Answering Kinzi's tag Re Marriage

I finally got around to answering Kinzi’s tag, I am sorry it is too long, but you know me, I love to talk talk talk.

I have been married for almost 9 years. Our 9th year anniversary is on July 18th, our first anniversary being apart. Wow I do not believe it has been this long, it definitely does not feel like it!

When we met, neither of us was really thinking of getting married. I was at a point where I have boycotted marriage due to few bad relationships! Hubby was being badgered by his family to get married. He was 32 and to them he was an old maid. He looked for someone in Germany, and then he went to Saudi Arabia, then to Jordan. Finally his sister suggested he comes to Canada to visit his uncle. He might like and marry his very cute cousin. Hubby decided what the heck, I’ve never been to Canada.

He came to Canada, his cousin was not his type, neither was he hers. So he was introduced to few girls but none were his type. Finally a week before his return to Germany, his uncle and his aunt decided to take him to a goodbye dinner in Hamilton, which is where I lived. The owner of a restaurant is a mutual friend of my family and his uncle’s family. We just happened to be dining there that night. The minute Rami saw me, he would his eyes of me, I gotta admit, I did look good that night!:)

His uncle asked the restaurant owner to introduce the families and before we knew it they invited themselves for coffee at our house. The next day they invited us for dinner and after a lot of convincing from our friend I accepted the invitation. That is when hubby and I got to sit alone and chitchat. We talked for over 3 hrs and decided we will go out the next day. He so friendly, easy going and great to talk to, not to mention so cute and adorable!

We immediately clicked. We went out almost everyday. My work at that time was close to where his uncle lived, so we would go out for lunch or for coffee after work. A month later we were engaged and ten glorious months later we were married. The reason I gave hubby a chance is the first place was because I loved his name (I was always saying when I have a son I will name him Rami), he was a cutie, and I fell in love with his aunt. After that I could not help falling in love with him, he is just so darned cute and so nice and has the qualities I always wanted in a husband but was sure that they did not exist. When I got sick one day, he came to our house right away and spent the whole day with me, and he read me a book. I will never forget that day. His voice was so soft and comforting. The book he read was the story of Remi allakeet in Arabic, which was my favourite cartoon and book.

Hubby never made it back to Germany. I would not accept a long distance engagement. I wanted to be together and get to know each other, so there were no surprises after the wedding.

My husband is my best friend. He is the one person I can talk to about everything and anything. We do have ups and downs, but thankfully our ups are a lot more that our downs. We do argue and drive each other crazy at times, but at the end of the day we lay in each other’s arms and all is forgotten and forgiven.

Communication is very important. By nature I am not a very talkative person. But with my husband I can talk up a storm. This is what I loved about him, he made it very easy for me to open up to him, and talk. You need to put on listening ears and hear what your partner is saying.

In marriage you have to learn to compromise, you cannot always get your own way. You give a little and take a little. You come up with a solution that will make you both happy. That was the hard part for me, but eventually I learned how to compromise.

It is very important to spend time alone every once in a while. We have not been able to do it much here since we do not have a baby sitter here in Saskatoon. But when back at home in TO, my mom watched the kids every few weeks and we got to be alone and do couple things. A date night or weekend is very important and renews the relationship.

O kinzi requested I elaborate on the amount of traveling we do with kids. Both hubby and I share the love for travel. The reason we waited for awhile to have kids is because we wanted to travel and have fun together. We used to take 2 long holidays per year, in Canada that means 1-3 wks off. We would travel to the Caribbean or to the US. It took us a while before we could travel outside N/A since my husband did not have Canadian citizenship yet. Through out the year we took several road trips throughout Ontario and Quebec on long weekends.

We thought that when we had kids all this traveling would stop. But our kids are great! They travel great on the plane, and they do well on long road trips. Right now our travels are mostly from Saskatoon to Toronto and from Toronto to Amman, with long road trips within SK and Alberta here and there. Zozo and I are dying to go to Cuba, but we’ll have to wait after we come back from Amman. We want the kids to know their family in Toronto and Amman, so our destinations have somewhat changed. I do like travelling with my kids; my mom always offers to watch the kids for a week or so while we go away. I know I should, but our kids are so young and willing to join us for so little time. Once they hit their teens, god help us! We hope that by taking them with us all the time and doing thing we all enjoy, they will still enjoy traveling with us, as they get older. I have friends whose kids will not travel with them at all! I pray we will never get to that point. We do enjoy family vacations together. On long car trips hubby and I get to talk all we want without many distractions, this is another reason we love road trips.

So there you go, marriage is great. Having someone there to comfort you when you wake up from a bad dream. Someone who will listen to you whine about your weight loss or lack of and in hubby’s case someone who will listen to you bitching about work and annoying coworkers. You always have a date to any party, wedding, and get togethers. You have someone kill the spiders and icky bugs for you, go out and get you a Tim Hortons cup of coffee in the morning, someone to come and get your car out of the snow when you are stuck in a million inches of slippery snow, someone that will clean up the house and watch the kids when you are sick, and make you soup that does may or may not taste awful, but it is the thought that counts, someone to cheer you up when feeling sad.

last day of school...

Today was the last day of school. My baby officially graduated from Kindergarten. He is very exited about going to grade 1. He is actually sad about summer vacation! He wants to go to school tomorrow.

