My Phone Miracle

Yesterday I lost my phone. Biggest tragedy of my life (not really, but really for my thumbs). I left class with books in one arm and my phone in the other. I got to my car and put my books and phone on top of my car to get my keys from my bag. I got the keys out, unlocked my car, put my books inside my car, got in the driver seat and drove away. A few miles down, I drove over something and at that moment I thought it was something dead but boy was I wrong; it was my phone! After I didn't find my phone in the car, I decided to check use iCloud to locate it. Guess where it was? On a highway, a few miles away from campus. It was too dark and I had no motivation to drive back to get my phone (30 miles there and 30 miles back) so I took a risk and decided to go during work the next day. I checked my phones location on iCloud, made a prayer and went on my journey to find my phone. I drove to Washington Boulevard, pulled over and began my search. I looked and looked and looked. That crazy person you saw walking in the median on the highway was me. I almost gave up but then there it was, my beautiful phone just lying there. No broken screen. Just pure beauty, with a few scratches. My miracle phone. 

The was my wonderful start to a wonderful Friday.

Then for lunch, Eisha and I enjoyed our food coma from Elevation Burger and Sweet Berry (which by the way is amazing--crepes AND gelato? Yes please!)

My Elevation Burger with lettuce, tomato, pickles, elevation sauce and cheese

Eisha's Elevation Burger with lettuce, pickles, ketchup and cheese

Eisha's Chocolate Gelato Crepe with Bananas and Strawberries 

My crepe with Vanilla Gelato crepe with Nutella and House Cream

Happy Monday

I can't believe its been a week since my last post.  I can' t believe I am almost half way through my last-fall semester of law school. 

The last few days have been super stressful. Ah, the gift of growing up. Instead of being excited that its September, which means PUMPKIN PIES, I am stressed because I don't have a job lined up post-May. Yes, yes I shouldn't be, its only September, something will come up when the time is right, but I can't help it. People around campus have things lined up and its making me nervous. I was in denial (about graduating, finding a job, it being August) the first few weeks of the semester so I missed a lot of the government deadline, which sucks. Sigh. BUT, I saw this quote yesterday:

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

So here I am, taking it one day at a time. 

Today's Happy Monday is brought to you by the Tomato Basil Soup at Cosi. This stuff is amazing. 

Happy Monday

No day is hated more than Monday, well Sunday may be a close tie. Today I have decided to stop hating Mondays, okay fine, today I have decided I need to find ways to make Mondays more bearable. 

Today, the smell of coffee made my Monday less painful, one bean at a time. 

Perseverance

This week has been, lets just say unforgettable: on Sunday, my friend Sabah lost her brother in a car accident, and on Wednesday, my mom lost her brother. 

I like to think that I'm a pretty strong person, but this week was emotionally wearing me out. That was until I saw this in my driveway: 

What is so amazing about this? Its a flower, growing in the cracks of our driveway. 

How did it get there? I have no idea. 

How is it surviving, without any water, surrounded by cement, in this weather? I have no idea. 

I check it every morning and there it is, healthy as ever, blooming away. I even tried yanking it out, but it has somehow put its roots in the driveway.

To me, this flower represents hope. It represents a miracle. It represents strength. It represents perseverance. 

"Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods, lives, and the fruits of your toil. But give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere. Those who say, when afflicted with calamity, 'To Allah we belong, and to Him is our return.' They are those on whom descend blessings from their Lord, and mercy. They are the ones who receive guidance." (Quran 2:155-157).   

Sometimes the answer to your dilemma is as small as a flower, growing in your driveway. 

DIY Sunday

Can't believe its Sunday again, where does the weekend go? Every weekend I plan on doing my readings for the week and every weekend I do nothing. Actually, now that I think about it, I actually did my reading for National Security Law yesterday. Oh wait, I only did reading for my other class tomorrow. One of these weekends, I will get ahead. It'll happen, you just wait and see. 

So instead of doing what I should be doing, I spent the morning crafting. Samreen, my Pinterest obsessed sister, wanted to dye her clothes, ombre style. After a hour or so of dehydrating in the sun (man it was hot today), I think we accomplished a lot. Afterwards I decided to do the craft I have thought of doing while I was in Miami. 

While we were in Miami, I kept these glass water bottles we got from the Concierge Lounge hoping to do a Pinterest project. I decided today would be the perfect Sunday to get craf-tay. 

This is the end product:

What you need:
(1) newspaper
(2) spray point
(3) clear water bottle
(4) hot glue
(5) dry erase marker 

Please ignore the dirty garage floor

First, come up with what you're going to write on the bottle. I thought I would use this bottle as a souvenir from my trip so I decided to write "Miami" (I think I saw it on Pinterest with "love").

Use the dry erase marker to write what you're going to trace with the hot glue gun. 

My cursive stinks, I know

Next, trace what you wrote with the hot glue gun. Make sure you cover all of the dry erase marker--I didn't and it shows at the end. 

The hot gun glue didn't work the way I wanted it to

Then, spray the word. You can spray the whole bottle--I only sprayed the front. 

Wait until the paint dries, I think I left it alone for about 30, and then peel off the glue. I would recommend waiting maybe an hour or so, my paint was still a bit wet when I peeled the glue, but I was too excited to see how it was going to come out to wait. 

