Life is Yummy Good

V(e)ntage of an aspiring woman and wife. The mother in me speaks on Eesa's blog. The activist, feminist and student in me speaks at Unshackled. This is the blog where I put all the different facets of my life together; to realize and appreciate God, Marriage, Relationships, Love and Life.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Pampering...

I finally decided to donate and organize some really valuable books that I'd collected over the last few years. As sad as I was, nothing comforts and rewards like a deep, thorough, ubtan massage. =)

All it took was a lovely khala, armed with ubtan to yellow up your arms, legs, feet and face (- not to forget ur sink and bathtub)!!! Followed by a nice, intense hot oil massage in my hair and shoulder.

I feel like a spanking new, low maintenance Ferrari that's come out of a car wash in winter!! Ah!

Blogword of the week: End


I've often slipped into living my life by default. Taking it as it comes, floating like the wandering foam in the sea - directed by the tide, no purpose, no destination.

I forget the end. The moment of recompense, the accounting of my actions. I unconciously live for the moment of joy that today awaits.

As though, waiting to remind me of the end, Ramadan lies over the beginning of a new moon or two - reminding me that this too, shall pass. Lest, I grab it before the end.

(picture: courtesy google search - judgement day)

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Happy 100th!

This month, it's been a year since I've been blogging. This is my hundredth post and what better stuff to write about than a list of me favourite thingees! I got tagged by one of my readers. I'm supposed to paste out a list of my favourite things. in ech criteria. however after a whiel i thouht why not be triger happy and click some photos from aound the ahouse. l And I'm tagging all of you! Whoever reads this, is tagged and has to follow suit! Be sure to leave ur blogger links, ill definitely chk it out!

So here goes! All u have to do is take snaps of ur favorite stuff in the following categories. Go ahead, get wild and create ur own categories if u want. Merry snapping!

Bath Products.


My ultimate favorite is Cool Citrus basil from Bath and Body works. I love their entire line... their body spray, shower gel, bubble bath, hand wash, lotion etc. It's very sharp and invigorating.. nothing flowery but definitely sexy! The downfall? It's discontinued so they don't sell it year round. They only show up during the semi annual sales and in large bottles. i have to fill up my own travel sized bottles. We all have our own signature smells, Aisha has Sweet Pea and Maryam has Sheer Freesia... mine is Cool citrus Basil ...o0O(psst! ...mine is the best:P)! =) ;)

The Body shop also carries a burning oil called Lemon Basil. Definitely a must have, after those desi food cooking sessions! I also like the body shop's Satsuma burning oil.

Perfume

My ultimate favourite! Dreams by Gap. I'm not into those flashy brand named perfumes. I'm not sure how much of a brand name Gap is, but it's definitely not out there with CDior etc. Brand name or not, I SIMPLY love the smell. My second fave is Swiss Army for Women.

Chocolate

I couldn't find an image for this chocolate, but I assure you it's absolutely DIVINE! Imran's aunt introduced me to it in Pakistan this year when she brought it back from India and I got addicted. It's from Taj hotel in India - THE Taj hotel. It's dark chocolate with roasted almonds and is Rs 800/kg. To put it into perspective, thats almost $20CDN/kg(2lbs). I had it in Khi when Imran's aunt brought it back and had some more of it in India. Sheer indulgence! Apart from that, I love all almond and hazelnut-ty chocolates:P

