Lebaran 1430H

Its after lunch and the office still quite. My neighbours (colleagues in next cubicles) are still out and my boss is nowhere to be seen ;)

I have just had a handover session before lunch and my head is kinda filled with -things to do- from that session. Howeverrr...I have this urge to post about my Raya this year. Many pics will be attached as the friendly IT ppl have configured all USB connections to my laptop. (at least they did something right)

My car is packed as ever with stuffs to bring back home. We started from KL on Friday at 2pm-ish.Arrived at Juru exit around 5.30pm- ish, only to be greeted with heavy traffic jam. After about 1.5 hrs crawling, we managed to arrive in SP just in time for iftar.

We had quite a full schedule, having only arrived 1+ day before Raya. First things first, pelita..and my sis bought the deco lights

We sort of hold back all the preparation until official announcement aired on TV, from then onwards, it chaos!!.

Little did I know my mom revert to using the 'kukur nyok', a traditional tool to grate coconut. It took me half an hour to finish half coconut, and we need at least easily 20 coconuts to be grated for all dish to be prepared.

LOL!! so in the end my father took all the coconuts to local grocery store and have a more industrial way done, by the machine ;) This time we even imported coconut leaves from KL so that we can make 'ketupat nasi'.

We also put up a temporary shade outside. We did all the cooking using 'kayu api' to save on cooking gas ;). besides, it free fuel..

Notice the three 'supervisor' at work 'supervising' my youngest sis doing her chores.. :p

We made dodol and my mum forgot the original recipe that we used last year, so we ends up making 4 times than what we make last year ;p. The cooking starts around 2am-ish and only finishes at 7.30 am. I was so beat up that after solat sunat Aidilfitri, I spent almost the whole day sleeping (both my sis and I)

We also had ketupat palas (I did not take any pics though..) and lots other cookies (which none that I made)

More pics on pagi Raya, we always tried to get a family photo, this year my younger sis - kakdik spend the first day with the hubby side, so she was not in.

Najia was in bad mood and I tried to 'pujuk' her to get in the mood for the photo session, not really working though....

This Raya, we also had kenduri, a wedding reception for my sis (delayed one to combign with akikah + tahlil masuk rumah baru) So all in one due to recent economics crisis..hehehe...

We ordered the cow from my uncle 'Pak Lang' and I went to see the slaughtering process but didn't have heart to stay and witness. My sister snap all the photo

The kenduri is on 5th Syawal, tahlil was done on 4th Syawal after Isya'. Some pics during preparation of tahlil + kenduri+ many others;

Preparation for kenduri went on smoothly although on D-day itself I was rushing in and out to send to send the bride for make up, pick up cupcakes and many more neverending chores. Alhamdulillah all things went well. More pics, as usual....

Cupcakes orders came from SP and all the way from Kulim, the decos are lovely and I loike ;)
more pictures....

I also bought fresh flowers from KL since its much cheaper and I have reliable supplier. Stairs deco are made of fresh flowers..

The bride....

Candid and not so candid shots...

Later that night kids have fun playing fire crackers- supplied from the long arm of the law..hehehehe..

I was using my tripod, but the subject were not static, hence the results ;p

Only on Saturday did I managed to do some visiting to my aunts place, after all the dust had settled.

At Mak Njang's place...

Most of the beautiful pictures not taken by me, my sis and nieces was doing most of the snapping as I was pretty much occupied doing other stuffs.

We head back to KL on Monday and yesterday I spent all day in KL settling stuffs. Today back to work although am still very much in Raya mood....sigh.....

Ya Allah...tolonglah hambaMu ini...

Astaghfirullahal'azim....I am so not in the mood to do any work. My mind is halfway across the country. Counting down to time to go back which is 12pm :) I have telecon at 10.30, and after that bye-bye PD, I'm off to KL to pick up my sisters and we'll head straight to SP.

I just hope that I can stay focus, not much cars on the road, and I can arrive safely. InsyaAllah. Now I am killing time, I still have work to do but that have to wait until I'm back..hehehe.. ;)

Selamat Hari Raya!!

I sort of make it a habit, to wish Hari Raya with a 'pantun'. I did it last year and struggle to compose yet another 'Pantun Raya' for this year. In school, I can come up with a good pantun in less than 5 minutes, yes I realise my Bahasa Melayu command is deteriorating....

