Good Bye 2014

Assalamualaikum and Hi there,

2014 will be leaving us in just a little bit more than an hour.  Time for reflection....

Looking back at my targets for 2014:

1. Short runs - I actually did join one run together with my children.  It is called "Blood Donors Fun Run" on 14 June 2014.  I actually paid RM140 for just one run.  All three of us manage to complete the 5 km run which is good.  Thinking back after the run, I think it is not worth while for my purse to go for short runs like that with my children because it is quite pricey.  Ok, I admit I can be a cheapskate but if I just want 5 km run, we can just do it on the treadmill. So that's the reason why I quit that one. I syill attend my aerobic classess and I do run on treadmill from time to time with my children since I stayed in a condo and this facility is included as part of the maintenance fee anyway.
2. Losing weight - darn, I couldn't seems to get rid of the 5 kg... I managed to get rid of 3 kg during fasting month (sepatutnya lah kan...) but I quickly gain it back after raya. So sakit hati isn't it.  Let's try this again this year.  Should I develope a hate-relationship with my food?  I have to stick to my goals - my will power is not strong enough.
3. Credit card balance - I managed to reduce my credit card balance but guess what, I went for holidays and quickly put it back on.  Does this sounds familiar - it sounded like my effort in trying to lose weight, right.  Really have to work on that will power of mine.
4. Savings - here's another yo-yo target I have done for this year that was not achieved.  I am telling all of my can of worms now. I will never ever going to tell you who I am... hahahaha in time I probably would.  Now I am still not ready yet. Will power - come to mummy, baby.  I really need my will power to be stronger.
5. Vacations - This, I am good at.  This year, we have been to Penang, Tanah Aina, I-City and also to ChiengMai, Thailand.  The last two trips, I haven't told you about it yet.  So that's where my added expenses come from.  Although, I have put aside allocation for my vacations, but you always need that extra additional money for spending... I sure have a lot of excuses huh...
6. Al-Quran - I still haven't finished it yet.  I am in juzuk 23 now and my Ustaz says I will only complete it middle of next year.  Sad but this is the reality, so I really hope to finish it in 2015.  I have been dilligent in going for my Quran classes.  Please pray for me that I will continue to have the strength to complete reciting the whole Al Quran.  May Allah give me strength to see it through to completion of the whole Al Quran, at least once with a teacher.
7. Haji - did you know that I heard from my friend that an unmarried woman below the age of 45 have to have two female companion to go with her for Haji.  That is mightily difficult.  I will be going only with one of my other sister.  I have to wait for her to reach 45 then only we can go together.  Well at least that gives me more time to do more savings for this.

There you have it, a lot planned but not much accomplished.  Nevertheless, I think we should all set targets anyway.  Without targets we will be living without direction which is even worst.  So I will continue to set up targets for 2015.  I know where I went wrong - will power lacking - so I will work on that some more.

As of now, here are some of the items that I already know coming for 2015. 

1. At the office I have been elected as the Social Committee President for the second year.  Work wise, I became a team lead for the first time in 2014 so a lot of improvement I need to do as a team lead in 2015.  Need to work on delegation, checkings on my subordinates performances and motivation of course so that they will be able to continue to do a good job.  Another thing, I volunteered to take up small task as part of project management.  This will exposed me to project management work and be able to add values to my resume.
2. My children will be going through SPM and PT3 this year so have to keep them in check - studies wise.  Mind you I just ask them what their targets and are they working towards it.  Then I just remind them.  Sounds easy huh - want to be a mom to two teenage kids?
3. I have already book a trip to Korea for March 2015 - so exciting! I am going with my one other friend only - not a true backpacking style la... I will be going without my children since they will be busy studying.  Additionally, my eldest sister has booked a vacation for us at one of the local pulau in May 2015.  We'll be going with her family, the more the merrier kan...
4. I need to get furniture for my living area and dining area... Shish, I sure know how to spend huh :)

Targets for 2015, I haven't finalize it yet... Will let you know about it in 2015.  I still owe you the stories of my trips to I-City, Shah Alam and ChiengMai.

2014 has been fulfilling for me.  I intend to make 2015 my busiest year ever.  I may not tell you everything of course.  But if I think my stories can help others, I definitely will tell.

On a sad note, I am extremely sorry to hear about our friends and families that are affected by the flood.  We sure have it bad this year.  I hope all of us as managed to contribute in one way or another to help others.  Let's not just be "Keyboard Warriors".  If there is opportunity to volunteer, let's do that as well.  I do what I can to help but it seems really small, but let's do it anyway even if it is insignificant to others eyes.  Allah knows our true intentions and Allah understands us the most.

