My youngest nephew turned One today! He was born a whole year ago – wow, it sped by! I remember when he couldn’t even sit up and when we could leave him in a room alone (for a couple of seconds) without him crawling or walking after us. Wow – a whole year. MashaAllah.

He received a vast amount of presents too. It was difficult choosing for him though since he basically has everything as we gave it all to his older brother the year before. Luckily even with the limited choices, no one actually bought him the same thing – it was close though – I changed my mind at the last minute.

I helped my cousin sister with her homework today – it was fun you know, even though I took over – I shoved her out the way like a maniac and rearranged it all to suit me.. rather than her – oh gosh, it was lethal, it really was.

I hope I helped though, because homework is hard and stuff and it’s crazy the amount they get and um (ok I’m looking for excuses to excuse my weird geeky overdrive). The topic was Real Superheroes (yes I think the Superhero part is why I was so crazy). Real Superheroes, so who are they really? It’s true you know, we do think about Superheroes being Superman and the rest of Justice League but seriously what about the ones without the healing properties, or web-throwing whacka jacka (yep I made that up.)

So it’s Eid-ul-Fitr tomorrow (or today depending on when you celebrated it) or actually since it’s three days, technically everyone has Eid together (on one of the days at least right?)..

I read that the Prophet (p.b.u.h) stayed awake all night the night before Eid and was therefore renamed as ‘The Night of Reward’ or Lailat-ul-Jaiza.

My room is a mess.

Well it’s not as bad as some rooms but it is still pretty messy. On my left there is my desk, which is made of metal ( – well the frame is) and safety glass (the shelvey parts – I wanted to specifically mention that since when I got it I always wondered if it meant safety glass as in the kind that would protect me from bullets – if so, genius! pretty cool huh?)

This is going to be a little short for a handful of reasons.

1) My sister (I seem to always mention at least one of them don’t I? Hmm), anyway uhkti is waiting downstairs for me to sit with her while we um basically surround ourselves with each others company. We feed off each other's presence - ooh sounds Carnivorous.

2) I feel like I need to do something important and need time to think about what it is.

3) I want to pray Isha early-ish.

4) I’m a little ZzZed out from work.

Anywayyy!

When I was younger, my sister called me into the kitchen and held a small purple tin in her hands. I think I could read, or maybe it was just that I recognised the sign. Cadbury’s. No that just sounded good. I could definitely read. I've always been a reader.

She smiled at me lovingly and asked if I wanted to smell something. I was pretty indifferent to be honest and probably shrugged or something, she took that as a yes and lifted off the lid.

As she did, I caught a quick whiff but she prompts me to smell the fine dark brown power inside, properly. Cocoa Powder. The smell rushed to my nose, it seeped through the air instantly and alerted my senses.

The title is a little misleading if I’m perfectly honest. But we’ll (by that I use myself in third person) discuss it anyway.

Have you ever felt the need to say something over and over because you can’t get over it? I have (all the time really). So today during a little texting conversation that I have going, I mentioned something that, on the one hand I wanted to but on the other I wanted to keep it hidden. Now this thing that I said was actually something of my own. It was my secret (if you could call it that). I think that the people who shared this ‘secret’ or rather ‘thing’ with me all understood it to different levels.

So the sky is blue and the grass is green. Ok I feel like that’s a beginning of a poem but poetry is something that I write for myself (well at the moment anyway). Topic = Writing.

At home people think that I spend a lot of time on the Lappy when in reality I actually only come on here, well in the evenings – around this time to, well, write. I never had an outlet before, ever. It was always me you know there, doing whatever with no outlet – like a headless chicken (buk, buk – that is the right sound isn’t it?). Although I did/do write (paper or Word usually) when I’m upset – a lot. It eases the pain if you get me, kinda like writing this blog except writing on paper or Word isn’t announcing it to the world like I’m sort of doing here.

The dinner, IFTAAR* was brilliant! I made the food man, I MADE IT. ME! By myself! Ok I have cooked before of course but it’s mainly been for family members (like my own house of siblings and parents which doesn't count much since they have a kind of 'I'll eat it, even if it's not that good' attitude - but my sister not the one with the kids, thinks i cook pretty yum food) – So yeh cooking for close members of the family aside, I haven't made much (I'm talking proper big meals) except once – where my sister (the same one I just mentioned) and I (I made the main) had to make enough food for over, let me count.. Ok I can’t actually be bothered to count but it was definitely over 20 people, maybe it was 30!

So tomorrow evening is the dinner, I mean Iftaar. I decided to cut a few things from the menu since my brother (I think is was) was saying that everyone will be full quickly and that the food will be left, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but the fridge gets pretty full and then we have no storage space.
So I’m doing one thing per um section (let me just copy, paste – oh and edit, it here):

Starter:
Lebanese Borek
Chocolate-covered Dates (doesn’t really count because it’s just to open the fast with)

Salad:
Tabbouleh

Side:
Batata makhliya
Black and Green Olives and pickled chillies (I forgot what they’re actually called and can’t be bothered to go down to check)

Main:
Shawarma lahm kharoof