~ t w i s t e d ~ a n g e l ~

Am I the only Maxis broadband user who’ve been unable to load the (FarmVille) game for the last 2 weeks?

This really sucks.

I know I should be posting something. I already moved in to my new place, 1 week already. So this is how it living in your own house :D.

I want to take pictures but normally when I reached home, it’s already dark. So let’s wait for the weekend. At work, we are moving to a new office too, so it’s a non-stop pack-unpack process for me. It’s tiring, beyond words.

I can’t say I’m 100% satisfied with the contractor’s job.  But he was willing to rectified whatever mistake he did and did not beat around the bush. As far as my money is concern, I’m going to get whatever I want to pay for

I will write that in another entry. Right now, let me enjoy the night view of the suburbs, among the mess and unpacked boxes

We picked 3Naah Sdn Bhd to do this job for few reasons. First, after they came over and we told them what we wanted to do, they never pandai-pandai add whatever I did not mention in the quotation. When we were dealing with the previous contractor, I found out there were things we did not mentioned to him were quoted in the list. For example, when we asked the toilet and utility room to be combined, we did not mention that the wall tiles to be removed and restored. I don’t mind if the tiles are there anyway. That’s how they make money, charging for the things you don’t need.
As for 3Naah, if they think by doing or adding something is appropriate, they would ask us first. They would never simply add up. One more thing, if we canceled what we planned to do initially, they will remove it. No question asked. For example, initially we wanted to paint the doors and door frames white. And later on we realized why don’t we wait until we can afford to buy a solid door for each room (now it’s the plywood type) and paint those white instead. There’s no point of painting these ones only to be thrown away later. They just said, “OK, we’ll remove it from the quotation”.

Second,  in the studio for the current place I’m renting, 3Naah handymen fixed the shelves and desk for me. This was over 1 year ago. I was impressed with their workmanship. He took his time to do things carefully and accurately and he used water leveler. I had bad experience with one contractor who I called in and asked to fit the curtain railings and shelves in toilet and kitchen. He simply drew VERY thick visible pencil lines on the wall. I wonder if he knew what water leveler is for. Aku yang tak bertukang ni pun ada water leveler sendiri. I’m not talking about simple ‘x’ mark. This is what I meant.

It was really frustrating, and I’m renting, mind you!!

Third, this is the main reason I was sold. The 3Naah handymen cleaned up. He cleared up every piece of debris and rubbish and wipe the floors spanky clean. There.

Forth, they are punctual for meetings, and they keep their word. When they said they are going to call me ‘tonight’, they will call me ‘tonight’.

Currently the house already under renovation, and we are praying we are going to be satisfied with their work. I think 3Naah actually focused on interior design stuff. But if they have that standard of handymen, we think their level of contractors standard should be at par, if not higher.

Disclaimer: This is not an advertorial I’m sharing what I think is beneficial for this topic.

K0i left us today.

It hits me real bad. I have so much to say but I can’t do it without waterworks. The grieve is greater when the deceased never did anything wrong towards you. Rest in peace K0i. Al-Fatihah.

There are not much I can share with you right now. We are are shortlisting (as if they are many hehee) contractors and revising the price they quoted. Furthermore it’s Chinese New Year so they normally took long break during this festive season.

I already notified my current landlord that I’d be moving out end of March. I’ll be giving the contractors 3 weeks working period max, hopefully they can start working on 1st March and be done by 20th March so I’ll have the rest of the month to do work with the movers and unpacking my stuff. Speaking of which, I haven’t done my research on movers. It sounds like there’ll be plenty of time, but each time I think of this, I’d have knot in my stomach, afraid that we couldn’t make it within 1 and ½ months.

Here are some pictures of the house after defects rectification is done. They did a good job. Please ignore the grey spot on the images. My SLR sensor clearly needs some servicing.

Living area

Dining area (but we are planning to shift the dining area to the front of the balcony.

That’s me overlooking the view.

I’m saving other pictures for other entries Stay tuned.