Goodbye 2014.  Welcome 2015. 

May 2015 be a more prospherous year and may Allah give us a lot of inner strength to have a laser sharp focus, strong determination to overcome all hurdles that come our way and achieved our targets for 2015 successfully.

Till next time.  Good night, sleep tight and sweet dreams... Wassalamualaikum...
 

2D1N Tanah Aina Farrah Sofia (Raub, Pahang)

Tanah Aina Farrah Sofia, Raub Pahang - 22 October 2014

I heard about Tanah Aina from one of my single friends.  My children are now at the age where they are more adventurous and are no longer interested with waterparks like Sunway Lagoon or the likes of it.  So I decided to take a short trip last October with them during Deepavali/Awal Muharram public holiday to Tanah Aina Farrah Sofia in Raub, Pahang.

I book this holiday during the MATTA fair last September. In Malaysia, we have this MATTA fair a few time a year where many travel agents will showcase their holiday packages offers.  I did my booking for this trip with one of the travel agent then.  The whole package of 2 Days 1 night costs me RM750 for all 3 of us.  The package includes accomodation and meals.  For this trip, all of us agree that we should try the tent.  Tanah Aina has a few choices of chalet, honeymoon suite, dorms and tent.  Their tent is big enough to accomodate all of us.  I have always wanted to sleep in a tent but I don't want to bother buying one and learning how to put it up.  Here, we have the opportunity of someone setting it up for us.  The tent comes with 3 beds.  There's no aircond of course.  During the day it is quite humid to be staying in the tent but we have a standing fan.  But we don't stay in the tent much anyway because there are a lot of things to do.  The scenery is beautiful, the stream is clear and just sitting around putting your feet in the calm flowing water is soothing.  There is a ping pong table which my son played a few times with other people there.  There are swings as well.  My daughter and I play that a lot.  There is also a tv room where you can laze around and enjoy the scenery. However, we dont laze around much because the package  includes activities like (1) simple jungle trekking (2) watching the sunrise and (3) Night walks.  All these activities are optional actually.  Me and my children love these activities though.  When else are you going to enjoy the nature, definitely not in the city.  The Night Walk was cancelled during our stay because that night it rained.  The soil will be too soft and not safe for us to trek on.

11:00am: Wednesday, 22 October 2014, we make a move to go to Tanah Aina.  Raub, Pahang is supposed to be about 1 - 1 hour 30 minutes distance away from Klang Valley but I successfully managed to get myself lost (duh!) while finding Tanah Aina.

1:45 pm: I finally managed to reach our destination.  I reached the parking spot where we leave our car.  We were then asked to board on a truck/4-wheel drive to go to the resort.  When we reach the resort we checked in.  The process is very simple and quick.  We were asked to have our lunch quickly as the trekking activity will start at 2:30 pm.

2:45-3:00 pm:  They gave us a briefing before we start the trekking.  With us there were about 4 - 5 couples, and 3 other families.  2 couples are on their honeymoon.  I have not done jungle trekking for the longest of time.  The last time I did it was when I was in my college days.  That is like 20 years ago.  So I was thrilled to be able to do this.

The jungle trekking involves having to go through clear river stream.  Certain parts of the stream is higher than me but there are ropes that you hang on to so that you can remain afloat.  Mind you, I don't know how to swim so I rely heavily on the ropes and handrails that are provided along the tracking route.  The highlight of the trekking is the "Leap of Faith".  We are expected to jump from a platform that is about 2 - 3 metres away from the surface of the water.  It doesn't look scary from below, but once you are on the platform and look down - it was terrifying. I managed to do the leap only once and I thought I almost died. When you leap, it feels like you are doing bungee jumping minus the rope and when you get into the water, you go quite far down under the water before you re-surface again.  The jump and the time you come back onto the surface is just about a minute or less but that was the longest minute in my life.  Both my children did the leap more than 3 times each and they make it look so simple.  Young people has more courage, I guess.  After the leap we head back to our resort where a tea break was already spread out for us. 

After the break, time for a clean change.  We had our shower.  Did I tell you that their shower is awesome! The toilet is like 5 star hotel toilet.  We were not allowed to bring our own shower gel and shampoo because we are supposed to use the ones provided by them that are more organic and environmental friendly.  Organic aside, the shower gel and shampoo were heavenly.  It smells extremely nice for me though my children doesn't like it.  It smells like serai or one of the herbs you use in the kitchen (ooops you know now I am not a good cook).

