Growing Up Together; My Big Sis and I

Can’t believe it has been almost a year since I last wrote something here. I do have so many things to write, but I rarely use my iPad. Why does it matter? Well, because for blogging, I still and will always prefer typing on keyboard rather than keypad, hence the iPad.

So today is my big sister’s birthday and I guess I finally have a strong reason to find time to write something here. She’s four years older than me and that means she turns 42 this year. Alhamdulillah. In my birthday wish for her in our family group today, I did mention this sentence: “terima kasih jadi kakak yang sangat baik” coz she definitely is! Allahumma baarik.

Me & elder sis. Terengganu.

I can still remember how she never felt that it’s embarrassing to bring a little sister everywhere she goes to hang out with friends. To think of it, it’s actually funny that she brought me along with her even to meet her besties at their homes. You can ask me about them, I know their names, their details and even their siblings’ names. 😂 

My sister was such a chatty person (with someone she’s comfortable with) and that’s why she talked about literally everything to me. I remember when we were during primary school, mom used to scold us for kept getting carried away with our crappy conversations and delayed our prayers because of that. Astaghfirullahal ‘adzim. 

As I get older, I realized that what my sister did (bringing me everywhere) was something very thoughtful and amazing. It was something that I never see her friends did. And I myself never did that! 

The day she got married. ;’)

Well, as for me it’s because me and my younger sister has a huge age gap between us which is; 14 years. I was already staying in a hostel when she was born hence the bond we had wasn’t as close as what I had with my elder sister, unfortunately. 

Back to my elder sister, I think one of the reasons we are so close is because we’ve spent many years living in the same room. She’s my best friend and she’s the one who understands every lame joke I make. And as millenials, we enjoyed watching a lot of TV series & movies in every language possible; Malay, English, Chinese (Singapore/Hong Kong/Taiwan), Tamil, Hindi, Japanese, Indonesian. 

Sometimes when we loved a movie so much, we would watch it again and again till we memorize the script by heart and would act as if we were the main characters. 😂 We enjoyed watching our favorite shows on TV, VCRs, and CDs. And not to forget, we spent a lot of time too, listening to the radio at night as well as our favorite boy bands’s cassettes. 

Little sis, big sis and me. <3

Oh how I wish I can go back to those times for a while. They were perfect, because all siblings lived under one roof and our parents were with us, healthy and strong. 😢 Little did I know that getting older somehow means you’ll miss your past even more and it hurts. 

I still have so many things to write about me and my sisters but I guess I need to stop here for now. Hopefully this post won’t be the only post for this year. 

Well, till we meet again. ❤️ 

A Beautiful Mind

Bismillah. 

Watched a beautiful and inspiring movie with my husband just now. The title is A beautiful Mind, based on a true story of a Professor named John Nash. I rarely watch movies but this movie is an exception. 

In brief, he was a genius student (then a professor and won Nobel prize on 1994- hey I was 7 at that time!) in the field of economics and mathematics and obviously numbers fascinate him a lot. To cut the story short, he suffered from scizophrenia and he found out about it shortly after he got married to his student; Alicia.

I don’t wanna write a lot about the story, so if you are interested to know, just head on to wikipedia and read the synopsis. What I wanna share here is about the lessons I learned from it;

1) mental illness can happen to anyone including genius and smart people. 

2) having a mental illness isn’t embarassing and it’s not a choice. 

3) Some mental illness patients might feel afraid or ashamed to let others know about their condition but it’s quite helpful if they let people aware about it. Those who aren’t afraid to share about their struggle to healing, are indeed strong and resilient. 

4) Mentall illness doesn’t only affect the patient, but the caretaker or the people living with them as well. So it’s of paramount importance for them to learn how to live with these patients, and more importantly, how to make them feel supported in their journey to recovery. 

5) The first brave thing to do for a person with mental illness is to admit they have it, and the second is; to seek help. 

6) Certain mental illness can’t be healed and the patient just have to live with it forever. And the only choice they have is to fight it and to learn how to control themselves whenever the illness strikes. 

7) Never give up to fight for our life, no matter what tests are being given. And it’s totally worth it to keep on doing the best that we can, with what we have, in the condition we are in. 

8) Love can make us strong, love can help us to heal.

9) To sacrifice for our beloved ones, is always worth it. 

10) No matter what we experience in our life, add meaning to it.  

