Celebrating Eid part 2

Part of celebrating Eid is waking up early and going to the Masjid (Mosque) for special prayers, this is something that I’ve done since I was a child when I remember wondering why everyone was always crying, only to experience the same feelings now as an adult. The Eid prayer just brings about many powerful emotions after a month of fasting and increased spirituality; a mix of happiness, sadness, accomplishment, regret, and overwhelming gratitude to God for His mercy.

Eid celebrations is a combination of obligation and tradition; we are obligated, for those of us who can afford, to donate a fixed amount of money per family member to members of the community that do not have the means to celebrate, so no one is left out of the joy and happiness of Eid. Our old family traditions are things like making sawine, as we call it in Trinidad, giving money or gifts to the kids that we see on the day, cooking tonnes of food, and so on… but my husband and I also started our own tradition, after the prayer, we go out to breakfast with the kids, because they really enjoy it and also because everyone else in my family are too busy cooking and preparing for the party!

I hope you enjoy the video! (I am only in one of the last photos, the other women in the video are mostly my sisters, and a little of my mom.)

song credit: Irfan Makki

Celebrating Eid part 1

Hello Internets! Eid Greetings, Happy Saturday and all that…

Remember my video blogging event... I think I’ll have to give you the delayed, condensed version of the day because here’s the thing – that plan was a teeny bit too ambitious… you know, given the 3 kids and the sink of dirty dishes, and so on…

In the meantime, here are some pics of the boys from this morning.

The magical art of facebooking

Facebook, oh how I love thee…

Back in May when I signed up for Facebook, I did it ritually… another social network site that I had to be a part of, for, you know, networking. And what I thought was that I would be able to build upon my relationships with other bloggers and my reader community. Of course some of that did happen, I do communicate with some of my readers on a more personal level through Facebook, but what I didn’t expect, was that I would connect with many people from my “real’ life.

For the past months, I have been finding old friends, classmates, colleagues, even some of those not-too-fond-off acquaintances, and as I reminisce, my husband would roll his eyes and give me his look of complete disinterest. You see, up until last week, my dear husband had no interest in finding people from his past, “why would I want to find anyone”, he naively said, trying to convince himself, I think, because this past week, I have had to listen to many, many stories of the little geeky, indian boy and his thrilling childhood misadventures! Most of the time I was on the edge of my seat with anticipation! Ummm, sort of. Needless to say, I have not uttered another word about my past.

Nostalgia people, you gotta love it!

It’s a funny Facebook phenomenon, but although we first get in touch with classmates from college or high school, it seems that the ones from elementary school are the ones that we are most excited to catch up with! Is it the innocence of those friendships that we had at 7 and 8 years of age, that make them stand the test of time? Or is it because these are the people that knew us when we were at our best, before we developed “baggage”, before we became the flawed adults that we are? Or maybe it’s only because we’ve forgotten any of those very old wounds, that clearly pale in comparison to caring for a sick child, or losing a loved one?

The most amazing part though, must be the new friendships that are emerging, and blossoming, with people I’ve only just met, or with other bloggers, but especially with old classmates who I’ve overlooked growing up, and are now so thankful to have in my life!

Ah, the magic of Facebook!

Beginnings

Hi, I’m muslim. It’s September 11th today and I feel I should say something on the subject, but the truth is I’m tried. Tired of a lot of things, and sad about other things...

But, today I sent out postcards to a few of my American neighbors, as part of Karen’s postcard swap and I thought the theme of “beginnings” to be somewhat appropriate.

So, whatever it is that you’re beginning, I hope you find success, fulfillment, and happiness.

Love, Shaz.

What’s an adventure in Ontario without a trip to Niagara Falls

For Day 8 of our adventures, we went to Niagara Falls, and although I have been there countless times, I had not been there on a summer day in peak tourist season for years and it was really great, except of course for the fact that there was barely any standing room! Day 9 and 10 were kind of hacked – we went to a park each day, once for cricket and once just for a walk – come on people, could you do 10 days of ‘real’ adventures with 3 kids under 5?! Yeah, I figured not!

*the rest of this post consist only of photos.