Little House 5 : Door & Security

THINGS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER FOR YOUR HOME :

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1. Change to deadbolt lock, don't use only basic grill & bolt provided by the house, it is possible to unlock them using a master key. You must have at least 2 locks on the main door and 2 locks on the grill. Buy grade 1 deadbolt lock, with longer throw-bolt (at least 1 inch) and no exposed screws on the exterior. Deadbolt lock is the one with no knobs on the outer part. With a good deadbolt lock, burglar can't get into the house without really breaking the door or the door's frame. 

Note : Normal doorknobs can be ripped off with a pipe wrench in an average of 8 secs, and it can be easily destroyed by several hammer hits. Local police said that it is possible to just use a master key or break it using a shoe and a screw-driver. So, please change it to a deadbolt lock, it is way harder to break by force.

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2. Change to proper grade 1 padlock for the grill. The police and security guards told me that padlocks like Solex are tough and hard to cut, but among the easiest to open if you know how to pick on the lock. They asked me to change to padlocks by Tricycle or Yale, or padlocks with custom keys. Range RM50+ each, the one that can't be open by force, cut through or picked.

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3. Now that I've seen how easy it is to pick padlocks and door knobs' locks, I should mention other ways to double secure your door. Like using diy grip-lock so you can avoid burglar from trying to pick on the deadbolt lock from outside. Or installing other security products : chain-lock, security bar, lock slot, lock plate, and such from the inside. Be creative in exploring ways that you can improve yourself especially if you rent the house and the things you can change is limited in the contract.

DIY Lock Grip :

• Install a door knob and a deadlock knob.
• To avoid it from being picked by a professional 'silent' burglar, double secure it with a book strap and then lock it with a pair scissor between the turn-lock and the wall.
• It is almost impossible to pick the lock silently without any strong force to the door.

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4. Learn about your door, make sure it is at least solid wood. Knock on the door to check whether it is basic hollow door like those doors they use in the bedroom or toilet. Those hollow doors are quite easy to break by force.

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5. Check the door frame. Some good options are concrete or metal door frame, compared to wood. To check this, try to drill on the door frame, you'll know. Usually you need to call for the home constructor to install door knobs, dead locks, because of the door frame. For example, mine is metal and concrete, so I can't drill into it using my usual equipment.

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6. Don't leave spare keys at home ie: in the pot, below the 'welcome' mat, etc. Give to your other family members or trusted friends.

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7. Install a peep-hole or viewer, so you can see people from inside. You can see people upfront without opening the door.

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If you just bought a house and you are considering to upgrade the security of your house, make sure you do your research on these :

• Grills on door, balcony and window
• Solid wood door
• Extra locks : addition of dead-bolt lock, chain-lock and lock plate
• Install a peep-hole on the door

Bare in mind that although you might be spending some amount of money on these, *around several thousand, it is a good investment for your house.

But if you are renting a place, do your research before hand. You can ask the owner to improve the house's security like adding grills, change door knobs, and add other security products.

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Read More :

How a Burglar Robs Your Home in 8 Minutes

Little Things 168 : Macbookpro

I almost lost my MacBookPro two weeks ago.

In another few months, it will mark my fifth year with it. I remember the time I decided to buy it during my final year project in the uni to replace my desktop computer. It felt so long ago. 

In 5 years, 

I've replaced the charging wire for free because it was still on warranty and

I've replaced the internal hard drive because it went kaput. 

Other than being super-heavy and constant black-outs while using it to do excessive works nowadays eg. : editing stuffs in Photoshop and listening to Spotify while surfing online, there are no other problems. T^T I am super satisfied all these years. I don't think I'll buy another machine as good as this. Plus, I probably can't match the overpriced price tag. Ha. 

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To the person who almost steal my Mac, 

the Mac is super old. It runs Snow Leopard because Yosemite is too heavy for it to handle. Most apps nowadays need the latest OS, and so this Mac is still stuck in the old days of simple app. I haven't updated anything for years because everything is getting too much for the Mac to handle. I'm using my old Adobe Creative CS4, with no intention of upgrading it. Everything in this Mac is old and fragile. Every excessive works leads to black-outs and we all know that all machines became automatically obsolete after the 4th year. And it is super heavy.