If there’s no such thing as robbery or stealing, I don’t think I want to install any grill on my abode. I might have to think about this again if I have kids, but then that’s not my concern now. So, like it or not, we just have to give in to it. To make it even complicated, living in a common residential area, the condo management only allow one kind of design and one kind of color for iron grill to be fixed on balcony and windows. But we are free to pick our own design for main door and they are fairly open with suggestion by the residents, although this doesn’t mean they agree to it

*

Not sure if you’ve heard of Invisible Grill before. This type is allowed in the condo. Kinda cool isn’t it? So it wouldn’t look like you’re living in a cell. We are still thinking about this.

**

We picked this design for main door. It’s a wrought iron grill. The contractor is a very nice and sweet lady. She didn’t push us for anything extra  and was really patient with me and my never ending inquiries. She gave the best deal amongst other contractors we’ve met and advertised in our residential online forum (yes we have one!! :D).

It’s a 3-day weekend, we spent it meeting contractors, measure walls and windows, surveyed some furniture and toilet accessories. I’ll try to put up some pictures of our house before we start doing any renovation/improvement.

* - picture credits to Invisible Grill official website.

** - picture credits to one of the residents who recommended me his contractor for iron grill.

We collected the keys today and inspected the house right away. I can’t say we are happy with the developer’s work, but overall I can give it 7 out of 10. Not much major defects, major as in torn out door, wrecked window and such. Most of them are paint/plaster stains. But we both are major, let me repeat, major pain-in-the ass perfectionist so we checked every crook and corner.

As expected, we love the room that we are going to turn into a studio better than the master bedroom, tee hee. I decided to let him design the studio himself, I will just butt in when it comes to my craft tools and apparatus. This room has these ceiling to floor windows on one side, so the sun rays poured in perfectly.

When I bought the house, I didn’t expect it has any view. All units with nice views were way beyond my budget, I thought the balcony was going to be facing the other block. But when we checked out our unit, the view from balcony was not bad at all. The view of wangsa maju, batu caves and some parts of bukit tabur are just lovely. It was windy and the balcony is quite spacey. I’m not really into gardening but after seeing the balcony myself, I suddenly couldn’t wait to plant some herbs which can be used for cooking. Parsley, basil, curry leaves and stuff.

There are just so many things we want to do with the house, but first, we have to let the contractor rectified the defects first. I’m seriously not good with this waiting game.

I have no one to blame but myself on the lack of update. I don’t think I want to write about my everyday routine here, otherwise you don’t mind reading the same thing over and over again.

Aaaanyhooo.. I think I want to see if I can commit to something on this blog. Since I’m about to move to my own house soon, (which now I’m already used referring to ‘our house’ instead of ‘my house’ with my better half), I’m planning to have it documented here. So you will get to know the progress from a very basic condo (I bought it new from developer) until, well, it becomes a home.

As a start, I consider this condo as my second ‘grown-up’ purchase, after the car (I bought my first cosmetic when I was 13, so that’s not grown-up purchase). I bought it late 2007 and early this month, I received the letter informing the house is ready. I have to tell you, we were over the moon

We already set an appointment with the developer for key collection and house inspection tomorrow, and we both applied for leave from work for this.

Please do not expect a snappy magic of the progress, due to our decision to involve loads of personal touch to our house, this might take a while. Which ever that can be done ourselves, will be done ourselves in stages. Both of us are into making things, and this will help with our financial too, owning a home does not come cheap.

There are progress bars on the side and I categorized it into house sections, so we can keep track of the progress.

Here are some pictures I could share, I already sew the dining table cloth (and another one soon). I also painted the dining table (chairs) white. I thought I could complete painting the dining table set (chairs and table) in one weekend, boy I was wrong. We only complete the chairs this weekend. Primed in one day, painted in one day. It didn’t help that this process can only be done during the day when sun is bright.

I bought this red checkered cloth in Bangkok during my trip in July 2009. Had the white ric-rac sewn around so it doesn’t look that plain. Table mats are from Daiso.