After maghrib, we head down for dinner next.  The food tastes fairly okay.  I am never much of a complainer about food.  I am not a good cook anyway to comment on them.  We had our fill and then we head over the stream to the small hall.  There, we were shown a documentary on why we should preserve the earth and how the Malaysian's soil are being robbed by its own people of its timber which results in landslides, lost of habitat for the wild and the worst thing is that our children may not be able to see beautiful Malaysia with its natural greeneries.  Patriotic sekejap.  During our afternoon hike, there were pictures taken of us by the crew.  So they showed us this video.  We bought a copy of the video as well for us to see when we're back home.  That night we were supposed to have night walk but because it rained, the walk was cancelled.  After the show, it was a free and easy time for us for us to leisurely roam around.

We fell asleep that night without any problem at all.  The night was cool and sleeping in the tent was comfortable.  We fell asleep with the sound of the flowing stream. Nice and peaceful...

Tanah Aina Green Surroundings

23 October 2014, 6:00 am.
We are up and about getting our shower and Subuh prayers. We head out to the small hall again to gather together before we hike to see the sunrise.  The morning air was cool and refreshing.  Not many families joined us for the morning walk though.  The walk is a simple one going up the hill for about 20 minutes.  There is a rather big seating area for us to sit and wait for the sun to come out.  Then some picture takings.  Lepak for about 20 minutes or so enjoying the beautiful morning before going down the hill.  Going down is much easier and faster. Once we reach our camp again, breakfast is all set and ready for us.  It is so nice to have everything prepared for us.  If at home I would be the one scratching my head to think of what to feed my children.  Here all food are prepared so I am totally not complaining.  Easy life is what I am after.

After breakfast, more free and easy time for us.  Yesterday, we didn't get to take much pictures so we did that at this time.  Sceneries of the nature is indeed breathtaking and one you will never get tired of looking.  The sound of the stream is soothing at the background.  The clean fresh air is cooling to the lungs and one cannot help to be at peace with the natural green surroundings. 

Enough easy life.  Back to reality!  We have nothing else to expect and we don't have a reason to wait until check-out time.  By 11:00 am we are all packed.  We checked ourselves out and wait for the jeep driver to come and get us and send us bak to the car park where our car is located.  Even going up and down in the jeep ride is fun and funny for us.  The three of us make enough noise to wake all the sleeping monkeys during the short 5-10 mins drive back to the car park.

Tanah Aina Leisure Hut

We really loved the adventure that we had in Tanah Aina.  Thank you for reading my musings this time around.  I have another trip that I need to tell you.  Will share that with you too, in sya Allah.

Our Tent at Tanah Aina

For now, have a good evening.  May Allah always protect us from harm that we know and that of which we don't know of.  Good night and sweet dreams.  Wassalamualaikum...

Girls Bonding Days

2014 brought with it significant bonding with my girlfriends – old and new.  My acquaintances become my close friends and I also made many new friends that are singles.

I made new friends at my apartment.  I have two new friends from my apartment and both of them are single.  One is a single mother like me and the other one has never been married.  Both ladies are very independent and powerful ladies.  One is an Entrepreneur and the other one is a Project Manager.  I now have companions to hang out at night with and we do morning walks together if time permits.  Of course, all three of us are also busy so time to hang-out together is really rare.  But at least we know where each other are and we can be of assistance to each other when needed.  I really want to ask them to go out to midnight movies one of these days.  Hope that opportunity will come soon.

My colleagues at the office who were once just acquaintances are not my close friends.  Although 3 of them are contractors and their contracts may not be renewed – for now we are having lots of fun.  Lunch time is the time we always look forward to.  We even have budget that we should not spend more than RM30 per day.  We explore new eating places, take turns to drive and share a lot of interesting stories together – from male/husband stories, cooking, baking, children, sightseeing, shopping, activities, etc.  One of my colleagues is also a single mom and both of us will go dinner or movies together when both of us have the time especially if we have to stay back at the office.

Did I tell you that I am the Social Committee President at the office? Well, with this added responsibility, I have to go to many meetings and have to meet-up my colleagues – both boys and girls frequently.  Many a time, we had to have meetings outside office hours as we are busy doing our office work during the day.  These meetings keep me busy and very entertained with the fun activities we are coordinating.

