27 January 2006

The issue of halal or haram on ASB again been hotly discussed recently, and i believe most of us had came up with the real answer. Me and hubby are now looking for other alternative instruments to tranfer the money that we've deposited inside there and still, we're not sure of where to park the money :(

We surely need to take a full one day leave to settle all this stuffs, take the asb money out and place it elsewhere, open a new TH account for idlan, change the beneficiary name for our kwsp, change our takaful insurance plan, and many others more.

Oh btw Happy Chinese New Year (to my chinese frens if they happen to read my entry) and happy enjoying your long holidays to the rest.

And as expected, long holiday means you'll receive a long list of frens wedding invitation. So to my dearest ex-rumet Zatul Iffah Bakhtiar and partner, Hadi Azmi, Selamat Pengantin Baru and may you both survive on the wedding day hehe...time amik gambar jgn control2 tau met! And may the two of you live happily ever after, may all the dreams and wishes come true, and do remember that i'll be always there if u need me for anything (calling2 cam biasa ok met :)

And the same best wishes is extended to my junior, Diyana Zainal with her partner, Raja Azlan...Selamat Pengantin Baru as well...god bless u both.

Lastly, to Abu Amiir aka Abg Faizal, Selamat Pengantin Baru juga diucapkan...semoga perkahwinan yg satu ini dirahmatiNya dan kebahagiaan sentiasa menanti kalian berdua dan Amiir selama-lamanya. Tahniah!

Selamat Bercuti sumer!

26 January 2006

Diet for asthma and eczema

by Sue Gilbert, MS

Q: I have a six-year-old daughter who suffers from asthma and eczema. I have heard about controlling these illnesses through diet. Is there a connection, and what foods might be helpful or harmful for her? Thank you for your time.

A: Diet can affect asthma in two ways. First, some foods can provoke asthma attacks by causing an allergic reaction. If you find that eating certain foods are closely followed by an asthma attack, then, as you probably know, those foods need to be eliminated from your daughter's diet in order to prevent such attacks. Some of the most common food-allergy asthma triggers are: eggs, nuts, milk, sulfites, fish and chocolate.
Diet can also affect asthma by helping to control the severity of an attack. Food can actually dilate air passageways, opening them up for freer breathing. One of the best-known foods for doing this is coffee, due to the caffeine, but you not want to offer coffee to your daughter, as caffeine can have other unwanted side effects. Food can also help by thinning the mucus so that it can move out of the airways, easing breathing.
There are even some foods that offer an immediate relief from an attack. The foods in this category include the spicy, pungent foods like chili, hot mustard, garlic and onions. It may be that these hot foods work by stimulating nerves, resulting in the release of watery fluid in the mouth, throat and lungs. This watery secretion will help to thin down the mucus so that it can more easily move out of the airways. Thirdly, some foods can control inflammation of the airways because they contain anti-inflammatory components in their chemical makeup. Foods that help to do this include onions (these are particularly good), fatty fish (fish oil is a proven anti-inflammatory high in omega 3 fatty acids) and vitamin C-packed foods.
Studies have also shown that a diet high in dairy and meat cause more asthma attacks than vegetarian diets. It may be that there are more allergenic components in dairy and meat. Vegetable oils high in omega-6 fatty acids should be avoided as it promotes inflammation. Oils high in omega-6 fatty acids include sunflower oil, corn oil and safflower oil.
Like asthma, a flare-up of eczema can be triggered by allergen-containing foods. Similarly, the way to prevent the flare-up is to avoid the food. In order to prevent unnecessary restriction of foods in your daughter's diet, it would be wise to consult with an allergist so that you can pinpoint the culprit. Unlike asthma, however, I cannot find evidence of diet affecting the treatment of eczema. It seems that more atopic cures must be used. In addition to avoiding the offending food, if that is the cause of your daughter's eczema, try to keep your daughter well-hydrated. This will help insure that her skin does not dry out and become flaky, compounding the eczema.
If you haven't already, I suggest that you visit The Food Allergy Network at
http://foodallergy.org as they may have some helpful suggestions for you.
Thank you for writing. I hope that these dietary suggestions offer some relief to your daughter.

25 January 2006

I've finished reading Azizi Ali's book for quite some time and only now i got time to share with u all some of the useful tips:

- pay yourself first : the concept is simple, allocate min 10% of your monthly income for OWN savings. But of course, the higher the better.

- debts : there are good debts and bad debts. Good debt is when you fork out a sum of money to buy fixed asset of which can generate income in future. Eg: buying a house/apartment and rent it out. Bad debts are those that only cause cash outflows out of ur pocket, like buying a car (which is depreciates in value), using credit card to purchase items and pay not within due dates, etc. So its good to make debts but do ensure the assets can generate money for you.

