I'm so spontaneous i didn't even know how this post was going to end.

Friend: ok, so it's set. we're gonna drag race to Mexico

Me:sounds good to me!, but don't you think eating ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner would be a better idea?

Friend: yaa that sounds good too.

Me: umm are we allowed to plan being spontaneous or are there rules against that? cause I just planned on going to the mall and piercing my lower lip!!!

the following was part of the conversation my friend and i were having, and that was our attempt at being spontaneous. I seriously wish i could on the spur of the moment think of something and do it, or pack up and just go. if it wasn't for the fact that i live with my parents maybe i would have been able to do that. I seriously need someone in my life who is like that. Ya, thinking and planning ahead of time is good but what a boring way to live. and for real, can you plan your spontaneous moves? ahh i suck at this.

I love old people

What i love about being Muslim is the fact that i can see a Muslim anywhere, from any country, speaking any language, and tell them Salam Alikom* and get a reply back. There's something about that that is so heart warming. The universal words spoken by all Muslims. words that unite. I know some people though will look at that and think of it as weird, if some random Muslim smiles at them and calls out salams they'll give them the " wth! do i know you" look. now i get that look alot and i could care less. I love the fact that i'm saying salams to another fellow Muslim. I love it even more to say Salams to someone and have them smile back and say salams. come on smile its Sunnah!
well the other day we were doing some shopping in Dearborn and if you know anything about the place you'll know it's overrun with Arabs and many Muslims. you can't exactly go around saying salams to everyone but whats sad is having Muslims give you dirty looks while non-Muslims are the ones smiling at you. Don't get me wrong, i love smiles from everyone but what have i done to the ones showering me with dirty looks.


speaking of smiling, me and my sister where at a mall in Detroit and we kept running into this one old man everywhere we went and every time he smile at us and this wasn't one of those smiles where you just smile, have brief eye contact and go back to what you were doing. no, this man had his full set of teeth, or what was left of them showing and you could see the laugh lines next to his eyes. heck,his eyes were smiling. my sister thought he was the weirdest thing but i loved that he was so happy. i smiled at him just as hard if not harder. old people rock!



* Salam Alikom: Is an arabic greeting meaning Peace be unto you.

sacrifice. and not the kind where you kill an animal.

I can't for the life of me fathom the idea of sacrifice for a spouce or someone you love. granted i've never fallen in love so maybe i don't know what it's like. probably the only sacrifice i know of on a big scale is my sacrifice for God and even then i gotta admit i'm not doing such a great job.
It really mistfies me, how people would do it so willingly too. I know when my parents ask me to do something i'll do it but i might not be too happy about it. I'll force myself to do it because well it's my parents asking me. or maybe i'm just a selfish person.

I get this warm fuzzy feeling when i start talking about finals...not!

woooah there. I'm pretty sure i almost forgot how to write its been so long since i've last posted. So its that time of the year. finals time!! I just got back from an exam and i'm about to take a shower and catch me some ZzZZz's before i have to get back up and study. one more to go ya'll. During break i'm always like " ahh can't wait for school" and during school its " omg, when's the break gonna start" ah such is life and such are humans. never happy with what they have.
So it's almost been a year since i started this blog here. a year!!! time flies.
anyways this is just my little update to insure everyone that i, while maybe not doing so well, am alive.

Random, or is it?

so i keep forgetting that i changed my blog name from "Confessions of a Teenage Muslimah" to "Missing Streams" so what do you guys think of the new title? I really kinda chose it at random. i didn't think that my previous title fit anymore, well technically i'm living my last year as a teenager. can't believe i'm 19!! feels so old yet it's really nothing, just a passing moment in time. Time really flies, for example, can anyone believe that Eid is in 9 days!!! whenever i think of time i'm reminded of Surat Al-Asr.

"By (the token of) time (through the ages). Verily mankind is in a state of loss, except those who have faith and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of truth and of patience and constancy." - The Holy Quran, Chapter 103

Ugg boots anyone?

So if you're one to like ugg boots, take a look at this site here and you might have a chance to win one.

Before you put on a frown, make absolutely sure there are no smiles available. ~Jim Beggs

So the other day i had an interview at the YMCA and i go in and near the front desk were about another 20 applicants! Before the interview each of us got a call telling us that the interview would be divided into three parts. Each of us was also asked to bring an activity or game with us. so you can imagine how the interview turned out. each of us had to describe our game/activity and we got to play it! the second part of the interview involved being paired up with another one of the applicants, being each given a scenario and then acting it out and the third was just us putting the constitution in our own words and how we would go about implementing it.Needless to say that was one interview i would not forget.
The point i want to get out of this is, sometimes we forget what it is like to have fun and be a kid again. we're so focused on our worries, duties, and everyday life problems that we forget what its like to smile. you know i walked out of that interview and i didn't even care if i got the job or not. It was enough for me that i got to know some great people and had fun doing it.

and just incase anyone forgot.... Smile, it's Sunnah :D

Alhmdllah, i ended up getting the job and i get to work with some great kids.

The swine flu story is so out of hand

Ok so I wasn't exactly mad at people not commenting, OK maybe just a little. mostly I'm giving an excuse to my lazy self not to do much. SO right when i get out of my first mid-terms i get thrown into the second ones and life goes on. I'm actually sitting in class right now listening to my prof. talk about globalization. does it deteriorate from a nations sovereignty with people becoming so interdependent on each other? what do you think? I am such a multi-tasker like that. So change of topic, we've had 150 people at my university supposedly diagnosed with the swine flu and apparently they're making it mandatory to take it next month, only one thing to say OVER MY DEAD BODY! have you heard all this stuff about it, lets just say I'm not hearing any compliments. no ones coming up going " omg, i just took the shot and I'm feeling just dandy" OK the fact that they would say " dandy" anywho... I'm not taking it. I'll see how many people die from the shot first and then I'll decide.

A walk down memory lane

So i was taking a walk down memory lane and i came upon some old pictures and it reminded me of how a sweet little kid i was! :P



These were taken the day my mom came back from the hospital with my little sister, so i was about what maybe 6 years old and that little kid( my brother) was about 4 and a half. I'm not sure what happened to his cuteness but it's pretty much gone now! And i'm not even worried about people knowing my identity because i look nothing like these pictures now! :D

I can never think of a clever enough Title for my posts so this will have to do

Finallly!! this week is over, well for me at least since i have no friday classes. Thank Allah i'm done with two mid-terms. hopefully inshallah i did good in them, i never know with these things. I've got Amnesty International planning to do since I'm the president this year for the group at our university, and me and a friend made a goal to memorize the whole quran by 2012, all you guys will be invited to the party if i ever get that goal down ia :D we'll see how that goes. so what's going on with people's lives?

what do i do?