Before I stop, I wanna leave you with this lyrics;

All Love Can Be (from the wife to her sick husband)

I will watch you in the darkness 
Show you love will see you through 
When the bad dreams wake you crying 
I'll show you all love can do 
All love can do 

I will watch through the night 
Hold you in my arms 
Give you dreams where no one will be 
I will watch through the dark 
Till the morning comes 

For the lights will take you 
Through the night to see 
All love, showing us all love can be 

I will guard you with my bright wings 
Stay till your heart learns to see 
All love can be.

Resilient

 Bismillah.

A quick update. Just wanna share my current favorite word; resilient.

All this while I think the meaning is to be strong while facing challenges and life's adversity, but it actually means more than that. 

Resilience means; 

the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

And someone who's resilient is;

able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

Beautiful, isn't it? Being strong doesn't mean that we don't feel the hardship, the pain or the suffering. We do feel it, but we manage to recover from it quickly and we don't let ourselves drowning in the difficulties without having the intention to truly heal.

And, this word actually has something to do with one of my current jobs. You'll find out about it really soon inshaAllah.

Till then, goodbye! 

Sleepy but Wanna Write Something

Bismillah.

Before this, I planned to make this blog as a niche blog regarding book, reading and such. But as time goes by, I think it's not a good idea since I have no time to properly curate the content that I wanna share here. Perhaps Reading Muslimah IG is enough for bookish stuffs.

As for this blog, I wanna continue writing randomly about anything I want. As what I used to do since years ago. One day all these writings will be significant, no matter how random it is. And I love to think that one day when Majdiyya and Ajda grew up, they will feel happy to read their Mama's ramblings here. 

My current work update;

- got a job from a publication company, as a content writer for their new book campaign. You'll love the book!

- Started my responsibility/job as product ambassador of a Quran seller. Though this is my first time being an ambassador, this ambassador thingy is one of the things that I have knowledge regarding it. 

- As for Elsajida, I already stopped accepting any paid product review on IG story. I have a few strong reasons why I did so. And I only accept gift review for certain products. So far I don't have any big plans for Elsajida yet, just continue updating inspiring quotes and stories. When the time is right, inshaAllah we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I have to stop now. I am sleepy and it's time for me to sleep, not rant. 

 

Of Reading Muslimah, Elsajida & Journaling Muslimah

Change in my life has forgotten how to press its brake. It keeps coming and coming and I have no choice but to be strong and resilient. 

This month, I have made the decision to partially let go of Reading Muslimah. Sure I am still a big part of it but I am no longer the content creator nor the admin. I have told Safa that she has to take the responsibility since I need to focus on my dream, on my work. 

Of course Reading Muslimah is my dream too, like I said before I am still the founder, the advisor, the heart of it. It's just that I am no longer the 'Kak RM' people used to call. I have given a big portion of the company share to Safa as well. 

I trust Safa on this. She has been my 'student' for more than a year and I believe she can figure it out. To prove this, she recently asked 3 most committed members of Reading Muslimah to help her to navigate the journey of Reading Muslimah. Each and every one of them (Siqah, Faraa & Aliyah) has their own strength to help Reading Muslimah to expand, inshaAllah. 

As for Elsajida, I have stopped some big things regarding it in order to lessen my time, energy and focus on it. I have no intention to stop updating Elsajida since it's my passion; which is to inspire women out there. And Elsajida is the perfect place for me to do so. So far, I will only use Elsajida as a place for me to update Islamic & inspiring quotes. And the quotes aren't designed or prepared by me. I ask my daughter to help. I plan to properly hire someone to help me regarding Elsajida but, not in the meantime. 

I let go of more and more things that I think I have to let go. I just can't deny that in order to succeed, I have to FOCUS on one thing. I don't wanna be 'neither here nor there'. And what's that one thing? It's Journaling Muslimah. I am doing my best for it. From the early days I create it, I can already see its potential to grow worldwide. My goal isn't money; it's sharing about Quran and at the same time, improving my relationship with Quran. 

May Allah ease. 

New Place

Bismillah.

First post for 2020 huh?

Despite the immense changes that I face this year (other than covid19 for sure).

Just a quick update, it has been a few months since I no longer live in KL.

For good? Wallahua'lam.

Only the closest people in my life know about this. And you. :)

Alhamdulillah I am happy and grateful at this new place I call home.

I do miss KL sometimes, but not to the extend that it can make me sad.

I am grateful, I truly am.


Till then, Assalamualaikum. <3

7 Steps To Make Your Kids Love Reading

Bismillah.

Before this I have shared a few tips on reading to your baby here. But now, let me share with you the important steps that we as parents can do to instill the love for reading in our kids hearts. Hopefully this can help a lot of parents out there.

1) Read aloud to them.

This can be started as early as they were born. It is proven that kids that get exposed to reading at earlier age will grasp more vocabularies compared to those who start late.