- mortgage payments - instead of committing yourself for monthly repayment, opt for fortnightly payments. Eg, your house monthly loan is RM900, so instead of paying RM900 every month, you pay RM450 every fortnights. You'll notice that the total monthly repayments will be the same but the total yearly repayments is different. Now you're paying 26 fortnights per year instead of 12 months per year. You're paying RM900 extra per year isnt it?

- insurance - those that are still single/bachelor, it's not wise for you to take insurance. Reason? no one is depending on your income/money should something happen to you (but personally i think if you're naming your parents as the beneficiary and they're not that rich to be able to live with their own money, you'll be considered as anak yg baik & berbudi if u have one!). Hence it would be much wiser if you put aside a portion of your money on savings with higher returns. So stop thinking that ohhh i must have an insurance when everybody is busy signing up one for themselves!

The key points above are written randomly, Azizi had actually describe every single detail in separate chapters of the book. So forgive me for not be able to write it in sequence...i just jotted down whatever points that came across now :)

ok that's all for now...will cont later.

24 January 2006

1001 ways of earning extra money

Isnt that title catchy enough and of the interest of any human beings living in this real world full of challenges ahead?

I've just read tsunamiwang e-book and yes, there're so many new ways of generating extra income of which many of us are not aware of it. Some might have read it somewhere, some might have learned it from their colleagues, or some might just pay ignorance attention to it due to reasons that they themselves only know.

Azizi Ali's book could be a good source of reference on how we can be in control of our own money. Handling money is one thing, be in full control of it is another BIG issue. Some of you might encounter people who earns a lot every mth and yet still get broke when month ends came. When you ask them, they just say they're not sure where the money goes. They just couldnt explain how their hard-earned money flows out in a blink of eye. Hence i dont get surprise if the saving accounts of the low paid people shows higher amounts compared to the one with higher salary paid. Reason is simple, they save. And they use brains to manage their money. Not to say they dont fork out a portion of their income on leisure, surely they do, but not to the excessive amounts that can cause them to be broke by the end of the month.

I'm writing this not because my accounts are tip top, neither i'm rich enough to give my humble advise and opinion about financial management. It's just that to me the topic is very interesting and still there're a lot to be explored, shared and discovered for the benefit of all.

Azizi Ali talks more on property investment, and no doubt it could be a good source of passive income to you but definitely it requires a huge sum of capital to be invested. I'm still not in a position to get involve in the property world due to my lack of savings hehe...Akmal Ariff reveals the potential of Internet as a powerful tool to earn extra money, provided you're willing to spare some time to learn and uncover things that people might find it to be impossible yet it is still possible and exist. I'm still learning and trying to grasp the whole idea behind it, so if you guys dare to try, please refer
  • tsunamiwang

  • 19 January 2006

    ntah kenapa rasa malas sangat nak tulis blog, terlalu byk benda dlm kepala yg difikirkan, sampai nak jam pon ader hehe...ape ade dlm kepala saye sekarang:

    - keinginan utk sambung blajar, masalahnyer at times semangat tu tinggi menjulang, at certain point tetiba dia menjunam balik debusshhh, cam choc fudge plak rasa, apesal diri ini..malas ke ape yati oiiii. Diri dah jenuh meminta pendpt dari hubby tercinta, dari mak, dari idlan (hehe tipu jer), dari kengkawan..mostly kasik pendpt positive & memberangsangkan..tapi ape yg aku tunggu lagi yer?
    - ha this is the best part, antara nak sambung buat M Phil atau MBA. MBA agak leceh, dgn klas nyer, assigmentnyer, presentationnyer, the biggest part: exam!, thesis lagik....M Phil plak lebey flexi, tapi kena ade skill buat research, pandai pilih topic, pandai buat karangan...adus aku bley ke lagi buat sumer tuh?
    - funding: cuma ade satu option menarik yakni scholar T*. Tapi iklan cuma akan kuar bulan 4 nanti, means kalo aku amik intake march aku kena forward duit sendiri dulu, of which am sooo not favour to do so hehe (kalo T* takmo sponsor lagikla haru). Other alternative would be outside source...mara hmm no longer allocating budget to sponsor for master, jpa aku tak layak, personal loan...ohhh ni option tak bagus dan aku tak suker berhutang piutang ni, ape lagik eh...FAMA, hmm ni pon tak bagus, takkan dari kecik sampai besar nak susahkan org tua ye dak?
    - tempat: mmu is the most probable place i'll be choosing if i were to continue, reason? dekat ngan ofis dan rumah, a very convenient place indeed sbb dah familiar dgn selok belok Univ ni. U lain jauh, eventho dlm hati tingin sgt nak rasa environment ipta (except U*M, my ex-mba Univ hehe)

    Dlm pening2 lalat tuh, diri ni dah pasang angan-angan yg jauh ke hadapan. Konvo!!! hehe kalo aku intake march 2006, aku akan abis dlm march 2008, so konvo most probably around august 2008. Tapi time tuh maybe kami ade mega project, pegi berjln ke U* utk attend konvo adik ipar aku (insya allah kalo dia abis la time tuh) So if it happens that our konvo date clash, takkan aku nak attnd konvo aku sesorang kat mesia while pruz ngan idlan ade kat sana...oh tidak tidakkkksss

    hish sudahla tu berangan..back to reality! nak sambung ke tak ni????