But for me this is still my best machine, and I'm holding on to this to the end of its live. 

Until the time comes, this Mac will be my companion.

So please don't to try take it from me.

Movie : Character - Hannibal Lecter

I just watched 1991's Silence of the Lamb yesterday directed by Jonathan Demme, the one with Anthony Hopkin as notorious Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I've been wanting to read the book since high school when I saw the book in my dad's library - *you know, the age when everything is amusingly interesting, even a story about a serial-killer. But I never had the chance. One of my short story's character during high-school was named Thomas taken from the author's name, Thomas Harris :D
I'll definitely borrow it next time I go to dad's or download the book from somewhere.

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Dr. Hannibal Lecter taught me several things :

1. It is amusing how you can learn people from observation. The loudest who speaks too much or even the quietest in the room, everyone got their own story. It's pretty easy to predict if you know how the human's mind works from the psychological aspect, body languages, or from social behavior. The more aware you are of little things, the more knowledgeable you can be. 

2. Everything is a game. He didn't whine or complain, really. Some things are just meant to be like that, he kept his optimistic mind well taken care. Pain is tolerable, if you just know how. 

3. Confidence. He looked at people in the eyes, never blinking. It makes people feel uncomfortable and inferior. He talked with such a classic-gentleman-superiority that make other people look plain stupid. Even when he was in the jail, people still call him 'Doctor', he managed to keep his title and I found that disturbing.  

4. Possibility of learning about psychopathic behavior. Other than Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, Amy in Gone Girl, Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler, Patrick Bateman in American Psycho and the Joker in the Dark Knight, I think Hannibal Lecter is one good example of a psychopath. He was highly intelligent, he knew how to manipulate people, he was emotionless and calm, and he felt no guilt in killing or harming people to achieve his personal needs. Classic psychopath.

5. This :

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Creepy Hannibal Lecter, but bravo, Anthony Hopkin did it so well :

PS : I'll update this list after I finish watching Hannibal, Hannibal Rising and Red Dragon. 

Ditto those novels by Thomas Harris.

Doodle : Busy

I am the queen of procrastination :

I am forever busy but never busy enough to finish up all the works. I got long-dreaded work from Ma, new freelance illustration job and logo design. But I'm currently busy drawing random comics, yeay!

Btw, it's my brother's 25th birthday, but he is still in Germany - and will be home next Monday! Yeaaaaaay, finally after 5 months ! Ps : He hates all my doodle post, too bad I'm posting too much of them lately. 

And I just found this picture in my iPhoto :
*This was taken 26 years ago. Hm. Now I feel super-old.

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Doodle : Books with Original Drawings on the Cover

Well, hello doodlers of the world, 

I'm selling these small books for you to doodle via my Etsy. It has been doodled on the cover and clear-sticker wrapped so it won't smear - you can even write your name using permanent marker. I only got 3 different copies, I guess I won't be doing this for awhile after this :) So if you want it, this is your chance. Hah. 

Any local buyer will get A3-sized "Little Things' 2015 Calendar" that I personally did for my living room. For free. 

You can buy it using :

• my Etsy or 
• email me at azreen_31@hotmail.com or 
• COD at KL Sentral during weekdays after work - *only if you are introverted awkward girls :D

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Illustration : Hotaru Tomoe

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I grew up reading a lot of Manga. I could even say that I learned how to draw by imitating a lot of drawing from those Manga. Sailormoon, Akira Toriyama's, XXXHolic, Bleach, Junji Ito's, Hunter x Hunter, Oh Dewi!, Chobits, and so much more. Us siblings even have several boxes of comics & mangas collected during our teenage years. 

I remember one of my earliest manga : Sailormoon. Aja started collecting them when I was 8 or 9 years old. I read those manga front to back so many times. My personal favorite character would be this young mysterious quiet girl named Hotaru Tomoe, later known as Sailor Saturn. I guess I liked her back then because she was reserved and intelligent - she quoted so many big-words quotes at young age, and I'm forever in love with knowledgeable and intelligent characters. Hah.

Even my first email created was : hotaru_tomoe87 (>,<), and sometimes when I need to use any fake names for quick online registration, I still use Hotaru. 