So what do you do if you find out that one of your bestfriends has decided to take her hijab off? How do you talk to her? keeping in mind that she knows that its a requirment!

I don't know why i've been seeeing a lot of girls lately take their hijabs off. while they wear hijab they'll be the talkers about how hijab is a protection and basiclly all the talk surrounding why wear hijab. after taking it off, i'm pretty sure it's still the same, so why do something going against all you preached and your beliefs, more importantly against what God ordered, just so you can fit in? i honestly truely don't understand.

busy as a bee

Ok if i said nothing was going on with my life i'de be lying. I've been working on a paper for a couple of days now and thank God i turned it in last night. I'm not even sure how i got a 4-page paper done on mapping. yes mapping. Also last friday i flew in to North Carolina where i'm spending a week which means missing a week of classes which gives me a heart attack because thats the type of girl i am and wow that was one long sentence. I also have a mid-term coming up soon so yay for me. then i'm going through this thing where I'm not sure if i should stick with my major anymore. I want to do Enviromental Studies but sadly i can't do a double major with it. so its either this or that. ughhh making choices is hard.


P.S for those asking me about the abayas i use western unioun and pay pal as a method and the prices of the abayas range from $32USD-$40USD,wearing abayas shouldn't cost anyone a fortune. I'm also planning to get some more pics up of skirts and diff. designs. so bear with me here :D

my face and I

Once upon a time a long time ago, when the days were young and the sun was still shining, the birds still singing, heck with this lets cut to the Chase. a long time ago like 4 months ago, my face used to be clear. it was soft and not a zit in site. until one horrid day i got some blush as a gift and despite all my previous attempts with putting stuff on my face and the consequences being oh so not pretty, i didn't listen and put it on! i couldn't help it, it looked so pretty on me. needless to say i've been suffering since. Does anyone have that same problem as me? an extra sensitive face? is there stuff that you use that doesn't cause you to break-out?

Eid, Timmies and life

EId mubarak ladies!! hope it was all good inshallah. So the other day i was with a friend and she goes "can't wait,I'm gonna be able to listen to music again" !!! seriously? if you believe something is haraam your gonna stop doing it in Ramadan but then start again afterwards? isn't the God of Ramadan the same one out of Ramadan! well anywho thats just a little something that irks me. people stopping something in Ramadan but then thinking it's totally fine when you start doing it afterwards.

On the plus side though i can now drink all the icecaps i want. today first thing i did even before the eid prayer i went to the nearest Timmie's and ordered one



If you havn't had one of these, you're missing out on life. JK but if you're in ever in canada, God knows why! try one of these

what do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0luS4IWZJrQ

personally i can't wait till it comes out

awkwardddd

So last night i go to taraweeh prayer and i'm standing there next a lady. we go down for sojood and while coming up she accidentally hits my behind, now it would have been ok if she had just let it go but no. her way of saying "opps, sorry" was patting me on the behind and then because that wasn't awkward enough she tried passing it off as trying to pull my foot closer to hers, (while still patting my butt) now i dunno about you but that kinda distracts from prayer.

Oh what to do

So a week back i was actually excited for school to start, now that i've been to two days of classes it feels as if i've been there for 2months already. maybe it has to do with the fact that i'm fasting and walking around campus all day or that I'm constantly changing my courses. i know i should have all that done by now but I'm starting to get those moments where i'm like, am i doing the right major? should i do a double major? i'm not even sure anymore. I'm very much considering doing a double major in enviromental science and political science. let's hope it works inshallah. plus with the last 10 days of Ramadan i have lots of catching up to do if i plan to meet my goal of reading thw whole quran, not to forget the reading for each of the courses i have to and books i still have to buy. wow, that was mind exhausting. ok i'm going back to reading understanding american politics, such a great and fun read *sarcasm*

2nd Year here i come

I just started my classes today and i can't really believe that it's my second year in university. It only dawned on me the other day that i was growing older and into adulthood (or close to it at least) when i met some of my old friends way back when i used to live in EGypt when i was in Elementary school. when i saw their pictures I was like Ya Allah! they looked well, like adults and one was engaged and they're going to their 3rd year of university already ( I'm one yr behind). It feels just like yesterday that i was a freshman in high school and looking in awe at the seniors at my school. they were so old, smart, and mature( OK maybe not mature) but that's what i thought at least. now when i look back and see seniors in high school they look nothing more than teenagers who really are just kids transforming into adult bodies. look at me, i sound like this middle aged women looking back at her years of youth when I'm only like a year or two older than them. ahh

it's just that i can't help it, time really flies by so fast that before you realise you're in the present you've already reached that future. if that makes any sense.

Moving day

... and it's hectic !!

back to the cold

wow it's been a while since i last posted on blogger but i've been opper dupper busy lately.

lets seee, i've finally gotten my liscence as embaressing as that is for a 19 year old. but i blame all the moving. i've had to take the course twice as they didn't count it when i moved and then two more years with my permit and finally.. i'm actually glad to be going around running erands.

I'm also packing ( supposed to) cause the school year is starting so its back to canadai with me inshallah

I've also started selling my line in the community just to get a feel of whats liked and whats not but that's a whole other story

so inshallah i'll try to blog more regulary after everything is setteled down but for now i have to go pack the rest of my stuff, for some reason i feel like i'm forgetting something :( i always remember too late though

anger managment

So this Ramadan I'm trying to work on making myself better and one of my main things is trying to stop my anger. i get mad at the smallest things and even i admit that. but let me tell you this is probably one of the hardest things ever. like someone will do something and i'll start yelling then midway through i'll remember so i have to decide if i should continue with the yelling or switch to nice. lol i think when i switch to nice that freaks em out more. is there anything that you struggle with doing?

Freakin fabulous blog

I recieved this award from the lovely lady Alysha at

http://vintageinspiredcouture.blogspot.com/

Although it's a little late but here goes

The rules of this award are;

•List five current obsessions.
•Pass the award on to five more fabulous blogs.
•On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them.
•When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. Don't forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by leaving a comment on their blog.

