A lot of times before Ramadaan it seems like Shaytaan is working overtime, and having his little helpers run about on their last minute errands.  Those errands end up quite punchy, figuratively speaking but sometimes well literally speaking too.  And so Ramadaan at times starts on a off key note, and the mood is dampened.  Yet at the same, you pull through, simply because it is Ramadaan and through the pain there is still tranquility.  The breeze of wind,  the low hum of the huffadh preparing for Taraweeh, the beauty of sunsets, the family getting together for iftar all makes it worth it.  Not to forget the ease of praying Taraweeh.  Throughout the year there is sometimes that laziness in praying the regular salaah, yet in Ramadaan Taraweeh becomes the joy of the day.

I did not expect much difference this year.  With a lot of things happening around me, I was just repeating to myself that I’m glad it’s happening so close to Ramadaan so that I can take advantage of this month and have faith that blessings will descend and that the life of the one I love will not be crushed.  It was only an hour after Maghrib when I already could feel the blessings, and truly to Allah I am grateful.  There’s nothing like hearing that the one you love and care about is happy and healthy and finally moving about their life the way they were supposed quite a long time ago.  Sometimes it takes longer for some than for others, but in the end all that matters is that they are safe.   May the mercy of Allah continue to bless my loved ones and may He protect them all from the evil of men and jinn!  Ameen!

On another note, I cannot believe the 1st night is already almost over, and that pretty soon, or well after 17 hours my first fast will be over!  It scares me how fast time goes…

No wonder! I was pressing the up button, and the station was going down. Then I looked and realized the remote control was upside down.

LOL… My brother is a genius!

We all ate together tonight, of course mother took her own time getting to the table because Allah knows mothers have a million things to do before actually getting to enjoy a meal.  Except for big brother’s attempt at conversation, which was quite the odd topic at that, it was oddly quiet.  Meal times are usually full of life in our house when we actually eat together, and might even erupt into quite heated discussion where two people are agreeing with each other yet somehow don’t realize it.   But I had a headache today, and it appears everybody is sleepy.  How utterly strange.  To add to it, the night is really quiet too.  Aside from the chirpy lil cricket and my typing, it is quiet out there.  Oh my gawsh, the cricket stopped chirping!! I almost feel creeped out.  At least I have a blog to seek comfort and security in.  (Wow, that looks lamer on the screen than in my head!)

I got tired of being alone, even though I had my sister visiting, but it still wasn’t the same.  So now I’m back “home” with my sister on her lovely, funky, blog, the place where my blogging venture was born.   I have imported my posts here from my other blog, so that I can shut that one down with ease without missing my pearls of stupidity.  Haha!  The most absurd thing is that as I’m sitting here quietly typing away in the dark on my laptop, my brother is sitting downstairs making a racket typing some address with a typewriter.  Yes, we still have a typewriter, and my brother decided recently to go retro by typing any mailing addresses with it…  It is a true honor to be related to that man.

Just to warn you, I’m a bit ditzy, and have no intention of matching up to my sisters to eloquence in writing.  So yea, see you soon.  Really, very soon!   And I’ll leave you now with an amazing quote that I just read, which has nothing to do with anything I have written, but it is quite profound.

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children…the children yet unborn.
[-Rod Serling-]

When you live in an area which is safe, and unaffected by the trials those in other lands suffer, you kinda start to take it for granted.  Until something comes along knocks a dose of reality into and makes you truly want to repent to Allah for every single thing you’ve ever done.  In this specific case, that something would be a 7-10 second earthquake that felt way longer than that.  It’s something that shakes a person, literally, into realizing we’re not in control of anything, not even in the homes we live in.   Alhamdulillah for everything we’ve been blessed with! <3

Prophet Musa (’alayhisalam) said: ‘O my Lord, the people say things about me which are not (i.e. not true)!‘ So Allah revealed to him: ‘O Musa, I did not make that (privilege) for Myself, so how can I make it the case for you?’
[Al-Adaab al-Shar’iyyah by Ibn Muflih (1/38)]

SubhanAllah, I just read that today, and I never thought about it in that light before. Who are we to feel that we won’t be lied against when lies are spoken about Allah and His beloved messengers and prophets (alayhi salaam)!