Flavour

I'm not an avid coffee drinker. Infact I had my first cup of coffee at taraweeh at Alfalah two years ago (this was a few days after Eesa was born ...aaah! good times!) when Maryam brought it. Even now I don't drink warm coffee. However I love anything and everything that's coffee flavoured. I love coffee icecream, coffee cakes, tiramisus etc. Remember Kopikos? the coffee flavoured candies? I love the aroma of coffee but I don't like drinking coffee. There was a coffee place in karachi on zamzama that we used to go alot to (arghh i can't remember it's name!), i used to just love the smell in there (*blogger's we had our meetup there!). Tim horton's here doesnt have that coffee smell, thanks to the aroma of bagels and donuts etc. (altho imran swears coffee here tastes much better). Oh reminds me! Since I don't drink coffee, but love the smell of it, I used to walk down to that coffee place in khi to drink lemonade!!? My cousin, FH, was in a shock! After one of our shopping sprees, i took her for some designer lemonade! lol She's from isloo and in her funny urdu, she went 'is mein koun si khaas baat hai?' (whats so special abt this?). Anyhow, this post is about my favourites and my favorite flavour is coffee. The above picture is from our trip to montreal... my fave iced caps (cappucinos)! the BEST, when served with buttered sesame bagels! mmmhmm sooo good!

Colour

Orange is definitely my favourite colour. It's just sooo me. I think no colour defines me more than this one. It's completely me. I like my colour to be completely me. I've gone from red to purple to blue to now orange. These days I love the combination of chocolate brown with orange. Notice how my taste in colours grew from tame to wild? Bright green is a close second, followed by chrome (think IKEA rocking chair!!).

Books

I think no book excited me as this one. From suspense/mystery to horror/thriller to romance/drama to sci-fi to supernatural spooky ghost tales and miracles to fairy tales to action to comedy to fiction, The Holy Quran(the religious script for muslims) is all genre in one. Each time you read it, you see something new in a different way. No book is close to being as mystical as this one!

p.s. for ramadan, I'll be compiling a cd of the quran with my favorite recitation of entire quran, by recitors like bukhatir, sudais, effassy, ghamidi etc. I will put in only my fave recitationIf you'd like a copy of it, plz be sure to drop me an email at missbhoot@hotmail.com with your postal address from anywhere in the world. I'd love to send you a copy as a means of accumulating extra rewards for the sake fo Allah swt during ramadan (and after) inshaAllah. If you're not a muslim or a new muslim, plz be sure to mention it, I'd love to send you more stuff!

Accessory

D

efinitely, Handbags/burses/totes!!! My fave accessories by far! For handbags, I really like Matt & Nat's stuff when it comes to chic stuff and Reebok when it comes to sporty stuff. I have to say my all time fave is my beige and orange reebok bag that I got from the Reebok store in India.

SJ!

Was just speaking to the culprit behind my addiction to blogspot. Within just a few conversations, she's really helped me realize alot of personality flaws I've carried in me. Some of which I never even realized I had - SuhanAllah!

I don't wish to sound like a suck up, you know who you are. Thanks for being brutally honest - it's the one trait I most admire of yours!! I just want you to know that I love you for the sake of Allah swt!

s says:
the most you can do is try to live a life that on some level is an exmaple somewhere-
s says:
you cant change everything in one go but persistently some day somewhere some change wi;l;l be made-
s says:
by labelling and judging you only do yourself a disservice

Regards,
Your 'baji'-type fan! (gosh i can't believe ive turned into one of THEM!)

Friday, August 18, 2006

Organizing..

Ok guys, Yes I'm here and around. Been organizing and creating systems for everything around the apartment. Alhamdolillah, slow and steady its working out purrfect! I think I'm bordering OCD now and considering the fact that it runs in my family, I'm getting a lil scared! I really don't want to turn into one of those organized people that have schedules for the rest of the year and plan where they want to be next yr, today and have panic attacks the moment somethings out of place (yes NB, i'm talking abt u!). However, I like my things being organized and sortted etc. It's so appealing to the eye:P.

On of my greatest accomplishments over the last three days has been changing eesa's dresser -i'm finally part of the malm dresser fans list! It's soooo worth it. It is not bulky and ALOT more roomy than the traditional ones. Morever, its not wood on wood so it slides out real easy. It's one of those MUST haves that I really recommend. Havign done that, Eesa's room is already in order. I don't think i've mentioned it yet but I put up wallies all over and spruced up Eesa's room as a surprise to imran when he got back from vancouver 2-3wks ago. Imran had mentioned he liked the nascar wallies when we went to pick up the lil tikes one, but i pretended i didnt like it. while imran was gone, Eesa and i went and got those and stuck them all over. Imran's aunts came over abt 2 wks ago and they said it looks like imran's dream room. lol

