The one where it is the long and birthday weekend...

It is a tradition for me to write down (insert the number I will be turning to) 24 things I want to do before I turn to (insert the next number I will be turning to) 25. I always thought of it as a year's worth of bucket list. I never do most of them because the excuses I give is I am swamped with life itself. It is not easy working full time, studying part time, giving tuition most days, and spending the remaining days with family, close friends, Baobei and me. But it is always nice to have a list of things to do.

This year I have two things on my 24-bucket list which I know I will accomplish fo'sure. The list can be found on my IG (@mypussykatt) tomorrow.

Baobei changed rota when he signed on which means a lot of important days he will be at work instead of celebrating. My birthday, our engagement day, his birthday, new year's eve and our wedding day. Yup, pretty much suck but I am happy that he will be home for Hari Raya this year. I don't mind that he can't take leave for my birthday because it is on CNY and it isn't fair to his colleagues for him to take leave. Afterall, I am promised a staycay at Wanderlust Hotel, so what's not to love this man?

You know the feeling when you have the future planned and somehow there's more hurdles to jump over? Just two days ago, we thought the worst of our setbacks, but yesterday Ibu-Baobei called me and we talked for a good 45 minutes. Then everything seems to fall back into place.

Apart from the henna that we have deposited for, next week we are going to the Mak Andam's for the paperwork and putting our deposit. Then in two weeks time, we are going to put the deposit for the location/decor/food (you get the idea that it is an all-in-1 package). What a major step for us!

We have decided to push honeymoon back and not go the day after our wedding because

1. Everyone is going Maldives for honeymoon and despite my 2-3 months worth of research, we are willing to forgo it and go there as a holiday instead once we are more settled (3rd year wedding anniversary maybe?)
2. Money will be a bit tight for us as apart from engagement and wedding, we have Katt's insurance and furniture shopping for both Serangoon and Jurong house.
3. As a beach lover, I have found a perfect place to celebrate our love and Baobei is agreeable! (This is why I love him so much!) Though it is a good minimum 16 hours of flight to 22 hours, the place is heaven! Not sure if we are going as 2 or 3 (heh), but I CAN'T WAIT! I think the hard part is finding the flight! SQ does seasonal flights there.

So goodbye January, hello February. It is a month of many celebrations! My birthday, my future MIL's birthday, our engagement and Mama's birthday! I pity Baobei though, he is going to be pretty broke but will be majorly loved by almost all the women in his life!

I will blog soon after all the weekend drama has died down. Did I mention that my two favourite people managed to work around their schedule and celebrate my birthday with me? It is AMAZING what people you love do for you, I am truly blessed. Just the other night, one of my fav cousin said, "I can't believe you're getting married soon Atie!" 

And I know soon you will make me your wife before God by our happy place.

The beginning before all of these...

Have I always thought being love is easy? It is just as hard as being alone/single. Single people don't understand that when you're in love, you are trusting that one person who can break your heart, not to. Being in a relationship is one of the hardest things in the world because it brings out the good and the not so good part in everyone. It tests your loyalty of your love to the person, the trust-your-life with kind of trust and to love unconditionally through sickness, mistakes, downs and ups that life will pull you through.

I have never been cheated on while I was in a relationship, but I have seen the repercussions of cheating. For me, it has always been this huge ego that I will never let another man take me as a fool. So for me, the beginning has always been the hardest.

With Baobei, I have never expected him to stay. I have never expected me to stay. I have been the girl who leaves before she gets left behind, but he changed me. Amazingly throughout 2012, I have come and go but this boy always take me in. I mean, who in the right mind agrees to a trip with a girl and her cousins after going out on 2-3 dates with her only? He did.

For me, the trip didn't work out and we went our separate ways.

01/01/13 came, and we spend the whole wee morning what'sapping. I have seen a side of him that I have not seen. I woke up and realized that I have fallen so deeply in love with him. There was just something about this boy that makes me want to squeeze him so hard because my love for him is so great.

