3 days to go!

Now that we are almost there, everything seems to be rushing away. Suddenly we feel like we have so much to do. Yesterday we went around town looking for money changers. We need to have NZD but it seems that there isnt any. We found the currency in Yayasan but it was way too expensive to buy. Hubby and I decided just to exchange our money to other major currencies so we went on to exhange our money with USD and Pounds Sterling. And we did really take all. We still have some more money to change so looks like we will go around town again tomorrow.

Basically we are set to go. We have done the packing, mostly. I think we need to buy my girls some more pants. So thats need to be taken care of too this weekend.

Time in the office also flies by. Been busy today, I went to Lean initiatives in SCOT, and we got the chance to see the control room which is under renovation. We are there to gather information and data from the operators and technician for the value streaming. We need to be clear of the process before we can apply Lean. Too bad I wont be there for the whole of June so I couldnt join all the fun.

Jerudong Beach Sunset

More pictures on the photography blog.

Fun and busy weekend

Lets see what happened this weekend.

My weekend started with a good hot stone massage at DeStress on saturday. This time I chose May to do the massage for me. I went to her last time, she was really good but not last saturday, I think she lost the rhythm. I would prefer Arissa instead. Anyhow, it was quite relaxing and I feel refreshed and relax. In the afternoon, hubby and I went out for some more shopping but we didnt actually get what we want. He was looking for a thermal shirt and me for a comfortable shirt to wear in the plane. We went round and round but to no avail. Then dinner at Aminah Arif, we had ambuyat for dinner, which is always yummy and one of hubby's fav food. As usual my girl opted for her favourite Kolo Mee.

On sunday we started the shirt hunting again. As usual we went out to buy breakfast at the tamu, and I had my favourite nasi lemak, hubby only had some simple kuih, as usual. Then we went out with my girl in tow and continue our shopping. We went to Manggis Mall since hubby found out there was a Nikon roadshow over there. So we went there and found what we were looking for! I got my so nice Polo Tee shirt and hubby bought a new Nikon flash for B$300! My girl also bought a very nice purple colour Bum Equipment T-shirt. So we were are a happy lot! Lunch at Selera Alam in Delima Square, not too bad, buffet that costed us B$5.80 per person. The cheapest buffet we've ever encountered so far.

In the afternoon, hubby wanted to sedekah to the children in our neighbourhood so I cooked a big pot of sphagetti, with mince beef, sausages and mushroom. We called the children and gave them a packet each. They went away a happy bunch as well.

In the late afternoon, we went to the Jerudong beach to watch the sunset. Its been a long time since we went there, to any beach for that matter. We took some lovely pictures of the beach, the rocks and sunset. They were definitely very pretty. We spent about any hour at the beach, it was really peaceful although there were lots of people there watching the sunset.

Will upload some of the pictures tonight if I have the time. We went home around 7.00pm, had dinner and call it a day. Its a very exhausting but fun weekend.

American Idol

Now this is over, we all can have our peace and quiet, I mean I can now look for a different kind of stress reliever show for a change after a few months of American Idol. It was ok, I must say its a good entertainment and good stress relieving channel, after a long day at work in the middle of the week, then came AI, good to help me to wind down and end the day. And I love the finale, very entertaining and I love all the songs. Thats what I called good taste.

Jalan Sg Tampoi improvement project.

Its in progress and in full swing. Our concrete bridge was demolished last week and we are waiting for a new one which is currently in progress. And we are now using a makeshift temporary bridge to get in and out. Took some pictures of the bridge as it looks like now, hubby said it looked like the bridge was hit by a bomb. It is indeed!

So, flood... stay away!

Makan this week

Set lunch at Kate's in Wisma Yakin Kuala Belait, for $6.00 consisted of soft drink, soup of the day, lamb curry for hubby and chicken for me, and dessert, a piece of cake and one scope of ice cream (forgot to take pic of the soup). Not bad.

Lunch at Delifrance in Miri in the weekend.

Cant wait to get out of here.

Thats not exactly me but symbolises how I feel in the office right now. Too many work to be done, not to mention pending requests from people. I know I can only do so much but some people just didnt get it. This job come with a price and as everyone knows Shell expect the best from people. Thats how we survive but there are times when its so impossible to please everyone especially if you are responsible for over 200 people. I am trying my best in my job. But there are things that are just beyond my control since we have our processes and procedures. Sometimes people are just desperate to get the work done but they oversee that we dont have all the power in the world like magic. That we cannot just rush things and everything is ready and done with the next day.