I've also officially organized my purses. I love changing my purses often so I've created a system that makes it convenient to switch. I used a small pouch and threw in travel sized bottles of lotion, body spray and mouth wash, hand sanitizer, gum, pad-writing and sanitary, a lipstick, a pen, a toonie and a quarter for snacks and calls incase the cell dies, and attached two safety pins and a bumble bee hijab pin to the zipper. So now instead of figuring wht goes, what doesnt, all i have to do is take the pouch and wallet and put it in the new purse whenever i feel liek changing it. Phone and keys, I add at the last moment anyway. I also hate having to carry reciepts incase i want to return the product, so I've created a section for it in my wallet and intend to dispose them off once its past 90 days. I also keep a fortress of a muslim and diaper for Eesa in my purse but that's something I don't switch in each purse. (i've just realized if someone plans to do an identity theft on me, it's ever so easy! they'd even know what's in my purse!!!)

I also came up with a substitue for diaper bags since I hate carrying them (even the mommy bags), so I've put together pouches (3 for $2 at party packagers :P). Each pouch includes a pack of cookies, an infant's tylenol, a bandaid, a pen, some hand sanitizer(2 for a buck at dollarama:P), vaseline, one small toy, a toonie for snacks and a quarter for emrgncy phone calls, and a diaper. ive placed one of these pouches in his stroller and another one in our car since those are the only two ways we travel by.

i also chucked out most of the stuff from our bedside tables. usually its a catch all for all the stuff that doesnt have a home. Alhamdolillah i cleaned them out. While my sister was here, i got her to wrap some shoe boxes in pretty paper for me. so they're my subsitute for the fancy storage boxes u get at ikea. I used those to hold the stuff i need in my bedside tables along with alot of baskets.

Speaking of ikea, I've also narrowed down my choice of dressers for our room to two. It's either the malm one in medium brown or this ramberg one. inshaAllah i should have that decided by this weekend.

Our dishwasher is finally up and running. I gave all my dishes a pre-emptive hygiene wash since I seem to be having alot of fruit flies these days and they disgust me like anything. My fridge too got a major cleaning job done in it, altho the freezer still needs some cleaning to be done. I've run out of lysol and am using some cheap spray we bought from dollarama when we first moved. I'm ever so paranoid that the counter isnt clean enough... (ok yes i am turning into an OCD!). Speaking of liquid cleaners, I have to say that Fantastik is absolutely the best. i had removed some of the caulk from around my bathtub earlier and it was showing alot of mould. I just sprayed fantastik and it completely removed the mould. Even after eesa takes a bath, there's usually a line around the bathtub and with the dollarama spray i had to scrub it out. With fantastik, all i do is spray and leave it for a minute and then simply wipe it off. Even the faucets sparkle.

So inshaAllah, by this weekend I should be all done and flying without a plane, as the previous post says. As the night progresses, I seem to get all this weird energy that just gets me going in the cleaning phase. its weird!

Anyhow, this has been the girliest post i've written in ages. I never imagined myself turning into an aunty - but an aunty i am!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Sheer Joy...

It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane.

--Charles Lindbergh

(for me, its the contagious cleaning and organizing disease Maryam carries. Finally got a chance to do alot of things today, just LOVING it.)

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Baby poop...er... I mean food!

In my blog from last week, I wrote about Maryam's babyshower. I mentioned about the baby diaper game, well here's the what the diaper looked with baby food in it. We took the typical guess what baby food game and twisted it around by putting baby food into the diaper and made everyone guess what food it was by either smelling or tasting it. MAD FUN! I dipped my pretzels into the applesauce.... YUMMY!

Diaper number five had custard in it and wobbled the most. Diaper one had sweet potato, diaper two had corn, diaper three had applesauce, diaper four was carrot. Most people got blown off with the sweet potato, coz it looked just like carrot.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Catch 22...

A man who doesn't lie to his woman, has no respect for her feelings.

