The Story Of Us

Things have been busy around here.. About two weeks ago we celebrated the Islamic New Year. Afterwards we observed 10 days of mourning for the atrocities committed against Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet in Karbala, Iraq during the month of Moharram.  It's practically September now.. meaning school will be starting soon. For now our school district has proposed a hybrid system. You have the choice of opting for 100% virtual learning, the rest of the students have been divided into two groups. Half of them will attend school on Mondays and Tuesdays while the other half will attend school on Thursdays and Fridays.. Wednesday everyone will stay home. September will also be a month of half days just to see how things go.. We have opted to send the kids to school for two days a week. We're not sure what to expect exactly, wouldn't be surprised in the school decides to go virtual even before it starts.. or if everything shuts down again within a few weeks. And we do all...

As most of you may know we had planned a little kid free getaway in December for our anniversary that didn't exactly go as planned. So when our birthdays rolled around.. happened to fall on a weekend.. and my mom was visiting an impromptu getaway seemed perfect. Not wanting to venture too far away from home we picked a cute little bed and breakfast about an hour away. We started my birthday on Saturday with breakfast at home with the family and then headed to the mall for some shopping. We hardly ever get a chance to go to the mall.. and it is even rarer to get an opportunity to go without the kids. We have become online shoppers.. So in a mall.. we hardly knew what to do.. and so instinct took over and we ended up shopping for the boys.. Boy do we suck at this pampering ourselves business. Without the filters of online shopping it seemed a bit mind boggling to scan the racks.. but we didn't not give up till we both bought at least one item for ourselves. The word LOSERS! co...

Towards the end of August.. which now seems like a lifetime ago, we planned a little beach getaway. The main purpose of this getaway was to getaway from H. I was in the process of trying to wean him meaning he was being super clingy.. D on the other hand was in need of some attention and extra loving.. so we spent a few nights in Wildwood while grand parents took care of the little one. Thank God for grand parents. We with some hesitation we picked a motel close to the beach.. The Blue Palms Resort. The motel was made up of the main building with a large pool and a small side building with a small pool. We opted for the  small side building and it turned out perfectly. While everyone flocked to the larger pool we most of the time had the smaller pool to ourselves.. total win. We started our mornings off at the beach, afternoons in the pool, we squeezed in a nap and then spent the night on the boardwalk. It was just what we needed.. the water was perfect, the beach not too crowd...

I had already hinted at some relazing weekend plans in my last post.. well here's what we did. We drove to upstate New York in the Finger Lakes area just outside of Rochester to a spa and resort. It was a weekend of lounging by and in the pool, getting a fantastic couples massage, sleeping in late and napping on whim and the great food. An especially elaborate Sunday brunch.. and just enjoying the great weather and sun. I'm hoping all of you also had a great weekend.. and as if the weekend wasn't perfect already I also celebrated my one year Etsyversary ending the year with 15 sales. To me, that in no way is a bad number... I have managed to cover my start up costs and have started to make a profit. During this year I have sold images small, big and very big. I have had custom orders and have learned quite a lot during this year. So a big thanks to all of you out there who have visited my shop, who have liked my work and left kind comments, those who have bought my wo...