Wedding Season

One Saturday - One wedding.
Next Saturday - Another wedding....

Just a sweet thought for all the romantics out there. Congrats to the two beautiful couples.
See ya: I'm off to witness love :)

One more title? and wedding season continues

Canada is one win away from another world title today, although they do face the mighty Russia, so it won't be easy. One of Les Boys, Andrei Markov, is playing for team Russia, and although there are no Habs on Team Canada, my alleigance definitely lies with my country.
Go Canada Go!

On a separate note, M and I seem to have beat the rush when we had the wedding in February. Last night we were at our second wedding in three weeks, and there are at least two more to come in the next month and a half. A quick shout out to all the lovely couples: May Allah swt Bless you with long and happy lives together (and for those to come, if you need anyone to vent to about how stressful or time consuming wedding planning is, you know where to reach me - that's you Suad!)

Heeeeee's Back!!!

Check it out! M's posting his lovely pics again (I think it has something to do with the excitement over his brand new SLR, and also no longer having to dedicate long hours to wedding planning - heheh)...
Go take a look. I may be biased, but he could quit his PhD and make this a full-time job/hobby, non?

Other Amazing "Speltisies"

That's my new word for "things made with spelt flour" - and the latest in this wonderful addition (you remember the Spelt Biscotti of last Toronto visit?) are little spelt pesto rolls... In T.O. this weekend for a good friend's wedding and a visit with my husbands family, and you cannot even begin to understand how truly delicious these things are. I opened the bag. I finished the bag. In one sitting. That's all there is to it.
My parents-in-law have also discovered spelt sesame sticks. For all you Egyptians out there, this is essentially "bo'somat" a.k.a. that totally fabulous thing you have with your tea. I'm seriously considering just up and moving to T.O.

Little Angel and Angela Update

FYI for any of you who are latecomers to this blog, my little Angels and Angela's would be my nieces and nephews. Today's update refers specifically to the munchkins in Ottawa, who I saw after a 4 week absence in Egypt last week, and who've grown a lot.
My angel's crawling speed has increased significantly, and now he not only babbles, but babbles with expression while staring straight at you. I know I'm biased, but he's right in that "most adorable age ever" stage that hits around 10 months and last until about 14 months, and boy does he know it!
Meanwhile, my little Angela is turning more and more into a little girl and less and less a toddler. She was already speaking full sentences before we left for Egypt, but now her sentences are longer and significantly more complicated. Last week, during prayer, I couldn't concentrate at first as my little Angela recited the Fatiha along with the Imam. She also decided to borrow my hijab on Tuesday night when I got back from work. I gladly lent it to her, but upon trying to get it back so I could pray 'Asr, she told me, "Here Nonno, where this one" and held up an imaginary hijab for me. (We often give her imaginary cups of tea when she wants some. Can you say "what's good for the goose is good for the gander"?)
Little Angela is also really big on role playing right now. In one evening, she went from being herself, to being me, to being her father, to being someone I had met in Egypt that she had only seen in a picture on the laptop.
Next week, I'll have my little Angel and Angela almost exclusively to myself for two weeknights. I can't wait to see what they have in mind for me.

p.s. On a completely unrelated note, I attended a McGill MSA (Muslim Students Association) spoken word and poetry event last night as part of Islamic Awareness Week. All's I gotta say is this is a talented and creative bunch, masha Allah, and I'm glad to be joining the family! I'm now motivated to do some more creative writing (blogging doesn't count if it's not super-artsy). I've been in an insanely long dry-spell what with the whole wedding/honeymoon/moving thing.

Meet our reflections

So now that M and I are married, and since my blog is aptly named "Meet my shadow" (only because the url runonsentence.blogspot.com was already taken, but that's another story), I thought I'd post this photo from our month-long adventure to Egypt and back via France. This was taken in the Paris airport on our way. It's not a shadow, but it's the next best thing...