Once you peel the glue off, ta-da, you're done! (my "Miami" wasn't as smooth as I wanted, so I dipped a q-tip in some nail polish remover and fixed the edges)

My personal florist Bushra made the arrangement

You can use the bottle for whatever you like--vase, pencil holder, jewelry stand, or any other creative idea. 

Ahhh, my very first DIY post--I feel very Pintestery at this moment. 

August Birthdays

When you have a family as big as mine, most of the time, you don't get single birthday parties. More than likely there is another person in family who has a birthday in the same month as yours. August is the lucky month for Saif, Ebaad and Ghanva. We decided to celebrate everyones birthday (Saif's 4th and Ghanva's 17th birthday) on Ebaad's 1st birthday. 

We did a little face painting, a few games and attempted with an outdoor movie night but the adults did not like the movie selection, The Guardian. We ended the night with fireworks that Bushra had saved from 4th of July. 

Princess Mahnoor 

Birthday boy

Saif Wayne--get it, Bruce Wayne, batman, Saif Wayne--never mind

The Three Musketeers: Mahnoor, Raghib & Saif

Miami Trip (Day #5)

This is sad but this post is for August 14th, our last day in Miami (I'm only like 3 weeks late--no biggie).

This day started like the others, with amazing breakfast-- I went all out (the smoked Salmon was so good). Then Sadiah and I decided to go shopping for souvenirs. Our first attempt was a total bust and it sucked because we went out of our way to go there and it was the most shadiest place ever. We decided we would go back to the Flea Market we had gone earlier to get some more cute rings. 

Salmon + eggs + cheese + potatoes

 We went back to hotel, grabbed our stuff and went to the Opa Locka Hialeah Flea Market. We had initially thought we would go to the flea market, get our stuff and then go to Hollywood Beach, but we were mistaken. After we were done shopping, we barely had enough time (although at that time we thought we had plenty) to get some food before it was time to go to the airport. 

Opa Locka Hialeah Flea Market 

Beautiful rings--I got greedy and decided to keep the first one for myself

We returned our rental and began walking towards our terminal. With our luck, the rental place was at the polar opposite of where our terminal was (the airport was "u" shaped, so we had to go all the way around). We printed our board passed and stood in the long line for security. We had food with us and wasn't sure if we could take it so we quickly ate one steak and cheese and decided to risk taking the gyro on board (we were allowed to take food onto the plane). Finally after passing security there were maybe 2/3 minutes left for boarding so we ran, literally ran, to our terminal. The terminal was empty and the person there told us if we had been another minute late, we would have missed the flight. This is the view we almost missed.

Sadiah decided to sleep during our flight to Pennsylvania, while I enjoyed the window seat.

Good-bye Miami 

Over the Atlantic

We landed in Philadelphia and took a short coffee break before our beautiful sunset flight to D.C. (we were early to this one). 

Philadelphia Airport

Joke on a Box + Date Night

Yesterday I had lunch with one my favoritestest (yes, thats a word) person from GMU, Michelle. But before I get to that, I would like to discuss how aggressive my new dentist is. 

I went to the dentist for a regular clean up and man oh man, was that an experience. Other than finding out I have a new cavity, thats number 4, I learned how strong teeth are. The dentist was using her tools so aggressively I thought she was going to pull my teeth out. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she is a wonderful dentist and knows her stuff but geesh, as Sadiah said it, she must have fought with her husband before my appointment because she was pissed. 

So yesterday I decided to break in my new shoes I bought online (I saw them on some online fashion blog and wouldn't resist). I got the Ecuador Sandal from Nisolo and I love them (don't hate Sadiah). On their website, they recommend you get a size smaller than your actual size because the shoes are made out of stretchable leather--I usually wear a size 7 but I got a 6.5 instead. When I wear the shoes, they feel very snug but the company swears that they will stretch so I am sucking up through the pain (the things you do for fashion), hoping that one day they will be the perfect fit.

How cute? They'll go with everything!

This looks a bit blurry for some reason

In addition to loving the shoes, I also love the company. When I was ordering the shoes online, under the "special instructions" box I told them to send me a joke (I saw someone doing this online and thought it would be fun to see if people actually did this) and guess what--they actually did! I think I'm going to start doing this for everything I order online. 

How clever!

Okay, enough about shoes, now about Michelle. Michelle is one of my closest friends from GMU (undergrad). She was a psych major and I was a psych major so we had some classes together. I will never ever forget this but for one of our exams,we had to memorize the stages of grief and Michelle came up with DABDA: D for denial, A for anger, B for bargaining, D for depression and A for acceptance--best mnemonic ever--to this day, I think about this every time someone talks about the stages of grief. 

We decided to meet at P.F. Chang at Potomac Town Center. I think this may be the fanciest place we have in Woodbridge. I like P.F. but its not my favorite--the food is decent. I got the Coconut Curry Veggies and we both split a Great Wall of China (I miss the small "shot" desserts they had). I think we were at the restaurant for about 3 hours (I may have missed a make-up class) but you never get bored with good company and topics like being adults and getting married (AHEM, MIKE--just kidding (not really)).

Happy Hump Day

Celebrating Wednesday with pumpkin pie + graham cracker from Nathan's Dairy Bar in Manassas (this place is amazing)