So today we went to school, the kids sang a song , ate some goodies and got their report cards. They also had a little booklet where everyone answered twenty questions. These are Zozo’s answers

1. I am happy when I see my toy Woody (we are definitely taking woody to Amman with us)

2. It makes me sad when it is too cold to go out and play

3. If I had $100, I would get a game

4. If I had three wishes I would wish for a live ostrich, an elephant and more houses

5. If I could be any animal I would be a cougar so I can scratch

6. If I could fly anywhere that I wanted to go, I would go to Toronto to see grandma and

grandpa (awwwwwww)

7. A good law for the world would be- to look both ways and be safe (good rules to go by)

8. Being a grown-up means u can do everything you want to (I used to think that to!)

9. People get married so they can have babies

10. The kind of wife that I would want be a girl who lives behind my grandma (after asking him few questions it turns out this girl is my little cousin, her name is Lana, she is 4.5yo and very cute, he has good taste!)

11. My mom is 7 years old (wow that old?)

12. My dad is 6 years old (what he is a year younger than me?)

13. When I grow up I want to be a pilot so I can fly planes

14. The best driver in our family is my dad (what the heck is wrong with my driving??)

15. The best cook in our family is my mom (that is for sure)

16. The rules of the school are- don’t go to gym by yourselves, and don’t get big kids books

from the library

17. The teacher’s job is to see the kids

18. The principal’s job is to talk to the kids

19. In kindergarten this year, I learned about ducks

20. Grade one will be like a roller coaster

will not forget, will not forget!

I do not believe I was this close <> to forgetting hubby’s bday again!! Thanks to Tamara and Oriental Arabesque I just remembered phew! Thank you!

I totally forgot about it last year because I was tooo busy getting us ready to travel to Toronto and Amman. I booked my flight to Toronto on July 01 so I could spend his bday on June 29 with him! And then I got so busy that I forgot!

Hubby does not care about bday’s; he thinks they are the stupidest invention ever! Apparently his mom did not have bday parties for them and did not make a big deal. So because I forgot his bday last year, he only slightly acknowledged my bday in January! He just said happy birthday in the morning and made sure to mention that I definitely do not look 31. so now I have to make a big deal for his bday, so that my coming birthdays I will actually get a present. Ok last year my “present” was lazik. Although, it was just a mere coincidence that I finally got the go ahead from him and made my appointment in January, but ok lets not be picky and call it my bday present for 2007.

So to make it up, on his birthday this year I will buy him a small bday cake; his favourite a black forest cake. The kids will make him a card and now all I need is a present. Someone small and annoying named Bolbol loves to put coins in openings, so far he ruined the CD drive in the computer, two DVD players, and his newest victim is the car CD player! So now the car CD player only works when the dime gets dislodged by accident. Hubby will be taking it to get it fixed at Honda, but until he actually gets unlazy and does it, it will be few months at least! So I was thinking of getting him an MP3 player and something that will hook it to the car. He hates headphones; he worries about his hearing *rolling eyes*. This way he can download all his favourite music and listen to it in the car and at work if he wants.

I’ll go to futureshop tomorrow and see what I can find. Wish me luck!

cougars

There is a cougar in the city. It was spotted downtown few days ago. I probably mentioned this already, but I have an animal phobia! I am trying to be strong and not run away screaming whenever I am near a dog, you know, for my kid’s sake! It will be embarrassing if my boys are afraid of dogs! I even let a dog kiss my nose the other day! I was so brave!

But not a cougar!! On our trips through the Rockies we were always on the lookout for wild animals and would not go hiking out of fear of running into a bear, cougar, wolf or any other scary wild animal! We stayed close to the car, just in case! I know we are chickens..bak bak!

And now there is a cougar running around the city! Yeh ok I am not going for walks any time soon! I know exactly what to do if I run into one though. But still! What if he is too hungry to care! Maybe I should walk around with some meat in my purse to throw it to him so he will eat that instead of me or my kids, but then what if it is not enough and my kids look so small and yummy to him!

Ok let’s pray we do not run into the cougar hanging around Saskatoon! They are called mountain lions, aren’t they supposed to be in the mountains and not in the prairies??!
Since my kids are so into animals, we have been reading lots of animal books, it says that cougar attacks on humans are very rare! But with my luck, I don’t want to risk it!

Did you know that cougars are the only big cats that meow and do not roar! At least he won’t be scaring us with a big roar! An animal that meow just sounds so harmless eh?So if I stop posting for a while, you’ll know that a cougar has eaten me :o)

B+

Wohoooo I just saw my mark for my English Lit course online and it is a B+. Yippy, I did great on my assignments but the exam really worried me. Since I had to write 3 essays in 2.5hrs time by hand!! Yes by hand! My handwriting is more or less pure chicken scratch! It is very hard to write and essay by hand, no spell check, if you change your mind it is not so easy to erase a paragraph and rewrite it! When I left the exam room I was thinking, I’d be more than happy to get a 50% on my exam! Not that the exam was hard, I knew all the topics and had lots to talk about, but just because of my awful hard to read handwriting. I can just picture my poor proff grading it! But I got a 75%, so yippy!