(T's msn screen name!)

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Dislike..

"It's a heavy burden to carry dislike for someone...Harms the person carrying the weight way more than the person it is directed at"

(Just read it in a blog - don't wish to quote her site for the sake of her anonymity. )

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Blogword of the week 12: Space..

Space is a very conceptual feeling for me. It's not just about the physical proximity, but the mental proximity as well. In the overall picture of things, even if my physical proximity is full, as long as I have my mental space to seek solace in, I'm a happy camper.

I've come to realize, I like living spontaneously and in that sp0ntaniety, I like the personalization I have on my spontaniety. It's about the spontaniety being all mine, and not some forced upon, pre-planned decision made by someone else. It's about me doing something, because I wanted to. It's about me doing something, simply because it allowed me to venture out. It's about letting myself explore and discover something new about me, about those around me or simply about life around me.

That's my space for me. Having the control to be wild. Having the proximity to discover myself without being judged by preconcieved notions. And in that moment, I love the fact that I'm married. Because I get to discover and indulge with a best friend who is crazier than I am - causing my space to expand snuggly around us - allowing us to not just enjoy our craziness, but have each other to watch and share those moments.

So what if the results aren't as expected? So what if dinner isn't ready? So what if I'm not on time? So what if it's not the way I planned it? It's about our mental space, giving us a different perspective. It's all about finding fulfillment in the simplest of pleasures - in allowing us to expect the unexpected, we enjoy the unexpected.

Being married, rebellion is no longer against parents and siblings. But against norms. In those moments when our space is cramped with the norms that others hold onto, we step back, smile (or try to) and let them live the mundane way they wanted it - and pat ourselves on the back for giving them a moment of physical control, a moment which allowed them to be happy.

For, you see, within my best friend and I, we have a shared mental space, where we are still going to be free. And it is that very same mental proximity that allows us to later step out into our own physical proximity and do all that, that which other's thought they could control us into not doing.

in short, in our mental space, we choose who to become, but in our phyiscal proximity turn out being what others want us to be - until we pull out and create a physical space thats ours=) So specifically, wildly and cozily ours.

It's all about beating conventions and fulfilling our dreams, about being able to pride ourselves in having done that, and that and ooooh, that too - without hurting the boundaries other's have erected around themselves. It's about filling our mental space with a satisfaction that'd, inshaAllah, allow me to go 'aaaah' - a happy sigh - when death befalls upon us.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Maryam's Babyshower...



OK Aasi Maasi's been on me case to blog up about Mannam's baby shower yest. she's msged me 4872657 times already. So before she comes back from her bb and msgs me again, here's how it goes.

As most of you know, I threw Maryam a Baby shower at Mom's place yest. The Merchant family being sports crazy, and the baby to be a boy, the theme for the shower followed suit - Sports! =)

I had asked maryam to mail me a list of her friends and their email addresses approx 3 months ago. I also went with her and completed her baby registry with Toys r Us. I wanted to throw her a surprise shower back then, however a week before the baby shower, we were dealt with a major shock within the family and no one was in the mood to celebrate.

I sent out an e-vite to everyone three weeks ago, asking them confirm the dates for either this weekend or the next. Next weekend being muslimfest, most people asked for the shower to beheld this weekend. Alhamdolillah we had an attendance of approximately 30 people - all family and friends.

For food, I had planned to keep it completey sports stadium type food - Pretzels, hot dogs, Mexican Chili, fries, chips etc. At the last moment, Mom included cholay and bhel and we assumed cricket into the list of sports :P. As a staple, we had intended to have lasagne as well but knowing Maryam's passion for mexi food (and a miscommunication and lack of ingredients), at the last moment i switched it to Enchiladas instead. I made Chili on friday afternoon and made the enchilada sauce on fri evening just so there was minimal work on sat. On sat itself, the only thing i made were the meat rolls for enchiladas. Mom made her famous brownies and tried out this new recipe i found for Tiramisu. I have to admit, tiramisu tastes thrice as nice today, as it did yest - im still licking my fingers! mmmm! For drinks we had the fizzy blueberry powerade punch and aasiya's favourite grape punch (which she refers to as the 'eid drink').