My 5 current obsessions are...

1- Ice caps, these things are addicting if you're in Canada you know what i mean and if you ever visit canada you need to try one.

2- Fashion,clothing and yah did i mention fashion

3- Reading!! i love reading, enough said.

4- making a difference in the world, and not just living a life without meaning and that's a forever obsession not just a current thing

5- the beach, i love the water


I tag anyone and everyone that wants to do this

Mama, i'm in the pictures!

SO the other day while at the beach I'm sitting there under my orange towel trying to get dry when a little of from beside me comes a big group of people dressed all in white. well i was like they're either angels or people taking pictures for an ad, and i was right!! well not the angel part. so I'm sitting and these little girls are running up and down the beach while a cameraman is snapping pictures. they looked like they knew their stuff. after a while of this picture taking i realized that i was in the background of these pictures. so people if any of you happen to come upon ads with white clad people running around on the beach and theres a lady in a red hijab, purple leggings and an orange towel around herself, that's me!

I just found out that you shouldn't go in the water with brightly colored clothes because that attracts sharks, i think i attracted more people's attention though.I need a burkini that'll show 'em


last but not least RAMADAN KAREEEM!!!!!

Driving around town

we were driving by, nothing out of the usual when from the car next to us a little girl peered at me and my hijab. then two other little heads looked out from their back window watching me. i looked at them and smiled to myself at their bemusement and wonder. i waved to the little girl still watching and she waved back. just then the road forked and we parted ways, probably forever.
That really made my day, not sure why but for two people for a moment in time to have that human connection and put aside differences, ok i'm probably going all deep and overboard with this and most likely the little girl was just waving cause i waved at her and that's what kids do :P


my laptop is still sick :( so sad i don't think it will be able to fast this Ramadan with us, so sad since that would mark it's one year anniversary with me

I plan, you plan and then God puts out his plan

when at the beginning of my summer break i prayed that I'd have an amazing and memorable summer I didn't expect it to turn out the way it did.
I didn't expect my mom to get sick and go to the hospital
i didn't expect myself to be in charge of a household, cooking, laundry and the whole shebang
I didn't expect my dad to quit his job

but then i remember the ayah in the quran that goes

"But you may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing although it is bad for you. God knows, but you do not know.” (2:215-216)

and then I'm like alhmdllah because at the end i came out with experiences even if it wasn't that much fun it was definitely a memorable summer and I'm closer to my parents more than before.

my laptop is sick

sorry for not posting much lately and not replying to comments it's not because of the laziness ( which i assure you i am) but my poor laptop has a virus and until i get it fixed I'll have to do with my brother's laptop. i Also just came back from vacation but can't put up pictures until i upload them to my laptop, so this might take a while. God I hate those viruses

I'm melting faster than a grilled cheese sandwich being um..grilled

IT'S SO HOT!!! im burning here, and since my grandma can't tolerate any fans going on or the air conditioner i can pretty much scramble an egg in the living room heat! you'd think we were in the desert here. so i choose to stay in my room under the fan but that's about all i can do in this heat so please forgive me, i just got done with reading Girls of Riyadh though so expect a review coming soon.



this is what i wish i was doing right now, except i would be wearing something longer..of course :P

Girls of Riyadh

I'm so excited! i went to the library and got some books. i haven't picked a book since last summer and anyone who knows how much of a book addict i am knows how big of a deal this is to me. yes, i know such a nerd. one of the books i got was this one, looks interesting and can't wait to get a start on it. any books to recommend?

yearly resolutions

It's been a while and nothin really going on, life is ah so blahhhh. only difference is that now i am offically 19 as my birthday was on the 20th. my family is not one to celebrate birthdays much but it is a good time to reflect on the past and think of new resolutions and it's pretty sad to say i have a "50 things to do before the age of 25" and i don't think i've acomplished any of it! for this coming year though i'll put a few goals for myself and hopefully inshallah by this time next year i can say i acomplished most of them.

1- memorize at least a juz2 (chapter)of Qur'an
2- get straight A's ...lets hope and give it a bismallah
3- be more involved in my community and trying for the betterment( is that a word?) of my surroundings.

4- start up my clothing fashion business inshallah
5-try praying all my prayers on time


I have many more of these but i'll just stick to those so i can make sure i fullfill all of them.

History and time machines

I'm fasinated by it and learning about it gives me a sort of rush of adrelanine through my body. it's beyond exhalirating to find more about history or be in a place of historical significance. for as long as i can remember i've been trying to discover that time machine that will take me back to the rennicance, ancient Egypt, french revolution, and it goes on forever. As a kid i remember mixing potions of lemon, sugar, and water (nevermind that it vaugly resembeled lemonade), and i would throw the mix at the wall in hopes of magically opening a portal that would lead me to my dreams. needless to say the wall needed repainting after a while and i got in a buncha trouble, but hey every genius faced roadblocks at some point or another and i think i'm making some headway with the strawberry, water, and sugar potion. shhhhh it's a secret!

Allah's beauty

sitting today i heard a scratching noise from outside my window i looked outside to find a beetle struggling to get away from a bird which was trying to peck at it with it's beak. it was about to be lunch. Also yesterday sitting in my bedroom my sister screamed out to look out my window, i looked out to see a beautiful deer feeding off the plants in our backyard. it looked so peaceful sitting there that praise for my lord came out of my mouth automatically.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this but many times we're too enormed in our own lives and the events that circle around it that we forget the rest of God's creations and the beauty that we many times miss out on. each animal, bird, insect out there has their own story to tell and a life that they lead and it all amounts to something and thinking too little of them is thinking too little of God's creatures.

what mosquites make me do

I'm trying to sleep and I'm almost in that phase in between sleep and non-sleep when from the other side of my bed i hear fighting i get up ready to smack whoever for waking me up when i see my little brother lodged at the foot of my bed, left foot extended out next to my face and my little sister who decided to sleep next to me pushing him away.

ME: whats going on? and why is your foot in my face

little Bro: I wanted her to scratch my mosquito bite, it itches

ME: what! scratch it yourself

little Bro: but she's ( little sister) is the only one that can itch it good


i couldn't help but laugh
so i volunteer to itch his foot for him so i can get some sleep

ME: is that OK?

