Resolution 2014

1. Get PMP Certification done this year. Been saying it for years! Time to do it is now!
2. Lose 2 pounds every month. Eat healthier and exercise.
3. Call 3 people (friends/family) every weekend.
4. Read 4 books every month - preferably 3 fiction and 1 non-fiction.
5. Exercise 5 times a week - Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat and Sun?
6. Travel to 6 places. Starting the year in Arizona! 1 down, 5 more to go!
7. Learn 7 new recipes and try them on unsuspecting friends!
8. Update my blog at least 8 times in 2014! Not much to ask for!
9. Appreciate life's little pleasures 9 times over a week. Smile from a stranger, a pretty flower, a baby - whatever it may be, take time to enjoy it.
10. Volunteer at least 10 times - at kids school, at work. Maybe find a new organization?

The Walking Dead Sunday

While we are waiting to find out what the governor is really up to, here are some links to keep us busy:

Funny Collection of The Walking Dead Memes

Walking Center - Meme Center

The Perfect Riding Boot

I finally found it! My closet is always missing something or other. Recently, I've been feeling the need for a casual pair of boots that I can throw on over the weekend to run errands, take the kids to their activities when its bone-chillingly cold outside. I perused all the usual websites, but came out empty handed. Until today! I was at the mall earlier today. My mall adventures, yes adventures, are usually short. I know what I want and I go straight to the specific store I have in mind, grab what I need and leave. As I was on my way out, trying not to bump into gazillion women that were crowding next to the MAC counter - they had some sort of special event going on - I decided to walk through the shoe department to the exit. And just like that, my eye caught the perfect pair of brown leather riding boots.

Isn't she a beauty?! :-) Can't wait to try them on tomorrow! 

So ..........

Thinking about coming back to the blogworld. Stay tuned! 

Remembering 9/11

It was a normal Tuesday morning. I got to work and logged in to my laptop. Ping. Ping. Ping. My IM window blinked. I opened it and saw a co-worker who was working from home had the following message for me:

 

A plane just hit one of the twin towers!!!!!!!!!

 

He was the office prankster. My reaction was "Yeah right!" It was around 9:00. Couple of minutes later, again ping,ping, ping! This time the message was scary.

 

"Oh my God!!!!!!!!!!!!! Another plane just hit the other tower. I'm watching it live on CNN!!!!!!!!"

 

That really got my scared. I tried to go over to the CNN website and it was not loading. People started talking around us. My manager showed up. "Hey, did you guys hear the news? We are going over to Sears across the street."

 

We all went. Sears had all their TVs tuned to CNN and we watched in horror the events of the day unfolding. As the towers collapsed in front of our eyes, I was sure my friend who worked at 7 World Trade Center was gone. We couldn't stop watching, we couldn't peel our eyes away from the TV - this unimaginable horror. Who was responsible? How can someone kill innocent people just like that? How deep does your hatred need to be to go down to this level?

 

I went home at some point and stayed in front of the tv all night watching rescue efforts and news. As the words came pouring "Osama Bin Laden", "Al Qaeda" - I was terrified. I am a Muslim. What's going to happen to the Muslims in US now?! I took the next day off, again wrapping myself in a blanket, stayed in front of the TV and watched news. I cried  for all the people that lost their lives, for the fire-fighters and rescuers who died trying to save complete strangers. 

 

The following day, I went to work with a lot of shame on my shoulder. I felt responsible. I am sure all decent Muslims around the world felt the same. I came to US with not a penny to my name. People here have embraced me with open arms, the country has given me opportunities to get a college degree, to get a decent job. In return, my people have destroyed normal life in US. I knew life was never going to be the same in US. At the same time, I heard from people around me, who assured me that they don't consider me an outsider, that they know I am personally not responsible. Friends wrote emails to me, co-workers left notes, chocolates for me on my desk. In the middle of all this destruction, the beauty of human nature shined the brightest and restored my faith in humanity. 

 

 

What to read?

Every once in a while, I use the "Next Blog" link on top of my blog to look through other blogs in search of an interesting find. I was almost giving up today when I stumbled upon Good Times Delgado Style. It made me cry, laugh, broke my heart all under half an hour. Will have to follow up on the litle cuties frequently!