2) Parents as example. 

Kids see, kids imitate, kids do. It's known that our kids do more of what they see from us, than what we tell them to do. So parents, find time in your busy daily schedule to read and make sure your kids see it.

3) Buy books regarding stuffs they love.

If your kids love animals, buy them more animals books, if they love vehicles, buy books that has lots of vehicles picture in it, and so on so forth.

4) Buy special books for them during special occasions.

You can either buy books as a present for them during their birthday or other day that you feel like buying something for them as special rewards.

5) Bookstore/library visit as routine.

Every time your family go to the mall or spend time together outside home, make sure you bring the kids to the local bookstores or libraries. It doesn't matter whether you buy books or not, just make sure you let them feel the joy in spending time with books.

6) Make a mini library at home.

Having a mini library at home is a must for every family who wish to make reading as their habit. After all, the best decoration in a home is bookshelf, isn't it? ;) If possible, make a special corner or special bookshelf only for kids books, separated from adults' books. And make sure your kids can reach for their books easily.

7) Put books in scattered places at home. 

You might put them in a basket, then place a few in living room, a few in playing pen, or any other places that you desire and you know your kids spend a lot of time there. Even if you don't use basket, you can just stack the books on the floor/table at a special corner.

Try these and inshaAllah you'll see how fast your kids will love books and reading.

A Special Ramadan, indeed.

Bismillah.

Alhamdulillah Allah has given me the chance to meet Ramadan again this year. For me, this Ramadan is the best Ramadan I've gone through so far. (Will make it more special next year inshaAllah). The main reason why I said so is because; there are a few important things that I have done on Ramadan this year, that I've never done them before. I am not going to write down every single thing that has made my ramadan this year very special, since many of them are quite personal, but some of them are as follows;

1) A detailed planning for my Ramadan, written a few days before Ramadan. I write every single thing that I planned to do during Ramadan, in term of ibadah, family, food, social medias, reading and so on. One thing I can say about Ramadan planning is; it's very vital. It helps a lot. I used to think that I will be so busy during Ramadan with my business (Elsajida) and won't have lots of time to read Quran but I was totally wrong! Once I made proper planning like this, MashaAllah Alhamdulillah, I realized I do have enough (even extra) times to read Quran & I even read more books this Ramadan compared to other months, despite my busy schedule.I will make sure that next year I will make my Ramadan planning a few weeks before Ramadan arrives, inshaAllah

2) I started writing in Quran journal. It's such a great feeling to be able to do Quran journaling. It helps me in improving my relationship with alQuran. I feel closer to it mashaAllah. I didn't write everyday coz honestly it's really hard to find time to properly sit on chair at my study table and write something in my journal. But I still managed to write once in a while Alhamdulillah.

3) This year, I learned a lot of new info about making dua. Little did I know that there are so much more things regarding making prayers than just asking something from Allah. And one of the new stuffs I learned from sis Ayesha Syahira from her book (Being A Quran Tag Girl), we have to construct a dua list. That's one of the proves that we are really serious about making prayers to Allah, and so that we won't forget what we want to pray every time we make du'a. This prayer list is extra important during the ten last night of Ramadan. Thanks to sis Ayesha for teaching us on how to be more serious about making dua.

4) Slowed down from social media. I signed off from my personal instagram (IG) during the ten last days. I didn't sign off from Facebook or Twitter because honestly I rarely spend my time there. My biggest problem is instagram. I am active there and scrolled IG newsfeed a lot. So I guessed taking a rest from it for 10 days will be a great move to be done. Alhamdulillah I am glad I did it. 

5) In majority days of Ramadan this year, I managed to eat less during iftar than I used to. And saved lots of money and time since I go to masjid for iftar. So I usually eat dates and 1-2 kuih before performing solat Maghrib, and eat rice right after that. I can say that eating like in normal days for iftar is totally enough and adequate. We don't have to eat more than usual days just because we are fasting. In fact, after we fast, our stomach has gotten used to eat less. I don't wanna teach my kids that Ramadan is a food feast month, instead it's a month of Ibadah feast. 

6) I managed to read more books than the other months, Alhamdulillah! I usually put 5 books maximum in my every month TBR (to be read) list. And yes, I did plan to read 5 books too this month but I have extra time to read one more books, and in sum, I read 6 books. Alhamdulillah. 6 books a month might sounds very little to those who are able to read more than 10 books monthly. But as for a budding mumpreneur like me, these amount is good enough. Thank you Allah.

That's all for now. May Allah give us chance to meet Laylatul Qadr this year inshaAllah. <3

Always in My Prayers.