It wasn't an easy first year for the both of us because I am not the easiest person to be with. There must be something that I have to pick on, because partly I find myself waiting for him to leave me. The first time he made me cry was at Woodlands Waterfront. I remember this clearly because I was telling him about the past as I was sitting on his lap, and he hugged me so tight and said in my ear, "I am here now. You are the best in the world nobody can beat, remember that."

I remember writing notes to myself (like a crazy person) in my planner saying that "He loves you, Renny," or "Stop pushing him away." It feels like I am holding on to something so tight but I can't see it yet I know it is as if my life depends so greatly on it. Only after awhile, my faith in him, in us, grew and I know that I have to hold on to the fact that if he loves me so deeply so, he wouldn't bring me to meet his immediate and extended family. And his parents wouldn't bring up about asking my hand in marriage just two months into this.

It is those little things that make us where we are now. The little things that keep my faith in our love. One year later, we are soon-to-be engaged and less than a year from today, married.

What I need to really say that the beginning is always the hardest. But it is hard work, him and I, every single day. It is the faith and trust that what he does is for the best interest of him, I, and us. The mistakes he does, is not intentional and he doesn't know that it hurts me. If I don't hold on to that, I have nothing left to ground me.

This is just random because I can't believe how far we both have come. I still am amazed the love I have for this boy right here. He is the best thing that has happened to me, and I can't wait to have him for the rest of my life here, and thereafter.

In less than one year's time, Mr & Mrs.

The two weeks after 2014...

I am not sure about most girls, but I am one of those whose engagement ring will be a surprise. Just the other day when we were lazing in my room, Baobei turned and said, "I found your ring. Do you want to see it?"

I am amazed. Don't get me wrong but wait until you have an engagement and wedding to plan, you will be surprised how most men are very relaxed at planning these are two huge events in their lives. It is not that they are not interested but they tend to rely a lot on us women to make decisions for them or about the events. I get annoyed every now and then and asked Baobei to plan everything all by himself. Haha then he gets worried that I am serious and I get worried that they won't go how it would be in my head if he plans. So the cycle repeats. I have some tips for future BTBs:

Nag at them for a couple of days and don't mentioned it for the next couple of weeks.

You will be seriously amazed by the impact of your nagging and you will get more things done than expected. I nagged at Baobei about setting aside time to browse through rings and the next thing I know he already picked one all by himself. I am majorly proud of this man.

I will never stopped being awed by the little things that he takes into consideration when picking out my ring. I am always very nervous of the design that he picked and always joking by saying "Is your choice of your ring like the choices of your food?" And we will laugh a lot after because he always pick the horrible dish. (Though I have to give him points for being adventurous)

So now the engagement is 3x days away, it is nerve-wrecking how much I have not settled. I can't decide what to wear. The cake is somewhat settled because one of my bridesmaids who happens to be an old friend is sponsoring. The place for the bunga rampai is settled. What else? Colour theme.

I am excited to reveal my team of people who will be by my side to calm me down and keep me sane until the big day! My bestfriend who was away, came back and was wondering why is he involved in a group chat "MOH & Bridesmaids" and was wondering since when he had friends working at MOH. Ummm, hello Maid of Honour? Haha.

On a more heart melting update, Baobei has purchased the engagement ring yesterday and gave me a sneak peak of what the ring is like because once in awhile I will bug him to show me (I am amazed that he is able to stand on his ground except on days when I sulk at him for some reason and he will pacify me with "Do you want to see the ring?" haha!) Major love for this man. Over one year with him and I still find little things to fall in love with him even more.

The one after the long hiatus and after The Merisik...

Happy 2014 to all. Baobei and I celebrated by falling into deep sleep, and I woke up at 0006 to kiss his cheek and fall back to sleep. I spend the 6 weeks of work-holidays doing nothing but catching up on 10 seasons of FRIENDS and re-watching again, and 2 seasons of 2 Broke Girls, and a lot of sleeping.