Little Bro: I scratch good, you scratch better, but she scratches the best



i can't help but laugh at those little kid conversations that go on, tell me how else would you get an English lesson in good, better, best :P

to lazy to think of a title

I can't think of anything to write if you can see all the drafts i have and all the beginings with no endings. i don't know i'm not in the mood for writing and it's too hot that laziness has taken on a whole different level. so forgive me and i do apologize no if you don't mind i need to go be lazy.

Tag, i'm it!

I've been tagged my first tag also by Samra from Randomhijabi.blogspot.com which is just as well cause i've been going through a writers block :D


>your nickname:
gargeer, omo esma3eel, hagz, gogo,can you guess my name?

>what type of person are you:
friendly, activist, high achiever, bad joker (i'm the only one that thinks my jokes are funny) easliy amused but not esily impressed


>Your most beloved:
my religon,family and friends



>Favorite songs:
look into my eyes- outlandish
shoulder to lean on- sound of reason
paradise- native deen


>Favorite Foods:
All types of chicken especially spicy and fried
wara2 3enab done the egyptian way ( stuffed grape leaves)
i'm always down for Italian, Indian, egyptian, and chinese :D


>Stressful Attitude:
i cry when i'm stressed



>Favorite Colors:

Red, purple, Orange, yellow, forest green wow it sounds like the rainbow!




>A must in your handbag:

my kohl, mini quran, and wallet


>Last cried:

i think last week ( i was stressed)



I tag

Mona at http://mamamona.blogspot.com
Radwa at http://radwafouda.blogspot.com/

My very first Award

I've recieved my first award from ya'll! I'm glad someone reads my blog :D and so i give this award to two sweet bloggers

a very artistic Rawda at http://radwafouda.blogspot.com

an inspiring and addicting blog at http://kelatemaghi.blogspot.com

salams

facebook oh facebook why do you mock me

I hate facebook. first thing when i log on today i see all these newsfeeds of who's been doing what and if that's not enough i get to see the pictures of who's just been to Italy, who just came back from spain, who went to what convention with friends and who went to the beach with their family. don't get me wrong i'm happy for these people but can it get any more depressing looking at all these pictures and sitting at home trying to remember when your last vacation was or even anything remotly exciting going on in life. ahh well alhmdllah at least it's not going downwards.

I am patiant though so i will await someone to come knocking on my door and offering me a ticket to greece with a first class seat on a plane :D

Hanan Turk

I love Hanan turk's style. she dresses modestly yet so fashionably
some of the these pictures are from her new upcoming series "hanem bnt basha" which she's doing wearing the hijab and other pictures are from the events that she takes part of. what do you think of her style?

Pigs don't fly

It's that time of year again where i have to sign up for classes. I had sworn off all science and Math classes since entering univiersty yet here i am pressing the "add" button on a science course. it wasn't that i couldn't stay away from them, contrarily i hate those things. my brain cannot fathom them. so why am i doing this? well even though I'm majoring in political science my dad as an Egyptian and an Arab cannot feel good about that, he thinks i'm doomed for faliure because you're either a dentist or a pharmasist. oh look i'm neither! so we shall see how that turns out because maybe by some miracle i begin liking biology and understanding it like it was nothing. this is where i say " ya right, when pigs start to fly"

happy 5th of July on the 6th

Today is the 6th of July and this is me reminding you in case you forgot. seriously, how time runs.

Unlike most Americans who normally do fireworks on the 4th of July my neighborhood decides to do it the night after, you know just to confuse everyone else out there; well anyways i went on the front porch, pulled up a chair and sat down for the show, The moon was full and there was a slight breeze that tickled my face and swayed the trees around me, i could hear my mom and grandma laughing about something in the background and lights lit up the sky from all the fireworks.Everything clicked together and i truly felt at peace. it was a moment but that was enough to make me smile and thank Allah for all i have, even if its not all my dreams come true I've got my family and that's more than enough for me.

abaya

a couple of posts ago i blogged about some abayas from eastessence well this was one that i ordered and i just recieved it a couple of days ago. It wasn't really what i excpeted i knew it would be long on me since i'm more on the short side but it for a size M it was big from uptop as well it didn't help that it was kind of kinched at the waist either. i guess i'll have to fix the size and see then

Am i normal?

so my grandma is a neat freak, seriously. right after eating she wants us to stand there and wash the dishes while cooking she wants to me to stand there and wash the dishes, if anyone decides at one point in time of the day to eat something she wants them to right away wash that dish. I don't know about other people but i don't want to stand the whole day in the kitchen let alone washing the dishes. It's not my thing, i hate doing the dishes so i prefer pilling(sp?) all of them up and get them over with all in one shot. and while we're on the topic what is up with Arabs specifically Egyptians and making lots of food. I don't get the reasoning behind making enough food to feed a whole group of sumo wrestlers when you only have like two people invited over for dinner. can someone tell me am i normal?

Random Thoughts

* i miss talking with my mama, she's the only one who truly understands me despite all our misunderstandings

* i miss our hugs, seriously nothing is better than those hugs

*i feel bad for people living way back when...they had no painkillers. how the heck did anyone survive w/o ibuprofen or Tylenol?

* what did they use instead of pads? a piece of cloth?

* I want to get up and travel the world which is unlikely and that makes me sad
* I'm too sad to write anymore but at least i have my painkillers!

I can never match all my mom does

by the time i get to bed i'm exhausted. I'm up all day on my feet cooking, cleaning, doing dishes, laundry,feeding my little siblings and just when i start thinking i'm done it starts all over again. why you ask am i all of a sudden such the housewife. my mama has been diagnosed with a several galtas or blood clots in her artries. while she's away getting treatment and yarab yeshfeha wyrg3ha belsalama* i'm here having to take care of everything. i never knew that being a housewife is such a fulltime job and it's not even a 9-5 thing this is a 24/7 type of thing. we used to have this woman in our community ( she's legand) mashallah, she had two kids, was pregnant, had her masters was studying for her Phd, had the quran memorized and gave like 2 halaqas a week one at university and another at the masjid. now that is a superwomen!

I never really thought about all the stuff my mom had to do, not i'm not really a spoiled brat that sits on her butt all day doing nothing but i certainly didn't do all the stuff she did all in one day i'd do the dishes twice, vacuum maybe and call it a day. you know karma's a B%&#@ because now that i'm doing all this stuff and i ask my sister to do something she tells me " well, i did the dishes" like that's the end of the work. I miss you mama >3

* May Allah cure her and return her to us

The cat that could speak

I really should start a dream journal with all the weird dreams i've been having. Last night i guess i was thinking about kittens too much because i had a dream that I was in our house in Egypt and i had about 5 cats and the cool part was, i could talk to them. i don't think i spoke cat but they spoke human! how awesome is that except that it was a dream and i woke up without any cats to talk to and no house in Egypt.






look its my speaking kitten. ain't he adorable. i named my imaginary speaking cat taco bell since taco bell is as healthy as it gets. two birds with one stone.




