What I've been up to :)

Since I'm done with PhD, which makes me suddenly realized how light my head is, I started doing all the things that I wanted to do all these while.

One of them is cooking new things.

I cooked new things almost every week now.

Among them are sushi, puff and pizza. Can you believe it? :)

As what my friends told me and what I'm gonna tell you now, if I can do it, so can anybody else.

I am yet to master my cooking. I gave up on Pavlova after my fourth attempts that ended up pretty much looking like a crepe :( So, I'm gonna share these simple recipe with you guys, because it is sooooo simple!

Sushi rice

3 cups of rice
Quarter cup of vinegar or apple cider (or rice wine)
3 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt

Pour all the ingredients in the rice cooker and cook

Puff

Roti paratha instant (my fav is kawanku)
Sardine, tuna, or whatever you like to put inside puff, my fav is chicken and cheese

Cut the paratha into 3slices
Put in sardine/tuna/chicken inside
Bake it at 220 degree Celsius for 20 minutes

The pizza crust (per serving)

2 cups high protein flour
1 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons olive oil
3/4 cup warm water

Combine everything and mix to a soft dough.
Then leave it for half an hour under warm towel so it can rise.
Knead gently for 1 minute.
Put topping on top. I used tomato puree, some cooked sausage+chicken+pepper+egg, mixed herbs and grated parmesan cheese.

Love is super happy with the cooking. Khaira loves the pizza. My colleagues too. So, it's a happy cycle yay!

My 40 days jurnal inspirasi

Recently, one of my colleagues went to Celik Momz seminar by Prof Muhaya. And up until today, I kind of regret of not going. I don't even think I have a solid reason of not going, simply ignorant at that time. Next year then in shaa Allah.

It was I guess a life changing experience for this colleague of mine. She introduced to us the '40 hari jurnal inspirsi diri' by Prof. Muhaya. Bought one and left them for almost two months with only 1 page written on it.

At first, I kind of thought it was silly, you know the journals. It has like 5 parts for you to fill in every day; on what you would like to be physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and financially. I thought, 5 things to do a day were burdening, what more to add 5 new things for every day until day 40. I don't like setting a sky high targets that makes you stop jumping to reach it half way through.

Only recently, this friend of mine thought us how to use the journal.

It works actually for your subconscious mind.. You wrote everyday, for 40 days on what you want to achieve. The same thing, for 40 days. So it will stick to your mind that you have to do it.

For me, because I get that satisfaction of crossing things out of my list once I was done with it, I wrote things I want to do everyday for 40 days; and I crossed it everyday once I'm done with it. There were days when I was unable to cross that list, and it pressured me to try better the next day. So, I super love this book!!!

The hardest thing to do for me, was the "emotional" part. Mine was to be nice to Love for 40 days. And of course, in shaa Allah after day 40 it becomes a habit. I told Love hoping he would be flattered. However, he told me, "Ohh Sayang, I'm gonna make it really hard for you!"

He did.

He purposely make himself so lurus bendul just to annoy me. I couldn't stand lurus bendulness, so there were days I did not manage to cross that one out of my list. Once, he even let me drive his car to work without any road tax to prove a point that if you're not paranoid about it, you would't get caught. There I was screaming at the top of my lungs at the other line of the phone to him once he told me when I arrived safely at home.

Funny right, the people you thought would help you most. (T_T)

Her fearful symmetry - The Review

I just finished reading the 400 pages of 'Her fearful symmetry', the first book I finished after PhD. Once, I stayed until 2am obsessing to get to the last page. So addictive.

I bought this book because of the author, I'm a big fan of the "Time Traveller's Wife". I found her writing to be very detail, helping my imagination much.

Anyhow, this story is about a twin, whom inherited an apartment from their aunt whom they never knew existed. The aunt was their mother's twin whom passed away due to leukemia. The condition is that they needed to stay in the apartment for a year without their parents, and after that they will inherit the rest of the properties of the aunt (happens to be quite a wealthy lady). Along the way, they discovered that they were being haunted by the aunt's ghost and some mysteries were revealed along the way. The story ended tragically, I love the twist in the end.

I rate this book 5 out of 5. Go read it if you have time! I bought it for RM 8 at Big Bad Wolf, and boy it's worth every cent.

Say whattt?? #3

Randomly asked Khaira, "Khaira dah besar nak jadi apa?" 

Her reply was, "Nak jadi Barney!" 

(T_T)

Of course Baby, every mom definitely wants their daughter to grow up as a purple dinosaur!!

...

Yesterday, we were in the car and it was raining outside. Suddenly with a very sad face, Khaira said, "Siaannnnn lorry.."

Bot Love and I were puzzled and asked her in an almost synchronized manner, "Why kesian lorry Khaira?"

"Kesian lorry kena hujan.." Sad face.

Syukran

I'm currently blogging in viva room.

Whatttt?? Another viva?

Yup. But just not mine. I'm attending as observer this time around. So much fun. I shall summarize the questions from the examiners.

Anyhow.. let's talk about my post viva.

I nazar for three things, and Alhamdulillah I managed to cross the first one on 20th Aug which is to belanja my department makan.

It was fun. One of the best caterer I've used so far, Alya Jaya. I super love the service too. I initially booked for another caterer which suddenly cancelled the 4 days before the event. Tuh pon after I called them multiple times to ask if there's any confirmation fees. So as the last minute replacement,  Alya Jaya did a brilliant job!!

One thing I should have taken note next time, beef!! One of my menu is daging salai masak lemak cili padi and boyy 10% of my colleagues are hindu. Sighh..

Enjoy the pics!!

Menu from Alya Jaya

My backbone

Desserts pot luck home made by my friends

Ikan Nun dan Nabi Yunus

Bought Baby K a new VCD. Currently watching it on repeat, just the two of us. Love is still in class.

The movie was fun. The graphics are not that bad. Khaira loves the song. RM 19 was worth it.

I learned a lot from the movie too.

Considering my expectation on islamic vcd has gone quite low, I rate this 5/5. :)

Braces and retainers

After what seems like a looonggg painful 18 months of my life, I finally had my braces removed!

Love said I'm gonna miss them.

WRONG!!

I can finally eat whatever I want! I don't even like chewing gum to begin with, but knowing that I couldn't have it for the past 18 months, I had one recently. FREEDOM!!

Removing the braces was easy. No pain, no sensation, no weird taste like when you had your braces on. Just easy.

But the thing is, the glue they used to hold your braces stayed even after they removed the braces. Even scaling is not able to clean it off entirely. I plan to throw another visit to scale them one more time.

I was given a plastic retainer. Which gave me so much pain at first but getting used to it now. Had to wear it day and night for 2 years. But I just used it at night.

Talking about retainer, there are three types of retainer:

Hawley retainer

Clear retainer

Fixed retainer

I left the decision to my dentist to decide which is suitable for me, he chose clear retainer and so far, I'm happy with it.

My thoughts on braces: If your teeth are almost perfect, forget it. It hurts.. BIG time. Trust me. Every now and then, I was cursing those who said pakai braces tak sakit. Grr..

But the results, totally worth it.

On a different note, I am removing some of my old pics, those times when I haven't started wearing yet. So, please do pardon me for any inconveniences. :)