I know, I know, it is not the A I was used to while I was in college. But studying through correspondence is hard! I did well in school before because I attended most of the lectures and paid attention to the important ones, plus I did lots of group studying. This teaching myself thing is hard! Annoying hubby will not even hear of me going to our local university to take these two courses then transferring to the my university L o no, he would have to put the kids to bed, OMG!

Two more courses until I finish my degree, it only took close to 10yrs to complete, Hahaha. I hate it when hubby is right! I hate him! Ok not really I love him, but still it is annoying how he predicted it would take me 10yrs to complete when I first started. Well what do you expect, I was either working full time with lots of traveling, and being a wife to him, or being a full time mom with a part-time small business to work on and still being a wife to him. Besides, like everyone knows so far, I am a huge procrastinator! I could not take more than 2 courses at a time! But now it is almost done, and I can really concentrate on my CGA certification. Who knows what I'll do next.

my sister's punishment

One day my sister decided to skip school and go to downtown Toronto along with three of her friends. They had it all planned for weeks. The older sisters were to call the school and say they were sick. They would take the bus and do Toronto for the day. We lived in Hamilton so it was an over 1 hr drive to downtown TO.

At that I had just graduated from college and was staying home enjoying not doing anything for few weeks. I was into online chatting and spent the whole night chatting with friends on Alamak , net meeting and WBS. Of course I slept in until 12pm everyday. But on that day I had to get up early and make the phone call to Amal’s school, pretending to be my mom of course!

I got up, and reluctantly made the call, I was just too sleepy! The problem is I have a cute little voice! It did not sound like an adult voice. Until now at my old age I still have the odd telemarketers asking if they may speak to my mommy when they call, I usually just say “no mommy is not home; do you want to leave a message?” I just hope it won’t cause any problems when I call the school for my sons. So the school secretary called back, and to my sister’s unfortunate luck both of parents were home off work that morning! Talk about bad luck!

My parents were furious! They made me get up and tell them what I know!! Of course I played dumb and pretended I did not know a thing it is not like Amal told me everything! Maybe Amal can come up with a better story! I did go for a walk and met her outside her school and warned her, but it was too late! Poor Amal!

Amal and her friends had a blast in Toronto, but I do not know if it was worth the punishment. Maybe it was, back then my parents were pretty strict and we were not allowed to go alone with our friends unless we gave a big huge report of where, with whom, etc. So to go alone downtown was a very big thing!

After days of coming up with the right punishment, my parents came up with the perfect plan. They will make Amal get a haircut! Amal had and still has very beautiful thick curly long hair. Her hair was her joy and pride. So this was a very cruel punishment. Amal went to the hairdresser with mama and get few inches off her hair. Her hair was shoulder length now, mama wanted it cut shoulder, but the hairdresser did not have the heart to cut anymore with Amoola crying. I thought it looked very stylish and cute; it looked a lot nicer on her than long hair. But Amal was sad and cried for days. I felt so bad. But we all kind of got punished by that, we were not allowed to go anywhere for weeks thanks to Amal! I was very happy to get a job few weeks later actually so I can leave the house.

Of course my sister was not the only one in trouble, mama made few phone calls and oops! All of the sudden everyone hated me, ya3ni it was not my fault! uf!! That lasted few weeks but I am just too nice and cute (yes I am) to be hated, so we were back to being friends again:)

bye bye bear!

Aparently some people think the dancing bear I had on the side was annoying and too girly. How about this butterfly and dolphine? cute but not too girly eh?

:p

A nice relaxing weekend

I do not have anything to blog about, so I’ll just talk about our weekend. Which was not very action packed, but still?

So my plan to go out yesterday and buy hubby a father’s day present did not workout. (Note to self: never leave things to the last minute) it rained none stop. I was dressed and ready to go out by 10:00 am (which is a wow, since I am not a morning person, so to have my apartment tidy, kids breakfast, showered, blew dried my hair, put on makeup dressed and ready to go by 10:00 is a true miracle). Every time it looked like the rain eased up a bit, we put our shoes on and oopsi it goes back to raining cats and dogs again. So we decided to stay in, had pancakes then watched happily never after over and over and over. Then I made a nice chicken and rice dinner and just sat around listening to the rain, watching TV, playing junior monopoly. It was boring, but ok.

On Saturday we finally got to go swimming at an outdoor pool. The weather was great! I did not get much of a tan though since the swimming poor Mr Ziad made us go to for kids only! But it was fun playing in the ankle deep water with the kids and getting splashed. Then playing in the sand and the poolside playground. Talk about messy though! We brought a ton of sand back home with us, in our clothes and shoes. It was a nice fun family day! Hubby went to the grocery store and got some turkey and chicken kebab and he BBQed them along with some veggies, Yummy! Even though the bbq is out on the balcony, he actually managed to get the kitchen all messy! How I don’t know! Of course since he did the “cooking” I had to clean up the mess, so not fair!

Today is a cold rainy day again brrrrrrrrrr. The grass is very nice and green here though, yesterday while watching the rain I had grass envy. I hope it is rains this much in Toronto as well, so the grass in my yard will be all nice, green and lush.

Happy father's day!

Happy father's day to baba, my husband and all the fathers out there...

