Haaaaaaarrrrrkkkkkk now even them fingers are swollen!!!!!

Pea come out soon please :s

Mrs Van Hoof You Approve?

I LOVE METROJAYA.

There. I said it with no commission paid.

How can you not, when the merchandise on sale literally scream forget-me-not?

AMOUNT OF CASH BURNT: RM97.15 (ONLY)

This had been fun. I went in looking for a pair of comfy and pretty leather sandals and found none. Was I bummed? Nahhhhh...it was expected since I had been on the hunt for a while now. It's just that the feet had been swelling up 'nicely' since the last few days that I thought I should probably give it another go. Clarks, hush pups, lewre, kickers, naturalizer, and that other brand which my pregnant brain can't seem to recall, you name it I've seen them all - the pretty ones have heels (hence the beauty) and flats are frankly speaking, made only for Aunties. Don't bother suggesting Fit Flops because I don't believe in paying RM400 for latex sprinkled with glitter. And I won't fit into them once I get back to my originally very narrow feet. And I'm gonna give birth to Pea real soon too. We will make do with whatever we have in the shoe closet (read: car). 

So I do what we women do best: BROWSE AROUND. CUCI MATA. 

Finally, cuci dompet. 

I have to say that this was my most enjoyable purchase in months considering that I couldn't get my hands on mint/coral/buttercup jeans or any of those gorgeous apparel that everyone else has been sporting. I have also mostly invested my money in stuff for Pea. Not that Mommy have issues with you, dear. Just that it's not as fun when I don't get to try on the purchases I make. 

But now, aaaaaahhhh...the joy of owning a collar necklace (finally), a festive-season-appropriate and pregnancy-friendly top for one of the weddings this weekend and cute ladybug earrings. Plus plus, ngeeeee.

Thank you Metrojaya. I look forward to more rebate vouchers from you this year end. I really hope that my husband will go on a spending frenzy again (he loves your departmental store as much as I do we are oh-so-MFEO) and contribute those extra rewards points to my account. 

Now, should I consider the other two pairs of sexy necklace which I painfully put back on the display shelf? 

Hmmm....decisions decisions.

**************************************

p/s: I love you too, Ruscoe. You make the best wallet-friendly fashion jewelry in town!

So I'm Still Pregnant. So I Still Get Crazy Food-Related Dreams at Night.

Funny how I could always will myself to cook whenever I'm back at mom's. And since my appetite has gone wankers during these final weeks of being pregnant, I decided to treat myself to the most unhealthy find in the freezer:

THE UBER LEGENDARY RAMLY BURGER PATTY

2 patties, onions, garlic, ginger, curry powder, chilli powder and celery stuffed in a pita bread, and I'm done with lunch. Awesome when all you want is greasy food and you don't really wanna trouble your husband (who's fasting) to wait in the long queue at Mcdonald's yet again. If only I wasn't too lazy to grate some Gouda cheese and grill these babies..they would have passed as something one gets from an American food truck. Okay I watch too much food tv, I must admit.

Lazy Sunday and I hope the Lil Pea makes her grand entry into the world soon.

Aidilfitri Hari Bahgia

Pea is yet to make her grand entrance but that just means I have another day to stuff my face with lemang and rendang oh oh oh....awesome.

Raya in the capital is not too bad at all. Being able to go back and forth between two places (my parents' and the in-laws') on the first day makes the whole celebration, as a married couple, much more bearable. Honestly, I don't miss having to travel for 9 hours to see my parents for Raya like we did last year. Mom, let's just make this a new tradition for our family. Please?

Compared to threatened labour and the bleeding episodes since Thursday, I think swollen feet (and ankles and calves and, well, the whole of both legs) scare me more. Oi, I didn't even stand still for that long and was on the move most of the time when my butts were off the chairs! Blood circulation should have been good then, no? It's raya for heaven's sake. Lemme entertain my guests and run to the kitchen sometimes la.

I'm currently having so much fun with the new phone despite the loss of a real keypad. Wonder how do those with stubby fingers manage. I miss using two thumbs and typing ten lines of messages in under 2 seconds. Boo.