Sayyidina Abu Dharr al Ghifaari (Radiallahu Anhu) was a special sahabi. The strength of his imaan is something we can only wish to aim for. He lived through the hardest times the Muslims went through, but when the times of luxury came upon him, he shunned it and tried to urge his brothers to shun it as well.  It led him to live a life of isolation, but a life that he was content with.

Thinking about his ways and his strictness got me thinking. If a person today was only quarter of the way of Abu Dharr (Radiallahu Anhu) how would we react to such a brother? We claim to love the Sahabah, yet it those who strive to imitate them are not favored.   They are looked down as backwards, primitive, and extreme and they somehow are making Islam harder then it is.  Not only that, even if they chose to live away from the community, people would go out of their way to pick on the person.  If only we could just let people be themselves.  If only we could just accept that we’re all human and have our differences…

In Sign Language class we watched a movie about a deaf child who wanted a cochlear implant. Her parents were flat out against it, then considered it, and ultimately decided against it. Their reason being: they want their child to be proud to be deaf and appreciate Deaf culture. That does make a certain amount of sense to me, they are a minority who are clearly discriminated against and they have every right to their culture and to keep sign language strong.  Given the fact that a cochlear implant is not readily accessible for those from a lower income group, the already small Deaf community would become smaller.  I even do see how invasive the cochlear implant is, an watching a tiny baby being operated on and being drilled in the head was freaky.

But then I think about it…  And wonder, for a Muslim child who is deaf, not having a cochlear implant would remove so many amazing experiences.  I cannot imagine not being able to listen to the Quran, go to the Haramain and not hear the adhaan and salaah live, and not even hear simple things like the rain pattering against the windows or hearing the silly, crazy noises my brother makes.   All that makes me wonder, would having an cochlear implant for a child be so bad?

Exactly one week ago I lost my lovely silver Motorola (and yes, I do miss it…true love never fades eh?) at college. In my foolish optimism I presumed whoever picked it up would drop it off at Lost and Found. Hah! As if.

On Friday my sweet big sis ordered a new phone for me (which is free with our family plan, yippy). It arrived yesterday, as I expected. But I kinda expected it would arrive early in the afternoon, and it arrived at night. And yes, the extra three hours did make a difference. Sheesh. But hey, the delivery man was really friendly, so I did feel all the more guilty about my impatience.

Anyways, my phone rocks mashaAllah. The screen is literally shiney, and when it’s in standby mode it’s like a mirror! I don’t have to carry a mirror with me anymore, not that I ever did much, but that’s the point. I always used to forget it, and sometimes I’d actually need it, so now it’s all good! It’s also got a 2 mega pixel camera, which is pretty good alhamdulillah. Now, I can random pictures when I want to!  Oh, most important of all, the call quality is nice! Ignore the fact that I placed that detail last, it really is important of course. :p

So I happen to be a bit into the Windows Vista look, and decided I’d install a theme patcher so I could get a Vista theme.  And it backfired.  My computer ended up looking like Windows 98, and there was no option to even select the XP look!   To add to that, our CD/DVD drive broke down on this computer, and although we managed to pull off reformatting before, it doesn’t seem that may be possible again unless we get a new drive, which we won’t bother doing for an almost four year old laptop.   Anyways, I was sitting here going, “oh shoot, serves me right for thinking I was too smart and could do it on my own without my personal tech support team to help me!” Then I decided to go for system restore since I had a set restore point, and by golly I’m sooo relieved that worked.  I guess I can survive without my tech support team.   Not that I’m going to try that again…for a long time anyway.   A little bit of panic and increased heart rate is good every once in a while.