Tag: A

End of April, End of Ramadan Soon; I Ramble: 30 April 2022

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

Hola! Yo yo yo.

If you have not caught wind of it yet, well, I have COVID again! For the second time!

Lies we have been told about this virus, seriously.

Unfortunately for me, when my husband contracted it a week ago, I contracted it as well. He was lucky enough to have eluded it when I first had it last year. Why could I not have the same luck? Could have made some money now that our livelihood depends on our ability to earn. Tsk tsk.

So that kind of surmises Ramadan for me. I learnt that perfection is not the key to Ramadan. It is patience. We so often think that it is all about being the best Muslim, maintaining the good habits we have planned out for a highly successful Ramadan, and ensuring we made good planning to secure all that. However, what happens when our perfect plans get screwed up? What if we were thrown a curveball in life? Does the perfect Ramadan only exist for Muslims in perfect circumstances? Is a successful Ramadan equivalent to a perfect Ramadan?

Hence, given all that has happened this month, the opportunities to do good that I have squandered, the time I have wasted, the things I had to go through and endure, I must say that this has been quite a haphazard Ramadan for me. I thought I could end strong but it looks like I could only end weakly with this virus living inside me now. The virus itself is only one of the many diseases residing in my body right now. I have a lot to work on.

Still, I will be patient and finish it as well as I can, even if I cannot finish it strongly.

I am still working on fixing my relationship with Allah. The ‘A’ that I need to prioritise before my ‘A’. It is tricky because sometimes I have to prioritise my ‘A’ in prioritising the ‘A’. It is all about defining the priorities. If you cannot be clear on what they are, that’s where you feel lost in life. You do not know which direction to head towards. I want to be smarter in prioritising.

Well, today is a day of reality check. It has been 72 hours since I tested positive so if I test negative today, I can be released back into the world. LOL. If not, I will have to check on Day 7 at 12pm, which is on Eid itself. Sucks, right? Haha. Happy CovEID to my husband and I!

Besides that, I need to jump back on this bandwagon called life.

I do not know why I have this sense of being disrespected. I have this tingling feeling that someone or some people out there have been disrespecting me. It could also be possible that I have been squashing out whatever form of disrespect I have experienced over the years that I finally imploded and am only feeling all that now.

I find it disrespectful when women come in between myself and my good men. This has happened multiple times in my life. Of course, while it could always be a play of fate, I always like to take a little bit of responsibility at least. I allowed myself to be disrespected by these women. I have decided I do not want anymore of that.

I find it disrespectful when men decided I am not good enough for anything under the sun. This has happened so many times in my life that it is almost rhetorical sometimes, the way things would end up. Again, while the circumstances may not be favourable for me, I had allowed myself to be disrespected by these men. I have decided I do not want anymore of that as well.

I have a lot of work to do. I realise the playing field will never ever be level. If I want to play the game, I have to play at the level they dictate before I am able to gain control of the game and switch it to my tempo instead.

I do not want to play the game but if I do not, I will forever be disrespected. Playing the game is tiring but I am more tired of being disrespected at this point.

Just gotta keep working.

And Allah is Al-‘Adl, The Utterly Just. – MM

Wasted Day; I Ramble: 24 April 2022

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

I think I slept from 2.30am to 6.30pm today. I could not really remember at exactly what time I fell asleep. I only remember waking up with the worst backache and getting really confused as to whether I had woken up at 6.30am or was it really 6.30pm.

That makes it 16 hours of my hibernation. I did not know that a simple sore throat pill could knock me out cold like that. Maybe it was a multitude of factors besides feeling ill such as feeling beat from travelling 3 hours a day for work. Such as doing house chores after work in the evenings. Maybe my body is trying to fight my husband’s COVID so hard that it used up whatever energy I have left.

I only know that I did not enjoy missing out on 16 hours of time I could have spent working on my projects.

And that just sends me on a downward spiral from there. I feel lethargic and I do not feel like I am up for anything much right now except to just kick back. It is not healthy, definitely.

But my body is not cooperating with whatever instructions my mind is yelling at it.

I do not know how to treat this. Do I take it as an off day? Am I allowed to rest this much? Am I entitled to rest this much? Or am I supposed to feel guilty? To wallow in self-pity? Such a familiar taste of poison.

