Hectic Life

The last quarter of 2013 has been extremely busy for me.  In a good and welcoming way of course.

Here they are:

1. I purchased an apartment - Oct 2013. Yeay!!
This is definitely a big commitment.  It now becomes extremely important that I have a constant stream of fixed income per month. Hurdles! hurdles! hurdles! came in a big way and it is still coming. 

• Moving house, was a nightmare - I didn't know  that the apartment management from where I am moving-from to where I am moving-to don't allow moving on the weekends.  I had to cancel the lorry that I have booked and I have to find a new lorry because the lorry that I have book is not available the following day.  I had to take emergency leave to arrange for the move because I have promised my landlord that I will move by the following day! On the day of the move I just realised that I actually have accumulated too much things, knick knacks by living by myself so the lorry had to make 2 trips.  Guess what? It rained when we went on the first trip so my things that I left were soaking wet.... but I am happy anyway, I have a home of my own now :)

• Furnishing my new house - waa... the cost to do kitchen cabinet, my bed and mattress, what with my children's bed and mattress... is really taking a toll on my purse.. so we decided to just have the bed and mattress first for our bedrooms and kitchen cabinet.  The rest we will buy as and when we have some extras. So have plastic drawers for my children and I have ikea drawers for myself that I bought some time back.  My ikea drawers were soaked during the move so it is not at its most beautiful condition but it still function well, so i am fine with it.  We watch tv on my bamboo mat.  I am not in a hurry so I don't mind taking a year or two to complete the furnishing of the house.

2. My children and I went on a vacation to Singapore for 5 days 4 nights - end of Nov 2013. First vacation with my children. Yeay!!

• I have booked our accomodation and tour guides during the March2013 MATTA fair so this expense have been paid earlier on during the year.  I have also purchased the flight tickets to Singapore some time in May 2013.  Again this expense has also been paid earlier on.  But there are other expenses.  I haven't book our transport to come back to KL.  My children have never experience taking the train so we wanted to book the train from Singapore to KL.  They wanted to try to get the night train that has bed facilities.  But I have been busy and did not do the booking of this earlier on so when we went to KL Central to purchase the tickets with beds, they have all been sold out.  So we had no choice to take the normal (2nd class) ticket with just normal seats.  Now we are all set.  We have enough pocket money for our spending.

• It was lots of fun being just me and my children. We stayed in Geylang and guess what? What an adventure! the alley (the name of the road is really Lorong 18) where our hotel is located at is near a few brothel houses (prostitution houses).  Prostitution is legal in Singapore.  It was initially a shocked to my children and me but after two day we got used to it.  Although there are some bodyguard looking man outside the brothel houses but they never disturb us as we don't disturb them as well.  Who in their right mind would, anyway.  There are so many CCTV around this area.   During the days when we have not booked tours we go on our own around Singapore relying heavily on the MRT services.  Halal food is rather difficult to find.  Anyway, everything looks expensive.  We ate McDonald a few times but only ordered Filet-o-fish to be on the safe side.  We  went to Arab Street and found the Sultan Mosque. Aahhh... we finally found a Minang restaurant, a Malay cafe and a few mamak restaurant.  So solat is taken care of by going to Sultan Mosque (very comfortable) and halal food is in abundance around this area.  There is no surau/musolla in shopping complexes in Singapore so we were told. Singapore is such a clean country and the christmas decorations are already up at this time so the streets especially Orchard Road are beautifully decorated. 

• We went to Universal Studio, Night Safari, Singapore Flyer, Underwater World, Cable car, Songs of the Sea and buys lots of keychains.... the things in Singapore are really expensive if I convert the prices to Malaysian currency so the stingy me is reluctant to dig deep into my pockets :).  But Singapore give us a glimpse of what Malaysia can be if we really take care of this much-loved country of ours especially the cleanlines part of it.  So my fellow Malaysians, please do not litter as you please in public places.

3. I enrol myself into Basic Arabic class - Early Nov 2013. I must be crazy because it is extremely difficult... But I am enduring the pain... the Ustaz is really good... I really have to work my brain, it must have been rusty. 

So there you go. Q4 2013 is really hectic and busy for me.  Now time to set targets for 2014.  What are you planning to do in 2014?

I am still thinking.. thinking... thinking..

Well, I will write again... Good bye 2013.  May 2014 bring us abundance of prosperity, happiness and peacefulness in our lives.  May Allah always be with us and protect us from the things that we know and from the things that we don't know that can cause harm to us and our families... Assalamualaikum and good night my friends...