fadza’s mco birthday

April 12, 2020

Not gonna lie, guys.

Being with someone CONSTANTLY on their birthday is HARD.

I felt so pressured to make Fadza the best birthday ever, overcompensating because I felt so bad that he couldn’t see his family or friends or colleagues or even have dinner outside, that I took it upon myself to make sure he feels super duper loved at home.

The problem is… there was 24 hours in a day. 1,440 minutes. 86,400 seconds. Of looking at him and smiling at him. Cos well, you’re stuck together THE WHOLE DAY. Because there aren’t enough rooms to hide from him in the house.

Every time I passed him, “Happy birthday babyyyyy.”. Bump into each other in the toilet, “Happy birthday, sayang!” Going to the fridge to get a pudding with him, “Happy birthday sweetheart!” Hide in the kitchen and sees him hiding there too, “Hey umm, happy birthday!” *awkward laughter from both of us* Playing Homescapes and he passes by, “Happy birthday!” #runningoutofpetnameshere

Oh. My. God. Is. It. Tomorrow. Yet.

Usually he’d be out and about, in the office etc, having some other life and being elsewhere other than these four walls. But because he was home, the kids and I did the sweetest thing – We made a Daddy’s Birthday Timetable for him. Screw it, it’s my blog. I DID THE SWEETEST THING. The kids didn’t do anything, I couldn’t tell them because they can’t keep secrets ever.

Oh but they did draw this timetable up for him.

Under my instructions. So still me, guys.

As you can see, the day was FILLED with love and surprises. I made sure to involve his family, his team, his school friends and all of us on his birthday, even though we can’t physically be together. The vlog is up so you can watch there.

But all I can say is, mannnnn I love my husband. He’s a wonderful man who deserves 86,400 seconds of reminders that we love him. I meant every word I wrote on the family portrait. “Complete. When we’re with you, everything feels complete.” May you always be blessed by Allah swt with all the goodness that life and the hereafter have to offer, Insyaallah.

For the 2,687th time this week, happy birthday to the love of my life.

that will never work

April 10, 2020

I had an MCO vision.

In that vision, I’m lying down everyday reading a book. In that vision, I finish one book everyday, and in fact that one Sunday the kids were being so quiet and well-behaved that I smile as I finish my second book that day. Oh, pure bliss. In that vision, I have new books being delivered to me because I had finish all the hundreds of books on my book shelf. That was my vision. My beautiful MCO vision for myself.

The reality of course LOL-ed at that and spat at my vision. Mondays to Fridays are filled with back to back video calls with the team (seriously, everyone I speak to says they work even harder from home and they’re all so tired. SAME HERE!), night time is me cooking for half hour, showering for 2 minutes and scolding the kids to pick up toys for 3 hours. After the kids sleep, I pick up a book but end up snoring on Fadza’s lap with the book… on my face.

I’m trying, guys, I’m really trying!

So you can imagine the celebration in this house when I finished this book which is now a new favourite of mine. I. FELT. ON. TOP. OF. THE. WORLD. Like seriously, I was the WOMAN that day. I finished a book, WOOHOOOOOOO!

It’s about the birth of Netflix, how it all started and how the story is a little different from what Reed Hastings tells everyone. So the company was founded by his friend Marc Randolph (they talked about in the car – sounds familiar?!!! Me and Fadza talked about FV in the car too! Why are we not valued at $150billion yet…). In this book, Marc shared a lot on the early days and the issues and memories they had – I loved reading it because it brought back so much memories of FV’s early days too. So many teething problems like email templates, server crashes, begging companies to collaborate with you, getting rejected by VCs, so many that he shared. Did you know Netflix started as site that sells and rents DVDs?

One of my favourite stories was a coupon deal that they did. They were desperate to get Samsung’s attention but Samsung didn’t entertain them as they were just a small startup. So they went to Toshiba instead and Toshiba took the bait. Because of this, Samsung felt threatened and they said ok to collaborate. Haha. Kinda like dating in real life too huh – you want the guy only after you see him with another girl. Anyway, so they did a “Buy one Samsung DVD player, and get 10 free DVD rentals from Netflix” to tap on Samsung’s customer database. Customers had to enter the serial number of the DVD player into Netflix website to redeem. Suddenly they saw a HUGE HUGE increase on free DVD rentals that were causing them a lot of money loss. They thought something was fishy. They went to the local electronics store and they found the problem – the serial number was written OUTSIDE of the box. So no one had to buy anything, they can just key in the serial number into Netflix website and got 10 free rentals just like that. Customers – 10, Netflix – 0.

