Mood: Calm 
Drinking: Vida Sakura Sparkling Flavoured Drink Zero Calories
Vaping: Vozol 12000 Puffs Cool Mint
I decided to start blogging again after over a decade hiatus. I thought it might be useful in jotting down thoughts and memories in this new journey I’ll be embarking on. I’m 41 years old and I’ve decided to start learning about Buddhism. Although I know very little about this philosophy, I feel as though I already apply the basics in my every day life. Still, I believe there’s a lot of room for improvement in my journey. I try to accept myself for who I am, but I do want to reach a certain level of calm and inner peace that I feel I’ve lost over the years. I sometimes feel as though I was wiser when I was younger. I think being around a lot of family all the time is great, but there is also a lot of inner dialogues that don’t happen when I am not living alone. I definitely believe that living alone is especially ideal for someone like me.
Today has been a relatively tiring day. Yesterday we gave up our 20sqm storeroom which was costing us SCR 11,500 (approx. US$820) per month, not including utilities. We thought about turning it into another retail store but we’ve been hesitating so much for various reasons, so early last month I told the landlord that we’d be giving it up 1st of April. We spent yesterday and today moving everything out of the storeroom and into our current retail store. This involved shifting furniture and a whole bunch of inventory. I might have lost 1 entire kilogram of body weight just by doing some hard labour. My employee is in for a surprise tomorrow morning – we’ve slashed her working area to 2/3rds the size of what it used to be. The balcony is in disarray. Anyway, if this is what it will take to save SCR 11,500 each month, then so be it. I believe it’s a move in the right direction. In fact, I can’t believe it took us this long to come to this decision, we kept the storeroom for a little over 7 months. Think about how much money we could have saved!
My mother arrived from Singapore this afternoon. We went by to collect items we “ordered” from her. I got 5 packs of durian “cake” and purple shampoo. The durian cake is very tasty, I absolutely love durian and anything with it. I’m not just Asian, I’m Asian Asian. I only ate 3 though, which is already quite a lot because I’m on a serious diet. I already lost 6 Kgs in 7 months, which isn’t a lot but at least it’s a consistent loss. My target weight is 45 Kgs, so I need to lose 6 more Kgs. Dinner this evening was about a cup of boiled edamame (ISPC, Bois de Rose), 3 Parle Murano chocolate chip cookies (Daily Needs 2, Victoria), a few pinches of Doritos Sweet Chili Pepper (Tip Top, Mont Fleuri), and a can of Sarsi (Daily Needs 2, Victoria).
Today was also day 1 of my wearing mala beads, the primary purpose of it for the moment is to serve as a reminder of what I stand for, and that is to do no harm. This is all I have for now, it doesn’t have 109 beads, I think it has about 122 – oops, but it serves it’s purpose. I’ll get another one later, or I’ll just remove the extra beads as I learn more about Buddhism and begin meditating.