    17 January 2006

    yes i'm back

    It did require strong strength for you to wake up early and realize that was the time for you to drag your lazy body to the toilet, have shower and dressed up for work. That was yesterday. Yesterday the bad day (i'll tell u later), after a long one week holiday in two kampungs.

    Our holiday went well, things went smooth as planned, except the most tiring journey back to kelantan that took us nearly 10 hrs. 4 days in kelantan, we had the ever delicious nasi berlauk/dagang as breakfast, made a shopping trip to rantau panjang that to me was like a heaven place for you to shop till u drop :p, again another shopping trip to pengkalan kubur that is very near to my nenek's house, and yes our little boy finally knows how a beach looks alike. But he only 'cecah' his legs onto the sand and never dare to sit on it, probably because that was his first time. Hubby had all the chance to taste many different kinds of local kuih muih that were sooo colourful and sweet of which i've never had any interest to taste it all my life.

    Moving on, we headed to junjung kedah the day after raya haji using Grik highway. Our first time using that route, by no means i expect the road to be of such bengkang bengkok like u climb cameron. I had nausea, so did idlan i guess because he vomitted twice. But alhamdulillah we did reached home safely.

    In Kedah we took the chance to bring idlan to a waterfall, Air Terjun Air Putih, that is very near to his tok's house. As a result, idlan was down for fever for 3 days....rasa nyesal plak bawak dia huhu.

    Ok back to office story, yesterday was truly my bad day. i had migrain since the morning, maybe because of the body intolerance to the excessive coldness of my office air cond. Plus the massive no of dockets for that day, and the bad thing, the fight that i had with customer back in tokyo. We had fight (we includes myself, my colleague and my AGM) with this one fellar of which the blame is not at our side. Misunderstanding occurred between THAT fellar with his tokyo colleague and u see, senang2 dia fire kitorang kat mesia ni.

    on our way back, about 2 min we were about to reach home, i vomitted with one hand holding idlan and another hand holding a plastic. Lucky i managed to grab the plastic, if not the front seat definitely needs to be cleaned and vacuumed. So that was the story of yesterday. I went to sleep early at 8pm with empty stomach and bad headache, woke up at 515 in the morning to perform solat isya' and today back to the office, feeling more healthier and ceria hehe....

    and remember one of our cost saving action plan, preparing our own breakfast works well till today...keep up the good work my dear self!

    06 January 2006

    our first jalan2 habis duit shall commence!

    I just cant wait to see tomorrow. What does tomorrow have for me? Well, we surely gonna wake up around 5am, take the shower, put on simple clothes, perform the prayer, prepare idlan's porridge, pack our foods, wake him up, make a last minute spotcheck, turn on the engine.........and tadaaaaa Kelantan here we come!!!

    Yes, am gonna off for the whole week for our balik kg cum cuti2 malaysia trip. The next few days will be spent in kelantan and kedah. Balik kg sounds very ordinary, so i'd rather called it our jalan2 habis duit trip :) I just cant wait to see how kelantan looks like after about errr...2 yrs kot. The last time we sat foot in kelantan was in year 2003, that was after we got married. That also means it's gonna be idlan's first visit to his grandma's hometown. I hope our journey with the two toddlers (idlan and his cousin, hana) wont take us too long. I dare not imagine how i can stay inside the car for about 6-8 hours, bertempur with him all way long. Dahla takde highway kan :p

    4 days in kelantan, we'll celebrate our raya haji there, do some shopping spree in pengkalan kubur, rantau panjang and pasar kota bharu, go to pantai tujuh and let idlan sees how a beach looks like, and guess what, the thing that i look forward most is............the special breakfast! well ppl there usually have nasi kerabu or nasi berlauk for their breakfast. And I usually get 2 bungkus for myself nyumm nyummm.

    The next day after raya haji we'll be heading to junjung, kedah that is my hubby's hometown. Hopefully this time hubby will take me to some of the places i never had the chance to go before, bley eh yang??

    Oh btw hubby just bought a new red greyish Tenderly buggy for idlan. The only main reason is because his current stroller is too big for our bonnet...plus the fact that our bonnet are 3/4 fully loaded with his things ONLY... orgnye kecik tapi barangnyer banyak hohoho

    Selamat Menyambut Hari Raya Qurban frens...enjoy your hols!