Living with Sarah

Every few weeks I would have this bout of sleepless night/s. To call myself an insomniac might not be correct because at times I can get some sleep some time around 3-4 in the morning. Sometimes, not at all. Perhaps its hormone problems. Must be the age :) The whole of last week I slept at 4am, woke up for Subuh, then tried to get some sleep after that. Falling asleep itself was difficult, then just as I was about to experience the bliss of sleeping, the alarm would go off. No wonder I have panda eyes. Last Friday, already set to go for a ride on Saturday morning, but had to cancel because I didn't get any sleep the whole night. And to top it off, I took an allergy pill which might not go so well with Panadol Actifast that I felt groggy in the morning. Tried to catch some sleep in the afternoon after taking care of some stuff at the shop but the weather was so so hot the air conditioner felt like a normal fan. So, I took Aliyah out for lunch and then spent the time with my Kak ...

My ever so trusted and loved Merida 750 is officially sold. Condition - tip top my personal mechanic jaga feels almost new. Bike yang sangat berjasa. I think we sold about 16 bikes due to people testing the bike. However, as much as I love the bike, this business of buying and selling bikes has its perks. At least for me as the co-owner of the shop. The shop's test bike, which actually is owned by me, was bought at (almost) cost price. So, tolak whatever I have paid (or owe), I made quite a nice profit. Enough to get myself a new bike at (almost) cost price with self-declared monthly installment scheme. Now, the shop has a new KTM 650 Ultra 1.65 test bike. The components are quite high end compared to my Merida, costs RM1,000 plus higher and about 300 grams lighter. Even though I still think Merida bikes have very modern and appealing design, KTM designs mostly appeal to men, not women. Yup, funny fact I observed. I salute the genius brain who designed the bike. Men who come to...

GST implementation is just around the corner. And yet, we are still not prepared. Minggu ni barulah confirm subscribe to GST software. And today was spent researching software vendors to find the most suitable POS system - that suits our needs and budget. While GST implementation can be a very good reason for us to upgrade from using simple GL using excel to using a full-fledged software to track sales and inventory, the amount that we need to invest is actually quite high. Especially for a new shop like ours. We had to use the money stashed to pay for new stock for the GST and POS softwares. Bulan ni nak bayar hutang guna duit dari mana agaknya? Stock baru pun mungkin kena hold. Stock yang ada sekarang... will people buy when they have to fork out for GST? We don't know... And while people and complaining and whining about having to pay GST, nobody even cared to look at this side of the fence - the businesses, especially the small businesses. Menteri asyik kata - peniaga janga...

Hari ni girls' hangout - Linda, Aliyah and I - at IOI City Mall. Tujuan utama ialah tengok wayang di GSC yang agak baru dibuka. Ceritanya - Cinderella. Linda yang beriya nak tengok. Teringat kisah kecik-kecik dulu suka fairy tales, katanya. I actually just wanted to check out LivingIndex and HomePro. Sejak 2-3 minggu lepas, setelah membuat satu keputusan drastic bersama Hubby, dah start tengok-tengok barang rumah. Bab itu belum boleh cerita lagi :) Anyway, nak naik ke GSC pun takes some time (bawak Linda kena cari elevator instead of escalator), beratur beli popcorn pulak punyalah lama. Fahamlah tempat baru, staff pun mungkin belum expert lagi nak handle orders. But then, it's school holidays. GSC should have anticipated that the crowd would be huge. Kalau satu customer 5 minit, you can imagine berapa panjang queue. The movie itself - so-so. Just like the reviews said - nothing new. Macam mana cerita Cinderella dalam buku, macam itulah movienya. No twist, no suspense, nothi...

Sekolah dah mula cuti. Another bad-timing school holidays for us. Tengah agak kering sebab duit habis kat book printing dan launching. So, another holiday di mana Aliyah kena simply stay home. Kesian kat dia. Jalan-jalan biasa OK kot. Perhaps catch a movie. She's got to go to her tuition classes anyway. Ada exam katanya. Then, a hangout with her friends on Thursday chaperoned by one of the girls' mother. OK lah tu kan? Insyaallah bila dapat M4, we must go for that short getaway. Tak kira cuti sekolah atau tak. Dapat saja terus pergi :). Or so, kata Aunty Linda. We still have one makan-makan holiday to fulfill before Ramadhan.

