NURUL AZIZ

Assalamualaikum. Hi.

I usually reserved my thought to myself because I understand not all people share the same view or opinion or have the same preferences as me. I understand people are free to have their own preferences. Their preference can be a total opposite of mine and that's okay. You can have a different type of favourite food, movies, music, books, hobbies, priorities, political views and there's no wrong to that as long as it is not against the law and religion. It's called 'celebrating differences'. It's not an alien concept but many people can't accept it when other people don't share the same opinion, preference, life value (etc) as them. Since I can tolerate these differences better than average, I rather keep my opinion to myself than let it out to the world. Which can be mistaken as ignorance by some people but I don't really mind. People can think whatever they want because I'm all about celebrating opinions. Well, I do mind a little but... nevermind.

But... Nevermind

It's a situation I often find myself in. When I said I'm all about celebrating opinions, it doesn't come easy. I have to restrain myself from giving comments which later can cause an awkward situation.  I'd read something or talking to someone that opinion didn't match mine and I was ready to argue but then I remember, it's not worth it. That's when my brain goes but... nevermind.

But... (hahaha here's when I'm contradicting my own words) it's a no brainer to put two contradicting things in one sentence. Here's an example which I twist from a real experience I had today.

"I'm not making a threat but I will make you suffer later. It's not a threat because I'll do it"

I was typing furiously trying to explain to the other party that they are wrong. That what they are denying doing is exactly what they are doing. In this context, making a threat. And then I stopped typing because if that's what they think, so be it. Nevermind. Whatever floats your boat.

Here's another one I experienced today. Someone was comparing two similar items that belong to two different leagues.

"Cheeseburger is better than wagyu steak"

But... One is a fast food and another one is a state of the art meal

After reading this entire post back, I think the main reason why I reserved my thought to myself is that I find arguments are tiring and a waste of time. But I still believe in 'celebrating differences'. I'm sorry for this messy, all over the place post but this is a glimpse of what happened when I let my thought out. Messy and all over the place.

p/s:  I compiled my commentator's link here as my way of appreciating their visit and comments. Feel free to visit them too ya 😊

Thanks for reading.

💙
Nurul

Assalamualaikum.

I used to wash my telekung at self-service laundry because that's where we (read: Arrif) do all of our laundries. I wasn't sure if it was the laundry's washing machine or dryer but it made clothing worn out faster especially delicate telekung. I learnt it the hard way with my Siti Khadijah telekung. I didn't realize it at first. Then I compared mine with my mak's and realized mine has turned yellowish and the fabric has become softer. Since that day, I usually handwash all of my telekung. Actually, I still wash them using self-service laundry's washing machine because as I observe, it's not the washing machine that causes the worn-out problem but the dryer does. My laziness still gets the best of me.  Hahaha. But most of the time, I handwash them.

I have favourite telekung. An RM25 telekung that I asked my best friend to buy for me from Pasar Siti Khadijah, Kelantan. It is my favourite not because my best friend bought it for me. I paid for it so no sentimental value there. Hahaha. I always love simple cotton white old school telekung but it is so hard to find them nowadays. Most telekung today are heavy with embroidery and so colourful. Some also have flowery prints which repel me hahaha. I also don't really like their face area because the fabric there is thick so it doesn't dry easily and leave bad odour even I normally hang my telekung. Unlike the old school telekung, their face area isn't thick. So this old school telekung is my favourite because it (is);

1. White

2. Cotton

3. Has subtle embroidery

4. Has thin fabric in the face area

5. Fabric neither too soft nor too hard

6. The only old school telekung I own

But something sad happened to my favourite telekung last week. I hand washed and air dried the telekung at balcony as usual last weekend. The sun shone brightly that day. It was windy too... and so the top part of my telekung was gone with the wind. I didn't panic at first because the lower level has a roof and I didn't see my telekung anywhere on the roof as I scanned for it. I thought it must've fallen on the ground. Usually, when anything dropped from any house, the item will be put on the table near the lift so the owner can pick it up there. I thought I can get my telekung back that way too. A few seconds later as I continue scanning the roof, I saw my telekung on the other side of the roof. I panicked and told Arrif about it but he said it will fall to the ground soon since this area is always windy. So I calmed down not because I'm confident it will fall to the ground by itself but because the roof is always clean without any fallen clothes or rubbish so I thought the janitor must've cleaned it regularly.