The icing on the cake for all of these is definitely is the hubs. I know...I know....I may sound like that annoying woman who worships her husband as if he's the God of Acropolis, but I have to say that he has made my raya this year a lot more meaningful by being the awesome person that he is. And he paid for this phone, bahhhaahh! Thank you sayang. Just like Bruno says it, you're amazing just the way you are :)

Selamat hari raya aildilfitri, maaf zahir dan batin

Baby coming?

Maybe...signs are there and bapak & mummy are playing da waiting game. Mummy's playing with her new phone too. Tehheeee....

DIY Wednesday: Part VII (Special Tribute)

Do-it-yourself onde-onde gula melaka. Made by Ms Ki-Moira, and she deserves credit for her effort. Not bad for a first-timer.

I told you babe, cooking is therapeutic. You even missed gula in one because menggentel bebola kueh is so syiok kan? I look forward to many more of your adventures beyond kedai makan for good food like this. We have faith in you, yeahhhh!!!!!

That moment when your hubby asked if you had prepared that thing for your freelance work and you answered "no" and he replied "I bagi you singgit je sebulan nanti" with a sheepish grin on his face...

...and you let out an unstoppable laughter. Like, hahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..... (sampai keluar air mata, nervous seh...singgit?). No no, En. Arif is not that cruel. He, in fact, almost always gives in when I ask for something even when he doesn't necessarily need to, like, saying yes to 60% discounted Bimba & Lola flats, when I could have easily paid for them myself. I guess it's true when they say a woman somehow would marry a man with similar traits with her father. Haha yes, my dad is also that gullible when it comes to his girls' requests (upcoming mission is "Atok belanjalah Pea punya kambing aqiqah nanti." Ngeh.).

I know that it's not like I have massive followers here or anything but I am that perasan and believe that there were people who waited for my DIY Wednesday post. Kehkeh. 3rd trimester has really kicked in with a bang since the last weekend. There was massive exhaustion and some weird contractions going on. Even helping mom out for to prep for buka took a toll. I could barely walk that Sunday night and half the time I thought I was gonna deliver the baby already. To force myself to get out of bed for sahur, I imagined that last mile in running events - always toughest but rewarding at the end. Heh, drama drama drama. But I was literally a case of "a pain in the ass" where doing/not doing anything for too long led to this sharp, stabbing jabs in my lower body (especially in the nether region). I mean, how can sleep be a painful experience? It felt like I was hit by a truck on Monday morning and it left me lying down (read: falling asleep due to exhaustion) in the prayer room at work for 3 hours. Such agony a mother has to go through even before the birth, and later having to deal with kids who talk back to you and who pretend they're too sick to go to school when they actually didn't finish their homework, tsk tsk..... (aaaahhh okay that was me, bahhahhh!)

Ummmm...yeah, I really just wanted to say that I was too tired to do some crafting for the past week. And it was all really unnecessary because it turned out that I only contracted another bout of bladder infection. Bahhhhhh. Fourth episode throughout the pregnancy no less. I think I should sign up for UTI Anonymous already, or perhaps the bacteria should create a fan page for me ('-_-). Now feeling better on a prescription of potassium citrate, I feel like running a half marathon.

Do I need to babble so much? No, not really. When you didn't get enough sleep, your brain either shuts down completely or it loses the ability to control whatever it needs to. For me this morning, it includes peeing and shutting my mouth up. Told you 3rd tri hath kicketh. That, or the "friendly" bacteria hasn't fully vacated my urinary tract.