We will be off to future shop to buy hubby a gift tomorrow morning. Zozo is such a blabber mouth, no secret stay with him for longer than 3 seconds. It will also be is birthday present, so I will be allowed to spend as much as I like on it.

p.s I just realized this is my 100th post!! *snif, snif* I hope I did not bore everyone 100 times...

forget him

When I was in grade 9 I went out with a guy I liked since grade 6. He was adorable, so cute. His name was Mario. He was Mexican and looked very Latin. We met in ESL class when I first came to Canada. And we liked each other instantly. It was not until we were in grade 9 that we started kind of going out. That meant that we had lunch together, he walked me to the bus stop sometimes he rode the bus home with me, and we skipped school every now and then to hang around in the mall. It was pretty innocent. My parents were very strict and we were not allowed to go out much. So we only met at school.

When we broke up my best friends back then gave me this poem. I was so sad then, it was my first heart break and I was glad I had good friends by my side. I still have the paper they gave me in Alexandra's hand writting in my shoebox in the basement of my house until now.

I was just browsing online and came across it and it reminded me of Mario, Alexandra and Sonja. I wonder what they are up to. Is Mario a policeman like he wanted to be? Is Alexandra a chef?? Is Sonja a scientist? I wish I could remember their last names, the minute I get to Toronto I will look for my yearbook and look them up.

Mario and I did hook up again in grade 11 and 12, but had to break it off because of our cultural differences.

FORGET HIM

Forget his name, forget his face

Forget his kiss, his warm embrace

Forget the love that once was there

Remember now, he doesn't care

Forget the love that you once shared

Forget the fact that he once cared

Forget the times you spent together

Remember now, he's gone forever

Forget you cried the whole night long

Forget him when they play your song

Forget how close you both once were

Remember now, he's chosen her

Forget you memorized his walk

Forget the way he used to talk

Forget the way you were so glad

Remember now, he's not so sad

Forget the times he used to phone

Forget the times you were alone

Forget the dreams he mad come true

Remember now, he's with someone new

Forget his gentle teasing way

Forget you saw him everyday

Forget the things you planned to do

Remember now, she loves him too

Forget the thrill when he walked by

Forget the times he made you cry

Forget the way he said your name

Remember now, things aren't the same

Forget the way he held your hand

Forget the sweet things, if you can

Forget the way he loved you too

Remember now, there's someone new

Forget the times he went to fast

Forget them all, they're just the past

Forget he said he'll leave you never

Remember now, he's gone forever

Remembering

One day so looong ago when I was about seven years old we woke up at 7:00ish am to a loud sound comeing from faraway, or so it seemed. All of the neighbours in our building were standing at their balconies, guessing what that sound was. Some one said it was probably thunder, someone else said it might be a hurricane; others said it is an earthquake, and so on. It as a nice sunny October/November day so most of their guesses did not make sense. While everyone was guessing what is going on, a bee stung me! It was so painful! This was the first and the last time I have been stung by a bee! I didn’t do anything to that bee, why did it have to commit a suicide and sting me! I was just standing there minding my own business and listening to all the neighbours talking and worried about the mysterious sound! I would have never guessed it, even thinking back at it, this is not how I would imagine the sounds!

We soon found out what that sound was. It was the sound of war. It was my first experience of war. Although we did live in Lebanon during the worst part of the war, we did not experience much of it since we lived in Tripoli far away from Beirut.

My parents decided that it would be best to leave our place since our building was right in the middle. Mama told us to go to our rooms and pack clothes, just throw everything in these bags she yelled. Back then clothing was not my first priority! I went to my room and collected my favourite doll and her accessories. I had lots of clothes and hair accessories for my doll. My mom’s friends were learning to sew and they practiced by making clothes for my dollies. My uncle had recently bought me some plastic doll furniture; I could not leave those behind!

You can imagine the look on mama’s face when I came out of my room after a while with just my doll and her stuff! I didn’t even pack a pair of PJ! Dah! I was yelled at and mama had to go to my room and pack my essentials while shaking her head at my habal. I had to fight my parents to let me take my doll and her stuff. Eventually I was allowed to take her with me, but only enough of her stuff to fit into a shoebox! Phew I would have been worried sick about her if I had to leave her behind. My parents would have never heard the end of it! They were smart to give in. So on that day I left my home with my family and dolly for the sake of our safety. Good thing we left when we did, a days later our building was hit numerous times and left in flames. The important thing though, is that we were all safe, including my doll!

My Day

I know who cares, bas everyone is so busy to hear about my day!

I finally went to get my passport done today. I left late because it took hubby forever to bring me the car. Come soon at 11:00 does not mean come at 12:45!! I spent the whole morning waiting for him. My apartment was all tidy by 8:00 this morning and bolbol and i were dressing and ready to leave by 10:30! Finally at almost 1:00 I got my car, got my application, old passport, and ID’s in an envelope and I headed downtown with Bolbol! It was kinda of busy downtown so it took us a while to get there, look for street parking, finally I gave up and turn around and went into the mall parkade, something I should have done in the first place! I cannot parallel park to save my life! .

The passport office was full! The office in Saskatoon is very small. Last year when hubby went to get his passport done, it was a Friday as well and the office was empty! They were bekesho doban. This time it was busy. Thanks to that stupid travel to the US passport rule! I would have had to wait for at least 1.5-2hrs. It was already 1:40 and I had to go pickup Zozo from school at 3:00. I was about to leave and the lady who checked my application at the door said to wait outside because I am going to be next! I did not have to wait for over an hour! How cool is that! All because I filled out my application on line and printed it! I got priority over those that got the application from the mail office and filled it out by hand! So I was relieved! It takes longer to get the passports now (because of the stupid US rule!), three weeks and I am leaving to Toronto in 4wks. I do not have much time and I do not want any added stress of waiting for my passport to arrive.

