When you feel so overwhelmed.. that's how you feel when you see mountains of dirty laundry in the laundry room. It's so much, I feel so lazy already to finish it.

One thing makes me excited! I am buying a new Apple Laptop replacing my beloved 3 year old Powerbook!!! Yay! With the intel duo processor, I could listen and watch those NBDE lectures. It will go right in my brain. Aim high!!! I will pass this licensing exam. Pray for me. Amin.

IT'S OFFICIAL!!! They moved out.

June stopped by to see Aidan (too bad he was still sleeping) and to bring the cable box which the cable company will pick up today. They planned to leave tomorrow but the moving company was so fast and they were 1 day ahead of time.

Here are the photos of June walking back to the house and their cars which I will be seen them for the last time in our neighborhood. I will miss Terry's cool red car, and that great blue truck, everytime I see it, it's always busy doing something. Yes, Terry is our neighborhood hero.

I will miss the friendly smiles and friendly hand waves everytime I pass by them.

Good luck, folks.

Three days in a row for hosting dinner, everything all by myself with 2 kids around. That was something I had never done in my life and to be honest, I feel so proud of myself.
I am trashed today.... still have to clean up all the dishes and pans from last night, cuddled with Aidan today, and of course, watching the 2 moving trucks which brought June and Terry's final stuff for Pennsylvania. I am sad, but at the same time, I am so happy for them, and I also so happy that we still could spend 3 nights in a row enjoying good food and nice conversation.
I love them dearly. They loved what I did and also because every single night, I invited other neighbors' family to join us in our small group. Every night, we had 6 adults. For the first time, we used up our formal dining room.

Again, I am so happy that I got to share some Indonesian dishes and Middle Eastern dishes for them, in addition of my own created recipes. They liked the dinners so much that June sent me a beautiful flower today.

June and Terry : "Thank you for everything, I loved the flower. You don't have to do that in your hectic time. Get rest, you have a long drive to do. We will miss you so much."

I am so trashed today. Last night, the kids didn't let us sleep and it's our last day to host dinner for our beloved neighbor. Nadia got a dental cleaning appointment, and an angel friend of mine, Sue offered me to take care of the kids while I am cooking today. Just got home and I have to go cook. I am a bit worry since it's my first time leaving the kids with a friend....
Thanks so much, Sue.

We just got back from Judy and Tom's house for the farewell party of our best neighbors, June and Terry. Almost all of our neighbors came to the party, I think only one family didn't come. It was really a nice gathering as I got a chance to talk to every single one, including the family who just bought the house, but not moved in yet.
I enjoyed very much looking at the gifts they got for them, there was a miniature truck that Terry has, which has words : "Terry, the FR's hero). Or a big banner with our subdivision logo and all our signatures in it, etc.

We still going to see them before they leave on Saturday, which is only 6 days left to go. The truck will be coming tomorrow, so I am hosting dinner for them on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, while the rest of the days until they moved, they are also invited to have dinner with other neighbors.
I am planning to invite one family at a time for a surprise, so we still have a small crowd of people in our casual dining time.

We are blessed to live in this wonderful friendly neighborhood. Thank you God for all the bliss in our life.

Lunch with Sisi and Dewi at Eastern Accent. Fun!!!

Dear someone,

This is a note, just for you and for you only, and this will be the last. Life is too busy to keep getting in the same issue over and over again. Don't we have important stuff to do ?

I sent you friendly e-mails in the past. You kept giving messages of unfriendliness.

I just got a message of unfriendliness and I have to tell you again, I didn't send you any message, like I said the emails are LOST. It was an automatic updates from 'friendster' and it was sent beyond my knowledge. I apologize on behalf of "friendster".

I am too busy to do much fun stuff with my family and friends who love to be my friends. I am not going to beg you to be one if you don't want to. Peace! It's people's choice, we can always pick the friends you want to be and pick a fight whenever you would like, too. I respect your decision in any way you would like yourself to be.

I stand for this, the past is the past. Your significant other will receive a PACKAGE OF THE PAST. I am not going to keep THE PAST with me IN my present and future life.

You have a beautiful life, beautiful family. I am very happy for you. Again, I really mean it.

Life is like music, it depends on how you play it.

Thank you for still checking our blogspots, I know you do, but you are welcome to check them at anytime, now and in the future.

Best regards,
Sari

We had a girls night out again, without our spouses, and without our kids.

It started when Jocelyn said we needed to have craft night in our neighborhood newsletter, we ended up just chatting and gathered in euphoria. We decided that this will be an ongoing event, every 3rd Wednesdays every month.

This one just different, because June, our neighbor came the last time before she headed to Pennsylvania, moving to a new house for her brand spanking new insurance office. I am so happy for her but sad at the same time, losing one of the best neighbor, whose house just right in front of ours. I will miss Terry and his truck, mowing the lawn, I will miss seeing them together as cute couple. I will miss their friendly smiles all the time I see them. Nadia will miss them dearly, and again, I am so sad.

