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   ...

It's spring break.. and I am not excited.  We knew we would not be able to go anywhere on Spring Break this year.. and most likely a few more years due to it being during Ramadan..and we had made our peace with it.  Last weekend we went out with friends for iftar and by Monday M was not feeling good.. Monday night when we woke up for sehri he was really not feeling good, so he moved into the guest room and got a PCR test done the next morning. By Wednesday it was official. He had COVID. We had so far been very lucky and none of us gotten Covid. Well there goes that. Now I had to deal with a husband in quarantine. No fun. Then Thursday D complains of a headache and H has an itchy throat. Friday morning I found D curled up in my bed burning up! Had to unfortunately kick him out and to stay on the safe side kept H in his room too. So now I had three people in quarantine. I mean, come on. Two more PCR tests done and on Saturday we find out that while H was negative D had Covi...

Bad Love by Johnathan Kellerman Synopsis - It came in a plain brown wrapper, no return address—an audiocassette recording of a horrifying, soul-lacerating scream, followed by the sound of a childlike voice chanting: "Bad love. Bad love. Don't give me the bad love." For Alex Delaware, the tape is the first intimation that he is about to enter a living nightmare. Others soon follow: disquieting laughter echoing over a phone line that suddenly goes dead, and a chilling act of trespass and vandalism. He has become the target of a carefully orchestrated campaign of vague threats and intimidation rapidly building to a crescendo as harassment turns to terror, mischief to madness. With the help of his friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, Alex uncovers a series of violent deaths that may follow a diabolical pattern. And if he fails to decipher the twisted logic of the stalker’s mind games, Alex will be the next to die. Thoughts - I read a lot of thrillers.. and this one was just...

I don't know.. well I do know how but I accidentally ended up changing my blog layout again. My original banner is gone. I will have to make a new one. I got a Google alert saying my blog was not mobile friendly and while I was trouble shooting I changed the layout. This was not not my first time doing it this year.. so just face slap! Anyway..  Today is the 3rd day of Ramadan. While some of you may be familiar with Ramadan I know many may not be. So I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you a bit about it. And if you have any additional questions.. ask away.  We start the roza (fasting) just before dawn, there is an actual time when the roza starts so all eating must be done before then. We wake up and have sehri (breakfast) which can be as simple as a bowl of cereal to an elaborate multi dished meal. M and I try to open our eyes as little as possible so we stick with simple. We mix it up a bit with eggs and toast, cereal with fruit, I am going to try some overnight oats ...