It is day 3 today but my telekung is still there. I feel sad every time I think about the telekung. The telekung must feel sad too down there and wrote an essay titled Aku Sehelai Telekung. Arrif checked the roof this morning (finally after three days of me making a sad face every time I look at the telekung). He said he can almost touch it with his hand so he will try to get it using a stick after work this evening. I hope I can get my telekung back this evening. I can't even bear to think of buying a new telekung while the telekung is still there. I have no problem throwing unwanted things but when it comes to my favourites, I can be dramatic like this. Hahaha.

UPDATE: As I mentioned above, Arrif said he will try to get the telekung using a stick but the rain beat him to it. Arrif saw my telekung was already on the ground when he arrived there after work. I'm so thankful I got back my telekung.

p/s:  I compiled my commentator's link here as my way of appreciating their visit and comments. Feel free to visit them too ya 😊

Thank you for reading.

💙

Nurul

Assalamualaikum.

I hope it's still not too late to wish you Selamat Hari Raya. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize if there are any of my writings that hurt you or anger you.

How was your raya? I hope you have a good one despite this current situation. I can summarize mine in five words. Just like normal MCO days. Okay, there were slight differences but it's almost like any new normal days.

Assalamualaikum. Hi.

Happy Ramadhan everyone. May all of us have a blessed Ramadhan and may our Ramadhan will be full of ibadah and good deeds.

Today marks the 8th day of Ramadhan. I always love Ramadhan but this year is another level. I don't know about other people but I love this year's Ramadhan a lot more if compare with past years. Put COVID-19 and me missing my family aside ;

I like the fact we don't have bazaar Ramadhan this year because one, I hate crowded places but I still need to go to the bazaar because I'll be too tired and too lazy to cook after facing traffic jam on my way back from work. Two, because my fridge is (almost) free of leftovers nowadays. Arrif has this bad habit of buying a lot of food at once. On weekends where we usually went to Putrajaya's bazaar, he spent over RM50 although there were only two of us. All the leftovers ended up in the fridge and I'll have a headache arranging all the food inside the fridge. He finished them eventually. Little by little because he'll have a little bit of everything on his plate every day like a mini buffet. Luckily he's not that picky. According to him, the microwave can fix everything. Hahaha. I was guilty of spending excessively at bazaar too but unlike Arrif, I don't really eat leftovers unless I really like the food. Hence many of my food usually went to the bin and that made me feel guilty. I haven't throw any food (yet) this year and that makes me feel good about myself.

Since I started working during the fourth day of Ramadhan, I like how early I reached home every evening after work that even after cooking, I still have some time to relax before buka puasa. I had help too since Ira is still at my house. It's not like Arrif doesn't help in the kitchen but I don't trust him with cooking. A few days ago I asked him to put prawns inside the sambal only when the chili paste is cooked but of course, he put it before that. It was funny because I was skeptical he can get the timing right but he said he know how uncooked chili can cause stomachache hence he won't let that happen. So confident.

I don't know if you'll judge me if I said this, but I prefer to do tarawih alone, inside my comfy room, at my own pace, taking my own sweet time. So when tarawih at surau/masjid is not allowed this year, I feel relieved because I don't have to feel guilty of not going to surau/masjid. I know it's up to us if we want to go to the surau/masjid or not but I still feel guilty watching everyone's post on social media. I know it's a selfish and bad thing to be glad about but anyone with me? 😭

We may not be able to go back to our hometown for raya this year and we won't have our usual raya too because of COVID-19. Guess who's happy about that? Me! Of course, I want to go back to my hometown. I've been missing my family so so much to the extent I'll video call home few times a day just to report petty things like Ira bothering me, Ira this, Ira that or ask unimportant questions like do we need ginger in singgang asam pedas or can we substitute anchovies with pati bilis (read: budu) inside sup sayur bayam (turns out my mak use sardine, not anchovies in her sup sayur bayam). Sometimes mak don't even have to talk. She just needs to put the phone close to her and I'll watch her doing her stuff. I'm such a psycho. Hahaha. That being said, I'm sad I can't see my family but at the same time, I'm happy too because we won't have our usual raya because I dislike our raya culture. I don't get raya festivity. I know raya is a legit celebration in Islam but I also know the way we celebrate it is not right either with all the excessive preparation from clothing, food, duit raya, etc.