That is why I am so looking forward to have my long break in 2 weeks. You wont see me for about a month, I will just dissapear into thin air and nobody could do anything about it. You have to live without me for a month!

It will be my first long leave since I joined this department a year ago, and its about time too. I sure need the break away from all the office craps. I will be on my dream holiday with my beloved. Nothing else matters when we soak ourselves in the immensity of the midst of our holiday location. And work and office will be the furthest from my mind, amid temporarily but still it feels so good.

Happy Mother's Day to all Mothers!

Including me.

My girl presented me with 3 cupcakes in purple colour. Each cake represented with the words, I love mom. Thanks my darling, you are the best daughter in the world. And I am feeling so guilty when I lost my temper with you earlier. Its just that being stuck in traffic at your school compound and couldnt reach you by phone although it kept on ringing made me so stressful. You didnt answer my call and I lost it. I scolded you for not answering the phone and you just sat there and cried. Little did I know you had that cupcakes on your lap and you didnt have the chance to give it to me, until we reached home. You said its a surprise for me since its mothers day. I felt pangs of sadness all of sudden and I cried too. I know I shouldnt said all those words that can be hurtful to you but I just wish next time you would answer your phone. There is no point to bring it to school if you kept it on silent mode and you didnt answer. I know I had my point and I hope you understand how important it is for you to answer the calls.

Again I am so sorry. But I am glad that we were ok again, after those tears then came our laughter and we both finished the cupcakes in just a few minutes. I tell you it was really yummy. Thanks dear, for thinking of your old mom. I will cherish all the memories that we share until the end of time. You are so thoughtful and so caring. Love you always and you are the best daughter any mom could ever had.

The HLP blood test.

Gotta blog about this test, so excited with it. Last week we had HLP screening & blood test, as I said a must to all Shell employees, done every 3 years. Got the result today and it was much better than I expected, my sugar level is ok, still within the safe limit, Alhamdulilah. My cholesterol, not so good, a bit on the higher side but overall the result was better than the one I did last Jan. I've lost a few kg too which is ok, not much but better than nothing, thats without exercising, only reducing my food intake. Imagine what I can do if I go for exercise and focus on it. Of course I am still overweight but thats something I am not suprise about, I have been this size as far as I can remember so whats new?

The only vice I need to improve on is exercise. Not an easy task if you have to work too far away, reach home by 6pm, have to rush to shower and pray then think about on what to cook every evening, I just dont have the time. I know thats is so cliche, so I am not going to defend myself, I know I should find the time. There is always not enough time no matter what. I just have to find the time.

We did do some exercise a few months back, we always went to Damuan every weekend, did some brisk walk at OGDC or Anduki Park after work but now its drying off, not sure why. So now I just need to get back on it, and fast...

Happy Birthday to my beloved girl.

Happy 15th birthday Ayang.

Its that time of the year again for you to become a young lady. Today you are 15th years old. My little girl is all grown up. I know you always look forward to your birthday and today I hope you feel the same. Its a beautiful day today, you woke up to a bright and sunny day as always. Since its sunday we are treating you to birthday lunch with the whole family. You liked it but your begged us not to give you a birthday cake, because you are just so shy and dont want the attention. I felt bad since every year I never missed giving you a birthday cake and a birthday party. But this year its different. You didnt want any of that. You said you are all grown up and didnt need all the fuss. And your dad and I respected that. So we only gave you a beautiful watch, with your favourite purple colour as your birthday gift. You loved it when I gave it to you so early in the morning the moment you opened your eyes. Love those glittering in your eyes.

Anyway, to my beautiful daughter... Here is hoping you gonna have a wonderful year. May Allah bless you with abundance of good health and happiness. May all your dreams come true, darling. Mom and dad love you so much and want everything turn out well in your life. I know you are on the verge of all the beautiful things in life as an adult and I do hope you would be able to face life on the face with faith and dignity.

All the best to you my sweetheart. You are in my prayers every day. I said this with tears in my eyes, I know you have been through alot in your life and I hope life will treat you fairly. I hope you would thrive in your life, study hard and be strong. Love you always and forever. From Mommy & Dad.

Latest collection.

