Trust in His Timing

In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful.

I figured it’s time I get back to blogging. I’ve left this place post-less for the past month! Goes to show how much I was occupied with work and life. Not necessarily a bad thing. I do feel fulfilled for the most part. And extremely thankful for where I am right now and what I have right now.

There’re so many things that I want to share but as usual, I don’t know where to begin.

My life feels amazing right now. It’s very tiring and I’m tied to my commitments but it’s nonetheless amazing.

I’m still neglecting my prayers and haven’t been punctual for them. I’m still trying! I won’t give that up yet. It’ll stay in my to-accomplish list.

I’ve been recording and editing videos for work on my cellphone. That must be an accomplishment, right? People usually edit them on the computer. I hope my colleagues are able to appreciate the videos I made to help them improve their provision of customer satisfaction.

I still have six more videos to make before completing my personalised course of handling customer complaints. Hehe. Good luck to me!

The videos are not particularly draining to make but I find it a little challenging to brainstorm for ideas and scenarios to best explain the company’s principles for handling complaints.

To be honest, I don’t see myself growing at the workplace anymore. I’ve kinda hit a plateau now. I feel like I’m just clocking in and clocking out whenever I have to work. I just don’t enjoy my work that much. But don’t worry! As a professional, I still do my best to ensure that the quality of my work is not compromised.

I guess it couldn’t have come at a better timing — having something new to look forward to everyday after work. Let me be specific: I’m trying my hand at growing microgreens!

My friend and bandmate, Shike, had this crazy idea of letting little old me try growing microgreens. But I’m crazy too so I said, sure, I’d try it out.

Lo and behold! He gave me the setup I needed: the metal frame with an affixed growing light, the tray with holes, some really good soil and arugula and kale seeds as well as fertilisers. I offered to pay for those because they seemed pretty industry-grade to me but he rejected. I wasn’t home when he delivered the kit as I was at work. Knowing that my husband, Beedin, was home, Shike bought coffee for him. Top drawer la that guy. Free sample, free delivery, and free coffee. In retrospect, I felt really bad that we didn’t give him anything to bring home in return. But Beedin shared with me Shike’s awe at his guitars, amplifier, and drumset as well as my guitars and keyboards. I do want to create a little studio room in our tiny box home but I haven’t gotten into gear to head into that direction. Insya-Allah, one day, we’ll get there. With an iMac and Macbook, please. And more amps. And of course, soundproofing materials!

And well, I guess Shike was happy to play Beedin’s guitar although he couldn’t stay for long.

But I digressed! Back to my little science project. I have been posting daily stories on my Instagram, relating the progress of the growth of my first batch of microgreens. First ever, yeah! I’ve organised the stories into a highlight reel so you can go through it on my profile. I decided to grow arugula first because it starts with A and I like being alphabetical like that. Apparently I was supposed to use the whole packet of arugula seeds but I didn’t! I thought I was supposed to be stingy with them! But they turned out pretty well and I am feeling like a proud mama of my little plant babies!

Oh, yeah. I have completely zero knowledge of general horticulture, what more growing specific specimen like microgreens. Shike basically left vague instructions to Beedin, which he had dutifully shared with me but I was still a blank canvas at this. I could, of course, ring that brother up and ask, yo, you gonna teach me or what?

But I had this little feeling that the test was not simply for all of us to find out if my fingers may be somewhat green. It felt like there was a test of character going on as well to see if my work ethic is as good as I claimed it to be.

But I may have been overthinking, which is what I am extremely good at. Which is not such a good thing most times!

I did what I could do by myself first, read articles, watched videos, and tapped on my intuition for certain parts that felt a little vague or confusing to me. To be honest, I was in despair on the second morning. I didn’t see much growth going on and I was soooo worried. I thought I wasn’t cut out to be a farmer. 😦


As you can see above, there were very little signs of life when I checked in the morning before I went to work.

I carried that weight of disappointment to work and harboured little hope. So sad.

But when I reached home, had the shock of my life!

My baby seeds turned into toddler sprouts!

Magic, I tell you.

And now, they’ve turned into lovely teenage clovers that you saw in the first photo of this post. Even Beedin was impressed at how quickly they grew. Yup, he got to witness my emotional rollercoaster ride throughout my experiment!

Everyone kept calling my arugulas taugehs. Haha! Never mind la. I’m happy they’re turning out well. Can’t wait to harvest and start again! I still haven’t eaten it although Shike suggested me to. I kinda don’t want to pluck anything out yet. They’re still so precious looking!

I reported to him daily as well. I felt like a guinea pig, trying out the microgreens setup in a HDB home for him. Perhaps he wanted to see as well if it could work for us regular Joes who don’t have luxurious space for gardening. But he gave me a more atas title, R&D Consultant. LOL.

So yeah, life is amazing now and I feel more rejuvenated. I’m still scattered but more focused.

And right now, I’m comtemplating learning the bass.

I’m forever all over the place la hahaha!

To surmise, by end of September, I must accomplish:

– Not missing out a single Salah
– Successfully grow arugulas
– Learn bass basics

Wake me up when September ends.

And Allah is Al-Muqtadir, The One With Full Power. – MM