I got myself this dining table from IKEA when I moved into this apartment I’m renting, it’s an INGO dining table that came in plain wood color. Then I purchased the plain wood color STEFAN dining chairs to complete the set (I couldn’t find the plain wood color in IKEA website). Now they are white!

New tag added - our crib. So stay tuned!

… I just found myself a superstar

“Sometimes pain becomes such a huge part of your life that you expect it to always be there, because you can’t remember a time in your life when it wasn’t. But then one day you feel something else, something that feels wrong, only because it’s so unfamiliar. And in that moment you realize you’re happy.” -Lucas Scott

Quote given by Lucy.

To someone, I can live with all your imperfections, it’s just the nonsense temper I couldn’t put up with.

To another one, I can live with all your imperfections, it’s just the lack of seriousness in life left me disturbed.

Nobody is perfect, I am nobody.

The running season is here again after the fasting month. Wonder why I complained waking up at 8am on weekdays while I’d be half asleep and excited to wake up at 4am on running Sundays. I’ll be making my half marathon (21km) debut in 36 days. For obvious reason, I chose to do my FIRST half marathon on exactly where I did my FIRST 10km, Penang Bridge. And another half marathon 2 weeks after, in Singapore Marathon 2009. Excited? Nervous? Scared? Is running for <15km races for one year gave me enough experience to endure 21km distance?

Well, the only way to find out is to run it. Run it over.

I’m blessed with another year. Syukran.

Many things have changed within this year alone. I chose to move out from my parents, had no ill intention. I just need my own space, my own kitchen, my own studio and my own mess. I think it’s about time. People my age had the privilege to pick their own furniture, curtain and kitchen utensils. I’d be lying if I say I do not have the same urge. How many of you actually browse around electrical stores and did not wish you own this oven/fridge/mixer/food processor/TV/hi-fi system? How about IKEA/Harvey Norman and wish you had that fancy lighting fixtures?

The only thing different is I’m doing this by myself. I’m doing what most married people out there share or paid for. So yeah, most of you are paying for 1 car and 2 houses,  or 2 cars and 1 house. I’m paying and dealing the fuss exactly the same on my own.

There were times I wish I have someone. It took me 2 or 3 trips from the car trunk to the apartment to unload my bi-weekly grocery shopping. I wish to go home to someone. I wish I can mengadu about the stress at work at someone. I wish to cook and bake for someone. I wish someone would like the curtain I sew last week and praises me like there’s no tomorrow even if the curtain senget sebelah. I wish to show off my running certificates and medals to someone, “Lookie lookie, this is something I earn, sweat and blood, are you proud of me?”. I wish to chat with someone before I sleep.

But there were times, when I think I don’t need someone. I’m happy that I get to choose my own furniture. I get to choose my own dining table. I get to choose my own curtain color shades. I can cook the egg the way I want it. I can hangout with my guy friends without having to explain to anyone why I need to consult them on girls thing. I can do things that many people regard as uncommon. I can do long distance running, swimming, white water rafting and go on a trip alone. I don’t have to deal with guilt, I don’t have to hide anything from anyone. I can be myself.

I wonder if  I really have to forgo things in the 4th paragraph so I can get things on the 5th. Does that mean I have to forget being with anyone so I can be myself. Like wow. Seriously?

I guess I’m okay with this. I’ve lived without TV for the past 9 months. But there was this day when the internet connection was down for 2 hours. So yeah, I did menggelupur. I concluded then, as long as there’s internet connection, I’ll be okay.

But then someone on facebook posted this link.

Teacher who couldn’t swim becomes an international triathlete… and loses four stone in as many months.

Quoting from the article:

“Melanie also said her husband Mark, 45, had been a huge motivator.

She said: ‘Mark is really proud of me, he’s my number one superstar. Without him I couldn’t be where I am now.”


Someone please convince me, I don’t need a number one superstar, to go that far?