And many more of these kind of stuff that he shared. It was so interesting and relatable. Even giant companies make such simple mistakes, and they’ll always bounce back if they don’t give up! They also had partner problems, Reed actually told Marc to step down as CEO and he should be CEO instead, but Marc knew it was the right decision as the company moves from startup to scaleup. Reed then took the company to greater heights, laser focused, with Marc by his side as President. The book was so honest and so heartwarming, sharing the pains of what startups go through.

I won’t spoil it anymore for you (go read this book!) but here are some lessons that stood out the most for me:

  1. Focus. A company must always focus. Don’t try to do too many things at once. (He calls this the Canada principle where Netflix chose not to expand out of the US yet because even though Canada looked tempting, it meant that the team would lose focus and split resources)
  2. No doesn’t always mean a no.
  3. You can write a business plan, but reality is that it will change many many times. Be adaptable. (If they followed their business plan, they’d still be selling DVDs and probably be bankrupt now)
  4. People will always tell you “That will never work”. His advice is that “Nobody knows anything”. Just do it, because you will only fail if you don’t try.

After reading this book, I realised that I got more excited as he talked about the company in the latter part of the book – the unicorn part, the big data part, the IPO part. I love that dream, I love that vision, I love that challenge of growing a big company. Even though startups have so many fun memories, the scaleup part excited me more. There’s no right or wrong, obviously, it’s just personal preference. So even though I loved the book, I related more to Reed than Marc. Funny how you discover yourself more and more as you read more books.

Hope this review helped!

Ok, brb. Gotta get FV to $150Billion. LOL.

Ya Allah, I would like a….

April 7, 2020

It’s Day 20 of the covid19 quarantine now and I haven’t blogged for just a few days. It’s been, umm, the usual; reading, working, being a public scrutiny, getting death threats, reading a couple books, started a new covid19 fund, cleaning the house. The usual. *nervous laughter* SO MANY THINGS have happened you won’t believe when I tell you. I will definitely share because this is a historical moment in my life that I want to pen down, all the good and bad and twists of it. But that’s for another day!

Today, I realised that I can soooo be a stay at home mom. I am LOVING IT.

I’m enjoying the time at home so much it’s ridiculous. I’m almost hoping MCO extends haha. I’ve been spending so much time with the kids (no choice) and we’ve created a new routine together. At breakfast, we all sit together and talk about what we plan to do today. Then we go off to do our own things – kids are forced to read books here and I don’t allow any screen time. At lunch, we sit together again and play all sorts of games. In the evening, I allow some screen time and the kids are free to watch their favourite YouTube channels etc etc (Sarah just watches Frozen on loop – #Olafislyfe). At dinner, we sit and talk about our day, one by one. I love to see them doing this because it makes them practice to speak and explain things well – Daniel’s very good at that, Mariam still needs help. Because I’ve been home a lot, they’ve seen lots of nagging from me. When I’m at work, I can’t really see if they do their chores like cleaning up all their toys, or shower on time, or finish their food – now I’m a tiger mom, they even set the table and put dishes back in the sink. #yourewelcomekaksiti

One thing I super love is our time together when we pray. So Fadza will imam all of us and the 5 of us will pray together. At the end, we all get to say one doa. Daniel and Mariam will always ask for dinosaurs or more toys or whatever la, we just Amin-kan only. #pleasedontsendusdinosaursGodpleasedont

Today’s doa session:

Fadza: Ok, Daniel, what would you like to doa from Allah today?

Daniel: Hmm… let me think about it…. this is hard.

30 seconds later. *roll eyes tangan lenguh*

Daniel: Ok I got it! Ya Allah….. can you give us a new baby please?

Fadza and I didn’t move.

Not sure if we should Amin this haha.

There Sarah was, a colour pencil in one hand, drawing all over our bed and furniture. Sigh. No, no.