So this is my best attempt for this year, sounds like amateur right?
The picture is my own this time. I capture during last year's Raya ;)

090909- UPSR leave + iftar @ UIA

Taking the opportunity due to the date ;) On my second day leave for UPSR (not that I'm taking it ;p , just that I felt obliged to 'babysit' my youngest sis during this 3 days now that mom is in SP).

I was asked by Dr K to join him and gang for Career talk + iftar in UIA today and since am already in KL, I agreed. During which the topic of taraweeh in PD came about. Yup, PD is strange, when I first did the taraweeh there, I felt something wrong somewhere, it turns out that they did 10+3 , also no familiar zikir in between solat that I used to back in KL. I have only tried 2 places in PD, its the same, so I figured it must be the PD thing.

A colleague points out that if you want to have 'normal' taraweeh as in KL, go to the army camp mosque, they did the standard ones.Well that must have been because the soldiers are not local, they came from all over.

When I first experienced the 10 rakaat taraweeh, I was doubting myself, I thought I counted right but how come we are still not doing witir? Well, D&I , diversity and inclusiveness, and after 3 years in PD I sort of embraced it. But I still like the long witir in between the two rakaat, brings back old memories in uni, back when I have my favorite bilal.

Enough about taraweeh, I actually enjoyed this few days sending and picking my sis to and from school, then planning what to cook for iftar,and shop for home stuffs. I so want to quit working and be a homemaker, tapi bilakah? No can do, if only someone can pay me 5k to stay at home, I would do it in a beat, serious ni...if only!!!

p/s: tomorrow am making meat lasagna....;)

Long Awaited Post

I set up this blog basically to discuss my passions. I have liked so many things such as knitting,cooking,watching movies, etc . I am also self proclaimed that I have an eye for photography and therefore I invested certain $$ for this DSLR....hehehe...

I like taking pictures and some (note:not all) turns out fine and I like that. So I set up another flickr account to display all my good works. As most of it kept all over (almost everywhere), will take some time for me to populate the profile.

I think I am doing OK with the close up, and sometimes my timing are just nice to capture something interesting. Will elaborate on that later. ;)

ps: hehehe...kudos to me for embedding this (says the IT blind gal)

Dakwah??

Da‘wah (Arabic: دعوة‎) usually denotes preaching of Islam. Da‘wah means literally "issuing a summons" or "making an invitation", being the active participle of a verb meaning variously "to summon, to invite" (whose triconsonantal root is د ع و). A Muslim who practices da‘wah, either as a religious worker or in a volunteer community effort, is called a dā‘ī, plural du‘āt. A dā‘ī is thus a person who invites people to understand Islam through a dialogical process, and may be categorized in some cases as the Islamic equivalent of a missionary.

I have never thought that I will be part of it. Back when I was a child, da'wah has always been associated with extremist, a group that called themselves Al-Arqam, or the tabligh people. These people either locked their wives at home while they go out on a mission, or let the wifes fend for themselves and the family, while they will go away for months in the name of jihad.

I got the concept all wrong. That is not all about da'wah, there is more to it than just the male went out and preaching about Islam while neglecting their utmost resposible besides Allah, their family. I see the bigger picture now, and actually proud that in a way, I am in it.

Remember when I mentioned about the Ramadhan program? Well, we had a discussion abouth Hadith 40 by Imam An-Nawawi every Friday. And for yesterdays' session, I prepared the slide. Its not that I know about it, just few things that I copied and pasted from the net. We talked about the first and foremost act of all action 'Niat' which is intention, purpose why you are doing certain things.

In Islam, everything that we do must be because of Allah, and as a bonus, the act can be done for other purpose. For example, you study because of Allah, and also because of knowledge, so when you put the intention as to study because of Allah, it becomes an ibadat and InsyaAllah if the study process is done as recommended in Islam, you will be rewarded later (apart from gaining the knowledge).

There is another part to niat, which is the intention to change for the better (hijrah). If all are done because of Allah, we will InsyaAllah be granted the better change that we intended for in the first place. Everything must have a sense of purpose, and this hadith tells us, to whom the purpose should be in the first place, the mighty creator Allah S.W.T. All that we gets apart from that just bonus.

I hope I'll be strong enough to start influencing people that I care (family and friends) towards living a blessed life as Islam always wants it. InsyaAllah..

Halal Meat

In the spirit of being Malaysian (not 1Malaysia), I'd love to share this funny video on 'halal' meat ;)

More of these from http://15malaysia.com/films/

Another one that I like is the Potong Saga

p/s: two thumbs up for me knowing how to embed video (says IT blind gal)