Link I am loving today

Wow

Its Hardly Noticeable

New Goal?

I don't know how this came to be, but I spent three weeknights this week with my friends!!! Three!!!!! Not only the nights were fun and relaxing, it also put me in a good mood throughout the week! I even cooked multiple times, without feeling hostile towards the family (!!), so I could go out and spend time with my friends! This might need to become the norm in my life!

Sugar and Spice, Everything Nice

Zoya is a healthy food nut! From a very young age, she preferred fruits over sweet desserts. Although it is a great habit considering how many sugary stuff is being shoved into kids faces nowadays from all different sides, sometimes I just want to spoil her with an occasional ice-cream or cookie, but she wouldn't have it!

Then, last year, around Christmas time, I made Snickerdoodle cookies and somehow she tried one!!!! At this point, I don't even remember what we said to convince her, but she tried it and became an instant fan. Finally a "Sugar and Spice, Everything Nice" treat for my sugar and spice girl.

Yummy In My Tummy

Funny thing happened last night. I took the kids to Swim Meet and Tanveer went to Club Golf to practice for an hour, then he was going to come over to the swim meet. However, both the kids swam early in the meet and we decided to head back home. I texted Tanveer and told him we were leaving for home. As my car was pulling on to the highway, guess who I see right next to me!!?? Tanveer!!!! We rolled our windows down and started talking to each other. Traffic was really horrendous - bumper to bumper - so we decided to go somewhere for dinner. Tanveer had gone to Joe's Noodle House with a co-worker and have been telling me ever since that I need to go there, so that's where we decided to go.

The food was DELICIOUS!!!!! They have lot of authentic dishes. I decided to try the Spicy Chicken Gizzard as my appetizer and Beef with Spicy Green Long Pepper as my entree. Tanveer ordered a fish dish, I don't remember exactly what it was called. Kids stayed true to their taste buds and ordered chicken noodle soup with vegetables and Wanton Soup. We licked our plates clean!! :-) Go, no run to Joe's Noodle House if you are in the Rockville area.

Guilty Pleasure

Where was I last couple of years while Ryan Gosling has been making movies!!? I think I missed the boat firstly because I'm not quite the "Notebook" watching kind and the next movie I associated with him (Blue Valentine) could not be watched with kids around! I had four loads of laundry to fold last night and that's my queue for finding a sappy movie on Netflix/TV. I found Crazy, Stupid, Love on On Demand, mainly for Steve Carell. It was a really funny and witty movie! Ryan wasn't bad on the eye either! ;-) Watch it if you haven't!

With tears in my eyes

A close friend's father passed away this morning. He was one of those fathers who was always approachable and was always so loving towards us. My friend's house was right behind our college and we would go to her house during lunchtime or after class. He would always greet a whole gang of us with a big smile, inquire about our families, feed us forcibly. Once I moved to US, the few times I saw him, he would ask about my life here and tell me stories of his time in Texas during Grad school. That's where our personal encounters stopped, but I have known my friend and her two sisters since kindergarten days. These three beautiful girls that called him Abba - looking at them, I can tell he was a wonderful father who championed his daughters to become strong women. I am sure he was a great grandfather, husband, brother, uncle, friend. His sincerity touched everyone who came in contact with him and everyone is going to miss him terribly. Jahangir uncle, I know you were suffering a lot lately, we still were not ready to let you go. Please keep an eye on us from up above, because without your watchful eyes, we feel lost. We are grown-ups now, we are meant to be independent, but who are we kidding!?! We would always be "Daddy's Little Girl" in our hearts. My heart goes out to my friend for her loss. Stay strong my dear! He is going to be looking out for you from a better place.

Things I want to teach my kids

1) If you have nothing positive to say, don't say anything
2) Always look for inner beauty in each and every person you meet  
3) There is no shame in honest work
4) Respect elders
5) Do your best for every thing without worrying about the consequences
6) Don't leave anything for tomorrow. Do it today cause tomorrow may never come
7) Travel, travel, travel

I have a feeling this might be a running list!