Deep down, me disliking raya stem from my hate to mak cik bawang. Hahaha. I mean I hate mak cik bawang all the time but I don't see them every day and I avoid them like plague throughout the year. But I can't avoid them during raya because there's visiting each other's culture. I' have mak cik bawang bothering me every year since forever. I know everyone hates and faces mak cik bawang too but it depends on individual tolerance. I have a very low tolerance when it comes to mak cik bawang and it easily shows on my face hence I'm so thankful for this year's situation. But I still think the way we celebrate raya is excessive causing it to lose its meaning.

I also hate some lagu raya hahaha I really have problems with everything related to raya. Some because of their lyrics because they contain "miskin hina" in them. Some because it reminded me of my late grandfather. I think the last time I enjoyed raya was when he was still alive and that was 20 years ago. I miss him a lot. Oh my, I can't talk about him without shedding tears. His existence was one of the reasons why I had the best childhood. I love him so much so can you please sedekah Al-Fatihah to him? 

Assalamualaikum. Hi.

It's currently 3.50 am. I can't sleep because I had two mugs of coffee yesterday.  My last blog post dated 22nd March 2020. That was a week into MCO. I didn't blog despite all the free time I have because first, I have no idea on what to blog. I have a few reviews I wanted to write but I didn't feel like writing them yet and now I just don't know if I should even write about them or not. Second... 

Alright, I'm out of excuse. I'm just lazy and words really hard to come by nowadays. It sounds dramatic. It's the hour I think. It's so serene during this time of the night. No wonder we Muslims are encouraged to wake up at this hour and do qiamullail. Anyway, I wrote a post in Malay and didn't finish it because it was hard to hold my tears. It wasn't a sad post but it made me cry. I'll post it if I'm able to finish it later. That being said, I also don't blog walking nowadays. I'll try to visit your blog soon and approved and reply to all of the comments later.

It is the fourth week of MCO. Actually, I lost count of the week so do correct me if I'm wrong. How's everyone doing? I went out twice. First to get a refill of my medicine and second to buy groceries because it was hard asking Arrif to buy something without me looking at the items. He bought canned spread (tuna, salmon, etc) when I asked him to buy canned dishes (curry beef, rendang chicken, etc). No worries, he's a pro now though he bought random brands of fresh milk but that's okay because I found my new favorite. Goodday Balance is so good in my opinion. Also, the canned dishes weren't available at AEON near my house so not Arrif's fault. Other than that, I never get out of the house.

I know the hype for Dalgona coffee is over but I'm still into it. When I said I drank two mugs of coffee yesterday, it was actually Dalgona. I like it because it is easy to make if compare with my usual French press coffee. On my lazy days which is almost every day, I'll just pour cold fresh milk from the fridge into a mixture of hot Nescafe and sugar. I simplify the recipe by removing the beating process. If I feel like Dalgona, I beat the mixture straight inside a mug and pour fresh milk after that. It's not beautiful but it tastes the same in my opinion. Today I beat the mixture inside French press beaker and had it straight from there. It wasn't a classy sight.

When MCO started, I vowed to read three books. We still didn't know MCO will be extended this long during that time so by right, I need to finish three books at the end of the first phase of MCO. Guess what. I still have 100 pages left before I finished that little challenge of mine. If you read this post, I started strong. I finished two books in two days. At that point of time, I was optimistic I can finish at least four or five books. What a joke. But reading makes me feel so good. Like I'm doing something useful with my free time.

That might leave you with a question. What did I do if I don't blog and read during my free time? I do random unproductive stuff.

A lot of people take this time to watch a lot of movies and dramas. I don't do much of watching. I finished Itaewon Class and after that, I watched Catch The Ghost because of Kim Seonho, the guy from 1 night 2 days. He's my new eye candy by the way. It wasn't until episode 8 I started to watch the drama because of the drama itself. If you ask me, it is a good drama if it wasn't for the female lead character. She was just annoying with her determination and all. I just finished Welcome to Waikiki 2 yesterday. It's a light drama, I watched it while playing games. After that, I watched Door Lock, a thriller Korean movie. Not my type of movie but I watched it anyway because of the interesting synopsis. The same day I watched Door Lock, I watched The Con Artist and today I watched Extreme Job. I'm a sucker for comedy. Doesn't matter the main theme, crime, action, medical as long as they have comedy element, I'm good. I'm sorry but I'm not one of those movie/drama audiences that seek serious, factual, or deep stories (except for sci-fi because I loveee sci-fi). Series like Black Mirror and movies like The Platform and Vivarium make me feel literally nauseous. My soft heart can't take them.

