It's late.

Or at least it feels late. I'm tired. I've been on my feet for 6 hours at an event in the community where the nonprofit I work for had a booth. We call it "Tablesitting" but ironically, there are never chairs so you end up standing all day.

Thus my post will be super-short. And I don't mean like normally when I say it will be short but I am just kidding and it's 14 paragraphs.

Here we go.

Triple-decker

Today was Friday, the day of congregational worship in Islam—our Sunday if you will. I sure did pack it in! This post will be a little different because I took part in three Islamic activities today and did no real exercise. Although that's not really true because I walked at least 20 minutes to and from these activities so that should count for something.

I promise this post will be short because I am trying to enjoy some Chicken Tikka Masala takeout. It's delish!

I'm busy here!

To proceed...

One ringy dingy and a yogi.

This post is for all of us. I watched a great lecture tonight by Kemal el-Mekki (Al-Maghrib teacher and daw'ah extraordinaire) called "Fiqh (Rulings) of Cell Phones". This will technically go under Islam but I don't want the non-Muslim readers to ignore this great advice. Especially the youngsters in the crowd. Sorry, but you whippersnappers are more likely to make a phone-pas than the young-elderly among us.

"Why don't you ever call me, man?"

Has anyone ever called you like, 9 times in a row because you don't pick up? Believe it or not, this is commonplace among the Muslim youth.

Hamburgers 15¢

I may have been dreaming (or watching too much Mad Men) but today on a walk I'm pretty sure I stumbled upon Pleasantville, ca. 1962. There, JFK is still alive and well (aside from his problems with those pesky Soviets), women get dressed to go to the store (and not in their 12-year-old's pajama pants), and you mow the lawn because your father said so.

Dad's not giving the peace sign.
That's how many seconds you have to shut the damn door.
We're not cooling the outdoors here!

Revert Tuesday!

Today's post features three amazing reverts to Islam. Why do we say "revert" instead of "convert"? Here's a multiple-choice-style way of telling you the answer:

A) "Convert" sounds too much like "convict" and we have enough of those to easily get confused.

B) "Convert" is 3/4 of the way to "Convertible" and those cars are haraam.

This is just not ok, people.

C) Everyone is born upon the Fitrah, or innate belief in the Creator (Allah). It just gets changed by parents and other influences sometimes. When we accept Islam (submission to Allah), we are just reverting back to our natural state. BINGO!

Never give up hope.

Today, the old me would have skipped this whole exercise and Islam thing when she realized her laptop charger was at work and the battery was about to die. But that was a week ago and this is now!
Instead, I said "No. I have a phone with a data plan and the Blogger app. This is happening!"

It's good to have determination.
There used to be Comic Sans on this picture but I cropped it out because I am determined to never use that font. 

Up, down. Repeat.

Today was long, but fun. And hard. But rewarding and relaxing. As well as frustrating. It was just a lot of hours, one after another.

OMG I just realized it's a girl and she's wearing hijab!!

Don't count your chickens before they've hatched.

My mom taught me that one. And it's been good advice. Complacency usually leads to a big fat failure you didn't see because you were too busy bragging about all your new chicken-babies to keep the warming light on. On that note, we'll do Islam first today.

Frienday

My new word is dumb but since it is Friday and I would rather hang out with friends than think up catchy post titles, Frienday stays. I had tons of fun with special ladies today.

The morning started with calling my hadith study buddy at 6 a.m. to practice for our Arabic exam. Then after a short stint back in bed, I had coffee with a bestie at her house followed by a lovely walk with my dear friend and apparent doppelgänger (sometimes I am mistaken for her mother but we won't talk about that) after work. This leads us to the exercise portion of this post.

What do you mean you can't tell us apart?

Do what you can.

Hi! It's raining right now, which makes me extra chipper. Watch out!

I will start off by saying I'm fasting today, and as I write this section, it's about 40 minutes until "breakfast" which is the meal we eat to uh, break our fast. It's also called "Iftar" in Arabic. There, you might have learned something new!

Getting to know you.

Let's jump right into it.

EXERCISE
Today I had/have a headache and no time to exercise later (see ISLAM) so I decided to go for a walk on my lunch break. It was awesome. I know that word is overused, but I don't care.

Now it's a thing.

Since I have successfully followed my own instructions (20 min of exercise, 20 min of Islamic studies) for two whole days in a row, I am declaring this project a real thing. I can't remember the last time I was this consistent with anything beneficial other than the 5 daily prayers but dude, I HAVE to do those because The Ever-Watchful is watching!

Day One

I'm not sure how to format these posts and if I think too hard about it, we'll never get anywhere together. So, Bismillah. Here we go!

EXERCISE
Today I worked out on the elliptical machine for 20 minutes after work. Normally I try not to work out in the evenings because it used to keep me up late after getting all energized, but 7:00 isn't the same as 10:00 and let's face it, I am an insomniac anyway so what's the diff?

Enough, already!

This blog has been a long time coming. I won't say how long ago I thought of the idea for it because it's really embarrassing and one of my problems is that I procrastinate. Everything. This includes thinking and over-thinking everything I want to/need to do until it doesn't sound good anymore or has been so built up I couldn't possibly live up to the grand plans I've made. I can't even divulge how long I spent on the colors and layout of this thing even AFTER I finally decided tonight to just do it, and now I kind of hate it but don't care anymore. Another blog from long, long ago was supposed to help with this. But I didn't have any real motivation, like a deadline for posting, or a cool gimmick like in Julie & Julia.