On saturday morning, Ayesha picked up zeba and came over. I was being super grumpy, along with being mad at someone, i was food and sleep deprived. I was stressed out to the max and was grilling poor Ayesha for being late. lol. Anyhow, together we raided dollarama for party decoration stuff. Them two, along with Aisha - Z's sister-, decorated the family living room. Remember the room I had mentioned that I was painting last week in time for the shower? well everyone loved the yellow colour on the walls and the room looked gorgeous with all the party decorations. Infact, even the usually ugly carpet, looked very tolerable too!

For the decorations, we nipped the baby's sports wallies and stuck them along the wall of the room to kick in the party fever up a notch. We took pictures of room at the end along with all the favors, I'll try and post them later inshaAllah. Sorry I can't put up pics of us hotties as we had sent the boys out to Playdium for the day and enjoyed a hijab free day.

For favors we had white mesh satin bags filled with rockets, gum balls and a soccer ball keychain. We had initially planned to fill the rockets, gum balls and keychain into blue baby socks and then tie them with a red ribbon, but couldnt find any small socks(can u believe that!?). While the girls took care of the decor, the printer conked out after printing the labels for the favors. THAT was torturous since the printer was also supposed to print out the sheets for two of the party games. So at the last moment, we were left to think out more baby shower games. lol, when maryam came, we just pretended everyting was under control, until ayesha asks her' can u tell us some baby shower games plz'. lol syma and i burst out laughing, trying to hint to ayesha that we're STILL pretending that its all under control.

Anyhow, after decorating the room and fixing the food, I ran up to shower and change. Ayesha, Aisha and I wore basketball jerseys on jeans. Yup! I had intended to wear Carmello anthony's jersey with jeans, but with aunties around I wasnt comfy wearing sleeveless so wore a Denver Nugget's tshirt with Kobe Bryant's Lakers #8 jersey on top. I'm not particularly crazy about the lakers but Maryam is and it was her day so just wore it for her. Plus the laker colours are nice and vibrant ...lol. My favourite colours are still the Nuggets tho. Aisha wore an Iverson's Jersey while Ayesha wore Garnett's (i think, she changed it to something else after). Maryam wore a brown hip skirt with a tight blue shirt that really emphasized the baby (belly) nicely. She was glowing mashaAllah.

anyhow, Aasiya and her mum, Laura were first to arrive. They both reallly look like sisters. Then Farah and Syma followed suit wearing soccer jerseys and lots of stories from their exchange trip to London and Italy(smack in the world cup season!:P). I put them all to work to think up some new baby games. We got together four games. First was the common diaper pin game where you can't say the word baby (and in maryam's case boobooo). If u say it, the one who catches you say it, collects your pin and at the end of the party the one with the most pins wins. The next game was hot potatoes, only with balloons. When the music stopped, the one with the balloon, had to burst it, read the message and do what the message asked you to do. I think the cutest was where Farah had to rap and Maryam had to do the Chicken dance. The third game was the funniest. We took five of eesa's diapers (clean ones ofcourse) and poured in baby food (which beenish picked up at hte last moment) into each. It was HILLARIOUS coz everyone was totally grossed out. it looked like real poop. lol. The custard was jiggling and all. It was reallly funny. Well everyone had to smell or taste in order to guess what flavour each food was. The trickiest was sweet potato and carrots coz they looked so alike. Those who have babies, know that initially when babies poop, their poop is the colour fo the food they last ate. If they ate carrots, its red, if they had peas, its green and so on. Infact, initially before eesa started solids and i was nursing, even if i had spinach, eesa's poop would be green! I digress from the story...