We gathered our best recipes from each of us, then put them in the recipe box, gave it to her for her to remind her about her wonderful life in our neighborhood and for her to remember each of us when she made those yummy food. She loved it so much.

There is other annoucements we had in that gathering, Trish who just got a baby girl, Audrey a month after Aidan was born, is pregnant, 3 month pregnant, we are so happy for her.
We also talk about the cookie exchange gathering on Christmas and helping single moms who don't work by collecting all stuff to be donated.

Me and June walked home back, enjoying the conversation and we just realized how beautiful the lighting of my house Ammar did from the other side of viewing. She asked me to take picture, I did, but I need tripod to have a decent photo of the lighting.

I left the house with mess in the kitchen. I was late cooking supper and was just ready before I left, again, Ammar told me not to worry, he would take care of it.

I came back home, he already had my dinner in the plate, and the kitchen was all neat and wiped. What a nice surprise considering he doesn't like to put dishes in the dishwasher, he usually just rinse and stack them in the sink. Thank you my dear love.

 

The time is almost here. At the end of the month, they are leaving. We will miss you so much, neighbor. Good luck with your new journey.

Sniff.... I am terribly sad that they are leaving.

Do the right thing. Again.

It's my second time donating my long hair for "LOCK OF LOVE" organization. This organization is awesome, they make the wig for children with cancer, or children with some diseases who lost their hair, full or partial.

It really felt so good when I did it the first time, to remember Nadia's first day at school 2 years ago, and I want to thank God again for giving me the bliss on earth, 2 healthy children and one lovely husband.

Ammar loves my hair long, but for this reason, he let me cut it short. It's amazing that it feels so good after I did it.

It is also handy, because ever since Aidan was born, he grabs hair so much, so most of the time, I put my hair in ponytail.
Now, he won't grab my hair and it will be less time to take care of my new short hair.

It's so funny now, like donating blood, it's addicting. I am planning to just grow my hair again, then donate it again, as much as I can.

I found this on my friend's blog whose partner beat her unconcious and I just feel like putting this up on my very own blog to know how I feel about her and her daughter. We love you, guys!!!

Fish Doctors of Adrian

Sunday, September 2, 2007

The man who owns the store.
You want to know about this man.
I will tell you a story.

He was a good guy, seemed to want a family.
Got good things.... and then seemed to no want to share them
Then he started to lie.
Then he started to not call and come home on time.
Then he started to not care which was the worst.

Then he beat me once.
The next time I was mad and faught back and I lied, I told his parents that I hit him and that I was to blame for the violence, but I thought it would stop. The next time he professed his love to another man in front of me and when I aknowledged it, he got angry and thew us out. He took my daughter and myself to the garage and did the unthinkable...

He tried to strangle me, he punched me in the face, and threw me to the ground. He beat me unconscious and continued to beat me until the police arrived. I would not be alive today if they were not called. My daughter was screaming for him to stop and she is 5. She calls him Dad.

This person has FELONY charges with the intent to do GREAT bodyily harm just less than Murder plus three other charges. Should we let this go free? NO! This man tried to kill me, I am a tennis pro, you can't just kill me like that...a little kid was watching .. this man HAS to go down,.. He's going to kill SOMEONE!!! I will not let it be me... and I believe he will try to kill me again.

No more fish in the fish bowl.

We woke up for eating before fasting and found out that Nadia's goldfish was on the kitchen floor. DEAD! He must jumped out of the fish bowl at night. I feel a bit sad.... I just got so attached with it, since I am the one who feed and change the water every day.

After we ate, we heard Nadia called us from room. She got bad nosebleeds. Now, at 7 am, she is up, got dressed (because her pajamas were tainted with blood) and drawing.

Aw... health insurance.

I have been feeling blue today, not because that I have sad experiences, but thinking about people surround me. Living in America... everything is overpriced. You know why ? Because everything has liability, people sues right and left. Medical expenses are outrageous. I belong to the yahoogroups for parents in my city, they have discussions about heath insurance and what not. Some families elected not to have health insurance. They cannot afford it, it's so high priced!!!

I saw my medical bill when I was giving birth to Aidan. Just only for 2 nights stay, it cost the insurance more than $30,000
I saw Aidan's bill from his vaccination shots : average of $400 for a 15 minutes visit.
I saw Aidan's bill from his 4 hours observation for EEG : $800

M-Care sold the insurance to BCBS, and we have to decide which insurance we are going to get. There are HMO's and PPO's or even the Traditional Insurance. We are so grateful that we could afford the most expensive one and the best one, the PPO.. but how much it costs for a month ? It's $1,300 for the whole family

I feel so bad, if a family with an average salary of $2,500 a month, how could they afford it ? How do they afford to eat, paying rent, school, entertainments, clothing ?

Average of people here in the States have more than $15,000 credit card debt. A lot of people claimed bancruptcy because of the medical bills.

