make haste towards welfare…

I’m up very early this morning and while sitting here in the dark with my laptop, without the air conditioning turned on, I finally clearly heard the adhan!! Actually several of them, with overlapping sounds calling people for prayer. Normally one hears nothing when indoors because of the loud hum of the room air conditioners [...]

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life of luxury- part 2

Yesterday I was ranting about working and giving back. I think part of the problem is that I feel like I have been living this life of luxury and not doing anything particularly constructive for a while now. It’s a weird kind of guilty feeling as I know that I OUGHT to be doing more, [...]

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eat, sleep, go out for dinners- live a life of luxury?

We recently went to dinner at a compound where a met a few women. Everyone else already knew each other and had been in the Kingdom for much longer. We started the usual small talk and the topic of work came up. I was mentioning how I need to start looking for contracts here now [...]

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online viewing

I think what I miss the most outside the US is access to free TV and videos online. Every major broadcast station has full episodes available on their website. Hulu has TV and full length movies. All these are free, legal and wonderful for people like me who do not have cable at home and [...]

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Feroz Chacha passed away

A few days ago my mother’s uncle (my grandfather’s brother) passed away after a long and painful battle with cancer. His prostate cancer had spread all the way up his spine to his throat and mouth- his last few days were spent in the hospital. He drove himself to the hospital, had a heart attack, [...]

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Dr Mona Abul-Fadl passed away

Dr Mona passed away today after more than 2 years of battling breast cancer. She was sweet, gentle and lived in her own world. She gave genuine hugs when she met you, not those polite, shallow ones that people give out of courtesy. She held your hand when she spoke with you.
An author and professor, [...]

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Phopo passed away

A few days ago my mother’s aunt (my grandfather’s sister) passed away. She was in her eighties and her last moments were very peaceful. As her daughters described, she was restless that day. After washing and praying dhuhr she had them lay her down and started reciting her kalimas and ayat-e-karima (various prayers). Her breathe [...]

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Don’t panic but don’t stay calm either!

Usually when the gas in the car drops below a quarter I start nagging about getting it filled. It’s our usual ritual and works well. Hubby always complains that I should not panic and there is plenty of gas. I always respond that it’s better to be careful.
On our last road trip between Makkah and [...]

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iceberg hearts

The ability/willingness to kill another person in cold blood is an extremely troubling concept. I recently found out about a woman in UK who wanted to kill her baby to get back at her husband. She deliberately pushed the child’s stroller onto the path of oncoming traffic. The car swerved to avoid hitting the child [...]

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arabic

I’ve been wanting to take classes to learn Arabic but there are surprisingly few options available. The one place that several people have recommended is not just for Arabic, one has to take religion classes with it as well. That is a HUGE problem for me as I do not agree with the perspective that [...]

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spring shower

we got a teeny tiny bit of rain a few days ago. everything is still dusty but now the smooth uninterrupted line of dust covering everything outside is splotchy and even dirtier looking.
we had decided not to bother getting our car washed (why bother washing a rental car?) but we might end up doing so [...]

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american um ali

i made apple crisp for dessert last week. it ended up being labeled “the american um ali.” turns out there is a really famous arab dessert called um ali that is also served warm and uses cinnamon. everyone was skeptical about trying it with vanilla ice cream but they did and really liked it.
we’re expanding [...]

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french fries haven

as it turns out, almost every local meal is served with french fries! for a french fries junkie like me, it doesn’t get any better than that. Shawarmas (wraps) have french fries folded inside them, chicken comes with fries on the side, chicken with rice comes with fries on the side. Oh, fries are served [...]

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mini dust storm #2

cough cough
AH it wasn’t as bad as the previous one. tomorrow will be dusting and cleaning day- better to give it one day before bothering to clean up

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freeee

i think i’ve finally gotten rid of the albatross around my neck- i’m done with that not-so-exciting project that I was working on (made more frustrating by problems with logging on to remote servers). I’ve submitted the stuff and hopefully this will be the end. they want me to do yet another project with them [...]

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gadgets!!

we got our first gadgets- YAYYYYYY
we are now proud owners of:

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nemesis

Did i mention that I consider dusting to be my nemesis? It was one of the chores that was assigned to me from a really early age (early enough to qualify as child labor if you ask me). I absolutely LOATHE dusting. Even back in the day when my mother would force me to do [...]

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dust storm #1

cough cough cough
We’d gone out for dinner at a restaurant around the corner (we live right smack in the middle of the downtown area so everything is around the corner) and by the time we came out the whole air had changed. It had been hazy all day but this was crazy- it was windy, [...]

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cheddar cheese

We went grocery shopping the other day. It’s very similar to any store in the US. The major difference that I noted was the limited variety of cheeses. There is a lot of “cheddar cheese” however it is actually the processed cheese food that is often used in mass bbqs or in grade school lunches- [...]

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