The fourth game that we had selected, but couldnt play because some people had to leave early and so we didnt have time coz we had to serve dinner early. The game was called pregnancy walk. Come on, we all know how funny pregnant women look while walking and believe me its PAINFUL. Anyhow, girls had to walk across the room, holdin a penny between their knees and then drop the penny into a small necked bottle. It would have been fun watching everyone do the preggie walk. lol

For prizes, i had picked out sports car, memo pads from Party Packagers. Very cute and adorable. We packed them in all star sports bags to go with the theme. Anyhow, after the games, dinner was served. After dinner, everyone went for a swim. It was nice and relaxing. I think i came out last. lol. Ayesha and Zeba shared stories of prank calls,.. zeba's stories gave us belly aches. Afterwards when everyone got out, they ate again while ayesha and i stayed in the pool with eesa and kept demanding Aasiya to feed us. lol. Ayesha had aunty's trying to marry her off despite her craziness. lol.

after maghrib prayers, we all had dessert and opened gifts. maryam handed out flowers to z's mother, z's aunts, her mother, aisha and i. I was totally shocked, sooooo wasnt expecting it. May Allah swt reward her. ameen.

then the guys returned, we all dressed up and kicked back and relaxed in the family room. zamzam shared her story of how she reverted to islam and inspired us all with her imaan. Last time it was aasiya at beenish's sleepover - she was interrogated her for 5 hours. lol. zamzam was ever sooo eloquent and helped us all renew our imaan. Someone said, while we take our faith for granted, they chose it and hold it so much more closely to themselves. soon, one by one everyone started to leave. We finally left at 2am! got home at 3, waited for fajr, talked to nayma and then slept in till 12 (i did, imran got up to take care of eeesooo). hehe!

So thats all for now folks! =) you can read up more on aasiya and maryam's blogs. With all the fun I had, I'm dying to throw more showers! Anyone due for a shower yet? (or wallpaper stripping?) :P

Disgusting..

If this isnt disgusting, what is? What a mockery of religion!

http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/05/top12.htm

Thursday, August 03, 2006

having vented and being all vengeful and rageful in my last post, i was really upset and was feeling guilty coz i felt as though as i was backbiting. which i was. (maryam why dont u stop me anymoreeeeeeee?)

anyhow, my gem of a brother in law introduced me to a new blog and I'm just dying to share it with everyone. it belongs to the son of a family i met once 3-4 yrs ago at the islamic centre of naperville/ chicago. our meeting was short and pleasant. but the blog is just soooo touching! its about the memories of a brother about his 13 yr old sister who passed away because of cancer(i think, i havent read the entire blog yet). not only are the narrations of the memories sooo touching, the whole atmosphere in the blog is sooo amazing. esp his post from may 2005, i actually felt as tho I was there while her soul was raised.

the blog address is: http://allaboutasma.blogspot.com

The other reason why this blog is special for me is because it was fwded to my BIL by someone who is going through alot of hardship these days. please make dua'a that Allah subhana wa ta'ala eases all his pains and returns him to his family soon. Ameen

Not only has this blog made me come to peace with my unpleasantries, i sort of feel lucky that i have the ppl, mentioned in my previous blog, in my life.

Go ahead and read it everyone. Read it in peace though. its very fulfilling, you can't just scan through it. And you can't read it without leaving behind your thoughts and emotions here. Let's remind each other of the blesings we have!

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Independence

I was talking to someone a couple of days ago about when is a good age for marriage. She got married at 27 and has a very levelled outlook on everything and I'm really proud of her for it. We were discussing what age is a good age and somewhere in there we agreed that 18 is too pliable, 23-24 smack in the middle of discovering independence and 26/27 perfectly independent.

I don't mind compromising to make others happy. But I hate being taken advantage of.

I have so many things I want to yell out. So many things I want to say. Out of respect I have kept it zipped, but I'm thoroughly running out of patience. I feel like im standing there with arrows being shot at me from all ends. I wish I could stand up for myself at moments like these. But I can't. If i KNOW, something i'm going to say is going to hurt someone, I can't spit out those horrible and mean words. However, ppl keep going on taking advantage of it. (i would have used a four letter word that starts with a P here, but my readers are quiet sensitive abt that word!!). Generally, I'm not the pliable type but with a certain group of ppl, out of respect, i do become quiet pliable. I don't mind pleasing others. But when pleasing turns into expectation, i have alot of beef waiting to be stewed! *fumes*

I'm fuming again, so I'll sign out before I punch out someone's forehead! Thank you blogspot for letting me fume!!