Here's a cat that can actually speak.

where i say stuff that noone gets the heck i'm talking about

sometimes it takes people who are against you for you to realise your dreams. I'm not really trying to be philasophical here but it really just came upon me how sometimes when someone is so against what your doing and telling you, "you have little to no chance of realizing your dreams and making it happen" that you become more determined than ever to prove them wrong and tell yourself " yes i can and i will!" and this is when you really and truelly start putting plans down on what you have to do to reach that point and ultimatly be able to say " In your face! i did it" in a nice way of course :P when and if i do realise my dreams and make them come true inshallah i will come back and tell you what it is i'm talking about, and that's a promise.

Bad news

I have got some bad news for some people, like myself. I tried mapquesting the directions from where i live ( canada) to Egypt and it doesn't work. yahh i know. bummerr!!

scaring others and such stuff

since i was a wee little kid i loved the water. I practically lived in it. i remember going every year to the Mediterranean with the family and family friends who had a little boy a year older than me. During those vacations i would pick up those little crabs that washed up obn shore and put them on the poor boys head, then i would run around doing my maniac laugh, it was pure pleasure. so when we went to the pool the other day i expected just as much if not more from my little 3-year old sister. It came as a shock to me when she looked at the water and screamed! she is definatly nothing like me.

We the youth can and we will

I just came back from a workshop/lecture type thing that was going on at our masjid tonight. the topic was youth involvement in the community. to keep matters short I'll just highlight on some of the main points. we were asked for the reasons why youth aren't involved in the community and the reasons ranged from everything, peer pressure to better things to do such as going shopping or watching a movie; then the question became well why is it important to have youth involved and that too had many answers such as having stronger faith. I think the main thing that stuck in my mind was when we were asked, when sydna bilal, somaya, and other sa7aba companions of the prophet stand in front of God on that given day and they're asked what have you done for Islam? how did you spread the message for generations to come? they can testify for their actions but when it's our turn will we be able to do the same? i sincerely hope so. while the pleasures of this world can last for a while we have to remember that its a only a passing phase and there are spots in Jannah available we just have to be ready to pay for them.
I think many of the sheiks and speakers are trying to emphasize this point of how the youth at the time of the prophet were the ones who mostly helped bring forth the message of Islam and while they had harsh barriers such as torture and rejection from the community, i think i can say we have it somewhat better and easier on us.

inshallah tomorrow the girls have decided to have a meeting and set up plans for activities to be done to attract the youth so that should be fun inshallah, especially that our youth center in the masjid has this big flat screen and a wii :D

huh? what!

Today i caught myself trying to stuff the gallon of milk into the cupboard and i started cracking up. sometimes i'm just so absentminded i beat the absentminded proffesor at his own game. also the other day i put the Iron in the fridge and stood there for a good five minutes wondering where it was and by chance while i was opening the fridge there it was. I also remember this one time as a child my dad had gotten me a lolipop and then it disapeared, for hours and hours ( or so it seemed) i stood looking for the loli pop, tears streaming down my eyes only to find it in my hand at the end.( the experience was so trumatic that i can still taste that loli pop flavor in my mouth :p




see now that would suck!

Omg, abayas and they're actually cheap

so i was looking around and i happened to go on eastessence.com. i was amazed because for Allah knows how long i've always thought that this site sold black abayas and that was it, and since i don't want any black abayas i never bothered to go on there. they're abayas are not only stylish but they're cheap as well i'm talking under $30 cheap!! the thing is now i'm afraid it's too good to be true anyone ordered from there before and can tell me the quality of their clothes? Here are some pictures of abayas on their website.

design her gals

you know how everyone is doing the design her gal thing, well not everyone maybe just mona from the mamamona blogspot and sliceoflemon but hey it's catching on! i decided to go check out the site and hey it's kind of fun, except they def. need more hijab styles and longer clothes.




i was even able to get my blue glasses in there

making up my mind is hard sometimes

I was thinking of buying a dress/abaya from simplejilbabs.com for the summer, but i couldn't make up my mind. I did narrow it down though! if you had the choice which one would you choose?

Don't be a hater

so i just got out of a full fledged family argument, cause this is how we do. this time it was about Amr Khaled, for those who don't know who he is, he's a man who simply gives deroos and lectures and has become really popular. i'm sure you can do a search about him and find all sorts of stuff, including, sadly, other sheiks cursing him and calling him a fool. basically everything short of a kafir. If that in itself doesn't sound messed up enough then i don't know what does. I get that he makes mistakes afterall he is human, he says it himself as he also tells people that he is no scholar.Some people see it as ok to go and denounce all the good stuff he has done using the excuse that he did some mistakes. seriously the only anyone can not do any mistakes is to sit home and keep their mouth shut that way you don't teach don't learn and a plus plus is that for sure you will not be making any mistakes regarding the prophets * sarcasm.* what i feel is more unexceptable is the way other sheiks on national tv and during jomaa kotbas and give whole lectures about how amr khaled is bad, seriously, if any of them cared enough as they say to give a naseeha or advise they wouldn't be doing it on national tv, they'de take him in private and tell him in a nice manner, and people have to realise that he simplfies things and puts them in simple words so anyone can understand.

