keep it pure."

Mom's favorite sayings.......

(10) What part of NO don't you understand?

(09) I don't care who started it!

(08) Wait until your dad get home.

(07) Stop making faces!

(06) Your hands are not broken!

(05) No one said life is fair.

(04) Beds are made for sleeping, not jumping.

(03) Eat your vegetables!

(02) I don't know is not an answer!

(01) Because I said so, that's why....!!!

Favourite quote - used this many, many, many times on my kids ...... "I am your mother and I am always right". There'll be all kinds of faces, all kinds of expressions, and I usually don't care - I am still the mother! Ha, ha...

"A mother.....
When you're a child she walks before you
to set an example.
When you a teenager she walks behind you
to be there should you need her.
When you're an adult she walks beside you
so that as two friends you can enjoy life together....."

Life....

Sometimes people come into our life and we know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach us a lesson, or to help us figure out who we are or who we want to become. We never know who these prople may be, but when we lock eyes with them, we know at that very moment they will affect our life in some way or another.

Sometimes things happen to us that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first, but in reflection we found that without overcoming those obstacles, we would never realized our potential, strength, willpower or heart. Believe that everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moment of true greatness, and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limists of our soul. Without these small tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. It is definitely safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless.

If someone hurts us, betrays us, or breaks our hearts, forgive them. For they have helped us learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to when we next open our heart. If we are loved, give back love unconditionally, not only because we are loved, but because in a way, they are teaching us to love and how to open our hearts and eyes to things. Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from these moments everything that we possibly can for we may never be able to experience it again.

Let ourselves fall in love, break free, and set our sights high. Hold our heads up because we have ever right to. We can make out of our life anything we wish. Live it with absolutely no regrets. For we never know what tomorrow may have in store for us... and learn a lesson in life each day we live.

"Life isn't about finding yourself.... it is about creating yourself"