If there is anything Ramadan has taught me, it is not about how you started. Sure, it helps your chances. You get an advantage for starting off anything well. However, it is also about how you finish. The unpronounced mercy from our Maker – redemption. We all crave redemption. Even heroes. Even heroes are prone to mistakes and most certainly look for redemption when they make mistakes.

With about eight more days of Ramadan left, and boy, has it whizzed by, what can I do to redeem myself from the wrongs I have committed? Get me out of my slump, please.

That is just it, is it not? We all have to be our own heroes because in the end, we have to face things all alone once soul is separated from body. In that moment, we each know what we had done.

A, sometimes I really wish you would discipline me more. But we both know that if you do that, I might feel like I am less of my own person. And we both know how important it is to me that I feel like I am my own person. It is why you married me in the first place. I am my own person.

And so I should start saving myself.

And I can do that.

Because I am my own person.

And Allah is Al-Hakam, The Impatial Judge. – MM

Early Days of Ramadan; I Ramble: 7 April 2022

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

Hello!!! Hahaha! Feeling a little perky today but that is mostly because I managed to have a little bit more sleep compared to the past few days.

*yawns*

Well, I did say, “A little”. Ha!

My first few days of Ramadan have been shaky and it was quite challenging to work while feeling hungry and nauseous. I have motion sickness so it kinda sucks when I cannot pop a piece of candy into my mouth to quell the dizziness while we are on the road.

Also, I have been having tummy troubles. I kept using the toilet right after pre-dawn meals so that left me running on an empty stomach from early morning to sunset. Sad.

I realised I cannot look at my phone for too long while we are on the road because of my motion sickness. I cannot stand for more than five minutes either. I felt like I wanted to faint while waiting for one of the customers to return our delivery trolley so I had to sit in the vehicle while waiting.

My husband is expecting a house guest in late April so that means, I have to start cleaning the house already. OMG. The whole point of me quitting my day job is so I could have a well-maintained house. However, I have been so focused on helping my husband out with deliveries that I have completely lost sight of the maintenance of the house.

I am really glad I started bullet journalling again. It has been helping me keep track of a lot of things.

So yeah, I will start my cleaning mission tonight. I think I want to start with the smallest space in my house, which is the store room. Anyway, we need to look for the death certificate of my husband’s dad to facilitate the remarriage application of his youngest sister. Might as well start there. It has cluttered up again after our massive decluttering last year, I think.

I also need to remember to post on my Instagram daily. I had completely forgotten to do that when I had promised I would! Gah!

I need to work out some selling details of our merchandise for Street MOB Clothing. I need to reply to a vendor I am enquiring with and then break down the costs to see what works best for us.

As for Smiling Greens, I think I am happier now with the main landing page but I will need to do up the other pages and start doing up regular content. A lot of work cut out for me.

And Allah is Al-Muzil, The Dishonourer of Disbelievers. – MM

Hello, April; I Ramble: 1 April 2022

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

What’s up, guys?!

Today is prominently April Fool’s Day but luckily the Singapore government was not fooling us; the Singapore-Malaysia border has opened after two years of closure!

It is a cause for celebration for those who have been yearning for quick getaways.

As for myself, I have no plans to cross the border yet. Right now, my attention is on adjusting to my new lifestyle and my brand and businesses.

Working side-by-side with my husband in doing deliveries has been a roller coaster. Not every couple can stand spending every moment with each other. Fortunately, my husband and I have a few different interests that give us some breathing space when we need to. Most importantly, we love each other enough to withstand each other’s nonsense.

I have never been yelled at as much as I have been yelled at and I have never laughed as much as I have been laughing now.

In the end, I think, if you want to survive as a couple, you gotta take the hits from your partner without immediately reacting negatively. Hits here do not refer to physical altercations, of course. Hits here refer to the emotional missiles, verbal angry outbursts, snide remarks, etcetera. Then, when there is an opportunity to respond kindly to the hits, take the chance to express your unhappiness. At least, this is how I make my marriage work. For example, during our delivery, when I told my husband that we need to go towards a certain direction yet he chose to go a different route and caused us to be late, I held in my “I told you so” beration first. After completing half of our deliveries, when he got in a better mood and I judged that he would be able to accept criticism, then I let out my “See, never listen to me, right? I told you to go through my way, right? We could have reached here earlier. But you shout shout shout at me and made me sad.” Of course, I would pout a bit in order to express the unhappiness while doing away any intention of being mean. It helps a lot, man. He would always apologise and console me thereafter. A lot of people tend to pay more attention to good timing during the courtship period. By right, your sense of good timing should also last throughout the entirety of your partnership post-courtship. So please practise good timing and patience whenever your partner makes you upset. There really is no point in adding fuel to the fire. Even if you know you can win the argument, choose to lose first in order to win later on. So that when you cannot win the argument, you will still win your partner’s heart.

