Ryan's Merdeka Celebration

My brother, Jimmy and his wife, Amy, took Ryan to Putrajaya for the firework competition on Merdeka eve to celebrate Merdeka. Ryan was excited as he had heard about it earlier and wanted to go.

They arrived at my place at around 9.00 pm, after enduring 1.5 hours of traffic jam and left half an hour later. It was jammed all the way there and they arrived barely 10 minutes before the start of the firework display scheduled at 12.oo midnight.

Ryan finally reached home at 1.30am in the morning, fast asleep. The next morning, he told me all about his adventure. I'm grateful that Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Amy took the trouble to take him there for a memorable merdeka celebration.

Happy 50th Birthday Malaysia!!!

Tomorrow, 31st August 2007 is a special day indeed. It’s my country’s 50th birthday and there will be celebration everywhere.

Being someone who makes a point to avoid crowded area, I do not think I will be going to any of the “public” celebration but will definitely celebrate “Merdeka” with Ryan in our own way – not sure what we will do yet, but we will definitely be doing something special.

It will be a long weekend as Friday is a holiday and we will have plenty of time to think and plan. We will probably watch the march pass on TV until we are bored, then we can go for a picnic or a walk in the park during one of the weekends or just laze around the house and do nothing . Yeap ….. that will be great !!!

One busy day

I have been running around and about from the time I woke up at 7.00 this morning. As usual, I arrived in the office at about 8.00am after sending Ryan to his pre-school (within my work place). Answered a few e-mails and make a few quick calls. Then, went to the seminar room to attend the third and final day of my Corporate Finance course. During teabreak I managed to call my hubby (who is still in US) and then back to the course where the speaker have given yet another assignment; so it's more information hunting and number crunching (again!) Thank God for group assignments and thereafter, presentation. I manage to escape this presentation as I had co-presented something earlier.

Then at 3.15 pm, I had to excuse myself from the course as there's an important meeting to attend which cannot be rescheduled. After the meeting, it's already 5.00pm. Cleared a few e-mails, talked to my collegues about the proposed layout of our new office area (we are relocating to somewhere else within the building). Went to see Ryan off as my colleague, Ching Ching will give him a lift home and then I went off to my Economics class at 6.30pm (part of my MBA programme). After class, there's a group discussion about an assignment which will be due soon.

Arrived home at 10.0pm......and as there's a full day meeting tomorrow (from 9.00 to 5.00), I think I will do some work tonite.......and yes, two more assignments on the plate.

I often wondered how on earth I can manage but then again I also know of people who have a more taxing schedule - The key, I guess, is to embrace each situation and also to focus on the plus points and not to treat it like chore (even if it's one) and like what hubby would said, borrowed from the famous Nike tagline - "Just Do It".

A pleasant surprise

As I was busy watering plant this morning, I noticed a flower bud in between the leaves of my shell ginger plant. Ya-hoo !!! It finally flower.

When I bought the plant about a year ago, I asked for one which has flowers on it and the flowers lasted about a month before it withered. Since then, I was busy putting fertiliser (for growth and flowering, of course) with hope that the plant will soon bear lots and lots of flowers. Little did I know that it will be a long wait. So after a few months of waiting, I finally gave up on the plant and just be happy with the plant as it. After all, it's full of lush green leaves and look very healthy, minus the flower. So you can imagine my surprise and joy that the plant decides that it’s now the right time to flower.

I will be taking photos of the flowers and hope to post them but before that, I need to hunt for my hubby’s camera cable so that I can download the photos to the computer. If I cannot find the cable when the flowers are full bloom, I will go and buy one (if it’s not too expensive) Until then, just enjoy the photo of a shell ginger flower from the internet.

Distance makes the heart grows fonder and communication better

Just finished a long chat with hubby on Messenger. For the past 24 hours, besides being on messenger (when I’m at home), we have been actively e-mailing each other and even managed to make a few phone calls in between.

We concluded that on days when I am attending evening classes or if he needs to work late or go socialising, it would be better if I call him during the day on my handphone. As a result, I went hunting for a phone card. Found one, extremely happy with the rate offered and will definitely test it out tomorrow.

The ironic of all this is that, when he is around, we hardly make time to talk to each other. I mean, we do talk but it’s more like updating each other about our day and that’s about it. At one point in time, I remember, we vowed to talk at least 5 minutes before we sleep but most of the time, we were just too tired – so that's the end of the vow and now when he's at the other end of the globe and with a 13-hour time difference, we are making the time, effort and commitment to stay connected and not only did we update each other like what we usually do, we also share our thoughts and feelings. Isn’t life funny?

Hubby landed in LA

Hubby called from Los Angeles at 8.45am this morning and his call woke me up. Actually Ryan had, in the past one hour, trying to do the same, without any success as I kept on asking him to go back to sleep. Ryan is an early riser, just like his papa and I definite fail to acquire this good habit of theirs – I need my beauty sleep and will only wake up early if I really need to.

As there’s a 13-hour time difference between KL and Austin, I will need to sacrifices my beauty sleep as me and hubby planned to chat before I go to work – so I think, I will have to stare at the PC as early as 5-plus every morning – anyway, that’s the plan.

Back to the call this morning, well, Hubby sounded tired; who won’t after a 20-hour flight on economy. I'm glad that the neck rest we bought helped and he will be flying to Austin in an hour’s time. He should be in the hotel by this afternoon (Malaysian time) and then we will be online – cool.

Since there will be plenty of stuff to chat about, I did all the housework this morning. Aunt Jo will be keeping an eye on Ryan this afternoon while he does his activities (I bought some DIY for him so that he will not be bored and more importantly, leave his mother in peace!!!) while mummy dates daddy in the cyberworld.

Finally, he's on his way ........

This morning, hubby flew to USA for a 1-month training. We knew about the trip sometime back and he is quite reluctant to go knowing that he will miss the family. We prepared our son Ryan, age 5 about his papa's trip and why papa will not be around for the next 30 days. So far, Ryan is quite cool about the whole thing as papa had shown him what webcams can do and he is waiting for his papa to "call him on the computer".

As for me, it's weird not having hubby around as we spent a lot of time together and of course I will miss him very much. I will definitely be in contact with him everyday, updating him on what's going around here and Ryan's latest pranks.

At the airport this morning, we tried our best to keep our composure but when he hugged me together with Ryan, let's say, it was quite difficult to contain our sadness. However, go he must and we are counting the days for his return (together with lots of presents!!). We are praying for his safety and with that he will somehow enjoy the trip and make the most out of it.

Hope that the time apart will strenghten the family. One of our plans is to message each other using messenger and I am quite excited about !!!. Why ??? Because that's how we meet each other; through ICQ .............