When He Is Again One More Year Older
As you can see, the date above is actually rewound back since I wanted to save the real date of when the occasion happened. I was pretty LAZY for the past few days and might be due to the 'hard works' making the preparations for the mini birthday celebration, I was finally exhausted. Previously, there were many circumstances had taken place starting from the changing of weather to gloomy days due to the Japan typhoon Man-yi which hit southern Japan about 2 weeks ago and followed by powerful 6.8 magnitude Chu-etsu Earthquake which shook northwest coast of Japan quite more than 1 week ago. Equivalently with the changing of mother nature from time to time, same thing went on to heart-shaped-island in me; from lazy to non-productive to unmotivated to miserable to hopeless to happy to motivated to hopeful and to BUSY again.
As I said there were many things had happened, not only from the mother nature but also within my own life. Frankly, I couldn't wait to highlight some of them in here though they could be a bit outdated already. Really, I have so many things to think further, tell, share and express. But, I have to go accordingly with first thing first so I better save other matters for my next entry or entries. So today I would want to concentrate only on update about hubby's birthday celebration which took place recently. As an overall, the birthday went on successfully despite of several small flaws here and there. Everything was simple and nothing really fancy. I just did whatever I could do with whatever I had on hands within my own sweet time and particularly, I concentrated to ensure that the basic elements were there and the right mood or feeling be created along the way.
On the Saturday, July 7th, 2007, I woke up quite early to run some errands. After having breakfast I did some cleaning in the house like sweeping, wiping and vacuuming. Ouh it was the turn for my vacuum to break down. Last time it was the mixer and I wonder what is next sigh..... . In the evening, we went out to the nearest convenient store and second-hand shop. We thought of surveying for a small hand-cleaner because our vacuum still can be used only that the hose part is broken so I can't use it to vacuum between narrow spaces anymore. However we ended up buying a rack instead :P After that we went to the nearest suppa to buy some groceries and I managed to grab some necessary items for the birthday preparation. Well, despite of having many things to deal with, I still could have some time to get into fight with hubby at that time and we both got sulked. But that didn't go on long since I coaxed him back during the night and remembering that I shouldn't be the ruiner of his day. I never uttered a word about his birthday before this except in my previous entry, and I knew he read a few parts of the entry before he stopped when I caught him reading it. Only later when I coaxed him I did tease him about his coming birthday by asking whether he wanted a cake or not, what kind of cake he wanted me to make, what meal he wanted to have and whether he wanted me to put candles on his cake or not. He answered me sheepishly and blushingly, of course hehehe :D
On the Sunday, July 8th, 2007, I woke up quite early than usual and did some laundry. After having lunch and he had settled with his business with the pc, we went to another suppa to buy some more groceries. Firstly we went to a d.i.y store to survey for a vacuum and it ended up with me buying some fancy papers and a few more cooking utensils. Well, funnily for the fancy hard papers I did ask him which color of the papers were beautiful and which ones to buy. Of course he asked me back doubtedly for what I wanted to but those papers. I just laughed and he just left smiling acting as if he didn't understand hehehe ;P I planned to make a card for him using the papers and it was quite funny for the fact that he would have to pay by himself for the card he would get hahaha ;P In fact, it was all about his money starting from the ingredients to make the cake and the meal bla bla bla towards the lighter used for lighting up the candle. I was so glad and somehow I was touched too by him being quite sporting for making me enjoy making him happy. Can you understand it? :)
In the evening I checked on the recipes again and only during that last minute I noticed about the kind of flour used to make the chocolate sponge cake and of course I didn't have and didn't even know where to find it. I tried to find other chocolate sponge cake recipe and fortunately I found quite a similar kind of cake and that recipe listed all the ingredients that were available. By the time I started, it was already a little bit late. I cooked laksa first for our dinner. Although growing up by being a laksa sucker, that was only my first time handling laksa noodle myself. My mom sent 3 packets of dried laksa noodles together with other food stocks to me on last month since all these while I had been using udon as substitution of the right laksa noodle. The gravy for the laksa was superb and all I had to do left was to soften the dried laksa noodle and I failed with the should-be-super-easy step! It took hours for me to soften my laksa but still it didn't become soft. Only a few days later when I called my mom, she said I should have boiled the noodle once I soaked it. But what I did was I used gallons of boiled water to soak the noodle and kept changing the water once it became cool again and again urghhh! I thought it was something wrong with the noodle and we continued to eat the hard half-cooked noodle anyway. As a result, I got ulcer for more than a week and could hardly chew while eating! Duh!