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Other smart and intelligent fictional characters that I love :

• Rory Gilmore - from Gilmore Girls
• Charlie - from Heroes *she's not even a prominent character, just in 1 episode
• Detective Conan - from the manga
• Lisbeth Salander - from The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo
• Hermione Granger - from Harry Potter

Doodle : Breathe In

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Still traumatized.

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Things : Things I Love to Love

Links :

Vintage Folded Binocular from Raffello Vintage

Silver Pinecone Necklace from Julie Garland

Little Critter from Coffee Morning

Wooden Feather Brooch from The Twenty Fingers

Kaonashi Miniature from Green in HK

Vintage Magnifier by Nautical Place

Agate Gemstone from Oliki

❤

Plant Project : Succulents 2

Update from this post :

Remember this succulent leaf I picked up from Ma's little garden like a month ago? This was after 2 weeks, with tiny little new roots dangling for a new life :

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Well this is how it looks today, with super tiny new baby succulent near the root. I am a happy mommy :D I've been watching really closely every-single-day, spraying some mists of water with love on the soil. From a tiny dot to these little leaves :

More than 5 weeks old :

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And while others are also striving for their lives, rooting very slowly. I really need a magnifier :o This plant project of mine is bringing me little joy in life. If these little dying leaves can survive, how can we not? 

They are all fallen leaves by the way. I picked them up and put them all together, some died eventually and I had to throw them away. 

I guess some are born to survive ❤

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I'm still waiting for my left-over broccoli to start rooting, I am not sure whether it will work, it started to smell tho - like turned brownish a bit. But I read online, that some plants will be quite brownish and unhealthy looking before it starts to propagate, so.. yeah.

And also 3 stems of rosemary, still no sign of life continuation :| And also those lemon seeds I picked up from lemon detox water.

Game : Two Dots

I think I downloaded Two Dots several months back. Probably when I just started living alone. Perhaps to occupy my extra free time. I finished Fieldrunners and Fieldrunners 2, so I need a new challenging level-based with decent graphic game.

I found Dots before but I wasn't really hooked with the game because :

1. It's a repetitive

2. No level, it's not getting any harder

3. It's time-based, so there is a time to complete one game and that's it.

But I liked it. I remember telling Aja to try it because the app was really simple and nice-looking. And months later, I checked App Store and found Two Dots, seeing that I enjoyed playing Dots before + it was free, so I gave it a try.  

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I enjoyed the game very much. 

1. Only 5 lives are given for free every day, and a live will be given every 20 minutes or so - or you can just buy lives but I never do that. So I waited every day after work to play the game, it became sort of like a routine. 

2. The first time I downloaded, there were 150 levels, so we can scroll the game to see all these beautiful background and animation along the way. I even found the designer, Owen Davey. I thought about print-screen everything, but it is just too long. So the second & third time I updated the app, I got more, up until 235 levels. 

3. It gets harder and sometimes I took a week to finish up 1 level. It's like an annoying puzzle and I'll get annoyed being stuck there. Yeap, it is every day's adventure.

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Just yesterday, I finally finished all 235 levels and I feel relieved :D 

I am now waiting for more updates with new levels *I hope. 

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River Island

River Island is a well-known brand which offers a wide range of clothing and accessories based on the latest trends for women. Women who stumbled upon the River Island collections offers amazing designs of clothes at high quality and best price. There are three different River Island looks which women can pull off with style and character :

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If you are wondering where you can grab River Island online, 

ZALORA offers River Island for women items at the best price possible.

Little Things 167 : Engagement

I didn't quite want any big events for me. I told my family earlier that I wanted to do a small engagement event, like super-close-family-and-friends only. But it turned out to be quite big, Ma & Aja got excited preparing for the day. Suddenly I had to find proper clothes and hantaran. There were 4 cars from Pekan, they did the catering, other than another 3 cars from AF's side & Aja's friends. I thought it was only a ring exchange and small makan2 event =.='

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Anyhow, I promised to my sister that I'll post these super-nice hantaran that she did for us. She's good with all these crafty things, so she was the one responsible for it. Just follow : Art by Azah Azrina, she can do all those crafty things, beading, cards, and such. 