Bismillah.

I was chit chatting with my husband today, about the one close friend that I have, that one close friend that out of nowhere, seems to avoid me & suddenly chose silence over conversation with me. It really hurts me till today to think about it, mainly because just a few months before that, we were close, closer than a few years before.

The wound in my heart gets deeper because I really can't figure out why she's avoiding me? It's kinda impossible & never does it cross my mind that this kind of situation will happen. However, I try to convince myself very hard that she must have her own reasons for doing that. And actually I do believe that she's currently battling against something and somehow she prefers to seclude herself from majority of her friends.

Well, actually that's not really what I wanna share in this post. Instead it's about the short conversation I had with my husband earlier today;

"She updated in her ig story that she's sick." I said.

"And you didn't say anything to her? No 'tanya khabar'? No 'get well soon'?" he asked.

"No. I am afraid she won't reply, and more afraid if my message will annoy her." I feel bad for having to answer this way.

"It's better if you show her that you care. She might be in a difficult phase of her life, and this is the time you are supposed to let her feel that you really care & she really matters to you," suggested him.

*silence*

"I have been in the phase where I was so down & at that time, there was only this one friend of mine that keeps contacting me though most of the time I just remained silent. Hardships usually tell us who's our real friend." He continued.

"But I am still afraid that she won't like it if she sees any messages from me. Of course I am dying to keep in touch with her, meeting her like we used to do before," I feel like crying while saying this.

"I understand your concern, but, it's not harmful to try to initiate the conversation first. Or at least make her feel you care. Regarding her response, it's up to her. You just do what you can." His words slowly enter deep into my heart.

"I will try. I will. InshaAllah."

Honestly, I never thought that I will still have friendship issues in this age (almost 32). Kinda funny but it's reality. As we grow older, some of the things just get more complicated and somehow it's hard for everyone to catch up with each and every friend. And sometimes, it's just the matter of timing, where certain right things might seem wrong when they're in not in the perfect timing.

Whatever it is. I think it's best for us to keep praying for our friends. Because perhaps we don't know the battle that they are having. It's of paramount importance that we try to put our emotions aside and think in a mature way about our friends. Do what we can do to help, even if it means that the only help we can offer is to pray sincerely for them in silence.

How to Improve Your English

Bismillah.

I have been receiving questions on how to improve our skills in English, especially for speaking & writing. So I guess it will be better if I write my answer here, easy for you to refer, and easy for me too, since I won't have to repeat the same answer. Anyway, first let me remind you that I am still improving my English too, so if you happen to see any grammatical errors in my post, kindly excuse me, for I am still learning. :)


Basically, for every skill in this world that we want to acquire or improve, there's one compulsory thing to do; practice. So, if you want to improve you writing skill, by hook or by crook, you have to write, a lot. And same goes to improving your speaking skill; practice speaking. Speak whenever you have chance. I'll elaborate more after this. But you get me right? There's no magical way to attain a skill & be good at it, except by practicing it, again & again, with the right method.


Now what you need to do when I say that you have to practice writing? Up to you, as long as you make yourself used to writing in English. It's even more easy in this modern world, because you have so many virtual places that you can practice writing; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blogspot, Tumblr and many other social media. (If you prefer the pen & paper method, great then).


Do you feel embarrassed that you might make mistakes? No problem, as a start, you can set the audience only to yourself, or make a new account that's set to private and only you (or a few other people) can view it. Because the goal from this practice isn't really to let people read your idea, but to let you practice writing, to make your hands & mind get used to jotting down whatever you have in your mind.


As for me, I started practicing thoroughly to write in English when I was 17, it was 14 years ago, the year I need to sit for my SPM. I was given tasks by my English mentor to write an essay every week, and submit the essay to her, which I was asked to sit down for exactly one hour (to get used to the time length for exam) and make sure I finish an essay.


At first it was not an easy task, I had to force myself a lot, but eventually it got easier. And after SPM, I've decided to have a blog as a place for me to improve my writing skill. As the technology is getting more advanced, I have so many social media accounts, I use them to help me improve my writing. It's okay if you feel like you're writing craps at first, we all do anyway. Just start. :)


I wanna share how I used to write during my early days of blogging, and how it really helped me. I usually created a draft of my blog entry in Microsoft Words. When I write there, it will notify me whenever I make spelling mistakes or grammatical errors in my sentences. And more importantly, Microsoft Words will recommend better (or bombastic?) phrases for me to use in my sentences. You can try this too.


