Dear Diary;
It's been a loooooooong time , yes, that long since I last wrote inside my blog. Let me count, the last entrée was in 2011 and now it's already mid 2015. Yes, it's been that long, 4 years has gone by and many things have happened in between.
Let me begin with my family. I have nieces, yes, two cute, adorable yet at times irritating but still drop dead adorable nieces, Nor Amani Marwah and Nor Safinattun Najjah. My cats died, yes, Aristotle finally breath his last breath last year, and I cried my eyes out for he has been my loyal, angry, depressed yet loving cat for almost 8 years since my son was just a toddler. Another stray cat of mine died, Joey which looked very much like Hubby's one and only Joe, bitten by my neighbor's dog. (Yes, I cursed the dogs like hell, and I still curse the dogs every chance that I get). My eldest Aunty Ton is now bedridden due to third stroke attack, which caused her loosing the ability to swallow and her sickness almost tore my mom's siblings apart due to differences in opinion. (Do remember as we grow older, we are more prone to over criticizing, more dominant, more opiniated, more grumpy and therefore, that leads to family stir). But she's recovering now, although the pace is not as fast as before, she's now learning to swallow again, but things hasn't been quite the same way again. She no longer able to talk, able to read, able to walk, able to drive, able to other things which she has always been able to do before. It's sad looking at her, but I always pray the best for her, not for her to be better, but the best for her, in this world or the world hereafter. The thing is, after my youngest brother passed away, I look at life in different perspective. We can be young, but if our time is up, our time is up. There is no denial about that. Allah SWT knows best. And the most recent happening in my family is the passing of the last of Arwah Nenek yam's family member, Nenek Noriah. She's 86 this year. And she passed away on a Friday last week, 15.05.15. And that's the closure of Nenek Yam's siblings stories. And true enough, things will never be the same again. Not for this year's raya and the raya after.
And then, there is winter. Yup, winter in Malaysia. Har!Har! Just kidding. Although not impossible for winter to arrive in Malaysia, but for now, weather has been doing injustice to us. It's soo hot in Malaysia and at times, I feel like having a portable air condition 24/7 accompanying me everywhere I go. Without me realizing, I'm now already 38 years old. Yup, 2 years to go before I reach the big 40. And insyallah, if Allah SWT permits, I'll be reaching that age alive, and I do hope by then, I'm already a very successful person, and all my family members are there to be with me and share happy thoughts.
So, what has changed? Well, believe it or not, I've started my own business. Yup, the scarve business, small scale online business. So here's my website just to show some evidence:
NURRUA it is. One goal achieved. But starting an online business is no joke. it requires, time, effort, time, effort, time effort..ok I've said it three times to show the amount of time and efforts made to set up this online business and not forgetting financial resources. Of course, no bank loans, that's the number one thing I've promised my self, and limit the risk to less than RM5-10k. indeed I did achieve it. So, this online business has been running since April 2015. I have facebook, instagram and a website. All these while, I thought running an online business is easy peasy. You have a website, e-commerce, instagram, facebook, upload the photos and there you have it, the audience will make their way for a purchase. But nope, that's what Snow White thinks. The real online business is nowhere near snow white movie, you have a website, upload photo but if the price is not right, and the marketing is not aggressive enough, you don't have customers. And so far, believe it or not, since April 2015 till May 2015, out of 105 scarves that I've produced, only 14 has been sold. Some might say well, it's all right, start slow, things will get better. But the thing is, if it's slow in the beginning, the chances for you to slip out from the customer radar is higher. Yup, higher more than 80%. I have set up my own company banking and register my business mind you. So I really seriously have to make this happen. But the thing is , I have not established my real business plan, there goes. And people say, 'come on, it's not like you are running a 10 million company'.. yes, I'm not, but for any business , even for online business, having a good business and marketing plan is crucial to help you define the next strategy, so that we're not in cloud 9. But question is, where do I start? I think I have to start by creating my vision, mission, objectives, goals...blah blah blah....and ok, here's a declaration, I'm starting this by this week, Saturday, 23 May 2015.
I'm taking Duck scarves as my role model, and I do hope that would be a good source of inspiration. Of course, my main fabric material of choice would be silk, for it's softness, and classiness.
Anyway, that's enough for today's rumble. Waiting for hubby to get back from Labuan. He's already back in KL but still about to get the train back to KL sentral and drive back to our home. And did I mention that 18th May 2015 recently on Monday marked our 13th Anniversary? How time flies right. and my son Muhammad Firas is already 12 years old, and I can still vividly remember my days as a 12 year old kiddo in SRK Dato Abu Bakar. Gosh!how time flies. The one thing that hasn't changed, he's still the only child that we have for now. I do hope Allah SWT will give us a chance to have the opportunity to be parents again to our own second or third children, a healthy and well mannered one insyallah soon.