I still go for my Quran lessons.  I have my girlfriends at my Quran classes and we meet up every week and mingle with dinner together at times.  I definitely do jamaah prayers at least once a week – isn’t that a plus apart from reciting Al-Quran.

For now, I am quite happy to have my girlfriends with me and I hope our friendship will last forever.  I hope you single mom out there also have your Girls Bonding Days that keeps you happy and smiling all day long.

Till next time.  Have many awesome days ahead and keep smiling for that added tinge of happiness.  May Allah bless us in our daily activities and may Allah always keep us away from harm and sadness.

MyTeksi Smartphone Application

Assalamualaikum everyone,

Did anyone miss me yet?  Sorry my friends, have not been managing my time well enough.

Today I thought of talking about safety. As single and independent ladies, we often have to carry out many necessary errands by ourselves.  One of those errands is sending our car for service.  As a normal middle income earner, I am a user of our local car manufacturer therefore when the service for my car is due, I have to go to the service center to ensure my car will always be in working order to not just bring me around but to keep me safe.  I do feel safer when I am in my car, most of the time that is.

I found out about the MyTeksi application on smartphones some time back from a friend.  But it is only recently, I started using it.  Here is what I do when I need to service my car:

1. Drive my car to the service center and check it in for service
2. Leave my car at the service center. 
3. Execute MyTeksi application from my phone. The initial screen comes-out.  Specify my "From:" and "To:" location. I always select "Budget" teksi.  Then click <Next>. See picture1 below.
4. Another screen comes-out.  This screen confirms your destination, the estimated distance of travel in KM, Estimated amount you will need to pay for this journey, etc. Click on <Confirm Booking> if the details on this screen is per as what you wanted.  See picture2 below.
5. Another screen will comes-out after this to tell you the taxi driver's name and his/her taxi plate number.
6. Now I just wait for about 10 minutes or so for the taxi to come and to pick me up so that I can go back to office to do work.  Just wait at the waiting room until the taxi comes.
7. Once the taxi comes (you will know the taxi is for you because the taxi plate number is already displayed in the MyTeksi application just now), just hop-in and head to office.
8. Note: You can always re-launch the application again if you have left it idle for some time.  Another way to hold the information is by capturing the print screen.  For Android phones like mine, you press the <Power> button and the <Volume down> button simulataneously.  The print screen will be available either in your camera lists or your file/document folder in your phone.
9. Usually, my car is ready at noon if I sent it in the morning.  So when my car is ready to be picked up, I just book my taxi via MyTeksi application again from my phone.

 



MyTeksi Picture1

 

MyTeksi Picture2

One thing to note though, MyTeksi application is really new.  Most of the taxi drivers that use it are veterans/old timers who are not very Smartphone savvy. So they have problem to locate your location using their GPS that comes with the MyTeksi application.  I have experienced a taxi driver calling me to ask me where I am located.  He gives me some reasons which I thought is rather ridiculous but me being the nice me, of course, give him directions to reach me.  He was not entirely very late just additional 10 mins late.

What this shows is that when we confirm the booking, our information is transmitted to the selected taxi driver just as we also get the information about the taxi.

Another feature of MyTeksi that can be useful is that you can have additional information to your account on whom should be notified once you have reach your destination.  My friend put her husband's number for this.  So when she reaches her destination, an automatic message/sms is sent to her husband to notify him.  Although, I don't use this feature yet, I may want my children to use it in the future if MyTeksi application still exist then.

So if you want to use MyTeksi application, go to "Play Store" for Android or "App Store" for Apple, search for MyTeksi application, then install it on your smartphone.  Register an Account with MyTeksi and provide your details accordingly.

There you have it!  I hope you will find this application as useful as I do. May Allah always keep us safe from harm that we know of or from something that we do not know of.  Sesungguhnya Allah maha mengetahui dan kita tidak.  Thank you Allah, Thank you All.  Until next time, good night, sweet dreams....

Trips

Penang – 11 Jun 2014

10:55 am – We make a move heading to Penang.  We are armed with sardine sandwich, plain water, coffee, one-bar short of a full tank of petrol, RM100 touch n go, GPS  and Google map on my daughter’s handphone.
12:55 pm – We stopped at Perhentian Rehat Tapah.  We bought Dunkin Donuts hotdog, local fruits jambu air, jambu and rojak buah.  We ate our sandwiches too.
3:15 pm – Re-fueling at another perhentian rehat.
4:30 pm – We reaches Bukit Mertajam, my God-mother’s house.  Here we were served with Roti Arab, chicken curry and some bergedil.  We were relying heavily on the GPS and the Google map as I am not familiar with Bukit Mertajam area.
7:00 pm – We finally reached our hotel, HelicoNia hotel. Checked-in and was asked to pay RM50 as safe deposit.  This is standard procedure in-case if we damaged any of the items in the room.  Our room is rather small with no window.  We have 2 single beds.  Although the room is small but it is clean and is in the middle of Penang town.  So we are able to get around like the Chowrasa Market, Komtar and nearby malls like Prangin Mall and 1st Avenue by walking.  We walked around the area that night and bought some bread and munchies from 7-Eleven.

