Making time.

I'm guilty of saying I'm too busy all of the time. In fact, my life has been significantly simplified in the past couple of years. I have one job, I barely volunteer, and most people I don't know have managed to forget my cell phone number after it got leaked in the Muslim community. It's almost a little lonely!

Before you start suggesting projects I could be a part of, know that I am much healthier now as a result of my downsizing. Gone are the crying-stressball-rage-outs at work, the 3 a.m. press release editing sessions, and mixing and matching my employers all day, depending on the situation.

It's not quite like this at my place.
I don't like the feeling of anklet socks at all.

I now have time to do all kinds of things like read, visit friends, and write this blog, alhamdulillah! Speaking of which ...



EXERCISE
I like to make things up. Like words (as long as people know I don't really think it's a word because I am vocabularily prideful) and other stuff. So I made up a circuit of aerobic exercise today and the only rule was that I had to keep moving for 20 minutes.

I set the timer on my phone and went for it. I jumped rope (my downstairs neighbors often play terrible music until 2 a.m. so there); I fast-walked with dumbbells like a mall-walker but in much smaller laps; I did some resistance band stretches like you used to see on infomercials. I also pulled out some classic Denise Austin moves that we used to do with my mom while watching her on TV, right before The Price is Right which was right before The Young and The Restless. We kids used tuna cans for weights and she used soup. Probably cream of mushroom because, hey, this is Minnesota here. I ended with the yoga stretches I learned from that scantily clad YouTube lady and it was pretty great overall.

If you have any home fakeout cardio favorites, please let me know what they are.

Health Tip of The Day: Just do anything you want! Like these guys:

That's a Minnesota mayor on the right doing the telephone with the do-groove guy.

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ISLAM
I never thought about it before someone asked me recently, but I guess my favorite Sahaba (companion of the Prophet, salli Allahu alayhi wa sallam) is 'Umar ibn Khattab (radhi Allahu anhu). Now you could argue that at least 50% of the world Muslim population would pick him—he's an obvious choice for a million reasons. However, I've just started to realize recently that he holds a special place in my heart for one particular reason—he was a lot like my dad: Super-tough, intimidating, gruff, and stubborn. But fair, and compassionate, humble, and of extremely good judgement. I just realized now as I was typing that he also could read people a lot like my dad is able to do. It's almost creepy how accurate my dad can be but it comes in real handy sometimes.

A famous story about 'Umar is that when someone suggested that one day he might accept Islam (for those of you who don't know, he was a fierce fighter against the Muslims), a man who knew him said that it would be more likely that the donkey of 'Umar's father would become Muslim than 'Umar—he was that stubbornly against Islam. SubhanAllah—only Allah can change the hearts!

That story and many more are in the first session of a whole series on 'Umar that I started watching tonight. I have no reservations about watching the videos of this respected scholar (inna lillah wa inna lilayhi raj'oon) but in the interest of not being shut down by whoever or starting a big "Internet thing", I won't put his name here. Ironically my dad might be the first to freak if I did. But then 'Umar was on his way to kill his sister for accepting Islam when his heart was softened by the words of the Quran so who knows what could happen as a result of this blog?

If you want to learn something about this amazing man ('Umar, not my dad), then take an hour to watch the lecture below. My dad's amazing too, but you have to hear stories about him in person from me. He's not on YouTube.