The Story Of Us

I was born and lived in Chicago up till the age of ten.   We were surrounded by family. Uncles and cousins. The grown ups were all immigrants.. living hard lives and trying to create a better future for the next generation. My generation. I can't put into words why that is relevant, only kids of immigrants know.. you live smaller lives, busy lives, you rely on the family around you. Even those who are not your family become your family. It takes a village.. and we had a tight village. We were lucky to grow up with multiple fathers and mothers.. so much love. We never did anything just the four of us.. everywhere we went we went as a whole.. loaded up in a van. In retrospect it sounds insane, we joke about it; but when you are little it's perfect.  But my immediate family, the four of us left Chicago when I was ten. Back in the day when there was no internet and hence no way to keep in touch. We grew up, drifted apart.. even when we did get internet, emails, texting.. the conve...

The leg compression socks did not work, they gave a good leg massage but they were too clunky and at far too many wires sticking out of them, not practical for me to put them on in the middle of the night when my RLS is acting up. And using them before made did nothing to help with the RLS either. So they will be returned. I have also been badly hit with allergies this year. So I am drinking a lot of tea. It's not my drink of choice but it helps keeping me feeling good in the cold wintry months and I guess now in the spring as well. In hot water I pop in two tea bags, one green tea and one of the Traditional Medicinals Tea , a splash of lemon juice, honey and a shot of The Ginger Peoples Pure Ginger Juice .  I was not reading much during Ramadan.. so I finally picked a book out off my stash. I feel like being swept away into a fantasy so I choose An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. We were waiting on a couple of replacement items in our kitchen which arrived last week and were fi...

We are still getting back into the rhythm of things after Ramadan. We had two more Eid Celebrations to attend before the week was over. I am ready to go back to a normal routine. My usual expectations for Mother's Day are low. Not to say that my family ruins it or anything.. but we are generally low key people and sometimes things are so busy.. like they were this past week that we just treat it like a normal day and just everyone just says the words 'Happy Mother's Day' a then we just go about our day.  I have jokingly and seriously told my kids several times the above. Drawing made by @coupdegracefarris  It's not all about the Hallmark sponsored idea of cards and flowers, it's more about brushing your teeth when I ask you, a cleanish bedroom, a dinner that did not involve any negations and so on so forth.  Anyway.. back to the day at hand. On Saturday night they took me out for dinner. The weather has been absolutely dreadful and the restaurant was dark so we ...

Yesterday we celebrated Eid.. last year I posted a more detailed post on the traditions of Eid. You can check it out here M and the kids took the day off work and school and planned some activities.. starting with a big breakfast.  The day before Eid the kids helped me in the kitchen helping me make kharak (stuffed dates) and sheer khurma (a thick sweet milk, date, nut drink). After breakfast we went to watch Sonic 2 in the theater.. as requested by the kids. The theater was completely empty.. it was like a private viewing! We could be as loud as we wanted, H got up a few time to dance and pretend fight and when the movie was over they ran a lap around the place as well. It was surreal. They both are wearing the Sonic T-shirts they got for Eid. They both got a ton of $$ from family and friends as well.  For dinner we dressed up and went for a celebratory dinner with friends.                       Etsy   ...