Penang – 12 Jun 2014

Our room doesn’t have any window so we didn’t realize the time.  We woke rather late.  We make our move to the Escape Adventure Park at 9:00 am.  We had the bread we bought the other day as breakfast.
When we get there, the queue wasn’t long. I just show them my groupon printout voucher over at the counter.  They also asked me to purchase the money card voucher because all purchases at the park must be made via this money card.  We topped up RM100.  They brief us on the park rules as this is our first time.
It is now PLAYTIME. We started with “Monkey Business”.  There are 3 levels of difficulty.  Because there are too many people @ level 1, we started with level 2.  It was very challenging for me because it requires balancing and utilizes a lot of your whole body muscle to complete a whole route. Alhamdulillah, we managed to complete it.  We wanted to try level 3, but we need to get back down to get our tickets first.  By this time, there are many people queuing already and we are expected to queue again.  We decided to try other games.

Next, we tried the “Gecko Tower”.  Both my children compete with each other and manage to get to the top of the tower in 39 seconds.  Of course I took longer than 39 seconds.. duh..  No way, am I going to compete with my children.  Next, we tried the bungee jumping a.k.a “Atan’s Leap”.  Here, I found an 8 yrs old wanting to do it. I was feeling scared, and here he is, the 8 yrs ols kid feeling all excited to do the free fall. At that moment, I wished I was 8 yrs old again – I like the feeling of not being afraid.  Then we tried “Flying Lemur” or normally known as Flying-Fox.  My daughter loves it.  In total, she played it 5 times.  I did it twice only.  The feeling of freedom sure is nice and calming. We tried the swing next.  We decided we didn’t we didn’t want to do “the Maze” and “The Ape”. 

By 3:00 pm, we were too tired and sweating a lot.  We totally have depleted all our energy.  We definitely need to recharge so we stopped for our late lunch.  We ate nasi goring, char kuey teow and mee mamak.  Each set comes with a soft drink and it costs us RM11.50 each.  We used our money card for our purchases.

Before we leave, we thought we will give the “Monkey Business” another try.  This time we tried Level 3.  Like earlier, my children went first.  My son can only passed the first hurdle of the route. He gave up on the second.  He asks us to turn back around.  I really wished we could do that Level 3.  I’m just about to get warmed up to the hectic activities.  My daughter then tried a few more rounds of Flying Lemur before we decided to quit.  My daughter brought an extra t-shirt which she changed herself into and then we do solat jamak for zuhur and asar.  By this time, it is already 5:00 pm and the park closes at 6:00 pm. So we decided to make our move back to the hotel then.

Important Note: if your hair is long, you need to tie it into a bun.
Lesson Learnt: in the park, you use a lot of the safety harness. It is like your best friend. All games will require you to wear it. It is required to ensure your safety.

On the way back, we passed through Batu Feringgi beach.  The beach was pretty and inviting so we stopped for a little while and take some pictures.  There were not many people around so it was quiet and pleasant. After 10 – 15 mins at the beach we stopped by at one of the eating place near the beach and had ice kacang.  We were still hot from the activities from the Escape Adventure Park, so something cold is definitely cooling.  I shared with my daughter.  My son doesn’t want any.  My daughter shares everything with me now as she wants to eat but don’t want to eat too much.  Both of us are trying to loose some weight.   After that we even stopped by a hawker by the roadside to get goreng pisang and cempedak goreng.  My tummy was all happy but we sure stinked a lot by this time and cannot wait to get back to the hotel for a shower.

After showering, we met with my God-Sister at Bayan Lepas.  She doesn’t have a car so we had to go to her.  We just had her address and Penang is totally an alien place for me.  With GPS and google map on my daughter’s mobile phone, we managed to locate her house.  Her husband and her took us to a nice Nasi Kandar place called “Makbul Restaurant”.  Very nice indeed.  So that was dinner for us before we retired back to the hotel for the night.

