Fall 2015 : Visiting our new house

This is our house. 

What we like most is the fact that this house is not facing the main road :) 

We have such a lovely pedestrian walkway and green areas in front of our house.

The previous tenant was, according to the agent, missing in action. They left the house and all their stuff. And never came back. The agent took all their stuff out and put it at the backyard, change the locks and paint the house. The house is spotless clean and looks new.

Those are the stack of previous owner's stuff. The kids retrieved a lot of toys, still in good condition. Some of them still working, with batteries on. Such as the lantern Nazreen was holding down there. Since the previous tenant is a Muslim family, we took their mugs, pots, pressure cooker and other kitchen stuff as well. Those things are really in a good shape. They also left behind buggy and booster seat, which we really need for Nazran, if we were to rent a car.

Our white kitchen. We have a solid wood and tempered glass dining table but no chairs. We managed to retrieve a stool, folded chair, two garden seats and a cabinet from the stack. We love playing scavengers that day!

Learning about different type of waste to go into which bin. Every house is equipped with blue, brown, black and green bin.

Nazran's kurma plant

Nazran plant the kurma (date) seed a few months before we left for Manchester.

Nothing happened. He watered it everyday until he gave up.

I keep checking the vase and continue watering the pot everyday until I saw the bright green tip surfaced from the black soil, a few weeks before we came here.

I hope the kurma plant survive at our house for one year so Nazran could see you grow later!

SLUG!

Since we started having our vertical and herbs garden, snails and slugs have been a common visitor to our house. My landscape architect friend said it is a sign that I have developed a balanced ecosystem in my garden. Later, I should expect to have more ants, grasshoppers, butterflies and birds. Wow.

My kids love the snails and slugs but I cant stand looking at the slug. Geli ok. Lembik. Ada dua telinga lembik..euuw.. Recently I found one of them at our living room. These are the kids' artwork (and *cough* mynotetomyhusband *cough*) to mark the day the slug came into our house. lol.

My landscape architect friend's advise:

1.  Burn the soil before I use it since I bought a pre-mix soil with organic fertilizer. It might contains their eggs.

2.   Blend some garlics and a bit of water. Strain the water and spray it to our plants. To keep them off our plants. I think I need to spray my house with that too. lol.

Tahlil at my house

Alhamdulillah.

We manage to organise a Tahlil for my grandparent at my house yesterday. Glad to see orang-orang masjid who knew my late grandfather came to our house. 

To have my parent and aunt, cousins and siblings together at my house was the best. I knew they were reminiscing their good old days in this old house, quietly :)

The food was great.

The crowd was great.

Cleaning up was a breeze. Next time we will hire a caterer for makan-makan.

Friend's visit

My friend, Azemah posted in our WhatsApp group that she is attending a wedding in Gombak on Saturday and asked who is available for raya visit. I immediately replied and invited her family to my house. I made them Sherperd's Pie.

Thank you Azemah and family for coming over.

Her son, Hafiey was having fun with all the toys and basketball.

Her daughter, Husna loves the sofa so much that she didnt want to go home. lol.

My Potted Garden

While waiting for buka puasa, Nazran plant ginger and some potatoes. The Green Ambassador in action. 

Those are the latest addition to my existing potted garden. I have both edible and decorative plants. 

For edible plants I have oregano, (dying) basil, (dying) daun sup, onion, rosemary, halia bara, pandanus, tongkat ali, sabung nyawa, limau purut, cili padi bulat and turmeric. Oh yes, ginger and potato too!

Biological clock

As we are trying hard to adjust our biological clock during this Ramadhan, baby Nazmi's biological clock also went haywire.

This is him, arranging books at nearly 2 am. He just woke up and just finished running around the whole house. I am a sleep deprived mom.

The truth is...

The truth is, I have prepared for Raya long time ago because I didnt want to do a last-minute preparation. 

I had re-arranged our dining area, hobby area and living room. The floor is spotless clean and shiny. The cushion and sofa covers are clean and they smell like lavender. I took out all cooking and dining wares and clean them because I plan to re-locate them, to give way to our new oven and deep freezer. Everything. We have done everything.

BUT. 

A few roof tiles were broken during a thunderstorm in May and our roof was leaking. 

It was so bad that you can see the sky when you stand in our hobby area and looked up. Yes, THE sky. Now, imagine how it will be during heavy downpour? 

Have you seen waterfall? Or perhaps a broken pipe where the water is running very fast and you couldnt stop it?

That was what happened in our hobby area. And hallway/reading area. And the third bedroom aka our walk in wardrobe. FLOODED. Like really flooded with filthy i-dont-know-why-it-is-so-black and smelly water.

There goes two sofas, all CLEAN cooking and dining wares, bookshelves, ALL CLOTHES INSIDE THE BEDROOM - WE ARE TALKING ABOUT 8 WARDROBES, two cute reading sofas, tables, laminated timber flooring, ceiling (notice the broken ceiling in the hallway, in the photo below?).... And the list goes on. 

After learning that cleaning the mess is not an overnight work, we just packed the necessities and went to my parent's house. We cant let the kids move around in this dirty house.

We went back to our house more than a month later, just because I was worried the authority will start the cloud seeding process to produce rain, to combat the haze. My husband repaired the roof with Aril's help. My other neighbour helped to clean the whole house (below). That's what neighbours are for. Two days after they repaired the roof, it started to rain....phew.

Out of three areas affected, only one area is still leaking. I guess my husband and Aril had done a good job saving the hobby area and our walk in wardrobe. We still have problem with our hallway/reading area... Anyway, life goes on. WE JUST LET IT BE. I have another 30 days to make the house looks good again.

I really hope to get the house ready for Raya, of course, with the baldi in the hallway :)

HAPPY RAMADHAN EVERYBODY!

One patient Atuk with Ben 10 and aliens

It is not easy to live in the same house with Ben10, Humungousaur, Spidermonkey and Swampfire because they have different superpowers and abilities.

It is more challenging when one of them has a mix of Swampfire and tiny Superman's DNA.

Last prep : Baby cot

29 January 2013 - Last preparation before I fell sick the next day. After I came back from my office, we unpacked the old baby cot and wash it thoroughly. It was such a joy to prepare for the latest member of our family :) It is great to see the baby cot after 5 years. Still in a good shape.

We have the best excuse not to join my dad, the kids and our neighbours to clear the area in front of their house. They chopped down two old trees that day. Kids were having fun with their friends.

Nazran didn't join the party outside. He prefer to be..... in the cot. He still think he is the baby.