As for the cake, I tried to make it complete before the clock needle struck to 12.00 a.m but I didn't succeed. I consumed too much time juggling between the laksa noodle, weighing and mixing the ingredients, cooling the icing in the fridge, bla bla bla and so on and so forth. Besides, I did spill the gelatin mixture in the oven and I falsely mixed the ingredients for the chocolate mousse too. Hubby was sleeping and resting himself and of course I didn't want to bug him considering that it was going to be his day so he deserved some self pampering. However by the time he woke up, I was still 'fighting' in the kitchen and the kitchen really looked like after it had been bombed. He helped me running between things and I was already on the peak of breaking down hopelessly in fact I did cry a bit when I realized that my cake was far away more from being done. I felt so guilty, so sorry, so angry to myself and so ashame towards him that I couldn't manage to complete his cake before 12.00 midnight remembering that he managed to do so for me when it was on my birthday before. To cut the story short, I just wished him happy birthday, showered him with lost of hugs and kisses and of course sorries too while we were both still in the kitchen. Since it was already late, we had our laksa dinner and decided to continue on the cake tomorrow. I also told him that we would celebrate his birthday perfectly during tomorrow dinner. We slept only after Subuh prayer, at 3.15 a.m.
On the exact day of his birthday, Monday, July 9th, 2007. Hubby didn't go to work since it was his birthday holiday but still he went out early at about 9.00 a.m because he wanted to go to driving school. Since he will be taking driving test in order to change his International driving license and apply for a Japan driving license on this coming August, he decided to attend a 1 day driving class to dig and take notes for all the rigid important points. He wanted to attend the class since he will be taking the manual driving license test and of course he doesn't want to get failed again. Even the instructor once told him that there had never been anyone yet who took the manual driving test for the first time and straightly got passed. It would be very weird if he/ she did because the test is indeed very strict and rigid and they normally never gave a 'pass' to the first timer. I don't know about any other parts in Japan, but in here; it is. At least the instructor himself said so. But this situation only applied on manual driving test and not on automatic driving test. He called me during the noon when I was working on the cake and told me his session would start at 1.00 p.m so he will be coming back a bit late. In the meantime at home, I finally done with the cake after hours playing with the icing. It would only be a few minutes work for an expert but for me, the so-little decorating work took like forever to complete phew! After that, I continued to prepare for some special dinner meal. Hubby called me again at about 4.00 p.m telling that he found a bowling center which having a promotion so he decided to play alone for a while. I said, poor to my baby for having to celebrate his birthday by playing bowling alone huhuhu :(
By the time hubby got back, I was still dealing with the foods preparation. He was prohibited from opening the fridge and I could see that he was overjoyed to see his birthday cake hehehe :D He rested himself and fell asleep after a whole tiring day. During the night, finally everything was ready. We changed to a decent wear and only when I decided to take pictures of the cake before presenting it to him, I realized that the camera was out of battery! He looked frustrated at that time but brilliant and patient me decided that we had the dinner first while in the meantime I let the camera charged. I made some special simple dinner on that night and they were Herb Baked Fish that accompanied with steamed broccoli, sweet corn and cherry tomatoes, Cheese and Tuna Toppings Baked Potatoes and piped with some mustard and chillies sauce. I got the idea of making the Baked Fish after seeing Iza's baked fish in her blog and I made it according to her recipe and made some changes after comparing the recipe with some I found in All Recipes. Somehow, the recipe needed to be improvised a bit if I planned to make it again someday. As for the Baked Potatoes, I got the recipe from MyResipi and the recipes was such a marvelous one. Somehow thanks for all the contributors of the recipes for sharing them, thank you! :D
At last, the waited time finally came. I took the pictures of the cake with the charger still attached. Hubby helped lighted the table candles and switched off the lights. I told him to close his eyes and I brought the cake in front of him and at the same time singing a birthday song for him. When he opened his eyes, he was thrilled to see the cake and I'm glad he liked it. He helped me put the candles on the cake and lit them up. I took some more pictures of the cake and himself posing with the cake. Lastly, once again I sang a birthday song for him while taking his video and after making a wish he cut the cake. We took a big slice each and ate the cake. By the way, I made a Banana Chocolate Cake and that was my first time making it despite of all the long time I had been saving the recipe for this kind of occasion. The recipe was marvelous and the cake tasted just like Secret Recipe Banana Chocolate Cake, so yummy yummy yummy and so rich of chocolates! :D I got the original cake recipe from MyResipi and the substitution sponge chocolate cake recipe from Mama Fami Fotopages. So, to the owners of the recipes, to my silent reader who actually gave me the link to the original cake recipe and to the administrators of MyResipi themselves thank you so much for sharing! :D Ouh about the card, I didn't make it since I didn't have the time. Up until now I haven't done with the card yet since there are some purikura pictures we took previously are misplaced by me. Well, it is the thought that counts and I think it is still going to be much more surprised if I handed the card out of the blue later someday. Since I'm pretty occupied during this time being so it is going to take some times for me to make the card.