My phone took most of the time from me as usual. I'm not on social media a lot (except for Twitter hehe). Wait. Come to think of it, I wasn't with my phone that much either. I think it is my sleeping pattern. Can you believe I woke up at 10.00 or 11.00 am nowadays? My sleeping pattern has become haywire this past two weeks. I woke up, did house chores, and/or exercise. After the shower, I'll have brunch while watching whatever I was watching. Then it's Zohor. I usually open my laptop after my Zohor prayer to play The Sims 4 (I restart every few days so no progress). Yeah, that's about it. Oh, I just downloaded Plato a week ago and have random people in our group. So far we have my husband, my little sisters, my best friend, my best friend's sister who is also my little sister's friend, my little sister's best friends which one of them also friend with my best friend's little sister. Hahaha. My personal favorite would be Conspiracy but it was hard to gather six members. It's been two days since we last played Conspiracy. But we still play other games together every day. Most of the people in our group are night owls. For example tonight we started at 10.00pm and finished at 2.30 am with all sorts of random things in between games like putting kids to sleep, having late dinner, playing other games (The Sims 4 for me) and work. 

Well, I think that's all for now. I just hope I can finish the third book. Ramadhan also not far away, I need to up the ibadah game. Alright, that sounds wrong but you get it, right? Stay safe everyone. May we able to go through this crisis quickly.

p/s:  I compiled my commentator's link here as my way of appreciating their visit and comments. Feel free to visit them too ya 😊

Thank you for reading.

💙

Nurul

Assalamualaikum. Hi.

Malaysia is under Movement Control Order (MCO) right now due to COVID-19. I don't want to talk about the MCO itself because I can no longer process all the negative ridiculous things Malaysian did during this MCO.

Today I'm going to talk about what do I do during this MCO so far. People have been sharing their activities during MCO and I found some to be helpful. Here's mine ;

Making Dalgona Coffee

Day 1 - I started off the day like a usual lazy weekend. On my lazy weekends, I usually start my day with making myself a cup of coffee. However two days before MCO started, Dalgona Coffee started trending on Twitter so I tried making that coffee and now I'm all about the coffee. Luckily Ira, my little sister is home with me so I can ask her to make me one whenever I feel like it because after the first day, I'm too lazy to make my own Dalgona. Hahaha. Joke aside, I'm glad she decided to come to my house a day before MCO started. At least she's not alone without family members at her place.

On the first day I finished rereading Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince that stuck with me since December last year. Then I started reading Empayar by Teme Abdullah and finished it the next day. I was skeptical about the book at first because the language is too simple. Hahaha. But the strength of Teme Abdullah's writing is not on his words but the storyline. However that's just my opinion. I just read two of his book so far. Empayar and Pelukis Jalanan. Then I tried to pick up Brilliant Blunders where I last stopped and oh boy how I procrastinate from reading because of this book. So I decided to put it back on the shelf and read The Leviathan Wakes instead.

Leviathan Wakes is the first book of The Expanse novel series (the book is adapted into my ultimate favourite TV series) that consist of nine novels. I wanted to read Leviathan Wakes since long time ago but I stop myself each time just because it was at the bottom of my to read list. The reason why it was at the bottom of my to read list is not because I don't like the book but because it was the last book I bought despite my book buying ban and also because I don't want to finish the book without having the second book in my hand. It'll be a torture to have to wait for the second book to arrive. If you don't understand my cycle of thought, here I summarize it for you.

I need to finish all the books I bought earlier than Leviathan Wakes or I won't lift the book buying ban I impose on myself. So if I read Leviathan Wakes first without lifting the book buying ban, I won't be able to buy the second book and that's a torture. I feel like a psycho now after reading these sentences again. Also, since the TV series had just concluded its fourth season, I'm torn between reading the book in sequence according to its adaption on the screen or reading it all in, effectively spoiling the TV series for me. But yesterday I said to myself, let me deal with the torture and dilemma later. I just want to read Leviathan Wakes now! And so I do.