During the prophet's time there was a man who went into the masjid and started urinating, the companians of the prophet started getting up and were about to go beat him the prohpet (pbuh) told them to stop and to wait until the man was done lest they shock and scare him. afterwards he talked to him in a nice manner as well he didn't go yelling at him and cursing him.
You can't right a wrong with another wrong

false alarm

I woke up to my sister yelling in my ear " guess what? guess what? the samples came and no one opened the door so we have to pick them up" still half asleep i got up and went to get confirmation from my mom. she confirmed it but for some reason i didn't believe that the clothing samples have finally arrived and that i could at last get a move on with my clothing business. " how do you know" i asked "7abebti, it's not like we're waiting for anything else" she told me. anyways aboki rye7 yegbhom.
turns out we were waiting for something else, my grandma's passport.

moral of the story : if your sister comes waking you up screaming, push her away and go back to sleep.

if you have no idea what the kebab i'm talking about you may continue sleeping as well.

the day i die

i seem to be doing a lot of confessions lately, but hey at least i'm following up with the whole title of " confessions of a teenage muslimah" and all. hmm deja vu, so sometimes i lay down ( lie or lay?) and pretend i'm dead, you know just to get some practice and all. i lay there, close my eyes, take a position, hold my breath, and imagine what it would be like, but then it gets too sad and practice time is over. There is a saying somewhere or maybe it's a hadith i really can't remember that went something along the lines of they way a person dies indicates how they lived out their life, if their deeds were good or bad. so i'm trying to avoid the way that Elvis died as much as i can( he died on the toilet.) seriously though who of us can say that if we died today they wouldn't have any regrets or would wanna go back read more quran, do more good deeds or pray that one prayer they prayed late in time. I leave you with this picture, it really says it all.

you know that one speech by obama given in Cairo today

so luckely for me i woke up to pray fajr and rememberd that today was the day that president obama would give his speech in Cairo University, so i was able to get some of the live coverage of it all. oh yah what was up with telling people not to go out in their balcony's and to stay home!! anywho i really think that speech summed up all the stuff muslims and arabs have been screaming out for years while no one listened and people shouted " death to the Middle East" and he actually said moslems not "Muzlums" he did say " hajib" though not "hijab" i think it took a moment for people to realise what he was talking about then they started clapping. yahh check out the whole speech on this link. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090604/ap_on_re_us/obama_text

New layout

ohh, almost forgot what do you think of the new layout. i really suck at that kind of stuff, so i don't even know how to personalize it. i managed to do that though with all the colors. if you still don't know, i'm a bright person as in i love colors, it could also mean the other sort of bright as in " wow! what a bright girl she is, she knows how to sing the ABC's backwards" except i can totally sing them backwards AND in arabic

i need to get off the lazy boat

I have a confession, I'm lazy also i'm the sort of person that starts something and leaves it half finished. Yes i know the horror! i was taking a look at my life and it occured to me that i havn't really acomplished much. for example, since the start of the summer (month and half back) i've been memorizing the same surah and i'm not even done with it. i started writing a book and then i got bored so i stopped. same thing with my paintings. ok maybe it's not the laziness but bordem. who knows. pretty much this blog is my struggle against quitting. yay! ohh by the way i'm back :d

Away for a while

I won't be blogging for a while 3ashan aho ba2a, i need to get it back together. plus, i feel my blogs are sorta pointless so until then ashfko 3ala 5ier. It's not quiting if i plan to come back :p

and to the beach here we come

I so want to go to Egypt right now, most of my friends or off somewhere or another this time of year as i sit here watching YouTube videos of Egypt and places i've been over there. Khan Elkhalili is a definite must for anyone who is planning to visit, my grandparents live right next to the Hussein masjid so i pretty much know the place inside and out. Ras El Bar was also another place we went to every summer when we lived over there, it is probably one of the most beatuiful places in Egypt, with the best fiteer, and mishabek out there. one day i plan on buying me one of those houses/ huts over there. ahhh dream on. Any certain places that you miss visiting and havn't been to in a while?

this looks like some place in Cairo but i dunno it says it's ras elbar

Now this is def. Ras el Bar... ah lovely i miss it

Also Ras elbar

Baba Ali

You know a couple of posts ago where i was talking about those matrimonial pages where people are seeking this and that, well i found this video today on YouTube by Baba Ali and it was explaining the exact same stuff i was trying to say, except he's much funnier. check it out

for some reason the video won't upload with me but you can check it out here --> http://www.youtube.com/user/ummahfilms

you can't live with em but you can't live without em

couple of days ago my parents drove to Virginia to go pick up my grandma who's been staying with my uncle, and i was left here to defend myself with the little monsters. that's why i haven't really been blogging much. I was ultra super excited to see my grandma again but at the same time admit i was a little nervous. see when i was little and living in Egyptland my family and I were living with her and therefore i was her favorite, and unlike every other Arab who calls their grandmother "seto", " tetah" or " gedah" i called her " Amah" kinda slang for mom, all my uncles would come and call her "amah" and that's what i grew up knowing and i think part of calling her mom made her like me, but then we moved to the US of A and even though i was still her favorite when she came here the differences between generations and cultural upbringings and mindset began to show. During my graduation party, which was all girls i was told by her to go wear something on my skin when i wore my maxi sleeveless dress, i was told i should already know how to cook, and why was i not wearing abayas? When she came last night while sitting down eating dinner she asks if i had cut my hair, when i tell her yes she laughs telling me i was stupid to cut my hair, long hair is a crown on a woman's head, i laughed it off as well but i could tell she was kind of serious. don't get me wrong i love my grandma, she was the one that raised me, we joke around, and can have the best time in the world together. the differences between us and how we were raised are more noticeable then ever though!

Update: she just told me and my mom " i dunno why you and your daughter are wearing what you are wearing? why don't you and your daughter wear niqab?"

just so you know my mom dresses in wide abayas and long hijabs covering the chest, she goes more with netural colors

i on the other hand am usually wearing skirts with tunics and cardigans, sometimes maxi dresses or abayas, i'm very loud with my colors, so for the most part we wear proper hijab lol

bad hair day

So i have this problem with my hair, actually just the front of it, but from all the wuduh it's sort of a hot mess. it's all dry and brittle no matter how much i condition it or treat it, it's still the same, but even if it gets fixed i'm gonna have to make wuduh again i don't see how it can be like the rest of my hair. anyone have this problem? is there anything you do that makes not so dry from all the wuduh? tell me whats you secret :p

( this is my hair after wuduh) lol

i love her hair, it's beautiful, i love everything about it from the color, to the wave, to how shiney it is. ok i'll stop now, but hey at least now we know who makes more wuduh

Surprise is not a word i like

Now i love surprises like the next girl, like i was super thrilled when my best friend just dropped by North Carolina with her family that one time, unannounced. or when i get a gift for no reason except that i was remembered. but i hate hate people trying to jump out of a closet and yell out "BoO" or "surprize" jumping out at me period, that's asking for it. you can ask my siblings who have tried doing that. they have the scares to prove it. Now i wasn't always like that but i went through a tramatuazing experience that has caused me to hate surprises! yes, yes i said it.