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

*Flash*

Flash news: According to this, the weather in Toronto is officially warmer than the weather in Karachi. How? It beats me!! but thank God the ac is finally working!

Imo0o's back! :) ofcourse, I'm back on Cloud 9 again. No I'm not the clingy type of wife but I hate living without him. I've come to the conclusion that smsing back and forth isnt as much fun as walking, talking, dining and hanging out together. As much as I miss the pre-wedding flirty fun, I love the post wedding charm even more.



Well here's another reason why im super chirpy! A kodak digicam has found itself a very hot new owner -> ME! Our old cam was the back in the day type who needed additional pieces for the mic and was only 2mega pixels. we were looking for a video camera to help record Eesa's memories but Imran's uncle (a photographer by profession) recommended against the latest DVD video cams. As luck would have it, Imran dropped our old one in Nova Scotia and bought us this shiny, sparkly, dazzly new toy ! Not only is it 6.1 mega pixels, it records videos like a vid cam! I'm in love!

I'm proud to announce that the wallpapers are officially gone from my inlaws' place and infact, the living room has been brightened up with a bright yellow coat of paint. The process of selecting a colour and making three generations agree to one colour would take up an entire entry, so i'll spare u guys the trauma. The paint colour has been vetoed again and will probably be coated with another colour, but I had to get the place ready in time for Maryam's shower this Saturday so I stood my ground firmly and went ahead and painted the entire room bright- pale yellow. (You guys would have to wait up for the more details abt maryam's shower thO!)

Oh! dare i forget to mention! the family room colour has finally been decided upon as well. the electrician has come and left, so no more ugly mismatched lamps. welcome ceiling fan with lights! the firewall bricks will be covered with a dry walll and a fresh coat of paint to give it a new lookinshaAllah. the hideous wood panels wood be painted slate grey and walls a really light grey to give the room a new and updated look - and ofcourse to match that jumbo silver tv in that room! can i re-emphasize how much i hate wallpapers? im voluntarily recruiting myself to anyone who wishes to give their wallpapers a new home in the garbage! :D

im very proud of my accomplishments at my inlaw's place. the previous owners had HORRIBLE taste. the man used to love golfing so everything is green! my mother in law's room is the next project that maryam and i are itching to tackle inshaAllah. it has horrendous green carpets with ugly great grandma style floral wallpapers - something sure to make u go dizzy! as if tht wasnt enough, our old room in the basement had a huge wall to wall mural of a golf course. it was an itch to the eye - to say the least =P The house is looking much less dated alhamdolillah. the paint has brightened up the place and makes the area look less gloomy.

on Eesa's front, he's start saying 'ehmoh' for elmo! its soooooooooooo adorable!!! he saw elmo on his diaper and rushed to show it to his Baba today! He is now also saying alot of funny random words. i'm definitely enjoying it! he's been tanning up alot, thnx to the combo of heat and swimming!

i guess thats it! it's getting dark outside, gotta pray and dip into the pool! *muahaha!* ayesh, and aasi, if u wanna share the joy, u gotta come over:D

Blessings..

I think one of the greatest blessing that Allah swt has enjoined us with, is the ability to swim. Moreso, the ability to swim at night. Lately I've been swimming in the dark alot and its amazing! I know Maryam can attest to the fact that i was like a kid in a candy shop, as though i had finally discovered I can breathe. After 3 yrs of having a pool, I finally came to peace with my fear of water snakes and braved myself to swim at midnight. AND!!! All it took was a demented AC! I am proud to announce that apart from the Creepy(the water filter snake), there were no snakes! It was soooo peaceful that SubhanAllah my senses were alert even to the sensation of water against my hairline while i was floating or the feel of water between my fingertips while i stroked my hands through water.