As an overall, I was satisfied with his mini birthday party. I thought it was much better to make things smoothly to be in perfect order within a longer time instead of turning up with topsy-turvy result in order to catch up with the wished time. Somehow, I made whole day of his birthday pretty occupied and even though I didn't have something special materially to present him with, let alone an expensive luxury gift; I tried to present him the best treat I could give as a wife. I felt great that the foods turned out delicious and the cake was superb. What most important was, I hoped he liked it all of what I had made for him on that day. I just wanted to make him happy, feel appreciated, feel loved and let him know that there is always someone who would always love him unconditionally perhaps forever; InsyaAllah :)
To my dear Always,
Here are the picture of the foods and the cake, yummy! :D
As I said there were many things had happened, not only from the mother nature but also within my own life. Frankly, I couldn't wait to highlight some of them in here though they could be a bit outdated already. Really, I have so many things to think further, tell, share and express. But, I have to go accordingly with first thing first so I better save other matters for my next entry or entries. So today I would want to concentrate only on update about hubby's birthday celebration which took place recently. As an overall, the birthday went on successfully despite of several small flaws here and there. Everything was simple and nothing really fancy. I just did whatever I could do with whatever I had on hands within my own sweet time and particularly, I concentrated to ensure that the basic elements were there and the right mood or feeling be created along the way.
On the Saturday, July 7th, 2007, I woke up quite early to run some errands. After having breakfast I did some cleaning in the house like sweeping, wiping and vacuuming. Ouh it was the turn for my vacuum to break down. Last time it was the mixer and I wonder what is next sigh..... . In the evening, we went out to the nearest convenient store and second-hand shop. We thought of surveying for a small hand-cleaner because our vacuum still can be used only that the hose part is broken so I can't use it to vacuum between narrow spaces anymore. However we ended up buying a rack instead :P After that we went to the nearest suppa to buy some groceries and I managed to grab some necessary items for the birthday preparation. Well, despite of having many things to deal with, I still could have some time to get into fight with hubby at that time and we both got sulked. But that didn't go on long since I coaxed him back during the night and remembering that I shouldn't be the ruiner of his day. I never uttered a word about his birthday before this except in my previous entry, and I knew he read a few parts of the entry before he stopped when I caught him reading it. Only later when I coaxed him I did tease him about his coming birthday by asking whether he wanted a cake or not, what kind of cake he wanted me to make, what meal he wanted to have and whether he wanted me to put candles on his cake or not. He answered me sheepishly and blushingly, of course hehehe :D
On the Sunday, July 8th, 2007, I woke up quite early than usual and did some laundry. After having lunch and he had settled with his business with the pc, we went to another suppa to buy some more groceries. Firstly we went to a d.i.y store to survey for a vacuum and it ended up with me buying some fancy papers and a few more cooking utensils. Well, funnily for the fancy hard papers I did ask him which color of the papers were beautiful and which ones to buy. Of course he asked me back doubtedly for what I wanted to but those papers. I just laughed and he just left smiling acting as if he didn't understand hehehe ;P I planned to make a card for him using the papers and it was quite funny for the fact that he would have to pay by himself for the card he would get hahaha ;P In fact, it was all about his money starting from the ingredients to make the cake and the meal bla bla bla towards the lighter used for lighting up the candle. I was so glad and somehow I was touched too by him being quite sporting for making me enjoy making him happy. Can you understand it? :)
