why talk about failures 5/7..

saturday, february 01, 2003, 11.11pm...
Now thank God, I'm a much, much better wife and mother. Those difficult years have made us grown closer and more sensitive towards one another. I no longer take things for granted in my marriage and children up-bringing. To me, the wife/mother now holds the main key to the overall happiness of the family unit..

As I re-arranged my personal life back to good order, my business continued to survive on slower phases. 1997 downturn reduced demands for almost all products & services, including mine. Suddenly it was much cheaper & more business-savvier for my clients & customers to import similar items from neighbouring countries. Continuing taking my products was eventually an obligation on their part due to my previous support & commitment to them..

Their business revamping exercises to survive the downturn, which continued till september 11 and somehow continues till today, have meant that various product overhauls have had to be undertaken by us. We've had to re-position our products to different markets, and continued doing the trials & errors all over again. Internal problems like staffing and lack of resources were always the norm. It seemed the tests, challenges and stress were never ending..

So how far can I take these? How mentally strong am I really?? My earlier priorities of 'career-family-health' which were later re-arranged to 'family-career-health' was suddenly turning upside down as i reach 36 years of age. My health, which I had taken for granted to be in excellent working condition all these years, suddenly became the topmost priority..

STRESS or de-stressing suddenly became my latest obsession..

continue here

ceramic passion re-visited..

my 16yr old eldest daughter and her study group had chosen my business as their project-topic, so off we went down to my ipoh-factory yesterday all-day, followed by my second 12yr old girl..

i've never had the patient and inclination to teach or to impart any kind of knowledge to anybody very well before, hence i asked eda-bey my fellow ceramist and currently the person in charge of perak's ceramic facilities to explain technicalities on my behalf..

i had also sms-arranged with eda-bey earlier on to let 'my students' experience and learn first-hand some of the production techniques involved in my line of work.. and we've agreed to let the kids use the potters-wheels ala demi moore's character in GHOST the movie..

i was actually quite apprehensive when my eldest first told me about their choice of topic for this school project eventhough i felt very honoured and felt so mushy inside that she'd kinda promoted hence proposed her mum's creative-venture to her friends.. you see, my girl and i have both similar 'degil' traits that have often reared their ugly heads so many times and at the same times the past 16 years that we've 'known' each other, that we're often at loggerheads about many things eversince she was a toddler..!!

but that was not the real reason why i was apprehensive.. without stating the obvious here, i deflected my daughter's original intention to study 'the person behind the venture' towards.. 'the production stages behind the finished products'..

how could i let her study 'that person' when that person's blog is somewhat titled 'i'm in this business by accident'.. and she's always blogging about being lost quite often...??? ;)

so there i was.. with my 2 daughters and their 3 friends.. in my factory that i accidentally started some 15 years ago.. learning the basics of ceramics all over again.. remembering those excitements and passions that used to catapult me to achieve higher and go farther...

enjoy these works of art...

in pursuit of it-savviness, part 2..

i've decided to pursue it-savviness since 2001/2002, but only decided to put it firmly embedded in my head as my yearly goals since the past 3years.. putting and listing everything down has always worked for me eversince i could remember, and these lists would be my guiding forces for the rest of the year/s.. being sanguine and always spurred by emotions and gut-feelings, i've repeatedly found that the lists have successfully kept me sane and in-focus despite the many turnings, off-beaten and unplanned tracks that i had taken along the way..

before it-savviness became a big part of my vocabulary, listing down my goals would always involve multi-coloured pens/highlighters, plenty of papers and some quiet corners of a cozy cafe.. the same multi-coloured pens/highlighters, plenty of papers and some quiet corners of a cozy cafe would also be the most important participants to any brainstorming sessions between me, myself, my soul and my mind..