Watching

I know there are a lot of movies and series suggested by netizen but for now I'm content with Itaewon Class and season 4 of 1 Night 2 Days. I only watch them when I'm eating and only finished one episode each feeding sessions. Hahaha. I don't binge watch nowadays because I realized I always keep my hand busy when I'm watching something and the easiest thing to do is playing games on my phone but that didn't only keep my hand busy but also my eyes and attention and I'll neglect whatever movies or series on the TV. But now I'm on episode 10 of Itaewon Class, I'm starting to worry about what to watch next and being a picky watcher doesn't help at all.

Everything else

Other than the above activities, there are also boring activities like vacuuming and mopping the house, pruning and watering the plants, cooking and etc.

What's your activities during this MCO?

Thank you for reading.

💙
Nurul

Assalamualaikum. Hi.

That is one clickbait title. I apologize in advance for that.

I love it when my house smell good. I think most women can relate to this right? Men please don't feel offended. Hahaha. We spend a lot of our time at home especially housewives. But I don't want to spend too much money on house scents because in my opinion although it is important to have a house that smell amazing but it still just a value added, not a necessity. So I always resort to cheap but good quality scents.

That being said, here are the things I use to make my house smell good.

Glade Automatic Spray (~RM15 for the refill can)

I've been using this for years now (Glade please sponsor me 😆). I tried different smell of this spray during earlier days I started using it. Sort of experimenting which smell suit me best and I found the one for me. Now I only buy the Lavender & Vanilla refill and I love it so much. You know how each house has it own signature smell right? For example, my late grandpa's house had this smell that I loved, a combination of his smell and everything else in the house. Kind of rustic smell. Glade's Lavender & Vanilla is the signature smell I wish to have for my house. But I have problems with this type of diffuser(?). First, it operate on battery so I need to change the batteries once in three or four months and that's extra cost I don't want to bear. So I often let it sit for a long time before I feel like changing the batteries. That bring us to second problem, I'm not sure if this is related or not but I noticed everytime I let the spray unit sit unused for a long time, it won't work anymore even after I changed the battery. So yeah, the spray unit is not really reliable. Now I use this spray manually and that's answer why I haven't finished the can even after 6 months. I just forgot to spray it.

IKEA Sinnlig Scented Candle (RM5.90 - RM12.90)
I'm sure everyone who ever visited IKEA are familiar with this scented candle. Like Glade spray, I only buy vanilla scent because that's the only one scent I love among all other choices they have. You can see there is red candle in the picture. Arrif chose that because he likes everything strawberry (Yeah I know weird) but he never use it so I have to burn it just because I hate seeing the candle sit in the storage. I usually burn the candle in my bedroom. It give me the calming effect and make me sleep better (the vanilla ones, not strawberry). Don't worry, I put it far away from my bed and I will light it up only if Arrif is busy with his game and won't sleep until before 2.00 am so that there will be someone to blow out the candle.  I also will light it up after I vacuumed my bedroom on every weekend morning just to make the room smell good. My problem with candle is it's not really safe. Of course I put it at a safe place but accident could happen right? And also, what did people do with the glass when the candle is finished? As you might know, I'm not a hoarder (you can read about it HERE), but the glass is nice. So everytime the candle is finished, I'll wash the glass, hoping I could use it for something later. I thought about planting succulent in the glass and make them as decoration or give them to people. Funny thing is, whenever I washed the glass and let it sit to dry on the dish drainer, Arrif will use it to drink water. Hahaha. I think it's not harmful as glass don't absorb chemicals from the things it contain, no? Chemist please correct me if I'm wrong.

DAISO Reed Diffuser (RM5.60)
I bought this diffuser from Daiso after watching a review on YouTube and this is the first time I bought them. The smells are quite nice but they are not strong enough to spread into the room. I literally need to put my nose very close to the bottle for me to able to smell it. Maybe you can put this in a wardrobe but I don't have wardrobe for now so I'm not going to buy it again.

That's all I use in my house for now. I know Bath and Body Works have tons of choices for scented candles but I'm not going to spend my money on something that expensive. I'll buy them when I become a Tai tai later. Hahaha. But I've been eyeing their wallflower. The price is a little bit higher than all the scents that I currently use, but still kind of affordable? Yeah, that answer why I haven't buy it yet. I'm still thinking do I really want to spend more than RM20 for house scents? What do you think? Is it a wise purchase? And also, please let me know what kind of scent do you use at home. I'm still looking for the best and cheap ways to make my house smell good.

p/s: I compiled my commentator's link here as my way of appreciating their visit and comments. Feel free to visit them too ya 😊