It was a friday i remember, and like every child my age i was happy that it was. The knowledge that i was going that night to get some blood tests at the hospital where my uncle works didn't phase me much, i was a brave girl.
we walked into the hospital and were led to a room with two beds, that should have been a warning to me, but this was Egypt. of course the doctor was late, meanwhile i walked back and forth in front of a room whose door was made of glass i would stand there trying to fix my hair and admire myself. The Doctor managed to come and i was told to lie down on the bed, i bravely did so and was a little confused by the distraught look on my mom's face, it didn't hurt i assured her but she just sat there opened her Qur'an and started to read. While the doctor was giving me the shot his phone rang and he left the syringe INSIDE my hand and went outside the room to talk, i can say this was when i started getting nervous. A while later the doctor came in and everything started getting blurry, the last thing i remembered was me being rolled into the room with the mirror doors, there was a light of in the distance but everything close by was black, then everything did go black.

you know those movies where someone is sleeping and then they suddenly wake up and go" AHHHHHHHH" well that's it felt like when i woke up. I was in pain, there wasn't one particular place, my whole body was hurting and i felt high. My dad suddenly comes into view " habibti" he says " you had a surgery" I'm not really understanding what he' saying cause that's not even possible. then all you can hear from me is " ehhh? eh? what?" &*^%&^&)(%%E$@&#^%*%P_*&*^ then it was back to the blackness

I woke up again, it was morning this time, i vaguely remembered having a bad dream but i couldn't exactly remember what it was, maybe because i was in too much pain. Wait! that was it, i had a dream that my dad told me that i had a surgery. i looked around, i looked at my arm. it was hooked to an IV thingie and my left hand where i'd taken the shot last night had something inside of it. It wasn't a nightmare after all, it was the real deal. i called my mom and she came and it turns out i had my appendix removed by my own uncle, and no one cared to tell me.

So since then, me and surprises haven't really gotten along, i try to avoid them at all costs.

2 ends of a spectrum

As a teenager everything seems so difficult. it feels as if everyone is against you. I'm not sure what my point is really or where i am heading with this, but i guess whatever your age is there will always be difficulties to face and looking back all the the things you thought were hard to face back then seem a joke now. my little sister who's 3 will get mad if you call her a little girl and she so wants to be a big girl. she'll try to put on my high heels, put some lipstick on her mouth and walk like she's on a catwalk! I'll look at her and in my mind I'm telling her to enjoy her age, there's no going back once you grow-up, you can only look back and remember. how i wish to go back to the simplicity of being 3 when my biggest challenge would be trying to not eat the spinach or the broccoli. but i can't really tell her all this, because at her age all i wanted was to be a big girl.

I Miss her

It's so sad to know that you're losing a friend and losing touch with them but can't really do anything about it. All the memories serve as just that, they're now something of the past. but what truly breaks my heart is when this is happening with your best friend, the one who ceased to be that and turned into a sister, a family member really. This is exactly what is happening to me. We went from living on the same street, to living 2 streets away, to about 10 minutes away, to 12 hours, and now about 3 days. we used to see each other everyday, even after i moved we used to talk almost everyday and now, barely talk at all. I'm probably the least person to know anything about her right now. ugh i hate feeling sappy and I'm probably leaning towards being cheesy but hey there's a chance of zero that she'll probably visit here so i can go on as i want. At the beginning i didn't realize how much we've really grown apart and I'm afraid to even think about it. What is even more sad is the way we used to say we'll go to the same university, be roommates, and probably end up living next door to each other, and now look at us; we're not likely to get any further than we already are. we used to feel disbelief at those who promised to be friends forever but left time to take its toll. maybe it's my fault, maybe its hers. I'll never really know until i talk to her.

Garage sales rock my socks

The other day my sister got me this purse, brand new, for only $1.50. i love garage sales. I swear finding stuff on sale makes me feel all fuzzy and warm inside. It's the thrill of the hunt.

This is what i learned from AP chemistry!

I'm sorta out of it today and nothing special going on but here's a picture i took around the same time last year of our board in AP chemistry. these words there are made up of symbols of the periodic table, so don't go saying nothing is learned in that class, and just goes to show you how cool we were.

I HATE FISHING!

Here's an embarrassing story that i have so far been good at keeping hidden, but as of now the blogger world will know all about my little mishap. so one day, our family and another family were on one of those detested fishing trips and for some reason i cannot remember i was walking alone in the woods, I've probably blocked out from the embarrassment. anyways, I'm walking and i hear rustling and since i was pretty close to where my family and the other family were fishing i figured " hey it's my brother, let me give him a good scare" so i started getting all excited and giggly and right when the person came around the corner i jumped out at them doing my Tarzan yell. only problem, it wasn't my brother. it was my dad's friend. i tried passing it off like i was sneezing or something, but alas, the damage was done.

That's not the only reason i hate fishing, i hate seeing anything being killed, even if its only a little fish. i get so sad seeing the little things stuck on the hook and fighting for air. really, who wants to see their dinner dying in front of them. problem is my dad and siblings see it as entertaining and get that thrill when they do catch one, and my dad views fishing time as "family bonding time" which means we all have to go, and which also translates into me and my mom sitting shooing away mosquitoes and trying to dodge the ant hole, while my dad and siblings stick worms into a fishing pole and throw it in the water waiting for the fish to bite, which is exactly what we did today!

I met the president!

I had a dream. it was a weird dream, but it was an entertaining one if you could say.
It started with two groups, um and one was running after the other, it was the good guys after the bad guys. that's how it always is in the movies, anyways we make it down to the basement and there's a large group of people. i think we were supposed to be protesting something; I'm not sure what but i guess it was a pretty big deal because right then PRESIDENT OBAMA came and took the microphone, and when he did that people started walking away. I started yelling at people to stay put and stand their ground. Mr. president saw that i was struggling, you know i had a sore throat and all, so he gave me the microphone and i started telling people to stand up for their rights, it was their duty. President Obama admired how i stood up for what i believed and we had dinner which was grape leaves or wara2 3nab, lol. except i didn't know what to say, so it was awkward. when i woke up i was like OMG i just met the president and i had nothing to say to him. stupid, stupid, stupid, you just ruined your one time chance. so if you did happen to meet the president what would you say to him?

blog and blog again

so i was looking around at some different blogs and just typing in names to see the different ones that would come up with me and many of the blogs i saw were either started many years ago and left to rot or had only one post and that was that. For some reason it made me sad to look at these blogs all abandoned and empty. It made me even more determined to go on writing mine and continue with it even though i don;t get much readers. At the end it's not really about who comments, who likes and who doesn't but about putting your ideas and feelings out there. To die so young, and there was so much potential. it breaks my heart. really, it does.

opinions!