I see some of my friends have to move out from the house because they got laid off from the jobs. I see a mom and a child so sudden has to be in tight budgets because of the divorce.

I feel for those people, and my family is lucky that we don't have to deal with those issues, but I can not be proud of it, because my heart got hurt, thinking about them.

How you could help ?

I am too sad to know that Fantasy Forest officially closed. I really like that place. Nadia grew up playing there since we moved here. I know the owner and asked her, I have no idea why, she doesn't tell.
I love that place, the staff is so friendly, everytime we come there, they will call our name, says hi to Nadia as if we come to a friend's house. Nadia had her 3rd birthday party there, too.
I am sad that a wonderful family business is beaten up by a bigger unfriendly business which treat you just like a "customer", not family!!!! Life is not fair.

LAST MINUTES GETAWAY.

On Friday, I told Ammar at work that maybe we should spend time at Mackinaw Island again since it's so nice ..... sunny and 80 degree!!! Not like a usual fall weather.
We woke up in the morning, finally decided to go... packing a small luggage, stuffing Nadia's bag with Aidan's and Nadia's toys, and snacks and headed 5 hours driving North.

The view was awesome along the highway. Aidan was not too happy since we brought Ammar's car, the sun came right to his whole body.. he went so sweaty when we got him.

We just checked in the hotel we used to stay without any reservations, right on time because after that, the hotel was fully booked up. We enjoyed time swimming... because I was just thinking about kids, and packed the swimming attributes, I forgot my own, so I ended up taking pics.

We break our fast at our favorite family restaurant, we left so happy with full stomachs, even Nadia ate so much, and what's new, Aidan ate our food, too.

We stopped by the guest of the restaurant and she told us how much she adores the kids, well behaved in the restaurant (Aidan was eating, Nadia was busy drawing and singing)... and Nadia as usual, talking so friendly with her and another waitress who joined us in the conversation.

God bless, it's not the first time we got some visitors in our table at the restaurant... We made so many strangers whom we ended up chatting with.

Pictures will come soon.

It's pretty sad news for 2 nights in the row.

One, a friend of Amora's father is in hospice. He lost weight from 250 to 160 and he is not doing well.
Last night, we also heard a message from his friend, sounded in panic, asking us to call back, before he called, he called again and told him that his 6 year old son just diagnosed with acute leukemia.
In the middle of talking to him, he kept calling my name, I finally found out that he was really in shock hearing the news, we kept talking about it until this morning, what happened if one of our children so sudden got sick ? This boy was completely healthy, until few days ago, he started to develop the bruises and nosebleeds.
It is a very heartbroken disease that a child has to go through the millions medication, chemotherapy, being weak and sick, lost the hair, etc, then will be under remission, and it might come back again, at least for 5 years.

Our heart goes to the whole family, we felt so lucky that our family is very healthy, Nadia didn't even have a dose of antibiotic, but knock the wood thing could happen with her and Aidan. God, please protect all of us from any kind of diseases, and thank you for giving us all your blessings.

You owe me big time, Dear!

Ammar played tennis after work, so Nadia, Aidan, and me went to the mosque... gosh, it's 10 more days. Every single day I feel so hungry now.. bummer.. because I am still nursing Aidan, I feel so hungry by 2 pm... but hey.. it's part of the good thing to do. It's holy month, and you will get lots of rewards for fasting. Nadia finally get it that we cannot eat during the day, when it's dark, then mommy and daddy will be able to eat and drink.

On the way back home, it's 9.10 pm. Everyone is tired, I heard my cell was ringing continuously. I left it in the trunk, inside the diaper bag. I stopped on Main street, it's just 5 minutes away from home. It was Ammar, he doesn't usually call me like million times when I don't pick up.

I went out, get the phone, and called him right away and said (teasingly) :"Hey, you don't have to call me million times, today babe!!!).

Ammar told me he got locked out. He put his tennis bag inside the trunk, he forgot to get the car key he put outside the bag....

I had to drive another 20 minutes away from home, to pick him up and give him the spare key (we have our key in each of the car for this kind of situation). Nadia got excited that she is saving her daddy. We arrived at U of M Varsity tennis, I asked him to give me $75 for the cost of taxi if he were going home by taxi.. heheheh...
Of course, he didn't take it seriously.

Nadia gleefully jumped out, hugging her daddy and moved to his car..

We got home at 10.10 pm. It's a late night for all of us.

Amora, you just can't live without me, can you ? :p

http://www.datadyne.org, NOT .com

This is an awesome webpage. A friend of mine, Dr. Joel Selanikio, he is a computer engineer but he went to medical school after working at Chase Manhattan Bank. Upon finishing with his pediatric specialty, he interested in epidemiology. His heart goes for helping people on the other side of the world, and he joined UN. He did lots of volunteer works, including the 2005 tsunami in Sumatera. He developed a software which you can download to the palm pilot to help out in epidemiology, called epysurveyor.

Just want to share this great work.