Now let's move to speaking. Honestly, there's no other way to be able to speak in English, other than to actually speak in that language. Having good skills in writing/listening/reading English isn't a guarantee that we will automatically be good in speaking. If our tongue rarely speaks English, we will never be good in speaking English, no matter how good we are in writing English. Because writing & speaking are two different skills.


And I have to admit that, my speaking skill isn't as good as my writing, perhaps because I write more than I speak in English. (Only speak in English with my daughter, obviously the vocabularies used aren't as much as those in written texts).


If I don't speak much in English, then when did I actually learn speaking? Since I was small, I really love to read English books loudly.  I am sure it helps me to let my tongue get used to say English words. Other than that, it's important too to speak to yourself in English. Not necessarily in front of a mirror, you can even practice it while lying down. Choose any topic that you want, and then talk to yourself in English.

Lots of people say they learn a lot from watching movies & listening to English songs. I am not sure how much it helps, because I don't learn English through movie or songs. However, I don't deny that we can improve our vocabularies and listening skill by doing so. :)

Anyway, another final note to add, for writing, I benefited a lot from my readings. I learn new words, how to construct sentences, phrases, idioms, and many more. As for speaking, listening to other people speaking (in my case, I love listening to English motivational talk or Islamic lectures) helped me a lot in improving my speaking skill. So I guess, these four skills- reading/writing/speaking/listening can't be separated if we want to improve our language proficiency.

Till then,
Bye!

7 Important Tips on How to Read to Your Baby

Bismillah.

Everytime I share photos of my daughters on Instagram, and it happens that my eldest daughter is reading in that photo, I will get this kind of question;

"What did you do to make her love reading so much?"

And I usually don't have enough time to reply properly every time I was asked that question, because the answer isn't simply in one sentence. So I guess I need to write down here some of the tips that I applied and (Alhamdulillah it worked) hopefully others can benefit from them too.

So, the first thing is; START EARLY. Even when our baby can't comprehend what we say yet, just read, read & read to them. This is one of the most important things that we need to do in order to instill the love for books in our children's hearts.

Since I was pregnant to my firstborn, I had always hoped that 'reading' will be one of my kids' favorite thing & one of the earliest thing that I want them to fall in love with. Why? Because being a muslim, I know that the first revelation from God to the prophet is to read. Definitely there must be a very big reason why Allah asks us to read first.

Okay let me just start with the tips on How to Read So Our Babies Will Listen and feel interested;

1) Put our baby on lap. This is for bonding reason as well as for teaching them on how a book is read.

2) Choose a colorful book with very minimal words. You don't necessarily need to read every words written in the book, you can choose to use your own words, or choose to describe everything in the page. This will help our baby to learn lots of new vocabularies.

3) Read in different tones, but make sure the tone can be differentiated easily. For example, excited tone for happy content/stories and sad/crying tone for sad content. This will make the reading session becomes much more interesting and fun. Plus, don't forget to make the sound of everything possible that you can make regarding the page that you read! (e.g: sound of a car or strong wind)

4) If possible, replace the character's name with our baby's name. This will make them feel more attracted to listen to what we read & they will be more focused.

5) Choose a big book, with pictures that our baby can clearly see & touch, hence feeling excited.

6) Ask questions to our baby regarding what we read, so that there'll be an interaction. For example, ask our baby about elephant; "Can you make the sound of an elephant?" & then you answer it without waiting for them to answer. This kind of interaction can actually help our baby to develop better in the language that we use.

7) Read when our baby is in a good mood (fed, well rested). I think every mother can easily know when their baby is happy, comfortable, and not sleepy. Avoid reading to them if we see that our baby is uncomfortable or even cry when we start reading to them.

That's all for now. Don't feel stress, don't force yourself or your baby too much, try little by little, and eventually it will be worth it. Pertaining to the question on how to make our kids love books, I think I have to make a new blog post regarding it. Because we need to know how to read to them first, before making them fall in love with books & reading. So, till the next time, bye!

7 Reading Tips for Busy Moms

Reading is not merely a hobby. It’s a need! We read not only for leisure, but to help us to improve ourselves, improve our lives, as well as to gain more knowledge regarding the situation or responsibilities that we currently hold. I keep getting this one same question on how do I find times to read?

So I wanna share here some of the tips that I’ve found & been practicing since a few years back in order to make sure that I have time to read everyday.

1)  Read when your kids are asleep. For example, spend half an hour in the morning to read before they wake up. Believe me, it’s the the best me-time moment to be spent with reading. Or perhaps you can read at night after the kids are asleep. Just a few minutes or pages won’t disturb your sleeping schedule. And it’s a bonus if you breastfeed your baby, because you will have longer time to read. Stop scrolling your instagram/fb feed & start flipping pages to read.