I even got 40 minutes to spare! So we went into the mall. I bought two shirts for myself, on sale from $40 to $15 and a pair of summer shoes! A gift for my friend’s baby girl, (I spent so much time there, I love shopping for baby girls! The cloths are just too cute!) And I got a cute hat for Bolbol.

Phew, I am all tired now! We are off to the gym and then if we feel like it we'll go to the park. Oops I forgot about dinner! I guess we’ll have to eat out tonight!

But hey my passport is all done! And I have two new shirts! I have a present for my friends so I can visit her anytime now, and Bolbol has a new hat! I’d say we accomplished lots today! Ok so no dinner! Bas so what..hubby did not let me buy any beef last weekend and we are out of rice! What am I to cook?? Maybe I’ll grab some fish on our way home after we pick hubby up and he can BBQ them!

my older sister

Long time ago when I was in Lebanon I went to school in the camp. We lived outside the camp, a 15min drive. Since my dad worked for Unurwa and my mom for the Red Crescent in Naher Elbared camp, we all went to school there.

I am the oldest of four kids. At one point it really sucked. Everyone in my class was the 11th or 13th child. They all had older sisters and brothers. Everyday someone would come to class bragging about her sister getting married, her sister having a baby, her brother taking her here and there. I was very envious. It was not fair! I wanted an older sibling, a much older sibling that would take me to the balad or to the mina for ice cream. I waned to be sister of the bride, and I wanted nephews and brothers in law! At that time I thought it was the coolest thing!

So, I made up an imaginary sister. Her name was Nadia. She was married to a man named Adel and had a baby named Basel (he was so cute). I talked so much about my “sister”; I started believing she was real that year. I think I was in grade 4. The thing is my dad was well known at the camp. He was the lab technologist, everyone came to see him one time or another. He was called Ali elmokhtabar. So everyone’s parents knew that this not even yet 40-year-old man did not have a married daughter or a grandson. Some of them were even at his wedding! But the girls in my class believed me; I guess no one bothered to ask their parents to confirm my lie.

I do not believe I was envious of that! I mean most of these girl’s families did not have much. They lived in awful looking houses all cramped up with so many people in zawareb el mokhayam. Their clothes were second hand from the bali or hand me downs from their older siblings. They probably did not get as much attention as I got from my parents. But that did not matter. To me they were so lucky to have older siblings! Thinking of it now, having an older sibling is not always a blessing! I am eight years older than my baby brother and o man he was my helper for years. He fetched things for me all the time, water, juice, fruits, cookies while I am watching TV, reading or studying.

Such a man already(warning a girly post)

Last night I finally cut my hair and coloured it! I have wanted to do it for few weeks, but hubby was too busy to take the kids. So finally yesterday I went to the mall and got few inches off my hair and changed the colour. When I first went in the girl ask me she ASKED ME what I wanted done with MY hair. I said just cut an inch or so off and put long layers. She did exactly what I asked! And now my hair is so cute! I can still put it up if I have to leave in a rush, but short enough that I do not have to blow-dry it everyday.

When I came home my well-trained husband said wow what a great cut, it is really great, and the colour suits you perfectly, I love it! You know all the stuff a husband is supposed to say and do after the wife gets something done.

My son on the other hand is still not trained to say the right things.

I asked him: Zozo do you like my hair cut? (Takes his eyes off the TV for a second)
Zozo: You cut your hair??
Me: Aha, can’t you tell??
Zozo: Yeh it is nice, I like it.
Me: How ‘bout the colour, do you like it? (Looks at me intently)
Zozo: you coloured it too?? (Carefully looking at my hair)
It looks the same to me! Can I have some ice cream?

It looks the same??!!! My hair was auburn red and now it is browner! It is not the same! Hopefully he will notice in few weeks when I get highlights! Well at least hubby noticed! Or did he??!!! I guess I will never know eh…

my home in palestine!

This is my hometown in Palestine. It was called Suhmata. A place that no longer exists. One of those houses is my grandfather's house. This is where my grandfather fell in love with my grandmother and married her. A place where my father would have grown up instead of going from one camp to another in Lebanon. A place for me to call home.

If 1948 did not happen I might have been living there now. Even if I did live abroad, I would have had a place to go back to. A place I could call home and really believe it down in my heart! Nowhere else is home really, not Lebanon, not Jordan, not Canada...I am and will always be a Palestinian so my true home is Palestine.

My family is spread all over the world. We barely know each other. I see my last name on a group on facebook , and I wonder who the heck are these people? Are they my cousins, my cousin's counsins? Their parents and grandparents probably know mine, but I do not know them! My family is very big; If we were living there now ,Suhmata would been 1000x bigger.

To my family, my homeland, and my hometown, I salute you and pray that one day you will be our true home again!

If I was ever given a chance to go back in time, I will go back to Palestine pre 1948, a time when our country belonged to us. When the streets of palestine were not full of the blood of the innocent. I cannot even imagine how that might be!

laptop shopping!