So yes, my last entry was left hanging because hello? I promised to tell all of you what I thought merisik supposed to be VS what actually happened. Chill the hot pants, just because I didn't update doesn't mean that it didn't happen or it didn't end well. I am glad to say that the planning between Baobei and I, to us and my parents, to us and his parents, to my parents and his parents, have been amazingly smooth sailing. Maybe because Baobei and I have settled our different opinions beforehand (not that we have a lot because it turned out we both have similar taste in where our hard earned money goes to).

Okay let me do a timeline of how it happened.

Since we have started going out til September 2013 (Baobei and I):

• The year of the wedding which he knew before he and I dated seriously because it has been the dream to settle down in an odd year (yes, my obsession with odd numbers is still going strong) which is 2015.
• The duit hantaran which is also made known to him before we started to date seriously because I am such the kind of girl who tells the next boy she meets that she is looking for a potential husband and not boyfriend.
• The kind of wedding we want. Lucky me, I found someone who also wants a small intimate wedding because we are that kind of people.
• After jumping from potential dates for The Wedding, we were down to two dates. Little did I know that the two dates hold significant events in his life (I knew of one but not the other).
• We made a complete change to The Wedding to The Edited Wedding and how we want to have it.

September 2013-Early November 2013 (Our parents seperately):

• I spoke to Mama who is very supportive of The Edited Wedding, while we spoke to Baba who was not to keen at first but slowly understood where we were coming from.
• We had a harder time trying to convince his parents to agree to The Edited Wedding, but had their blessings for the 'Go Ahead'. (I liked the fact during the conversation, Baobei has his arms placed behind me, and I don't know if it was done intentionally or not, but it made me feel like we are in this together.)
• Sometime in between, we did the research for The Edited Wedding because we wanted to have numbers before The Merisik happens.
• Picked the date of The Edited Wedding.
• Had the numbers and spoke to our parents.
• Finalized with both our parents and set the date for The Merisik.

December 2013 (The Merisik):

*Note: What I thought would happened, happened plus here and there.

• It is actually nerve wrecking. Believe it or not, when they were on the way to my place, I was feeling SO nervous. Not the kind where I am not sure if I want this or not but more of the Wow-Our-Relationship-Is-Taking-Another-Level. Thank goodness, one of my bridesmaids calmed me down as I crazily spammed her phone. Haha.
• Well, dinner was served in the kitchen while I entertained Aqeel in the living room.
• Parents talked about their feelings with regards to The Edited Wedding, and talked through it. Being Malays, we come from big families and talked about how The Edited Wedding will affect our extended families.
• Hantaran is also another issue brought up, because his parents thought it is not up to the market price. However Baba said "Small or big, people will always talk. We can never shut people's mouth, so as long as we do what is required, let them be."
• Confirmed the date of The Engagement, time, number of dulangs to be exchanged, what to be exchanged, number of guests.
• Confirmed the date of The Edited Wedding and things we have discussed thus far.
• Status of both families: Happy = Happy Us.

Baobei and I faced a lot of hiccups along the way, which of course it is not easy to deal with things that is a first to the both of us. At one point of time I was very frustrated and asked a close cousin of mine, Kak E, on how to deal with parents who may not agree to our plans and she gave such a good advice. So to all future BTBs and BTBs:

Always, always explain to both set of parents why you do it in such a way. Take their point of view into consideration, as well as talk to them calmly about yours. At the end of the day, it is not about pleasing them and giving in to them, it is about getting their blessings. What is a wedding without parents' blessings?

So what is the big difference between The Wedding VS The Edited Wedding and who are my bridesmaids? Rumour has it, I have 1 Maid of Honour (MOH) & 6 bridesmaids and they said YES! So many things to update but the only thing I have put deposit for is my henna (haha!) and two more things to deposit but already secured for, and we are done. Simple right? The Edited Wedding up next.

Meanwhile, let me drown in work because it is getting crazy, and school is starting soon so I foresee a busy but short year (please, please because I cannot wait haha!). Weekly yoga should commence to calm the inner me, and beach tanning too. It is a year to tone up the body for The Engagement which is soooooon and The Edited Wedding.

Come to think of it, Bridezilla-Renny isn't too bad. *wink