2)  Always have your books in scattered areas around the house. Put a few books at the dry kitchen, a shelf in the living room, a stack beside your bed, or 10 stacks on your working table. This can help you to read at any time even for a few minutes. For example, while waiting for your cupcakes to bake, you can enjoy reading a chapter or two from any books available near you.

3) Never go out without a book in your handbag. If you really want, you will definitely find time to read books. In the car (if you’re not driving), in the train, while waiting for the grab/uber, while waiting for your foods to arrive your table, or while queueing to order your favorite coffee.

4)  Read lots of books at once. Meaning to say, you don’t have to wait till you’re done with one book in order to proceed with another one. (But if you’re reading novels, the game might be a bit different since leaving the book for a long period of time will make you forget the flow of the story). If you ask me, I rarely ready novels or fictional books, so it doesn’t affect me much if I don’t read a certain book continuously till the last page.

5) Read the topic that you really want to know & can apply right away. Hey, do you know that you don’t have to read a book from cover to cover? You can simply look at the content and choose the topic which is new to you, or important for you to know. It will be much better if you read about the stuffs that you can practice right away. Let’s take a parenting book for example; you are in need to know the correct way to deal with your kids tantrum. You can read the topics that are related to your situations or needs only. Because, admit it, you won’t remember the whole book even at the moment you finished reading the last page of it.

6) Make a reading log/diary. Have a list of your “want to read”, “read” & “currently reading”. You can make it online (eg: make an account at Goodreads) or offline (buy a book to jot down your reading journey). Why? Because when you have this log, it can help you to be more motivated to read books. Sometimes it’s not that we’re so busy to read, we just haven’t found the motivation to do so.

7) Find the books that you’re really passionate about. Don’t buy a book just because it’s a bestseller. Buy it if you love it & really excited to read it, doesn’t matter if it’s not a bestseller book. As for me, since I am mompreneur (mom + entrepreneur), my most favorite genres are parenting, entrepreneurship & motivation. So when we already have the book that we really love available near us, it’s not so hard to actually spend time to take the book and read it.

Hope these help! 😄 If you have any tips to add, feel free to drop it the comment section.

From Canada with Love

Bismillah.

Quick update before sleeping. Just wanna make sure that the brand new old story that I heard from Abah yesterday is recorded here. Nothing really, it's just about me when I was a tiny newborn.

We were actually having our dinner when suddenly the topic about going to Korea next year (on February) is being discussed. Ma (my mom) wants to go there badly before my brother who's now studying there graduates & returns to Malaysia for good. Abah said he feels reluctant to go in the current situation where his father is heavily sick. I understand & respect his decision, so Abah suggested me to accompany Ma and I said no problem. Haha. Of course I wanna go there. But! Oh no I forgot that I can't make it as well if the trip is on February. If it's on June and above, inshaAllah I can. But, sobs....

Oh wait, that's not what I wanted to share here! Okay after having a talk about Korea, Abah said that he doesn't really feel excited about going overseas, because when he was younger he already traveled to a few countries & for him it's enough. He told us that he already went to Canada, US, India & Pakistan when we lived in Scotland. Oh I didn't know that? Only heard about Canada but not the other countries.

I felt interested to know about Abah's journeys to those places but one point that really caught my attention is when Abah told me that he got my name in Canada, a friend of his suggested that name to him while he was there. So I asked Abah,

"You weren't there on the day I was born?"

Abah answered,

"Of course I was there, but a few days after you were born, I fly to Canada. Leaving your mom & older siblings in the care of Allah. And only after returning from Canada did I register your name; Sajidah- the woman who prostrates to her God."

Can you guess what is the one point that really makes me amazed & in awe? It's the strength of my mom for being able to handle 3 kids + 1 newborn ALONE in a country far from Malaysia. And to think how she managed to spend the confinement period almost 100% on her own, only with the help from Allah, mashaAllah she's truly an inspiration.

Somehow the story of my dad being absent during the first days of my life, making me feel that I can relate that situation to my current life; the strength that my mom had during those days has actually transferred into myself & maybe that's the reason why I am strong as well. ;) Not praising myself though, it's just that I feel that after getting married and being a mom myself, I have been in lotsa situations where I need to be independent for my daughter & be strong for the sake of my family.

Whatever it is, I feel good to know about that short story from Abah. It really reminds me that I have to be strong & not easily give up because I am the only one responsible to travel my own journey called life.

Sorry this entry is not as short as I thought it would be. 😂 It's already 12am and it's time for me to sleep. Got an appointment tomorrow morning.

Till then, goodnight!