Finally I will buy a new computer. Hubby and I are not really tech people and could care less about it... As long as it works we keep on using it. No new tech wala bateekh for us, only because few weeks after you buy what ever it is already old tech.

Since I am the one leaving I will by buying a laptop first....waaaaaaahhhh...when I come back to Toronto hubby will have a newer laptop :( o well...i always get the newer cars, I'll let it go this once!

so since I am not tech savy and I know there are few bloggers who are, I thought I would ask you to help me with what to look for when shopping! I was told to stay awar from AMD? but everything seems to have an AMD Turion processor..HELP!

Dawgs!

Are they not so cute?? NOTTTTTTT! I do not get what the deal is with these shoes. Everyone is wearing them! bas they are rubber shoes! They cost a freakin $30 plus tax!(the kids size, i am not sure how much the adult ones are, probably about $40 some)

On our last trip Mr zozo saw our friend's kids wearing them. Now he has to have one. I can swim with it! this is his biggest insentive! So finally I caved and bought him one. I wanted to get him blue or greenish. BUT NO! he wanted Red...so I bought him that and lo and behold. Hubby went crazy! So now we will return them and go for blue! o what the heck! I will return them and buy him gerneric ones from Walmart for $9.99. They are not as soft, bas really he will not be wearing them much! or maybe i'll go to the mall and get him the ones with mickey mouse head on them...a lot cuter....ah decisions, decisions!

o by the way I wrote my exam yesterday. I so F'ed it !! I can not write without a computer! My hand writting sucks! In grade 8 I got a computer and since then I have not written anything by hand!

Annoying people...

I should be studying for my exam right now! I am all studied out. So I can post

Hubby has a co-worker who is super annoying. We were talking about last night and I am still annoyed at him. Lets call him Mr annoying…

Few months ago we were at a small gathering at hubby’s work and of course Mr Annoying was there. He is so annoying I can just kick him right now!

Everyone knows since we are Muslims we do not drink alcohol and we do not eat pork.
I am not a very religious person. But I still do not drink. Besides the fact it is forbidden, I cannot stand the stuff! Ewww…it is worst than Arabic coffee, even without the million spoons of sugar I put on when forced to drink the coffee! As a teenager I tried beer few times and I hated it, I tried it again as an adult and it is still digesting. Do not get me started on wine. I drank one tiny sip once at a work luncheon to be polite. I had to eat three pieces of bread to washout the taste and was still grossed out! I am never drinking anything just to be polite ever! YUCK! I love bloody Marys, but of course I always ask for a virgin Caesar, one time they made a mistake and put vodka, it freakin’ tasted like cough medicine, ya3ni what the hell?? I just do not understand the deal with alcohol! It is so over rated!

Of course we are also forbidden to eat pork. Hubby and I are not really meat lovers. I only eat it because of the high protein. It is really hard to get over 99grams of proteins without having at least some chicken and turkey for lunch and dinner. And I will not touch tofu! So really meat does not strike my fancy. And it all tastes the same to me. If someone asks me to differentiate between the taste of lamb, beef or any other red meat, I would never be able to. So really I do not feel I am missing out on anything because I cannot and will not eat pork! It s not like it is chocolate or icecream! It is meat for god’s sake; it all tastes the same to me! I can eat lamb, beef, chicken, deer, buffalo (bison), duck, turkey, chicken, or fish. The list of things I can eat is endless!

Now back to Mr annoying! At that party mentioned above he kept on shaking his beer bottle at hubby and I and saying “don’t you wish you can have some of this, come on try it?” hmmmmmmmmm are we teenagers or what?? Hubby used to drink and made the choice to stop few years ago, and like I mentioned above I have tried it and hated it. So khalas leave us alone you stupid bald man! Then every little while he would say how much this food would have tasted if it were cooked with pork, blah blah blah.
That party was over, and I did not see Mr annoying again. \

Poor hubby has to deal with him every day at lunch. He starts with you poor people cannot eat pork. Few times hubby had to explain that we do not care for pork and really stop feeling sorry for us you idiot! We are not missing out on much. It is useless though, I guess all the alcohol and pork have gotten to his brains rendering it unusable! Thankfully there aren’t too many of those narrow minded people in Canada, or not many that we came across, but in Germany hubby had to put up with too many of those remarks and bull, so I guess he is used to it now J


I knew a guy like that in high school. He was annoying bas ya3ni he was hot so it was more tolerable, he was mostly joking around. He was sixteen years old, ya3ni immature so it is understandable! And he only made those comment less than a handful of times, but Mr annoying is a 50-year-old man, what the hell is his excuse?? Too annoying I tell ya!

No more school...almost

O NO! In 20 days my baby will be done with school! He will be graduating from Kindergarten.

He is so looking forward to starting grade 1. Since school is so much fun, he is actually sad about not going to school for few months thing! Little does he know that in few years he will not be able to wait until June and the summer vacation?

Speaking of schools...can anyone (Kinzi?) tell me what age kids start grade one in Amman? It is different everywhere. Kids born with zozo (nov01) in the US will be starting Kindergarten in Sept! In Ontario kids start Kindergarten at 4, but in Saskatoon and most other provinces they start at 5. So I should not just assume that Ziad would be going to grade 1 in Amman eh??