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Oh, she even did all the beadings for my engagement kebaya. I wore an old white kebaya from my previous years' Eid and matched it with Ma's old gold-with-cream coloured long skirt from her old kurung. And I refused to take off my glasses even after Ma & Aja forced me. I can't seeeeeee =.= So I promised them that I'll use contact lens for the wedding. Phew. 

Note : The old kebaya turned out to be pretty decent, if you are S small, and searching for an off-white kebaya, you can definitely borrow mine for free. Just send me an email : azreen_31@hotmail.com, then I'll send you the picture - because I only have one almost-full picture of me wearing it, and I don't want to post it here, haha. 

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This pillow was made by ma, Aja did all the beads and ribbons and all those girly things that make it look so much nicer. I showed her the example from Pinterest, something decent and simple, she came out with this, for the ring holder :

Just like I want ❤

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The cake was from Cakes de Lemari, our most favorite cake & cupcake shop. You should definitely try their super delicious cupcakes and you can also order wedding/other events cake from them. I don't have any reason to lie - it's delicious, packed with everything sweet . 

Thanks for the cake, kak, I love it so much ❤ ❤ ❤

Sorry for the noise on the image, it was almost dark when I took this picture :

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Too bad my brother wasn't here for the day, I'm still feeling a bit guilty.

And as for my friend, I only asked for Tasy. 

I guess she's my only friend. 

*anti-social alert*

PS : Tasy, it's been 12 years, thanks for being my friend,

even how awkward and silent I can be most of the all the time.

❤ ❤ ❤

Thanks everyoneeeee 

❤

Movie : I, Origins (2014)

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I, Origins (2014)

Writer & Director : Mike Cahill

This post contains spoiler.
You should watch his movies before reading this post :D

Little House 4 : 4 months

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Pets :

I gave Minka the ferret back to my boss after 2 weeks + another 3 days.

Taking care of a ferret needs a lot of patience. Even writing about her needs one whole dedicated post. So I went back to my stinky home, changed to proper clothing, mixed some detergent with Dettol multi-cleaner, and started to clean the whole apartment. That took around 2 hours. I put back all things to where they belonged and the apartment is very much in order now.

But even after almost a month, the house still smells of her =.=

Maybe pet plants are enough for now.

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Pillows :

My mom made 6 cushions : 2 huge, 2 big and 2 small. *I can finally put it in the living room after I returned Minka. By now I spent the price of 1 huge commercialized cushion for 6 hand-made cushions. I chose the fabric and colours with her, a nice mixture of light and dark brown. I'm using synthetic kekabu and also learned about making batang bantal. Can't deny that I'm enjoying all little processes in creating my little home. Now I have a place to melepet2 in my living room even without any sofa or chairs :D

Plus Aja gave me a nice brown coloured carpet for my birthday to match everything in the house. I can sprawl in my living room now, while reading good books or writing decent blog posts. This is how it looks today. I put those illustrations on the wall using tack-it, I'm not sure how long it going to last :

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Frugal life :

If you have sensitive skin and living as frugal as I do, maybe you can try this. Instead of using laundry powder, you can wash your pillow cases using water and soak it with left-over lemon slices from the detox water. Other than giving fresh smell, it also has antibacterial properties.

Bills :

My electrical & water bills are below RM 10 per month, so both bills are subsidized by the government - I'm having free electric and water every month :D But rent is super expensive, for a single renter, I'm scraping money out of my comfort zone for 3 months now. What an irresponsible way of living :F

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Foods :

I can't do so much with cooking because I can't buy fresh foods (fish, meat, chicken, etc) to be kept in my tiny refrigerator. The second-hand fridge is so old, it can't keep up with freezing foods anymore. I might need 5 months to buy a proper 2-doors fridge. 

So that leave me with these easy simple foods: 

1. Soups, by now I've tried making so many types of soups. Egg soup, chicken soup, veggie soup, mushroom soup, tomyam soup, everything I can mix off. Truth to be told, the only thing I feel comfortable eating is rice and soups. 

2. Salad, the easiest way to eat without cooking stuffs up. Potato salad, fruit salad, mixed salad, tuna salad, I read up Pinterest recipes just to find ways to vary salad-makings. 

3. Sandwich, hah, my favorite would be a mixture of 2 slices of breads, cheese, egg, kewpie mayo, and slices of chicken or simple bread with honey. Mmm-hmm.