Raising a Young Writer

Bismillah.

Earlier today, I posted a pic of my daughter's first essay. It's about her experience going to the Zoo. I asked her to write what she saw, what she did and with whom did she go there. Apparently she only wrote about the animals that she saw there, PLUS she wrote it in English & some Malay. Hahahah.

She switches code and that's normal for a bilingual kid like her (but she's a trilingual in the making actually). Wait, is it normal? Because I only know that code-switching is normal in verbal conversations, what about in writing? It's okay, it's a learning process anyway.

I am actually trying to teach my daughter to write. I wanna raise her as a good writer. No, not a writer as a job for sure. But I want her to be good in telling/sharing stories, as well as expressing what she feels. I always feel that kids who are good in writing, somehow are well mannered and matured earlier than other kids in the same age but not used to writing.

Do you know Mukhtar, the writer from Pawsome Lion blog? He's a young blogger. If I am not mistaken, he's 11. And he's incredibly well mannered, matured and a good brother to his little siblings. (And I think it has something to do with his writing passion.) Everybody says so, you can follow his family's instagram: @thefamily.uk. They are Malaysians living abroad. Adorable family mashaAllah.

Okay back to the reason why I want my daughter to be good in writing in her early age. For me when someone writes, they need to think and ponder a lot. And in my honest opinion, a good writer is also a good observer.

We don't really have to read too many books in order to start to be a good writer, instead, we need to observe a lot, have ample of life experiences, besides practicing to write and write and write. Writing based on our own experiences will be much more from the heart and helps a lot to write better. However, of course I don't deny the importance of reading a lot to be able to become a good writer.

One of my ways to increase my daughter's interest towards writing is; to buy her a book specially for her to write about anything. Oh can't wait for it!

It's already Maghrib here, so, see you soon!

Of Sadness & Silence

In the train.

And I wanna try to write down something. It's about telling our sadness to other people. I feel triggered to write about this after I saw this one quote that says;

"Kesedihan itu mengecil jika dirahsiakan, dan membesar jika dikeluhkan..."

Isn't it true? When we keep trying to find someone to listen to our miseries and sad stories, the sadness somehow stays longer in the heart & we are drowned in it for quite a long time. And we kinda feel comfortable to stay in that gloomy feelings without having the effort to find the solution or at least to look for things that can distract our mind & soul to forget about it.

On the other hand, if we teach ourselves to tell God every time we are in grief, and at the same time we choose to keep the sadness to ourselves, we will feel better and realize that it's a whole lot easier to free ourselves from the sadness, as well as to avoid our souls to get carried away.

It's not wrong to share our sadness with others if we feel that it can help to ease our pain. But we need to be careful not to make ourself engrossed in that situation & feel incomplete whenever there's nobody available to listen to us.

Will write soon. The train almost reaches my destination. Bye :)

Cheesie Story

Bismillah.

Hi there. Don't you feel it's weird, that out of the blue, I update my blog like, a lot? Well, it's not that I suddenly got lots of free times. It's just that this one book makes me feel like blogging more & actually try to find time for it. And it kinda makes me reminiscing the time where I was so active in blogspot.

So this is the book;

How I Make A Living Blogging; A Very Cheesie Story

I am not sure why, but the moment I saw this book at MPH a few days ago, it suddenly struck me with an idea that I need to be an active blogger as well! But.... my problem is I don't really share good info here. Please pardon me. I just know that I need to update it & make it as a practice for me to write more and more and more, coz the only best way to be good in writing is to write more.

So I am really very sorry if the content of my blog is not all beneficial and might be filled with crappy personal stories of mine. (Hey, doesn't every good writer start with craps as well?) I just wanna make my blog alive & attractive. Nevertheless, I still hope that even though I write personal daily stories, they will give benefits to some people in some ways. 

I really can't separate myself from Blogger. No matter how many social media accounts that I have created & joined, Blogger is still one of my favourites. It has some sentimental values, and I can say that it somehow defines me. All my blogs, they tell different stories regarding different phases of my life. It's so lovely to be able to walk down the memory lane by reading all my writings one time ago. <3

InshaAllah I won't stop writing as long as I am alive. I am not all the time a serious person, that's why I decided not to share only serious contents here. I hope you enjoy all my writings & thank you so much for still reading my blog. 

Okay, it's already a new day & I can barely hold my eyes open. Goodnight! 

P/s: I still hope Blogger App for iPhone will be launched soon.

Beautiful Ramadhan

Bismillah.