Back home (safe, sound, and jetlagged)

Well, it's been an extremely packed 4 weeks since my last post. During that time, I a) got married, b) moved to Montreal, c) went to several different places in Egypt, d) spent 28 hours in Paris, and e) came (to my new) home...
I've just finished uploading a total of 3000 pictures (mine and M's combined) from my memory stick onto my computer. There are opened suitcases everywhere and a dirty cup from my instant coffee in the sink. I have lots of stories to share and will hopefully get a chance to do it soon. In the mean time, we need groceries, so I'll leave you with one of my favourite pictures from our trip until my next post.

Ready? Set - Taking the Plunge

Friends? Check.
Family? Check.
In-laws I get along great with? Check.
Big white dress? Check.
And finally... A really really great guy who believes in the same things I do, encourages me to a better person, loves Lord of the Rings (almost) as much as I do, lets me rant ON AND ON about hockey, laughs at my corny jokes no matter HOW awful they are, and gets all my lame engineering references? Check.

Deep breath.

Next time I post, insha Allah, I'll be Mrs. M.

Martin Luther King - Some words of Wisdom (and, of course, more wedding talk)

From the same blog that brought you the Materialism post, here's a comment on Martin Luther King day. Something I think we can all take to heart.


On a lighter note, have I mentioned recently how much I like my group at work? I know I sound like I'm just sucking up, but these people threw me a surprise shower today, on my second last work day before I take off for the wedding, replete with very very yummy food, gifts, and the most embarrassing hat you've ever had to wear at a shower (I'm talking cardboard covered with tin foil, then covered with bows and wrapping "decor" as the gifts were opened). All in all, fun times.

Shamefully neglected

What, you ask, is shamefully neglected? This blog, I say... and for that, I am truly sorry. Let me say that I'm not actually writing a true post today, so much as just writing to say that I know I haven't written. If it's actually bothering anyone other than me, I'm sorry. Is it a good enough excuse that the wedding is really soon and that I had (and still have) a lot going on on several other fronts on top of the wedding? I'm hoping it is...
So, following is not a promise, but a resolution, that once the whole wedding, and honeymoon, and moving to another city (sort of) thing is over in a couple of months, I will try to post more often. Really, I'll try. and the good news is that I plan to take a lot of pictures on the honeymoon. Which means there'll be pictures on here again for what feels like the first time in forever. After all, the whole reason I originally started this blog was to post pics from my last trip to Egypt, so if you go back to the very first entries, that's all they are...
Anyway, all this to say I'll try. Just give me a little bit of time... Who knows: maybe I'll post regularly sooner than that. Just don't hold your breath. In the meantime, enjoy the geniuses like Jen, K, and Sajda on my blogroll. and go back and re-read Hadeel's hilarities. They're worth a second (and third, and fourth) read.

Real

I booked my 5 weeks off in my HR system and on my calendar at work last week. I'll be gone all of February, plus a little before the wedding. These things are little, since everyone's known since forever that I'd be gone that whole time, but having it entered in electronically makes it very real, and was bizarrely exciting. Am I a geek, or what?