Now that I am mostly working on weekdays with my husband, I have more free time to work on Street MOB Clothing (SMC) and Smiling Greens.

Finally, we have taken a baby step forward with SMC. Managed to reserve the business name under Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, a Singapore statutory board. So now we have <120 days to complete the business registration, which is a fair amount of time to make the money for the registration fee. Its founder who is our good friend, Danial, entrusted me with the ownership of the business.

It took me a while before I realised how I have uncannily taken ownership of assets. I am a part-owner of my parents’ house, I am an owner of a car only my husband knows how to drive, and now I am a business owner. This is just crazy. I would have been more impressed with myself if I did not have to owe any money in owning all three. Alas, now my husband and I are living a “kais pagi makan pagi, kais petang makan petang” (make ends meet) lifestyle.

It is very challenging, of course. I am giving it three months. If it does not work out, I will need to get back to working on a permanent basis. It does not have to be full-time. Maybe part-time will do.

However, right now, we are happy to help Wild Boocha with their deliveries. Thanks to our good friend, Shike, for sharing with us a platform where ad-hoc delivery requests are posted and thanks to Danial for advertising on there and highly recommending us to his bosses for the job when we responded to his ad. Last week, when we started delivering for them, we only had a few orders each day. This week, we ended up with more each day! And we are so ever grateful to the Lord for his Providence and to Wild Boocha for entrusting us with their deliveries!

As for Smiling Greens, I will need to overhaul the concept a little bit. Since we are not able to operate as a microgreens provider, Shike and I agreed to scale it down to a blog. Once it is ready, I will shamelessly promote it here and I hope you can support it by reading the articles we post on it. Hehe.

Yeah, I remain hopeful that things will fall into place with good tidings and blessings from the Almighty.

April is going to be an amazing month with all the restarts and of course, RAMADAN IS COMING!!!

Let us be excited together!

It is going to be a challenging but fun month!

And Allah is Ar-Raafi’, The Exalter. – MM

Jamming with Dry Magnum Session – March; I Record: 24 March 2022

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

I have been busy with deliveries so I have not been able to do much online work. Somehow, managed to squeeze in a jamming session with my first ever band, Dry Magnum.

I realised my voice was cracking up as I was super tired from a labourous day of work.

I will share more about my recent delivery line of work but for now, enjoy my haphazard singing with a wonderful band.

And Allah is Al-Baasit, The Extender. – MM

The Problem With Living With Another Musician; I Ramble: 6 April 2021

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

It is great to live with another musician. You get to listen to his music for free and you have free access to his knowledge and skills in music. Learning music is a huge investment and not everyone is privileged to attend formal music education. I think this is what people may overlook. They attend a few years of music school and then frown upon those playing on the streets, whom may be without formal education.

I would not say I have been in the company of music elites but I must say I have been privileged to be in the company those who have many years of music experience. And it is very interesting to interact with someone who was self-taught and someone who studied music more formally. The former is my husband and the latter is G Hustler.

And I must say, there is no right and wrong way to learn music. They are quite comparable in terms of knowledge and skills. Both of their ears are well-trained over the years. Both of them are also multi-instrumentalists. My husband is comfortable playing the piano, guitar, bass guitar, and drums. G Hustler has played saxophone and is comfortable playing the piano and guitar. But I must say he is haphazard on the drums. I definitely fare better on the drums compared to him!

What both have taught me is that we do not have to be so rigid in our music exploration. Additionally, true musicians will always be willing to give some pointers and guidance for free because in the end, it is all about the love for music. So as a learning musician, I should be more open to receiving tips.

But sometimes I just find that difficult when all I want to do is to be alone in fiddling with the instrument.

You see, the problem with living with another musician is that they get attracted to the sound of music when you are playing and then they get into the mood of playing themselves, and before you know it, they took over your instrument and consequentially your time to play it.

Sighs.

I need to figure out how to best utilise my music time. Maybe I will need to move on to another instrument when my instrument is taken over or go back to the books and learn the theoretical aspects while waiting for my husband to finish conquering my instrument. Lol.

And Allah knows best. – MM