as i regularly streamline my business over the years to reduce my headaches and body-aches, and settle down to simple needs and wants.. my multicoloured pens/highlighters are slowly replaced by only one black felt-pen.. my plenty of papers (which by the way, would sometimes include tissue-papers) would be taken over by half a cm thick notebook.. and my quiet corners of some cozy cafes have been upgraded to wi-fi providers..

such is the way to go now.. and i upgraded my mobile to 3G so that i can sms, mms and browse even when i'm gardening.. proceeded with a laptop so that i could do some 'serious' work wherever i rest my hat on.. a digicam to capture my product images and anything that i fancy to share with the world.. a gmail address instead of streamyx so that i'm less-proned to virus-attacks and better organized with my emails.. picasa web-albums instead of photo attachments.. google documents instead of bulky files..

and along the way i discovered blogging and make new web-friends..

and how does a photo of my purse and reading glasses relate to all these..??

despite the hefty financial investments on it-savviness, the outcomes have been enormous.. despite my frustrations dealing with any technical complications, overcoming them have been liberating considering 'my age'.. despite the longer-than-expected years spent researching, browsing and learning this new-age technologies, i'm now considered way above my it-peers..

and what else have i paid to be it-savvier than the rest of my peers..?? after 44 years of blissful perfect eyesights, i am now for the first time in my life.. be-spectacled.. :(

in pursuit of it-savviness, part 1..

these are all that i need most of the times these days to get me on the go and fully productive and working.. i'd transfer all these 'necessary-for-my-survival' items all over my soho to enjoy different seating/working environments, or onto my car for a short drive to clear my head at some of my favourite coffee-jaunts, or drag it along to my other destinations just in case there'd be a few hours in-between my chores/errands/appointments for some quality work to be done..

those slideshows are cool, huh..??

this latest blogger's 'gadget' is really cool, huh..?? lucky that i've been using picasa web-albums the past 2-3years already, therefore applying the slideshow/s to my blog was a breeze.. provided the albums that you'd want to show are listed for public-viewing!!

as you can see, i've 2 slide-shows currently showing in my blog for all to see.. the first slide shows my factory's latest production/s that may or may not have been included in my existing (5) websites.. and the second slide shows all, well mostly all, the plants and interesting textures in my beruntung-garden sanctuary..

it's half past ten at night, i'm typing in the dark infront of the tv accompanying my young son watching his spongebob squarepants.. and i think i'm mumbling my words and sentences here.. my mind is all jumbled up with different things to do.. my eyesights are blurry and my hands & shoulders still sore from yesterday's life-changing 'operation'..

aahh yes, i've also created a blog for my schoolmates.. g'nite, g'nite..

not updating was 'on purpose'.. :(

blogging takes time..
just admit it to yourself that blogging does really take a chunk off your time..

i haven't been updating my blog the past 3 months on purpose.. i wanted to focus on completing my 2 selling websites, but as it has turned out, so many other things have kept cropping up for my attention that my work-focuses have gone hay-wires all over again..!!! :(

i purposely put up the photos of my ceramic items all over the place in my last blog-post so that i would not lose focus.. i've been looking at these photos the past 3 months in-between my other chores, errands and little projects to keep me in the right frame of working-mind.. i've been brushing off my yearnings to reflect & write down my thoughts on those other issues happening in my life the past 3 months so that i could finally complete what i've started approx. one year ago: kualalumpur-gifts.com and malaysia-gifts.com

but alas, after 3 months of ogling at the photos.. yeah, you've guess it right.. both are still not finalised!!! i'm very angry at myself here, aarrrggghh... can you see & feel it..??


you see, once both websites are finalised, my commitments and fardu-kipayahs to my long-term production staff will be taken care of almost automatically without my regular operational interventions.. and haven't i reasoned this with myself before many times already......?????

once both websites are in good working conditions, i'd only need to market, promote, link, advertise and blog about them to generate traffic and sales.. work for me would be very much more blissful, eh??

blogging then shouldn't be just taking chunks off my time.. blogging then should be time very well-spent..