Oh, other than that, I do eat Mi Sedap sometimes.

The best part of living alone is, I can cook my favorite food every-single-day and no one will complain. 

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Movie : Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

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In this world no matter what happens, if you try to be good or be better at anything, there will be things that will pull you down. If you live passionately and you want people to see how better you can possibly be, and you want to share because you care enough to give the glimpse of what happiness can mean to someone else as it does to you, well don't. Don't share because you care for people, don't share because you want people to see what you see, don't share because you thought maybe things would be tiny bit better for any random people that cross your path. 

Because most people rather live in the blindness of their egoistical mind, maybe because we are human, and we feel special being human. We choose what we want to listen, we choose what we want to believe. We rather put an end, a full-stop, a conclusion, a summary to everything we choose to. 

I don't know why it's always I against you, you against me.

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Well, as a student of life, I will always open my mind towards things in this world that can teach me about the good and the bad. I'll read as many as I can, I'll research as much I need to, I'll use quotes, I'll copy-paste, I'll rewrite in my journal, I'll obsess about the data, the analysis, I'll observe and I'll experience, I'll do anything to learn things. I look upon other people, people will always teach you things, if you are humble enough to set your ego low, and listen with your calm heart. 

This is how I learn, because I definitely know nothing in life.  

Doodle : Ros

After 419 days, I'm still at the office on the weekend.
Can't wait for outing days. Here is a quick random doodlymoodly :

Run : Moderate

I encourage people around me to run.

If you don't know yet, Malaysia has the highest rate of obesity in Asia. Based on this report, 49% of women and 44% of men in Malaysia are likely to be obese, that's like almost half of the population? Even when we are complaining about the rising costs of everything, we managed to spend so much on unhealthy foods. Pretty ironic, kan?

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I believe in living moderately.

Maybe at one point I can be seen as living cheap :

Running shoes as a running shoes with basic need to run instead of overpriced commercialized running shoes. Lunch as in food intake with small portion of rice, egg/fish and veggies that cost roughly RM 2.50 in Damansara meaning I do eat but not to be be full, but just to avoid empty stomach. Eat because I need energy.

Anything consume too much won't be healthy for you. You can die for playing games too long, drinking water too much, eating unhealthy foods too much, working too much. Anything. *I wonder what will it be for someone who read too much, hah.

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So this brought me to : Slow Runners Come Out Ahead by Gretchen Reynolds, this article was shared by my colleague. Even running excessively can be unhealthy for your body. I'm sure each and everyone has their own body limitation and we can't really decide on one number. 

Jogging moderately is healthy, perhaps 3 - 7km per run, 3 times a week. Mild sore muscles are normal, your body will get used to it. But running too much and causing body injuries aren't healthy. If you don't learn to listen to your body, it will eventually affect you. 

Read other article here : Too much jogging  is just as bad as doing none at all. 

"Going jogging 3 times a week for no more than 2.4 hours is optimal." Heavy joggers are as likely to die as those who don't run at all, and light joggers have the lowest rates of death. The study even show that you don't have to run marathons to keep your heart healthy, and you are even risking yourself to more cardiovascular problems in the future if you used your body too much. 

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Personal thought : That's why I don't really encourage my brother to sign-up for half-marathon or even a marathon. At one point, it depends on your will-power, marathon is a mind-game. Whether you can or you can't do, you'll push to the limit. What I don't understand is what are they trying to prove? Your body obviously doesn't need excessive work-out, this is just like eating excessively, when you can't control your desire to eat foods that you don't really need. Is this about human's ego? Whether you can reach your desired goal if you put yourself into it? Even if you are doing harm to your body in the long run.

Try thinking doing things with strong reason. Why do you run? You run because you want to be healthy, so run moderately. Just enough for your body to be fit and healthy. And maybe one day you'll find the zen in running.

Even nectar is poison if taken to excess. ~ Hindu Proverb

Imaam Ibn Al-Qayyim said: "Always encourage people to take a moderate stand, because it will rescue you from transgression. So we find the middle position between two extremes to be the most balanced and just, where a person will find all the benefits and comforts of this worldly life and the Hereafter. Furthermore, even the human body cannot live normally without the benefits of moderation. If a person is moderate when sleeping, waking, eating, drinking, exercising, in staying away or mixing with others, then the body will function properly. However, if a person goes to an extreme in one of these aspects, then the body will not function properly and the person will not live a normal life."