In the evening I checked on the recipes again and only during that last minute I noticed about the kind of flour used to make the chocolate sponge cake and of course I didn't have and didn't even know where to find it. I tried to find other chocolate sponge cake recipe and fortunately I found quite a similar kind of cake and that recipe listed all the ingredients that were available. By the time I started, it was already a little bit late. I cooked laksa first for our dinner. Although growing up by being a laksa sucker, that was only my first time handling laksa noodle myself. My mom sent 3 packets of dried laksa noodles together with other food stocks to me on last month since all these while I had been using udon as substitution of the right laksa noodle. The gravy for the laksa was superb and all I had to do left was to soften the dried laksa noodle and I failed with the should-be-super-easy step! It took hours for me to soften my laksa but still it didn't become soft. Only a few days later when I called my mom, she said I should have boiled the noodle once I soaked it. But what I did was I used gallons of boiled water to soak the noodle and kept changing the water once it became cool again and again urghhh! I thought it was something wrong with the noodle and we continued to eat the hard half-cooked noodle anyway. As a result, I got ulcer for more than a week and could hardly chew while eating! Duh!
As for the cake, I tried to make it complete before the clock needle struck to 12.00 a.m but I didn't succeed. I consumed too much time juggling between the laksa noodle, weighing and mixing the ingredients, cooling the icing in the fridge, bla bla bla and so on and so forth. Besides, I did spill the gelatin mixture in the oven and I falsely mixed the ingredients for the chocolate mousse too. Hubby was sleeping and resting himself and of course I didn't want to bug him considering that it was going to be his day so he deserved some self pampering. However by the time he woke up, I was still 'fighting' in the kitchen and the kitchen really looked like after it had been bombed. He helped me running between things and I was already on the peak of breaking down hopelessly in fact I did cry a bit when I realized that my cake was far away more from being done. I felt so guilty, so sorry, so angry to myself and so ashame towards him that I couldn't manage to complete his cake before 12.00 midnight remembering that he managed to do so for me when it was on my birthday before. To cut the story short, I just wished him happy birthday, showered him with lost of hugs and kisses and of course sorries too while we were both still in the kitchen. Since it was already late, we had our laksa dinner and decided to continue on the cake tomorrow. I also told him that we would celebrate his birthday perfectly during tomorrow dinner. We slept only after Subuh prayer, at 3.15 a.m.
On the exact day of his birthday, Monday, July 9th, 2007. Hubby didn't go to work since it was his birthday holiday but still he went out early at about 9.00 a.m because he wanted to go to driving school. Since he will be taking driving test in order to change his International driving license and apply for a Japan driving license on this coming August, he decided to attend a 1 day driving class to dig and take notes for all the rigid important points. He wanted to attend the class since he will be taking the manual driving license test and of course he doesn't want to get failed again. Even the instructor once told him that there had never been anyone yet who took the manual driving test for the first time and straightly got passed. It would be very weird if he/ she did because the test is indeed very strict and rigid and they normally never gave a 'pass' to the first timer. I don't know about any other parts in Japan, but in here; it is. At least the instructor himself said so. But this situation only applied on manual driving test and not on automatic driving test. He called me during the noon when I was working on the cake and told me his session would start at 1.00 p.m so he will be coming back a bit late. In the meantime at home, I finally done with the cake after hours playing with the icing. It would only be a few minutes work for an expert but for me, the so-little decorating work took like forever to complete phew! After that, I continued to prepare for some special dinner meal. Hubby called me again at about 4.00 p.m telling that he found a bowling center which having a promotion so he decided to play alone for a while. I said, poor to my baby for having to celebrate his birthday by playing bowling alone huhuhu :(