Alhamdulillah... Settle satu hutang lapuk. Ceritanya macam merry-go-round. Kalau sorang bayar, orang tu bayar orang ni, orang ni bayar orang nun, orang nun bayar orang tu. Tak ada ending. I've put an end to the issue finally. Redha atau tidak, hutang tetap hutang kan? Now I have less things on my shoulders. My aim - nak jadi orang yang bebas hutang. Itulah doa tiap-tiap hari. Now, next!

Last week, dapat email dari satu agensi. Tajuknya : tawaran sebutharga untuk kerja-kerja penulisan dan terjemahan. Biar betul. Bukan I dah kena blacklist dengan agensi tu? At one glance - scope masih sama. Project duration - 3 weeks? Project start awal March. Hahaha... talking from my experience - awal March baru nak kejar data dari berbelas agensi lain. Tengah bulan - masih lagi mengejar. Hujung bulan - kerja diaorang hampir siap tinggal nak buat slides untuk present kat boss. Orang yang kena buat write-up dan translation baru dapat data nak mula kerja. Nak research lagi, analysis lagi... In the end, deadline pun dah sampai. Unless this year they learned from previous experience - 2 years they engaged outside writers to do but failed - and they blamed the writers for not knowing how to do work. Siapa yang salah sebenarnya?

Alhamdulillah... Thank you MStar for coming to our event and writing about us. MYSA Perintis iBook Islam & Sains

Our day started early. We reached Masjid Besi at 12.30pm. The space where we booked was used for another event - lunch place for peserta Kursus Haji. So, we had to wait. Other than some glitches with the caterer, which Linda obviously was good at handling (hahaha!), other preparations went well. Even the "interaction" between the iPad and our Smart TV went quite well. Last night when Hubby tested, connection was not very stable. We started at 3pm, 30 minutes delay but finished just as planned. It was planned to be very short, sweet and simple. Hubby was the MC with Ijjul as cameraman. I had to give a speech. At first I thought of ways not to have to do it but then I am the head after all. When I wrote the speech, it covered all that I wanted to say. I bravely wrote taking a moment to recite Al Fatihah to the two people who were "supposed" to attend but have left us. But when I read my father's name, my voice just broke. I felt my breath came short. I thought o...

Alhamdulillah, we successfully launched MYSA iBook and book today. After almost 2 weeks of preparations, last minute work, etc the event went well today. It was planned to be very small and intimate. We invited only the ones that have "relation" to the products and the company. Half of the invitee turned up. Old friends like Atom and Shazleen came. Friends from Code were represented by Ameen and family. The rest, he told us, were working on a deadline at their office. An officer from SKMM came, also with her family. Ustaz Faris came with his family. On my side, got 2 nephews to help out - Along Iwan and Ijjul. My brother Abang Ben came too to give moral (and emotional) support. Only one media representative came ie from MStar. I will need to email our press release and photos to friends at NST. As long as we get some coverage in the media is good for us. The focus now is to get the iBook and book sold. I'm getting the latest PDF version from Code to sell it as eBook. Af...

We received our books yesterday. Ameen, our partner from Code, came armed with 650 books. It was just 300 at first, then became 500 because the cost differed only RM300, and when the final goods came, it was 650. Now I have this teeny weeny bit of experience with book printing especially on cost-saving methods. I spotted 2 errors in the book. The errors were corrected during review but some how crept back into the final version. Thankfully, I am no longer a true Virgo, who would go berserk seeing such errors. I just took a deep breath, look at the mistake and consoled myself to just move on. Never mind. Lesson learned.  The book. Just 90 pages. Not thick at all. A kids' book.

Linda and I went over to Masjid Besi again yesterday. Mission: to meet up with caterer and pay deposit, then over to the mosque's office to hand over our letter. I used the time when Linda met up with the officer to survey the place one more time. This time doing the details - locate power source, estimate length needed for extension cables, the exact place to hang the banner, etc. This time around we have time to spare. No rush. Hajat nak duduk sekejap dalam masjid, solat sunat, zikir sikit dan join solat jamaah. Dah lama niat nak iktikaf tapi tak berkesempatan. Alhamdulillah, Asar was around the corner. Weather dari panas tiba-tiba gelap, angin kuat, hujan dan ribut. Subhanallah! Personally, it was a bit scary. I've read about how bad a storm can be in Putrajaya but have never experienced it. While performing solat sunat, telekung memang terbang-terbang sebab angin sangat, sangat kuat. And then the rain came. The whole dewan solat terasa tempias air. Muka terasa basah. I ...