There goes my 2.5 hr of just Bolbol and myself. I am sooo looking forward to next September or do schools start in August in Amman?? I will have time all alone. No kids! I can go to the gym, shopping, hang out with friends, get my hair done without having to ask hubby to watch the kids and hear him whine, or just stay home and watch the one of the 10000 movies on my to watch list on a rainy day...the possibilities are endless to what I can do in those few kids free hours.


Ok so I came to the computer to proof read my assignment and mail it to my proff, but instead, somehow blogger website got opened and these few paragraphs got typed, how? I have no idea! The procrastination queen does it again!

just be nice

Is anyone else sick of thinking of a title for their posts??

Once upon a time we were staying at Mrs A’s house in Amman for few weeks along with Mrs B and her family. Mrs A had a next door neighbour named Mrs C. Mrs C is an older lady in her 60’s, she lives alone. She is a very nice lady, well educated, speaks English and French. She is well travelled, and overall a very interesting and pleasure to talk to person. Mrs B was somewhat of a snob to Mrs C. Whenever Mrs C stopped by Mrs B would barely utter a very dry hello and go to her room or to the balcony with her argeelah, she never sat and had a conversation with Mrs C, because who the hell was Mrs C, no one important or interesting. I used to like chatting with Mrs C, but sometimes had to leave the room because my kids were being a bit exasperating and Mrs A and C wanted to get to know each other as they have both just moved into the building.

One day, on the day Mrs B and her family were leaving Amman to the gulf country they were living, Mrs C came to say her farewell to them, out of respect to Mrs A.
Mrs C said a polite Hello, Mrs B answered with the driest, rudest Hello back I have ever heard, quickly dismissing the existence of Mrs C and asking her husband about something then leaving the room.

After a few minutes of conversation it came about that Mrs C is a very good friend with a princess from the country where Mrs B and her family are living. Mrs B’s hubby calls her to the room and passes on new piece of I guess important information.

All of the sudden Mrs B lost interest in what she was doing in the other room. She grabed a seat and joined us. Now she was very interested in Mrs C and wanted to be her friend. She gave her their home phone number, her cell number, husband’s cell number, and her daughter’s cell number so she can call the very next time she is in the gulf country they live in, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe Mrs C will introduce them to her princess friend! All Mrs B saw in Mrs C was a new wasta.

Moral of the story: Arabs are weird. Never dismiss anyone as an unimportant person until you know who he or she is and whom he or she knows. Or for god’s sake just be nice and polite to everyone, regardless of who they are, what they do, whom they know and how much money and property they have. Sheesh!

another post about eyes.

I am so happy with my “new” prescription 0 eyes :o)
One of the things I used to dread big time was getting up early in the morning and putting contacts on my red, tired aching eyes. When I knew I had to get up early the next morning, I would to go to bed early, put a hot towel on my eyes and all the fixings to make sure my eyes will not be too tired in the morning. It never really worked since it was not always feasible to go to bed very early. Putting contacts in tired eyes is very annoying, I am sure some can relate! It hurts, it feels uncomfortable and you have to wait for a while for eyes to stop tearing to put makeup on. This would have caused a lot on unnecessary arguments on our last vacation. But thanks to Lazik I was able to wake up at 7:00, started the coffee, shower, do my hair, and makeup without worrying about my eyes and how I am going to put my contacts in, and be ready to go out even before hubby was up and drinking his coffee, so I was not blamed for us not leaving the hotel early and missing out on fun blah blah blah. Yeh, yeh, I could have worn my glasses, but I hate it, they make me feel ugly and self conscious and very uncomfortable and ugly, annoying and ugly, I could go on about how horrible glasses are, but I’ll stop here, did I mention ugly?
Among a million other things, this is a huge perk to getting Lazik! Much easier morning! Less arguments with hubby. On our BC/Alberta vacation I was the one telling him to hurry up and get dressed, no the other way around. And when we were out late I got to blame it on him, haha $3000 well worth it!

Memory triggers

Zozo just ate a plum and he came to me to floss his teeth because apiece is stuck. His breath smelled like plum and I had a quick mental image of so long ago when we had a janazeh for a bird at our friend’s farm.
They had a huge farm in Lebanon. We used to love going there. It was always a bit cold on the mountains in Lebanon and the air so fresh. This family was very religious and the few brothers lived together on part time basis on this farm. They all had their own houses in the city. Every few weeks we’d go to the farm and spend few days with them. It was so much fun for us kids. There was a sandy hill we rolled down, we played hide and seek and tag in the fields, picked fresh flower and played house. The men would go hunting and the women would get dinner ready fort he million people in the house a that time, and of course gossip.
One day we found a dead bird between the plum and the peach trees. We all felt bad for the poor dead bird and I suggested we bury him and have a proper janazeh instead of leaving him on the ground. We were all between the ages of 4 and 13; none of us has ever been to a real funeral. But you always see the men carrying a box and everyone walking behind them on TV. So that is what we did. We put the bird in a small box, the oldest boy (his name was mos3ab) carried the box and all of us 10-15 kids walked behind him between the trees until we found he perfect burial spot. We all dug a hole big enough to fit the box. We read the fate7a then cried some and put a stone and some flowers on top. We promised to visit the grave every time we went up there, and we did until we came to Canada.