Go back to asking for dinosaurs Daniel, please!

happy birthday to anybody

March 28, 2020

Every time March comes, I dread it. So many birthdays to plan for! I would’ve just finished throwing Mariam’s birthday party end Fed. Mommy birthday is on the 11th, Boot’s birthday is on the 13th, Stella’s is on 18th, Tasha’s on 26th, followed by Marissa on 28th. Then Toots on 2nd April, and then Fadza’s on 8th April. Like this time, I start to reconsider if I really need this many friends. Or a husband.

Mommy’s birthday is settled – threw her something she LOVED and you’ll watch it soon on Love, Vivy. Boot’s birthday was when everyone started getting paranoid about coronavirus so her birthday dinner was canceled (poor girl!). And Tasha’s birthday was 2 days ago during this time when everyone is in quarantine. Her boyfriend Seth was so sweet. He organised a video call where we all sang her a birthday song. Pretty funny actually, Fadza pretended to set up a work call so she thought it was about some launch schedule whatnot, and one by one her friends started getting into the meeting.

She cried! #successssssss

For Marissa’s birthday it’s harder to plan something for her because she obviously expected a friends video call surprise like Tasha’s. #thanksalotSeth We did that, and her husband Normann called her to the laptop and she was like “Oh, hi guys! Didn’t expect this.” – but all made up and looking pretty. *roll eyes*

BUT we did get her! We made a video for her clanking pots at our balcony while shouting Happy Birthday Marisaaaaaaa. And even got her mom in on it. Which failed terribly because her guards came to her unit and asked if everything was ok. Haha. Sigh, things we do for love. If clanking our pots outside isn’t true friendship, I don’t know what is.

 

She didn’t cry. But she doesn’t have a heart, so whatever.

Next one is Toots and then my husband omgggggg.

I’m just going to play this video for all the next birthdays this year. Including you guys reading this.

 

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ANYBODY!

Happy birthday to you.

#dudukrumahdiamdiam

March 26, 2020

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Me.

Me who?

Mee goreng no sayur.

BAHAHHAHAHAHAH.

As you can see, I’m still hilarious even in 2020.

I miss writing so much and I’ve been in lockdown for a while. Don’t worry, everyone is. Ok, maybe worry a little. But basically when you thought 2020 would show us flying cars, it’s showing us a flying virus instead. But more on that later. Before I continue, let me catch you up on my life since my last post was almost a year ago.

Still married to Fadza and working on the business together (we haven’t killed each other yet), still got 3 kids last I counted. Daniel is still into robots, Mariam still loves her daddy and Sarah is still my favourite child. I’m still 49.9kg, some days 50.3kg but what does a weighing scale know, really. So ok, all caught up.

Ok back to the global pandemic.

Basically there’s this big bad virus called Coronavirus/Covid19 that spread from China to the rest of the world via human to human contact. At first a lot of people thought it was like a normal flu, but very quickly it turned out to be more serious – goes into the lungs and screws up the respiratory system. A lot of people recover from it, but once you’re positive, you have to be quarantined so that you don’t spread it to others. It’s especially bad for elder people or people with underlying health problems. A lot of deaths in the world already. There are a lot of phrases we are learning right now; “social distancing”, “self-isolation”, “wash your hands”. So quite honestly, the whole world is worried and country by country, governments are declaring movement control order/lockdown to make sure everyone stays home to minimise the virus spreading. It’s Day 8 of lockdown now and parents are going crazy with kids constantly asking questions about life, single people are already talking to the walls, and Fadza and I are running out jokes to tell each other so now we just avoid eye contact altogether. I haven’t worn proper makeup in 7 days, can’t remember if I showered today, finished 2 tubs of ice cream already in my pyjamas – don’t judge, you’re in pyjamas pants reading this too. Wanna judge me….. pfft. Basically, we’re all slugs right now. But not today me. Today me is awesome. Today me wore makeup and put on real clothes without questionable holes. Today me also shaved my legs because Fadza made some eye contact just now. I mean, today me is really really presentable. Fadza is so lucky.