Ok, I gave in yet again to my craving of handbags. We went shopping the other day and stumbled on this handbag, well in fact my husband saw it first. He came to me while I was just browsing through and admiring the collection of new arrival of handbags, not really thinking of buying one, and told me about this handbag. I fell in love with it right there and then. He loved it too and it was the latest from Bonia. It was really lovely, even the cashier said so which I felt so guilty since costs so much. I do still have this passion of handbags, cant seem to stop the obsession. I have about 20 handbags at the moment and this is the latest one. I never missed to buy new one every time we went away on holiday. And this one is the first time in a long time I bought one locally. Well, this is what I called impulse buying and its costs us a few hundred bucks. But hey.. if its here to stay for a long time then why not!

HLP

That stands for Healthy Lifestyle Programme. For Shell employees thats a must. Everyone must participate. In so many ways, its very useful and I am fully supporting the initiatives. This programme was introduced 3 to 4 years ago when all Shell employees are asked to go through health check, done by the Panage Health Centre. It was widely known and acknowledged that most Bruneians and in our case Shell employees were either overweight, under lots of stress, smokers and not doing enough exercise, thus this HLP was introduced.

What Shell tries to emphasise is everyone has to make their own initiatives to look after themselves, control your own destiny in terms of health and to have a work life balance. Thats so important. I know some Shell people who work until 7 to 8pm at night. And we dont usually take breakfast breaks and go round town to have breakfast. Its very unhealthy to be workaholic. But this culture is already instilled in our core being. We work hard for the company and of course for the money.

And the management awares of that now. So by having this programme, the management hopes that the people can take a breather from work and have fun. Like from my previous department, they had so many fun and enjoyable activities which was great.

The way HLP works is, first and foremost, the health check for all employees. Usually blood sample was taken, amongst other things like your blood pressure, urine, weight, height and BMI. Then we have our review done by the nurses as the review panels and if things dont look so good then we are referred for further analysis or diagnosis. Apart from the health check, each departments have their own programme to stay healthy. We have exercise say once a week, once within 2 weeks, or do any interesting activities such as hiking, brisk walking, aerobics, etc. Its so fun and so far I do enjoy it. Of course I think health is important and who else to control our own body apart from ourselves? From this health check also I was caught with having high blood pressure! And now on medication for life. But its ok, that disease couldnt be avoided if you are a Bruneian, unfortunately.

The health check expires within 3 years, and my last check was 3 years ago so I am due for one now. Lets hope my results are better this time around.

My review will be on the 6th of May, I will go to the panel and review my blood test. I am nervous but I know my overall health improves a bit since I have done lots of cutting down, merely because of our plan in June. So we will see.

Trying it out.

Spent our sunday morning at Yayasan and Kg Air, while my girl was at her school for her girl guide badge presentation done by Yang Teramat Mulia Princess Hajjah Masnah. While waiting for her to finish we tried out our new camera and captured all these images. Here are some of them.

How long it takes..

If you are interested in how long it takes the items we toss into our garbage to decompose?

Read on:

Paper ................... 2 to 5 months
Orange peels ............ 6 months
Milk cartons ............ 5 years
Filter-tip cigarettes ... 10 to 12 years
Plastic bags ............ 10 to 20 years
Leather shoes ........... 24 to 40 years
Plastic containers ...... 50 to 80 years
Disposable diapers ...... 75 years
Tin cans ................ 100 years
Aluminum cans ........... 200 to 500 years

Styrofoam ............... Never

I wish the supermarkets stop giving us plastic bags and use paper bags instead but I dont know if the supermarkets even care. I for one still use lots of plastic bags even styrofoam but now that I know how these products can stay in our environment for a long time, I wish I could do more to avoid using them. One thing for sure, these products can be recycled so that they would cause less pollution and havoc to the environment if dumped in the dumping areas.

Nikon D90

My hubby bought a new camera, very cool. We both are interested with photography these days but he knows much better on how to take good pictures than me. There is so much to learn and I am starting to know bits and pieces of taking good pictures, and things like apucture, shutter, ISO, wide lense and so on. The camera is awesome, so powerful and we can do so much. I took below pictures as starters which I think is cool.

The pictures were taken last night when we had dinner at Charcoal and Grill at Jalan Tutong. And I took this girl picture while she immensed herself watching tv. She didnt realise I took it while at the same time learned how to use the camera. And the result is just fantastic. And the other two were taken at home, one is from our fridge and the other was the donout we bought from Yayasan.