A nothing in particular post

Right now I should be tidying up my apartment, getting myself ready for the day and starting on my last assignment and study for my exam, it is in seven days! Eeks! I hate exams! I am supposed to write few essays with my hands! I have not written anything longer than a grocery list for hubby in a long time!

After that I have write a letter to the TAX man because they screwed up on one thing, call Ontario’s office of the registrar to send me a form so I can make a correction to our marriage certificate (yeh almost nine years later) so we can get our marriage certified in Syria and in turn register our boys there. Then I have to finish my passport application. I am so glad hubby can be my guarantor so I do not have to send it to our friend in Toronto to sign it. Then I have to book our flights to Toronto. At 1:30 I have to go the gym, go to the mall and do some shopping, then go to the grocery store to get chicken, come home and make kabsa. Instead of starting I am sitting here blogging! I am not even sure what I want to blog about, I am all blocked out. But it sure beats doing the million things I have to do! Am I a hopeless case or what??

Ok so it is not too bad, I am on hold with the Ontario Registrar and I am told that I will be holding for a long time, so I can blog guilt free. Of course while holding I could finish my passport application or look at the Syrian embassy website so I can send hubby’s travel document for renewal (why he wants that I do not know!) ok never mind, remember guilt free blogging, I am multi tasking!

Ok now what to blog about. How about I rant about weight loss. Can someone slap me?? I had all freakin winter to lose those 10lb and be happy and fitting perfectly in my cute summer clothes, but nooooo. I had to be extra lazy and eat a tad too much! Shame shame shame! So now I have two months to lose 10 lb! Hubby thinks that I should not “natnit” too much in Jordan, so he does not think I should join a gym insert rolling eyes what am I supposed to do when the kids are in school huh?? Besides I’ll probably be eating too much knafa, and there must be a place that makes Maamoul mad with jooz in Amman! Do they have 7alwat jibin in Amman? But it is ok, I started eating healthy yesterday and I will make it to the gym 5 days inshallah!

I know they have all kinds of products in Amman now. Bas I am so worried I will not find the face wash, toner, and my regenerist Olay cream lotion with or my Pantene thicker hair shampoo and conditioner (not that it does anything to my thin hair, bas still), is there flexible hold hair spray? Or straight hair gel? I could shoot myself right now for not looking through the isle with those products at the store. How about the makeup I, I know for sure they do not have the shade of my favourite Revlon eye shadow, and lipstick. Where would you buy all those products?? From C-town, or Safeway?
What am I going to do without a Wal-Mart?? Before having kids I lived right across from a Wal-Mart for few years and I and never stepped in the store. But after kids it became a life safer. It is the best place to buy socks, baby stuff, diapers, wipes, all the shampoos and makeup, even kitchen and bathroom stuff sometimes! I would not buy clothes for myself from there, but sometimes they have cute kids’ clothes. I am going to miss Wal-Mart! And I do not care about all the controversy and bad publicity associated with it!

I’ve been on hold for 50 minutes already! Sheesh! Any phone calls made to a government office has along wait. O well! I’ll start on my passport application J it is so annoying now that we to show our passports at the US borders, passport offices have been full! Even the one in Saskatoon!

EEKS! this is getting more real!

Today I booked our flight to Amman. It is not official, because I have not paid yet, bas it is this <> close to it!! There is not turning back now!

I will be flying with two monsters alone! I have not travelled international with the two alone. When zozo was a baby I went to Syria alone with him, bas he was 7months old and easy to deal with. I do travel with them often from Saskatoon to Toronto and they have become very good on the plane bas that is a three hour flight without a stopover! So it is piece of cake compared to a million hours on the plane! This flight will be at 10am! Usually our international flights are at night, so the kids fall asleep! I will be taking with me extra batteries and new DVDs for the DVD player and lots of batteries and new games for their Leapsters.

This flight will be a bit different. I usually either stop in Vienna, or Frankfurt. This time we will go straight to Abu Dhabi, with a lay over of four hours. I guess it beats waiting in Frankfurt for eight hours!

I wonder how much of our summer clothes and shoes I should take with me. We will be going on August 4th or so. When does fall start in Jordan?? In Canada we wear our summer clothes for the first two or three weeks in September and then it get too cold for sandals and tank tops. How about Amman, when do you ditch your summer clothes?
I’ll bring our winter coats, if they were good enough for Saskatoon’s 30 below temperature, they will be more than good for Amman’s weather.
We even found a school for Zozo that is for teaching kids Arabic! How cool is that? I wonder if it has pre K classes.

The best thing is that I will finally spend Ramadan in an Arabic country! Do they still have a masa7arati coming around to wake people up?? The last two Ramadan’s have been pretty pathetic for us in Saskatoon. It was just hubby and I, no 3azayem or anything:( I feel bad for hubby though; he will be all alone with the most boring Arabs on earth! L

The sun sets so much earlier in Amman than it does in Saskatoon. I will not have to fight with Zozo and try to convince him that although it is still light outside, it is 10pm and he needs to be in bed! I am just thankful we do not live in territories where the daylight hours are all day long for part of the year.

my meez

Every where I go on babycenter I find a post about my meez. So finally curiosity got the better of me and I checked it out. Of course not to be outdone, I had to get my own meez. And I just HAD to add to my blog, naturally. :D

Is she not a cutie?? She is hanging out at my favourite place, the mall!