By the time hubby got back, I was still dealing with the foods preparation. He was prohibited from opening the fridge and I could see that he was overjoyed to see his birthday cake hehehe :D He rested himself and fell asleep after a whole tiring day. During the night, finally everything was ready. We changed to a decent wear and only when I decided to take pictures of the cake before presenting it to him, I realized that the camera was out of battery! He looked frustrated at that time but brilliant and patient me decided that we had the dinner first while in the meantime I let the camera charged. I made some special simple dinner on that night and they were Herb Baked Fish that accompanied with steamed broccoli, sweet corn and cherry tomatoes, Cheese and Tuna Toppings Baked Potatoes and piped with some mustard and chillies sauce. I got the idea of making the Baked Fish after seeing Iza's baked fish in her blog and I made it according to her recipe and made some changes after comparing the recipe with some I found in All Recipes. Somehow, the recipe needed to be improvised a bit if I planned to make it again someday. As for the Baked Potatoes, I got the recipe from MyResipi and the recipes was such a marvelous one. Somehow thanks for all the contributors of the recipes for sharing them, thank you! :D
At last, the waited time finally came. I took the pictures of the cake with the charger still attached. Hubby helped lighted the table candles and switched off the lights. I told him to close his eyes and I brought the cake in front of him and at the same time singing a birthday song for him. When he opened his eyes, he was thrilled to see the cake and I'm glad he liked it. He helped me put the candles on the cake and lit them up. I took some more pictures of the cake and himself posing with the cake. Lastly, once again I sang a birthday song for him while taking his video and after making a wish he cut the cake. We took a big slice each and ate the cake. By the way, I made a Banana Chocolate Cake and that was my first time making it despite of all the long time I had been saving the recipe for this kind of occasion. The recipe was marvelous and the cake tasted just like Secret Recipe Banana Chocolate Cake, so yummy yummy yummy and so rich of chocolates! :D I got the original cake recipe from MyResipi and the substitution sponge chocolate cake recipe from Mama Fami Fotopages. So, to the owners of the recipes, to my silent reader who actually gave me the link to the original cake recipe and to the administrators of MyResipi themselves thank you so much for sharing! :D Ouh about the card, I didn't make it since I didn't have the time. Up until now I haven't done with the card yet since there are some purikura pictures we took previously are misplaced by me. Well, it is the thought that counts and I think it is still going to be much more surprised if I handed the card out of the blue later someday. Since I'm pretty occupied during this time being so it is going to take some times for me to make the card.
As an overall, I was satisfied with his mini birthday party. I thought it was much better to make things smoothly to be in perfect order within a longer time instead of turning up with topsy-turvy result in order to catch up with the wished time. Somehow, I made whole day of his birthday pretty occupied and even though I didn't have something special materially to present him with, let alone an expensive luxury gift; I tried to present him the best treat I could give as a wife. I felt great that the foods turned out delicious and the cake was superb. What most important was, I hoped he liked it all of what I had made for him on that day. I just wanted to make him happy, feel appreciated, feel loved and let him know that there is always someone who would always love him unconditionally perhaps forever; InsyaAllah :)
To my dear Always,
I pray Allah for His blessings and guides for you during the life and the life during hereafter, I pray for your longevity, health and wealth so that you will live a happy life and can perform your ibadah towards Him continuously, I pray that you will always be succeed and lead by Him in whatever you do in your life and during the hereafter, I pray for your strong faith from day to day and will die in iman someday right beside me in a good way, I pray that you will always be a good and in fact much better from day to day, as a servant for Allah that has taqwa in the heart, as a devoted son to our parents, as a good brother to sisters and brothers, as a good companion to friends, a soleh husband to a wife and as a perfect father to our children, InsyaAllah. I pray that you will always be loved and safe from the harms of all the hatreds, the ugliness, and the worst of the world could give. Last but not least, please know that your presence is one of the special thing that ever happened to me and if it is only more than words can say..... I pray Allah that our love will always grow eternally during the life in the world and the life of hereafter,
Happy Sweet 24th Birthday My Darling Sweetheart
Happy Sweet 24th Birthday My Darling Sweetheart
From yours lovingly,
Forever
Forever
Here are the picture of the foods and the cake, yummy! :D