Ok so i would like to get peoples opinions on this, even if you don't regularly or even follow this blog at all, just tell me which one is better darn it!! I need this for my logo inshallah, and I'm not sure which one. if you think a different font and color from a different picture go together, mention that as well. gracias!

midnight koshary

last night i couldn't sleep so i went downstairs for a midnight at one snack. i found some leftover koshary and some dressing in the fridge and mixed the two. while i was eating my mind drifted to that restaurant that i will someday(inshallah) open, it would be Egyptian food like koshary, bashamel and such other Egyptian food with a twist of Indian because i just know how to rock my curry and hot spices, and if i say so myself, i make a mean dish of meat masala. seriously my family is so hooked on Indian and spicy food that my mom got the white kid that she used to babysit hooked on that stuff, and he was THREE! i have the name of the cafe/restarunt down. i pretty much have everything ready...in my mind. which reminds me i probably should start working on getting that closing line of mine up, which has the same name as my future restaurant/cafe by the way. and oh ya the koshary was good, thx for asking.

i Owe my brother one

so today we're sitting down after praying maghrib and my brother goes " Does anyone notice anything different about me?" we all manage to come up with some smart allecky ( is that a word?) thing to say and i go " finally, you change your shirt" my mom chips in with " well you need to cut your nails" with a unanimous " EWW" from everyone. we kept the gussing game up untill finally the bro. goes " No it's my birthday" my mama goes ' no, actually you were born yesterday, your birth certificate just says its today" ah well that's a relief it wasn't only us who missed his birthday he did as well.

the thing is one of my friends birthday falls on the same day as my brother and whenever she mentioned when her birthday was i'd chip in with " thats the same day as my brother!" so yesterday( thx to facebook birthday alerts) i rememberd it was her birthday but forgot it was my brother's. our family doesn't celebrate birthdays much but i know its still nice to be rememberd on that day, but hey i blame my brother. he's the one that didn't put his birthday up on facebook!

Happy Mother's day...everyday!

Today i woke up to find my mom sick with an inner ear infection, basically what that means is that if you get up the world would seem upside down and everything is all shaky which also may cause throwing up and unfocusness, something about the fluid in the ear that keeps a person stable. since i am no doctor and have no intention of becoming one this will be the end of my discussion about inner ear infections. the only reason I'm talking about inner ear infections is because my mom had one, you know we never really appreciate how much our mothers do for us until we try doing what they do. My mom for example, takes care of 5 kids( well I'm not really a kid but i prly act like one)takes them to school, the cooking, washing, teaching, and everything in between. seriously, its a full-time job! today, since my mom was sick i was up and about doing everything from cooking to doing the dishes and by the end of it i was exhausted! and i hadn't even done half of what my mom does. so instead of just having one day to honor our mama's, we should be celebrating it everyday! wow how many times have i mentioned an inner ear infection in this post.

I cleaned a stove today and i don't even work at Mcdee's

It was my first time cleaning a stove and i found it oddly satisfying.
it all started when my brother decided to complain that no one was making him any food. i proceeded to tell him that if he's so stupid that he can't open the fridge and get his own food, then he's too dumb to pass his AP exam on Friday ( of course i said it in a nicer way ;)) so he proceeded to clank the fork on the pan! you are probably like, "umm where did the pan come into this, ahh what a lamo comeback" but if you know me the sound of metal on metal is like ear-stabbing-nails on a blackboard sound to me. i ignored it once but the second time around i splashed him with the soap and water i was doing the dishes with, he in turn threw a cup of water at me, and then my mom stepped in and the fun was over! and so i had to clean the stove. The end.

seeking a ...

so I'm probably insulting someone out there on the wide world web and beyond but it's just funny the way these things are put. what am i talking about? you ask. well you know, those matrimonial thingies at the back of those Islamic magazines. well, its not the fact that they're there. just the fact that they always seem to be saying the same things, using the same exact words, not mentioning that they're many times degrading. come on now! just today i was flipping through a Muslim magazine and i happened to flip to the back and one of them was asking for a resume! what is this a job interview? and pretty much all of them were asking for " a fair and beautiful woman" or it was the parents saying their daughter was "fair and beautiful" and they were specifically seeking " a doctor or engineer" seriously? maybe that's why they can't find a husband? parents need to calm down a bit. rarely have i seen anything mentioning a good Muslim.


"A man marries a woman for four reasons: for her property, for her rank, for her beauty, and for her religion (and character). So marry the one who is best in the religion and character and prosper". ( same for the ladies as well)
( Marriage quotation from Bukhari and Muslim)

I'm back on solid ground, can i get an ALHMDLLAH!

I made it. After 14 hours of driving one comes to appreciate walking on land. you'd know what i mean if you've been through it. actually you don't even have to go through it to know that that is an awfully long time to be in a car. Usually though on these trips i see the beautiful, amazing, breath-taking, and down right weird. so they're like mini adventures, you know without all the stopping.

One amusing thing that i saw was of two people riding a moter bike and whenever a truck passed by they'd shake their fist at them. yah i dunno why either.

i saw Alot of Amish people, many of whom were driving horse pulled wagons which i think is freakin cool. I'm pretty sure no Amish person is going to be checking this blog or any other for the matter but just in case, i think its hella awesome that you people ride wagons, i would totally do it, well maybe not if i have to drive 14 hours cause then it might take me days

I saw lots and lots of farmland, i noticed a couple of burnt ones which was sad

While driving in Virginia and West Virginia we were driving in between mountains, i dunno if it was the fact that it was raining, or if it was clouds, fog, or a mist or what it was, but the top of the clouds looked like there was smoke coming out of them. i theorized that maybe the trees on the mountains caught fire and as a result the smoke, but then all the mountains were like that. then i was like OMG its the mist all over again.(seriously that was one freaky movie)

we were so high up in the mountains and our ears were popping, it was so silent, it felt like it was only us, the car, and the mountains. it was breath-taking, the only thing i could say was SubhanAllah; so maybe the drive was worth it after all.

( these are not my own photos, but these are the VA mountains and thats pretty much how they looked)