Dear Amanda Berry

I apologize on behalf of all decent human beings for the last 10 years of your life. However you look at it - 10 years/120 months/3650 days/87,600 hours/5256000 minutes/315,360,000 seconds - it's f*ing long time! I can’t begin to think the horror you went through. Ever since you kicked your way out the door and into our hearts, I have been obsessively reading every article I can find online. What a nightmare this must have been for you three! I can’t even think about you without tearing up. With a daughter of my own, I am trying to make sense out of this nonsense. How do I teach her to not trust anybody yet to keep trust in the goodness around us? How do I teach her to fight back in the face of adversity without losing hope? How do I teach her to have faith in herself when she doubts herself? How as a mother do I protect her from crazies out there? I can’t keep her in a bubble for long, though I sure would like to try. How do I let her go out there when I am scared of unknowns myself. I hope someday, I can tell her your story and show her after all that monster did to you, he couldn't break you down! What a lovely soul you are! Your courage makes me proud, your smiling face brings me hope that you will be ok. I pray life brings you ONLY happiness from today onward. Stay strong! Take care of yourself and know we are all very, very proud of you.

Link I am loving today

Stumbled on this website somehow. Absolutely adorable!

You are my wild

Things that should not be discussed at work

We all know not to discuss religion, sex life, politics, money issues, health issues at work. Imagine my discomfort when I overhear a co-worker discussing bowel movement on the phone! Read on for more details!

I had to go to DC last week for a work meeting. I don't go to the DC office all the time. We have what we call "hotel cubes" for situations like this. So I'm sitting at my hotel cube with some other people that i don't know occupying nearby cubes. This guy starts chatting on the phone with someone. I'm usually very good at tuning out other people's conversation. This conversation however went on for a while and I started paying attention to what is being said. This is how the conversation went down:

Co-worker: "she has been constipated since the weekend! "
........
Co-worker: "no, it's not helping. I was sitting right next to her and I could tell she was in pain!"
Me thinking "TMI to be discussing at work"

Then I got busy with work. In between, I kept hearing "I don't want her to be girly. I want her to be playful"I
Me thinking "oh lord! Is he going to start discussing his sex life now!!??"

Co-worker: "she tries to grab my hand!"
Me thinking: maybe I need to take a walk to the kitchen! Oh I got it! I'll put on my headphone and pretend I'm listening to songs or something!

Co-worker: "love you mom! You should come soon to visit your new granddaughter"
Me thinking: "I seriously need to get my mind out of the gutter!!!!!!!"

Funny Car Sticker

Anyone who knows me, knows I have a weird sense of humor! That weird sense of humor was tickled pink this morning seeing this sticker on the car in front of me ;-)

Calculator Trick

Raffae's class celebrated "Electronics day" the other day - its an incentive for kids to be on their best behavior and being able to bring an electronics to school one day. Sadly, most everyone comes to school armed with a Nintendo DS and spends the time playing with it. Raffae doesn't have a portable game device and was almost in tears that he doesn't have anything to bring to school and no one is going to share their DS with him. He wanted me to give him my iPad which was absolutely not happening! So I thought why not find some cool math tricks that he can use a calculator for and I had a feeling, it would tickle his nerdy side. I found some cool math tricks and showed them to him and he was in heaven! Now what I didn't show him is below! Try it out, won't you!!?? :-) .




(Type all the numbers in the parenthesis on your calculator)

There was this girl she was (13) years old. she wore bra size (84). she wanted to wear size (45). so She went to the doctor and he said (0) take these (2)(X) a day. She took them (4) times a day. and she ended up...



turn your calculator upside down to see the answer. Works best with regular calculator fonts. I know! I have a weird sense of humor! :-)

Lesson Learned

Went to Starbucks this morning on my way to work to get my coffee. I always ask for "Tall, regular coffee with room for milk" and they always give it to me full to the brim. As I was diligently pouring out some of the coffee in the trash can to make room for milk, the barista looked at me and said "Next time, ask to pour the coffee in a Grande cup so you don't have to waste good coffee."

I am in utter shock over all the good coffee I poured out over the years!

Boohoohoo!!!

I ADORE Sarah Jessica Parker, but this article just might have put a chink in the statue.

Sarah Jessica Parker reveals perils of cheap shoes

She can obviously afford the finer things in life, but to talk about it openly while the women going to watch her film is actually wearing the "cheap shoes" she is bad-mouthing - not a good strategy. On the other hand, that explains the sixth toe on my left foot!