In all seriousness, this pandemic is nothing we’ve ever seen before. If someone told me there would come a time we’d all be locked at home and no malls or shops are opened, and an army is outside to catch bad people who exercise outside, I’d tell him to stop watching crazy movies. And yet, here we are literally living it. No one is spared. Rich, poor, old, young, male, female, anyone can get coronavirus. Everyday we hear of new people in the community being tested positive, it’s really scary. Just a few hours ago, news came out that Prince Charles has been tested positive too (also, his son Prince Harry married this one lady Meghan and both of them got cyberbullied so much that they left the royal family and moved to Canada. It’s really crazy times right now. But that’s for another day).

People are getting anxieties. Some people have lost jobs because companies can’t afford to pay salaries. Businesses are going to suffer including ours (Fadza and I are prepared for the low sales for the next few months and will just go on cruise mode. Hopefully FV is going to be ok, Insyaallah, but just to be safe, the both of us have already taken salary cuts). I’m missing my parents so so much, because I can’t see them even though they live 10 minutes away. Ramadhan is coming yet no one knows what’s going to happen (mosques are closed so will there even be tarawikh?). At 1pm yesterday, The Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin just announced the Movement Control Order will be extended for another 2 weeks (Oh yeah, we have a new prime minister. Ummm, we’ve had 2 actually since my last post. I told you, crazy times. Keep up).

There are a lot of uncertainties right now.

BUT on the upside, honestly there’s so much to be grateful for right now.

  1. Living in pyjamas. ALL DAY LONG. I mean, we are being told to stay home and rest. Can’t really complain.
  2. Parents are spending time with their kids. I joke about losing my mind, but honestly I’m having so much fun with the 3 of them. We have breakfast, lunch and dinner together, we do our own things when we have to work, we talk, we watch movies, we laugh. It’s awesome, honestly. Yesterday Mariam kissed me for no reason. Either she’s really bored, or she really does love me, guys!
  3. Catching up on things we promised ourselves we’d do: spring clean closet, spring clean kids’ old clothes and toys, read books, binge TV series. I’ve only done the last one, cos well…. #priorities.
  4. Kindness is all around. Funds are being set up to help the poor, services are being set up to bring groceries to the elderly so they don’t have to go out. Everyone’s so so so kind and selfless right now, it’s remarkable. Fadza and I started an FV COVID19 Support Fund last week, and in 6 days, we raised RM 1.14 Million from Malaysians. Click here to watch our video.
  5. Then we should be grateful for —- I’m sorry did you just skim through my last line. WE RAISED 1.14 MILLION RINGGIT FROM MALAYSIANS OMGGGGGGGGG ALHAMDULILLAH. That’s a huge deal for me. I cried because I was so happy and grateful and humbled. I was so nervous to start the fund, but I thought I should use my platform and whatever little influence I had to invite people to do something good. My target was 300K, but to beat that four times, it just brought me to tears. I was promoting the fund daily on my instagram and I messaged almost everyone I knew (suddenly so grateful that I’m in a gazillion groupchats haha). The funds have all been given to IMARET, an NGO full of doctors who will now supply medical assistance to hospitals. Our frontliners are working tirelessly to fight for the nation and their supplies are running out – hospital beds, tents, PPE suits, masks, food, portable airconds – we’ve gotten all of these for them. And it wouldn’t be possible without all of you who donated and shared the links of the funds. The funds are still running so please keep on donating: here or here. THANK YOU SO MUCH, ONLY GOD CAN REPAY YOU. I wish I can give all of you big hugs right now, but since we’re social distancing…. *virtual hugs all round*
  6. Online shops. Can you imagine being in a lockdown without any online services? Whoever invented internet, sigh. *TWO virtual hugs for you* FashionValet has a huge sale now and new arrivals are rolling in as normal, so head on here –> pleaseshopheresowecanstayinbusiness.com
  7. Love, Vivy Season 3!!! Yep, my reality show is back and Episode 1 will air 30 March 9pm on Astro Ria. Which is great because everyone is at home, so you really have no excuse not to watch it. Unless you’re doing No. 6 above. 
  8. Lockdown memes. I mean.


Hope that made you laugh a little bit.

Stay safe everyone.

Sending you all the love and positive vibes.

If you ever feel down, just remember this: