Tag: love diary

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

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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

I Ramble: 27 December 2018

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

Meowsies.

Where do I even begin.

About ushering in 2019? Summarise 2018 and wrap up the year? About games and gaming? About being ill? About my husband? About life? About journalling? Ai yai yai yai yai. So many things yet so little energy for anything.

Maybe we’ll start with the following photo.

This is me taking a shot of my television, showing a gameplay of The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on PS3 by my husband.

Yup, it’s close to eleven PM when we were playing a bit of POTC. I firstly want to express that I enjoy being married to someone who not only shares my hobbies but also engage in them. Best part is that neither of us were overly particular about how each other play. I must admit that I wanted him to save his gameplay on a separate file but then my better judgment got me to realise that hey, I can always replay the level if I ever feel like immersing myself fully in the game or being a completionist through collecting every single item and unlocking every chest and so on. There isn’t any pressing need for me to not share the gameplay anyway. But yes, if I was working on unlocking achievement seriously, I wouldn’t let him have the controller. Hahahaha!

The game was a fortuituos buy. Remember, I wanted to buy the first installment of Uncharted? Well, my husband and I stumbled upon a copy at Games Resort @ Compass One. It costs $30. My husband was telling me to just get it as PS3 games have noticeably dwindled in the shops. But when you’re the sole breadwinner of the family, you will obviously get sensitive about the price. $30, albeit half the price of what PS3 games usually cost, is still a pinch to me. So I decided not to get it from Compass One. Then, just yesterday, I jio-ed mum to go to Tampines Mall to look for a bullet journal. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the journal I wanted to get but then I remembered there were two game shops at one of the levels. The first shop that I went to didn’t carry Uncharted so I decided to try the adjacent shop, GameXtreme. I found a copy and it costs $25. So I thought I might as well get it because I don’t know when my next trip to Tampines will be and that I probably couldn’t get a better deal anyway. Lo and behold! Just as I wanted to make payment, the dude noticed a sticker on the case and said, “This one three for $10. Go and get two more with a sticker.”

Gnarly! What a deal! So I grabbed POTC and Assasin’s Creed: Brotherhood because nothing else interest me. For POTC, I played it on Wii before and I really enjoyed it so I thought I’d play it again on PS3 instead. Then I simply chose AC because my husband likes the franchise. Wow. It’s so different when you’re a single gamer and when you’re a married gamer, huh? Hahahaha!

So yup! Lucky me bought Uncharted for just 1/3 of $10 instead of $30. That’s like…errr…my fractions is not good. 1/3 of 1/3? Cos you know, it is like three times less of three times less? Oh, bollocks, nevermind me. Point is, it pays to be frugal. And nice. Cos nasty customers won’t get good recommendations. Muahahahaha!

So that’s about yesterday and games and gaming. It’s been a while since I’ve touched my console so I feel the vertigo pretty damn badly this time. My head just fucking hurts all the time now. Sheesh.

Oh, yeah, I mentioned about wanting to get a bullet journal. I know, I can just use any old notebook but I really wanted to emulate the creator of the bullet journal and I think that the dots would be pretty helpful in making markings and estimating the amount of space I need for certain sections of the bullet journal.

So there goes the dream. I know I can just get it online but like I said, I have to be frugal as I am the only person who is holding the money.

But yeah back to gaming, I haven’t started on Uncharted yet ironically enough. Hahahaha! That shows just how much I enjoyed playing POTC on Wii. To be honest, I can’t recall going through the same sort of experience on the PS like I did on the Wii! Let me just check for a moment if my instincts are true. Both versions really feel a whole lot different to me! Or is it I’m demented? Let me just check for a sec.

Oh yes, they are indeed different! Oh, my God! I recall smashing crates a lot more in POTC Wii and spending more time in the sea prison in the beginning chapter. POTC PS3 is like a super condensed version of the movie and I didn’t spend as much time in the beginning chapter.

Oh, wow, wow, wow! Nonetheless, this PS3 version that is new to me, is still enjoyable. It does have that Uncharted feel in terms of having to figure your way out and scaling walls and shimmey-ing ledges. So I figured that POTC is a great warm-up game to gear me up for POTC.

I found out about the versions being different from GameSpot. Man, it has been a while since I’ve been there and blog there. Now, I miss blogging there about games and all that jazz. Really takes me back given just how much I have rambled on about games in this post! Felt like the good old times!

For a proper game post, I should write about the differences I experienced in both versions and whether I enjoy one more than the other. Apparently the Wii version is the same as the PSP and PS2 versions but the PS3 and XBox360 versions are different, with the XBox360’s varying slightly from the PS3’s.

Wow, amazing! We all discovered something new!

Anyway, I feel like I rambled on long enough. Will definitely want to complete the games I started playing on both the PC and on the PS3. Also, will definitely want to get back to bullet journalling and be more life-organised.

I really like to make up my own words sometimes. Just how do you guys live with me? Hahahaha!

And Allah is Al-Wahhab, the Supreme Bestower. – MM

I Ramble: 21 July 2017

In the name of Allah, the All-Compassionate, the All-Merciful.

Managed to have a quick celebration of 8 months as a couple with Beedin on the day I signed my contract with Uniqlo, which was last Wednesday. I even put on a bit of makeup for the occasion, which was a treat for Beedin. He makes me feel very comfortable in my skin so I rarely wear makeup on our dates.

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Coincidentally, a Mexican navy ship was available near the place I signed my contract. Now, if you recall, Beedin made a ship for me out of ice-cream sticks to carry my engagement ring. So to have that ship around on our special day, was definitely significant. ^_^ I just had to snap a picture despite the sun being in our eyes hehe.

Sighs. I’m going to miss him terribly. I’m starting work tomorrow and I’ve been feeling quite nervous about it. I mean, I’ve read the reviews and experiences online and I personally have an idea of what retail is like because I’ve worked as a packer before at Giant Hypermarket Tampines. Here’s one experience that can probably scare anyone from working at Uniqlo: https://onesundaymorning.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/uniqlo-operations-management-trainee-singapore-2/.

Sure, the person was an OM trainee who revealed the salary to be at $2.7k so you might think, what’s the relevance, Baeda? But if you were to read the descriptions of the job, seem rather apt for a typical retail associate. So in that aspect, I’m quite mentally prepared.

Am I going to have the same experience? Well, we’ll see. I’m known to be a crybaby but hey, five years of childcare? I’m probably made of stronger stuff now. I’ll take folding clothes into the night any day compared to washing children’s toilets at the end of a tiring day.

And oh, I actually applied to be a Retail Associate but surprisingly, they assigned me as a Senior Retail Associate. I suspect it is due to my degree. Imagine if I had chosen to keep my degree a secret. Would have been a shame. I almost did so because the first time I applied to Uniqlo, I was ignored. HAHAHA. I thought probably my qualifications put them off. For some reason, I thought, hey, why not re-apply. And whazaaaa…they reverted to me in less than a week. Toinksss.

So yeah, good luck to me on that. I shall endeavour to blog about it every single day if I’m not exhausted but I have a feeling I will be completely knackered at the end of each working day. Hahaha!

But I’m hoping to be able to schedule my life properly because I do have a lot of commitments after all. I just need that staff roster and then I can plan from there.

But yes, a one-week’s grace will be very much appreciated. So if I’m quiet here for about a week, you’ll know exactly why. HAHAHAHA.

Had a meeting today with SMC brothers. We discovered that the purchasing system on the wixstore site was disabled as it needed us to pay for it. Toinksss. So apologies all. If you would like to order, please email streetmobclothing@gmail.com. Thanks!

Also, I’m very sad about the passing of Chester Bennington. He influenced me greatly in music and my songwriting. In honour of his memory, here is a song that helped me through shit, especially when I feel so alone and when I feel people couldn’t understand me.

Because I can’t hold on when I’m stretched so thin
I make the right moves but I’m lost within
I put on my daily façade but then
I just end up getting hurt again
By myself

May Allah ease the pain of his loved ones and may He have compassion and mercy on his soul. Amin.

And Allah is Al-Hakam, the Judge, the Arbitrator. – MM

I Ramble: 28 June 2017

In the name of Allah, the All-Compassionate, the All-Merciful.

I haven’t slept a wink and it’s already 5:25am now. I might be in trouble over the lack of sleep because I have not one but two interviews today.

Of all the days to be so wide awake at night….zzzzz

Maybe retrieving le fiance’s mail wasn’t such a good idea. Oh, the things he was put through. D:<

When it comes to money, both of us seemed to be tested greatly. Money going out but money not returning when it should be. I think if the both of us were to survive in the future, we need tighter financial policies. Hahaha!

But actually, no, it’s not really a laughing matter when both of us keep getting suckered out of our money out of our kindness.