On another note, I am (not) proud to announce that I'm yet again a late adopter. Just started reading Sheikh Muzaffar's wife's blog on juggling life as a mother. OMG, I can't believe how down-to-earth she is. My sister has always adored her blog and been pestering me to pay a visit one too many times but I held my ego up high until today. The reason being, a silly assumption that she must be another celeb wife riding on her spouse's popularity - I bet she talks non stop about her astronaut husband and his activities and accomplishments yada yada yada. I was even adamant (in my head) that she must have some nuffnang ads going and it's just another channel for her to earn some free pocket money for her Chanels. Maybe I should also admit that I have always thought that she's just a trophy wife. Well, shame on you, Nadia, because it appears that she is all but none of these *self bitch-slapping me now*. Gosh, she is just so....normal. Like you and I. She could use some help with her grammar (naaaaak jugaaaak point out orang punya kelemahan kan, haha kuang asam eeewww) but I guess she radiates so much humility that something so important in my book of rules had taken the least priority as I read through every post down to the first one. Her writing is nothing more of a young, working mom's journey, and yet you subconsciously "read" her sincerity beyond those written words. I think I would know whether this is really what I think it is or if it's just an effect of lack of sleep. What I love most is how she portrays her husband as really, her husband, and not the celebrity we all know him for. Now I feel double regret for having been on team Dr Faiz all these while. But then again, he does look more of a stud than a muffin, which I think the Sheikh is (I mean it in a good, poster-boy, Korean-pop-star-good-looking-girls-screaming kinda way and in no way offensive, Dr Halina). Oh, she also blogshops! She doesn't need to, does she? I'm sure they have cash all stashed up in their children's trust fund already but she goes gaga over RM10 baby books at baby fairs. Aaaaaahhhh....I'm clicking "Like" on your Facebook fan page already.

Haihh...this weird mommy thing that I never thought I would get. Maybe I wasn't born to be a drill sergeant mother as I had imagined all along (thank God). I already feel connected to stranger moms in the blogosphere and I can't get enough from stay-at-home (and none of them being broke) mommies like Camp Patton, Buggie & Jellybean,  The Rhodes Log, and a many more out there. This week I truly had the conviction that taking a year off work will Insyallah work out just fine for us. Throughout the course of this pregnancy I went for a few job interviews and had received positive feedback for most of them (except for one with this very stuck up iPad tapping Manager who obviously was supposed to know if I fit her requirements from my CV, but appeared surprised when I told her I'm not the number crunching type and that I have only dabbled in finance for about a year. For the record, the headhunter turned internal HR personnel misunderstood the actual job scope thus leading to setting me up for the interview).

So here I am, (will be) staying home and just making the decision alone had made me feel like a HUGE burden has been lifted off my shoulders. I'm probably half doing it for my sanity - no more fearing my efforts are considered below par after labouring my heart and soul into an assignment, no more being anxious of hearing screams from beyond the walls, no more self guilt for turning up late (I may be tardy sometimes, but it wasn't so bad when I still had the passion). For the most part, I believe that it is time for me to finally leave that self-centred life of my younger years and devote the most part of me to enriching the lives of others i.e. our little nucleus family. Anyway, if you can't be offered a career, why bother be stuck with a job (that leads to nowhere?). And who says you need to conform to what the general society expects you to be/do?

My MBA is just another 6 subjects and a research paper away, so that's the self-reward that I will work on for myself (heh, I'm only human so I still need to feed my ego mmmmkay...). I hope that the freelancing gig(s) will come in on a continuous basis. A good friend is helping out to pull me into this freelancing resource (Alhamdulillah) and one of my besties had helped me secured my first ever job last month. Now it's just time for me to make my service availability known to the world. Hint: I proof read my husband's MBA research paper and he admitted that had he engaged someone else, he would be potentially broke to the bones for every major and tiny, minor correction, and document formatting (and re-formatting due to somebody else's Microsoft Word incompetency, uurrrgghhhh) I made. So ya know who ya gonna call for proof-reading and editing services now. The charges are very reasonable :)

Gosh, this is one long post. Guess it makes up for the week of silence, eh? And since the blog's URL is Snap 'n Tell, and since I am a big camwhore, I just can't bear signing off without some of my favourite shots of the week hehe.......

32 weeks + 3 days as at last Saturday. I'm huge and waddling like a stuffed penguin, but I have my pillar of strength to support me, both physically and emotionally :)

Who would expect a new group of awesome friends at this age? And this lot makes you feel so youthful!
(pic courtesy of the ever-wacky Azlin)

I love you, you and you.