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Doodle : Food Illustration *update*

Other than little plants' illustrations, 

I'm having fun doing colourful foods illustration :D

It started with illustrating perfect sandwich for lunch : 2 slices of bread, cheese, fried egg, Kewpie mayo, and slices of left-over chicken. And then somehow those colourful fruit pies, pudding, napkin, and coffee came into the illustration as well. 

Eye-straining weekend, I'm going home now ❤

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PS : I noticed that the blogspot changed the original colour after auto-compression, making it a bit dull & greyish, so posted another version in my Behance!

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Plant Project : Things I Learned About Planting 2

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From my personal view,

I learned about patience. I love how therapeutic planting can be for me. Learning each and every plant need time, and it pushes me to read and experience more just to understand what is what. This is something I can't learn just by listening to people's tips & tricks.  

I killed many plants and seeds, and I always feel bad for this. But I'll keep on trying until I be better at this. I'll try to understand their silent language. Isn't it remarkable how they can only communicate by their action? I always wonder whether they can actually communicate with each other. Whether they feel pain every time I cut some unwanted stems and throw some almost dried leaves from their body.  

I follow closely for every improvement, every new baby plants and light green leaf that slowly spreads open. I googled every symptoms and every signs, to understand the silent language. How comforting it is to do right at some things even when I did wrong with many other things along the way. 

Plant Project : Things I Learned About Planting 1

Useful basic things I learned about planting :

1. Watering plants -

Each plants need different amount of water. 

Make sure you know how to understand some basic rules like : 

• yellow leaf means 'please give me more water' and brown leaf especially on the tips means 'too much water'. It's easy to kill a plant by over-watering it compared to under-watering. It's a learning process, really. And of course, there are other reasons for leaves to turn their colour eg : sunlight, soil, nutrients etc.
• Be aware of the first sign of dehydration like when the leaves start to wilt especially during the afternoon. That usually mean it needs water because it's too dry. If your plant is limp, that's usually because you over-watered it. 
• Use a container bigger than the plant's pot, pour some water in it and put the plant's pot in the container so the the plant can absorb the water from the root instead of watering them from above. Herbs like Rosemary don't usually tolerate with too much water so it's hard to understand the amount of water they actually need, having them absorb what's needed is much better than having them drowning in the damp soil. I seriously recommend watering herbs using this technique.
• Spray some water on the soil if using a container without proper drainage system especially terraniums *mostly for succulents, don't water them. Nanti becak.
• What you can do is check the soil. Put your finger in the soil a bit, if it's moist, it's not the time to water it yet.
• Learn about your plant. For example I just found out that Aloe Vera is from the family of succulent, so they don't really need so much water, like cactuses. Or orchids, they are very sensitive, they absorb water using their exposed root, they need such little amount of mist - and if you water them at night, they are prone to diseases, 2 of my orchids are currently limp and not going to survive. =.= Pegaga and keladi can survive water. Bonsai usually need water every morning, like mine, it is almost floating with roots exposed above the ground, so it needs daily watering. 
• Hm, a delicate process of understanding every plant's need. I am learning slowly and yes, I killed several plants by now because of over-watering.

2. Drainage Holes

• I know there are so many cute containers that you can use for your plant, but please bear in mind that plants really need proper drainage system to avoid excess water. This is one of the main reason why your plant die. 
• Damp soil = root rot = plant dies

3. Dried leaves

• Cut off any dried or wilted stems and pluck out dried leaves because they are mostly dead/almost dead and you can't really save them anyway. 
• Learn pruning, your plants need it.

4. Sunlight

• If you are living in an apartment, this is a bit hard, especially if there isn't much sunlight in your house. You can try your balcony and along your window, choose the sunniest spot for your plants. 
• Some of them probably won't mind staying indoor much, my dad calls them pet plants. Plants like pegaga and keladi are good example. Plants like rosemary and my chilli-tomato, need sunlight everyday.
• And, flower plants, well they really love sunlight.