I need to sit down with him and re-prioritise our pending payments.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure now that I’m annoyed by the thought of people getting away with our money, enjoying their lives, while the two of us battle hunger, sickness, and limited funds.

But knowing him and knowing myself, we won’t be fighting to get our money back. Instead, we’ll be fighting to start our earnings from scratch. Yes, it’s very painful to be conned of a four-digit sum and for him a five-digit sum if not a six-digit sum. But because we are very thin on resources, all the more we should utilise those resources in growing them.

So please, please, please pray for us our affairs will be made easier for us.

I also cannot thank Nora enough for helping me through these difficult times and both Nora and Lyra while I was in the Philippines.

I am also endlessly grateful to Him for letting them both into my life because if we were to base things on first impressions, both of them would certainly not be my friends and I would be worse off right now.

And I can never fully repay my family for spotting me cash in my time of need.

As for le fiance’s health update, he’s still weak and drowsy. It’s been a week now since that fateful night. I think what kept me up as well beside the abovementioned frustration in life is my anxiety in finding out if he will finally be well today. At least well enough to follow me to a group interview by the Japanese retail company I mentioned before in an earlier post. He is still keen on an outdoorsy driver delivery job but I much rather he stays indoors with people around him in a well air-conditioned place and goes home with a higher pay.

But I seriously think my pitch to him would centre more on the air-con. Hehehe.

Wow, it is 6:07am and I am still not sleepy and I have to be out of the house in about two hours.

Hais.

Stay financially wise everyone.

And Allah is Al-Baasit, the Expander, the Munificent. – MM

I Romance: 24 June 2017

In the name of Allah, the All-Compassionate, the All-Merciful.

Dear Bee,

Here are a few easy-listening songs for you to relax to while you are recovering. And well, okay, our favourite song at the end of the list hehe.

Love always,

Bae xoxo

P.S.: If you guys haven’t noticed, I have been signing off with Allah’s names (there are 99 of them), some were mentioned in the third video.

And Allah is Al-Qaabid, the Restrainer, the Straightener. – MM

I Ramble: 4 June 2017

In the name of Allah, the All-Compassionate, the All-Merciful.

When it rains, it really pours.

My personalised Ramadhan challenge suddenly pales in comparison to the real life challenges I am facing in Ramadhan right now.

Received worrying news about le fiancé’s current health situation. He had to quit smoking cold turkey, which is causing him to relapse into a mild stroke. His hands are starting to be numb. I feel more frazzled right now. I truly hope, in case of an emergency, I would be able to respond accordingly and promptly.

Now I have to replan. The plan now is to make sure I don’t break under pressure. It is a race against time now and we have to pray hard that our situation right now does not worsen further.

I haven’t been able to sleep well for a couple of weeks now and even if I do, they’re mostly mares. I know for a fact that this is caused by the stress that is overloading my head. And my heart is ever oh so heavy.

Suddenly, I have to grow up overnight, overwhelmed by the prospect that I might lose him but at the same time, I have to accept my fate if all of my efforts fail and if Allah wills it to be.

For now, I am still trying.

It is back to those times when I had my cancer scare in 2015. I hope everything right now is just one big scare and nothing more than that.

I hope when I wake up tomorrow morning, both of our lives will turn around for the better. I need to hustle a couple of people tomorrow and if they do not deliver, I will have to march down and pray that I can walk in for an interview at Uniqlo.

Bright side though, I have finished reorganising my closet. So that is one Ramadhan challenge met. And that we all know that it takes Nurul Huda three days to do so.

Will update the ‘CHALLENGES’ page when I use the desktop computer. Right now, I am on my mobile.

If anything, I am most probably being tested for my readiness to be a wife; to see if I have it in me to be someone’s lifetime partner, to ride and die with. So far, I haven’t been doing well in the test, really looking like I’m flunking it but I don’t want to cave in yet. I am determined to the point of absolute stubbornness.

Ya Allah, please make it easy on me. I just need that greenlight…so near yet so unreachable. It all hinges on that one lifeline I have been counting on for some time to be fair. Ya Allah, grant me strength and resilience in asserting my rights. I waited to be interviewed for the job for hours only to be stood up and even after being interviewed, I am still waiting to be given the online test that was agreed to be given to me two months earlier. For this alone, I know I am one who has been done wrong. My prayer as someone who has been done wrong is for me to get the job tomorrow in order to sustain my livelihood and my families, both current and future. Amin.

And Allah is Al-Mu’min, the Guarantor. – MM