A Homemaker’s Diary

There are many things that money can buy – a great looking handbag, a nice blouse, a red lipstick, a plate of signature dish, a branded timepiece.

But there are many meaningful things in life that money can’t buy.

A moment at the seaside with your loved one when he was no longer around in this world.

An appetite to eat a plate of your most favourite dish when you are not feeling well.

The time of happiness and joy when you are on outing, holding hands with your spouse.

The glow of health on your cheek and strong body to carry on with everyday’s chores.

A heart full of love from a giving lover to the humble recipient.

We should always be thankful and grateful with all the tiny, meaningful stuffs that we have in life because not all people will have the chance to have them even when they have all the money in the world to pay for those things.

*This post is written for LiveHuman.com*

If you are running a business website online and you tend to have many emails from customers interested in your products and would like to ask details about it, it will be a good idea to have this LiveHuman support chat feature.

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This is also a great way for me to know what my potential clients are looking for while doing the pre-sales contact through the live chat..heh!

I don’t really like the idea of going out alone, but then again my outing tomorrow is more to run an errand rather than window shopping. First I need to go to ePerolehan counter in Putrajaya to renew the MyKad enabled eP for my IT company. Then I will take ERL to KL and then LRT to shop for additional materials for my new creations at Jalan TAR.

The thing is I have to come out with few designs for a Datin’s daughter’s wedding in March. Courtesy of my friend the songket business owner, she managed to make the Datin fell in love with my bunga songket creations. So I will try to do something that can make the Datin decides to place 1000pcs of orders for the guests to the wedding reception which might been held in a hotel next year. So my mission tomorrow is to find ribbons that could match the off white songket pieces she chose.

Oh, the freelance writer for The Star newspaper has came to my place on Monday afternoon as per her appointment for the interview and the photo session. So the next thing I will be looking forward is the exact date the article will be featured in the newspaper..hehe!

And come to think of the outing, I think I need to buy a new umbrella when I walk by Sogo tomorrow. I don’t want to be caught in a heavy, pouring rain alone with plastic bags full of craft stuffs..huhu! I miss my old, grey Giordano umbrella which I accidentally left at Delifrance many months ago.. 🙁

*This post is written for rebuild.org*

Earlier this year I have attended a course for entrepreneurs. I’ve learned quite a lot in term of where to look for loans for start-up business, the expansion option and all the regulations when it comes to government matters. But there is no such thing as loans for SOHO business owner. They want to make sure that I at least rent a shop lot unit and run my business from the shop in order to qualify me for any business loans offered by the government.

I think in my case what I could do in order to get more capital for my craft business is to apply for personal loan. Of course once I tied myself to another financial commitment like that it will be another burden to think of day and night. Not to mention that I will have mortgage loan to think as well in another year or two as we are planning to buy this house that we have been living in, but hopefully that will be settled by Hubby.

For those who have taken mortgage loans with higher interest rate before, perhaps it’s best if you look around for refinance option. I’ve been thinking of doing that for my existing car loan but till now I still couldn’t find the best rate.

Wouldn’t it be nice if money could grow on tree..or my father is a super rich man who can give me loan without paying a single cent back..heh!

I woke up today with a phone call. Seeing the number I thought it must be one of the telemarketers who want to sell insurance or holiday package. But it turned to be a potential client who works with Citigroup.

He would like to order guest favors for his (I assumed) wedding in December. This is what I suggested to him – mengkuang cone in apple green.

The only setback was when I requested him to bank in 50% deposit, he was like very sceptical stating some thing like I will run away with the money if he banks in RM300, bla bla..I told him that I will email the invoice or if he really can’t trust me, he can come over to my place to see the samples.

Oh, come on! I’ve been doing this online business for 3 years now. My clients were from UK, Australia, Brunei and Sarawak. You can’t expect me to meet every one of my online clients just to be sure that they can trust me to complete the task for them. If you can’t trust an online seller then you should go to the nearest local craft stores and find what you like, pay and take the ready made items home. You don’t come (call) to me and ask to customize 200pcs of wedding favors for your event and expect me to trust that you’ll take the completed items in 1 month time without paying any deposit.

I already placed the orders to the mengkuang supplier since I know it will take around 2-3 weeks for them to dye the mengkuang leaves, dry them in such rainy season like now, and later weave the leaves into mats, cut them into pieces and courier the mengkuang to me. Once I get the mengkuang pieces, I will start doing all the ribbons and organza to decorate the cones. All these works are really a labor of art.

I hope more people will realize that I don’t sell bulk items imported from China or Indonesia, which are all ready in packaging. I took my time and creativity to come out with something special for your wedding so the least that you can do is to appreciate the hard work I put into it. If I really hard up for your money and planning to run away with your deposit of RM300, I wouldn’t be doing this craft business, I rather go and work an executive job like what I used to do.

Sometimes it makes me think that if it is not for my passion and love for all these crafts work, I don’t know why I should put up with a difficult client like this..huhu!