Random Acts of Fishy-ness

So I haven't written in about a week, right? and I said I wouldn't do that again, right? Well... sorry? It's just that most of what's going on in my life right now is not blog-writin' material - not that it's bad, no! it's plenty good, it's just that my life right now pretty much involves a lot of wedding planning, and I'm greatly enjoying it, but it's not the kind of stuff I want to post...
From my sister in Montreal though, comes this rather hilarious situation:
A few weeks ago, my sister's sister-in-law (I never know if I'm supposed to call her my sister-in-law, or how exactly to describe our relationship) got my sister and brother-in-law some goldfish as a gift. My sis and brother-in-law (bil for short) named them Frodo, Sam, and Gollum (If you haven't seen Lord of the Rings, this reference is completely lost on you. If you have, each fish sort of resembles his namesake: Frodo is small, Gollum is a bit on the freaky side with massive eyes on the side of his head, and Sam is pear-shaped and large).
So it's all good in the fish world. after all, what are you gonna do with gold fish? Put them in their tank, feed them, and look at them, right? Well, last week, while my sister is away, Sam develops some "bloating" and starts floating to the top of the tank after dinner... My bil calls my sis and tells her he's floating, so she assumes he's dead, and my bil says: no, he's swimming, just on his back or side, but then he just 'rests' or floats every so often...
so my sis suggests calling the pet store, which my bil does, and they tell him the problem is bloating... Guess what you do for a gold fish with bloating? You feed it defrosted crushed frozen peas. Isn't that silly? So now, every night after dinner, Sam needs to eat peas. and then he floats and bloats (my sister says he's so bloated she's even made up a special word for this: "bloatation") and by morning he's fine again... My sister's actually convinced he just eats too much: one time, my bil had to hold him back with the net to let the other fish get a chance to eat when he put the food in...
Anyway, I promise that eventually there will be pics of these little guys, who've turned out to be more work than first suspected, but for now my sis says that the pic would just convince any of you that they're keeping a dead fish in the tank. I think maybe Sam just likes to back float, which is an unfortunate position to like for a fish because it's so synonymous with death for them?

Are we good?

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry for the last week plus of neglect. I know I got your hopes up with constant writing and then kinda just left you hanging with no explanation. I know your number of hits have suffered as a result and there was little you could do without my getting back to it. I guess the following is a series of excuses for my erratic writing behaviour.

• Wedding planning: A couple of months ago, M and I sat down and came up with everything we needed to do, and then saw that we had "so much time" left to do it all and Ramadan was coming up, and in general things were just busy on other fronts so… we let it slide a little. And rightfully so. But now, the wedding is not getting any farther away and the stuff still needs to get done. It's fun, but very very time consuming (and I like to think we're keeping it pretty low-key and I'm not being an insane Bride-zilla, but it's just something that takes A LOT of time)


• I can't wear my hijab because WHAT?: So, lucky for me, I'm a federal government and not a provincial government employee. The Quebec provincial government is considering passing a law to disallow "ostentatious religious symbols" a la France, in public life. So my fellow hijabi's would be told to take off their hijabs or not come to work. Same with Orthodox Jews who cover their heads. Same with Sikhs. Same with Christians wearing crosses. Oh wait, what's that you say? Christians with crosses are welcome to keep wearing them? Well, then, I guess this isn't about keeping society secular after-all… Needless to say, I've very very concerned, upset, hurt about this whole debacle. I'm not sure what's so threatening to Quebec society about little old me in a headscarf, (or any other piece of clothing for that matter) or how it would interfere with my ability to do my job as a public servant, teacher, etc… And whatever happened to a woman's right to choose what she wore? Why doesn't forcing me to take off my hijab equate to oppression the same way forcing someone to wear one would? ... So, I've been trying to let as many ppl know to write their MPP's about it if they live in Quebec, and just generally to spread the word and stay on top of the issue.


• Hockey: Ramadan is over, and the hockey season is young, and for a Habs fan like me who's been starving for good old Canadiens' hockey since that dreaded game last April (which they lost, resulting in their missing the play-offs), the time is NOW to catch up on what Les Boys are up to. So far so good. We have a young team (note the use of "we". I often talk as though I, not Guy Carbonneau, am the coach of the team) and we're still making lots of mistakes, but our young guys are a year more experienced, our overall level of effort is much more consistent than last year, and our newbies (rookies and free agents) are turning out to be an overall improvement over the bunch that left at the end of last year. Overall, I like the class of 2007-2008, though I wish Carbo would stop giving Kostopoulous so much ice time.


• Rain, Baaaaaaah!: Yes, I know this is a lousy excuse, but I'm anti-rain, and when it rains I lose all creative/expressive abilities… and we've been getting a lot of rain lately, so…

I hope these excuses are enough for you to sort of forgive me. I don't really promise I'll be writing all the time any time soon again. And I'm sorry if I mislead you with my little spurt of posting pre-Eid, but time is just gonna continue to be tight for a while… Are we good?