5. Repotting

• Usually every time I buy new plant, I'll re-pot it in a proper planter. 
• You need to put some rocks above those holes and if you have time, learn about which soil type is good for your new plant *I haven't learn about soils yet. I bought some plastic net from Daiso (*RM5 for 20 pieces) at the gardening section. So I don't really have to find stones to put in the pot.
• Some plants will overgrown in their pot after awhile and desperately need new space, especially if there are more than 1 plant in the pot. Last week, I tried to repot my chili-tomato plant and found out that the whole pot is packed with their roots instead of soil. I separated them and trimmed some old roots and repot them separately with new soil. All learned from Google.

6. Seeds & Propagation

• Well, I love experimenting. Planting from seed is a tough process, sometimes ok-ok but weak,  and most of the time I failed.
• I've been collecting seeds out of curiosities, by this time I've tried planting several fruits that I ate : persimmon *which is a big tree I supposed, by the size of it's leaf now - I have 2, pomegranate - *4 survived & growing,  2 growing garlics and 8 new lemon's seed I just planted.
• And after learning on Pinterest, I'm trying to propagate several succulents from its fallen leaves, 3 stems of Rosemary, and 10 Aloe Vera babies from its mother. 
• I know it is much easier to buy a healthy baby plant instead, but I love the learning process and I love the fact that I can examine them growing daily. Ha.

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PS : If this is an article, I'll probably write in the simplest point-form lines. But this is my personal online planting journal, I love it's detailed descriptions of every tiny updates on my plants for any future reference. I'm imagining myself babbling about my plants, explaining every detailed updates that fascinate me. Hm :)

Excerpt 12 : The Important Thing About Becoming a Runner

From NR Project :

What you have to understand is that most runners out there have no special abilities, we all started somewhere and we all struggle – present tense. It doesn’t get easier, not for anyone, but you get better, you always do. If you run – you are a runner, and every runner you meet will respect you and accept you because they know what it is like, they understand what you are going through. If you are out of shape and you go running, you may feel that other runners are judging you – they don’t. They celebrate and admire you, because what you are doing isn’t easy.  

What they are doing isn’t easy either, they just had more practice in making it look easy. If you want to be a runner, be a runner. Even if you have never done it before, haven’t got any special gear and not entirely sure what you are doing. The form, the speed, the ability to cover serious distance will come to you eventually if you keep at it. Remember that a large part of it, all of the excuses and the reasons why you can’t do it or can’t do it today, are in your head.  

Sometimes the best thing you can do is to stop questioning and just go and run.

Read full text here. 

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PS : I like those writings a lot *in the blog, it doesn't feel like I'm reading an article. I feel like the writer is talking to me directly - and that is what we call a good writing :D 

No I, I, I just you, you, you. 

Book : The Museum of Innocence

Month's ago I posted this.

I'm reading Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence. I didn't start with his famous My Name is Red or Snow. I picked up the book just because I was afraid of buying other Orhan's novel. I assumed it would be difficult for me, considering he won a Nobel Prize before. When I read the synopsis, it mentioned Love. As far as I know, even how difficult a novel can be, romance is the easiest genre for us to feel connected as a reader, hence, it reduces the lengthy complicated words into something more, simple. 

When one feels connected, everything makes sense.

But, it is more about obsession than love. I'm not exactly keen on the subject of a man's obsession towards the love of his life that married someone else. Maybe I am destined to read this book, to understand, to know and accept certain views, so I'm trying my best to be open with it.

For weeks, I've been reading short chapters from the novel.
Even while I'm writing this, I just read half of it. One third of the book was about the early part of the relationship, I'm guessing the rest of it are the aftermath, the obsession, the pain and humiliation. All the dreary parts in beautiful written literature.

What is it about unrequited love that turns man's life into chaos that jeopardize everything, when he has so much in life already? I don't understand.

*Contains spoiler :

Little Things 166 : Headaches

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Silent morning and lazy Monday. 

Ever since early January, we've been running 2 - 4 times a week after work. I tried to eat healthy, minimizing my food intakes to thing that I cook myself or being picky except on my craving-day. I get headaches a lot, a thumping pain between my eyes and a throbbing pain behind my head like someone is trying to crush my skull. I haven't found the cause. Yet.

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