I was about to doze off a few minutes ago, but suddenly I remembered that I haven't listed down the things that I need to settle tomorrow. So I got up from my bed and headed to my lovely table. I can't list them tomorrow coz it will be too late. So I am done with the list and there you go: 2 pages of tasks to be done! Phewww... Surely not only my tasks but it will include the whole team of El Sajida.

While I was writing down my tasks just now, I play the song about Ramadhan in youtube. I was actually looking for this one Ramadhan song which is so beautiful, sweet & no musical instruments used. But still, it sounds very nice to the mind and heart. I am not sure about the exact title but it's just written there: Beautiful Ramadhan Song 2015. I am quite sure that's not the title though. I keep repeating that song again & again and it really makes me feel that I have to appreciate this month of blessing more, before it ends. :'(

This reminds me of one lecture regarding Ramadhan which says that the analogy of Ramadhan is; you are given 2 hours to legally take any amount of money from the bank which for sure stores millions and billions! What are you going to do with that 2 hours given? Well, no need to answer it since we all know the answer already. If you say you aren't going to take as much as you could, I'd say you are crazy. Haha. Pardon me but that's the reality.

And that's what happens to Ramadhan. Allah gave us 30 days and let us grab as many rewards as we could from this month, moreover, the deeds done in this month will get double, triple or even more rewards mashaAllah. We might not see the rewards with our eyes now, but later in the Hereafter we will, inshaAllah. Just believe that all these rewards are much more valuable than the money at the bank and keep on struggling to increase the good deeds.

9 days of Ramadhan already left us & a few more days ahead, the days are there but it is not confirmed yet that we will get the chance to finish the 30 days of Ramadham. Coz at any point of time, we can die if our time has come.

O Allah, please give us strength to keep on doing the good deeds, and please, save us from our dark side. Only You can help us O Allah.

This is the song. :) 

Ayah Jo a.k.a Prof Joni Tamkin

Bismillah.

Alhamdulillah, for being given the time & chance to write something in my Facebook regarding the death of late Professor Joni Tamkin a.k.a Ayah Jo (he was my husband's uncle). You can read it here if you like: HERE. Every time I am able to write, a satisfaction will suddenly reside in heart. Thank you Allah.

I don't intend to write the same thing here, and initially I was thinking of writing about something else in blog. Somehow, my current feeling doesn't really the suit with the theme of the particular post that I want to write. Kinda having such a melancholic feeling, thinking about the sudden death of Ayah Jo. :'(

And to top it all, this tiny little heart grieves more when I try to put myself in the shoe of late Ayah Jo's wife; Che Na. I wonder whether I will be as strong as her to lose a dear husband without being given any signs or warning about death. I was thinking how Che Na slept on that final night with her husband, without having any idea that the next day, her life will change, a lot.

This teaches me to really appreciate the presence of those beloved people to us. Have you ever wonder, how remorseful the feeling will be if the person that you love dies during the bad term between both of you, without being given the chance to apologize to each other? Allahuakbar, I can't imagine that and I really pray that such thing will never happen to me. I will always remind myself that I need to be the best version of myself whenever I am dealing with the people I love, especially my family.

Ya Allah, I do & really hope that the passing of late Ayah Jo is a great reminder for me to change to be a better muslim & become steadfast in the right path. I don't want to die while Allah is not please with me. I wanna die in husnul khatimah. I want the barzakh life to be my resting place,before transferring to my final abode, Jannah inshaAllah.

Sorry I need to stop writing now. InshaAllah will write more. :) Thanks for reading. <3

Updated My Another Blog!

Bismillah.

Just so you know, I have already updated my bilingual blog, finally! Haha thanks to Timah The Little Miss Diva. Who's Timah by the way? Click here to know! http://bilingual-ummi.blogspot.my/2017/03/lots-of-mix-tapi-kecek-kelate.html

Last Day of January

Finally the 31 days of January has already passed. And now it's going to leave us for a long period of time before it returns. I don't really have any idea of what to write, but I just know that I need to update something here before the month changes to February.

Oh, wait. If I am not mistaken, a few years ago I have written in this blog about my prayer during my 30th birthday. I am gonna screenshot it and paste it down there after a while.

2 years ago.

Alhamdulillah, I think Allah has answered that prayer. He gave me strength though He tested me again and again. And Alhamdulillah those tests had made me grow even stronger. Thank you Allah, for always be there for me, during each & every time I need You... 

I wrote in that post that I pray to be surrounded by the people who love me, but now I think, I don't wanna ask that anymore, I wanna ask Allah to make me appreciate those people who love me. It's okay if the quantity is very little, as long as I value their existences and they can feel my care & love towards them. 

Bye January. See you next year inshaAllah.