Penang – 13 Jun 2014

On our last day, we decided to do some shopping.  We went to Pasar Chowrasta Penang to get some preserved fruits (jeruk).  We bought jeruk Pak Ali.  Jeruk Pak Ali is special because it doesn’t makes you cough so I like it a lot.  I bought a lot of these to bring back as souvenirs for my friends and my siblings.  We also went to Prangin Mall, Komtar and 1st Avenue Shopping Complex.  All of it is near to each other.  My daughter got herself some kasut  raya and my son got himself some tshirt raya too.  Amazing that we come all the way here to buy us things we can get in KL.  The pricing is the same like KL so nothing special here.  We had a quick lunch in Komtar’s food court before taking the ferry to go back to KL.
This is an extremely long posting.  I am so sorry if I bore you to death.  Thank you for reading my musing this time around.

I hope you have a good night.  Till next time, God Bless… Happy Ramadhan.  May this Ramadhan we managed to collect as much pahala as possible.

What's Next

Assalamualaikum everyone :),

2014 started with a such a bang! I was elected as the Social Committee President and I had two failures in my compliance work so early in the year! That has never happened before. That put me into a busy-bee frenzy schedule since January 2014.  So that was work for me on the first quarter of the year.  Now that we enter Q2 2014 (April) things have stabilized a little bit and gives me a little room to breathe.

On a personal level, life has also stabilized to a certain level - day-to-day wise.  But I feel my life is a little empty.  According to the book I am reading now ("Awaken the Giant Within" by Anthony Robbins), I need to make a certain physical activity to change my current boredom state.  I still watch my KDrama and I still go for my Al-Quran class but I have quit my Arabic class (I intend to continue - I hope Allah will give me the strength to continue later).

Here is the only one additional Physical Activities I am thinking of doing this year.  I join aerobic classes at the office twice a week already but I do missed the classes now and then due to work especially in Q1 this year.

I need to start joining short runs (5 km or less - don't laugh).  Physical exercise has never been for me, I didn't even play any sports in school - I cannot and don't know how to play, I don't even know how to ride a bicycle. I am quite pathetic huh! Anyway, I found two already which I need to enrol in along with my children.  Let me attempt this first and update you later whether I am successful or not.

(1) Run 4 Peace 2014
     Date: 27 April 2014
     Venue: IIUM Stadium, Gombak Campus
     Start time: 7:00 am
     Distance: 5.5 km

(2) Vitagen Healthy Digestion Walk
     Date: 22 June 2014
     Venue: Taman Tasik Jaya
     Start time: 6:30 am
     Distance: 5 km

I haven't told you my aim/targets for this year. Here are the things I need to achieve this year.

1. Khatam Quran.  I am already scheduling my class to be twice a week to achieve this. I am only at Juzuk 11 now. I seriously need to focus - I even ask my ustaz to stop the class when I am tired and that is usually after 6 - 7  pages of reading.  I really need to focus more or otherwise I need to give myself a good knock on my head!

2. To reduce credit card balance.  I am giving myself until this June 2014.  I have only 3 months to concentrate on doing this.  I have been spending a lot because of moving to the new house.  Almost everything is in placed already in this house by end of this April.  Anything that has not been purchased, will just have to wait until next year.  No more spending for the house this year.  I have started to reduce but I have to work on it some more - so I have until June 2014 to make big reductions and smaller ones throughout 2014.

3. To start saving.  I may have to start small this year because of the reduction of credit card.  I am aiming to go for Haji on year 2015.  I have less than two years to save.  May Allah murahkan rezeki for me to achieve this for me and my sister. I will be starting this July 2014 onwards.

4. To schedule for a vacation.  I am late this year.  Have to start asking around on destinations and get flight deals.  Have to start saving for spending for vacation as well.  At least this is something me and my children are looking forward to.

5. I need to loose 5 kg.  I must be too happy to increased my weight for 5 kg within a year! It is totally outrageous that I did this to myself.  I cannot wear two of my pants already... very saddening... This is where the short run comes in to help me reduce the un-needed "access baggage".

So much things to do ....

How about you?  Have you started on your plans for this year yet?  My plans revolves a lot around spending and having fun I feel. I need to put myself in a different state because the above activities doesn't fulfil me as a Muslim being who contributes to the Muslim community.

That's all my musings for this time around.  A lot to work on, so wish me luck... Good luck to you too, may all that you plans for this year will come true.... May Allah gives us the determination and laser-sharp focus to successfully complete our targets for this year... Life is a dance... Let's dance...