Shukranlillah! Wal hamdullilah!
Love and Light!
Anita
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Love this!
Nana puts his elbow on Aly's shoulder as he talks to him. Aly is making an omelette with spinach and cheese. What a beautiful moment!
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Annie - The BEST dog in the world!!!
Our gorgeous Annie is a 4 yr old King Charles cavalier! She is the sweetest, most affectionate dog ever!! We are indeed so blessed to have her in our lives.
Here she lets Zayn use her as a pillow as he crashes on the couch after a long Saturday.
And she is actually Zayn's baby. Her official name is Annie Zayn Lakhani.
Zayn used to be scared of dogs before we got Annie.
Aly just had to take her from her comfortable position with Zayn!!!
Here is Aly posing with her as he makes one of his goofy faces.
She trusts us unconditionally!!!
Love and Light
Anita
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Comfort food from a desi kitchen.
Nothing says home more than a stack of freshly made wheat chappatis or as i call them "mani". Better yet is the aroma of the mani being cooked on the skillet. This to me is the ultimate expression of love.
The tradition is to always make the last one a small mini one. Somehow there always seems to be just enough dough left to make the little one.
This is freshly blended homemade garlic and ginger paste that makes the base of 90% of Indian dishes.
The tradition is to always make the last one a small mini one. Somehow there always seems to be just enough dough left to make the little one.
This is freshly blended homemade garlic and ginger paste that makes the base of 90% of Indian dishes.
And my all time favorite comfort food is freshly made mani with butter or Olivio.
Love and Light
Anita
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
The 7 - Day Unplugged Challenge!
The more things we have, the less time we have to enjoy them.
The more Facebook friends, Instagram and Twitter followers we have, the less real connections we have.
The more involved we are in voluntary service outside the home, the less patience and compassion we have for those closest to us.
The more health apps we have, the more access to organic food that we have, the less we exercise and eat healthy.
Why is that?
We in the West, live in a world of abundance! We live in a world where we have multiples of any one thing that we might want and more than that of what we need. In third world countries, most of the population is lucky to have a pair of shoes while we have an average of four to ten pairs per person. I know that I have atleast 5 different pairs of Birkenstock sandals (which is what I primarily live in), 3 pairs of sneakers including a pair of cycling shoes, 6-8 pairs of open toed heels and about 4 pairs of close toed shoes for work and then more clogs and a couple of boots. I own a couple hundred books and magazines that line up my wall of bookshelves.
We all have closets overflowing with clothes whether seasonal or cultural. Media in the form of VHS tapes, dvds and cds that became outdated years ago still sit in our cabinets although we haven't touched them in years. With the ability to stream almost everything anywhere, at anytime, who needs these anymore. Multiple sets of dishes, and more useless things in the form of "free gifts" fill up the many drawers and cabinets around the house. And then there are the toys: laptops, IPADS, IPODS, ITOUCH, mp3 players, cd players, external speakers such as IHome, flat screen tvs in every room and specialized printers to print photos and another for color printing and then another one for printing black and white copies. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!
Our To do lists are never ending....we have text messages to reply to and emails to respond to and Facebook status to update and notifications to review and tweets to send out. And lets not forget Instagrams and Snapchat to capture our every waking moment and Vine, Buzzfeed and Youtube to keep us entertained in the few minutes we have free between all the other stuff we're doing.
Our To do lists are never ending....we have text messages to reply to and emails to respond to and Facebook status to update and notifications to review and tweets to send out. And lets not forget Instagrams and Snapchat to capture our every waking moment and Vine, Buzzfeed and Youtube to keep us entertained in the few minutes we have free between all the other stuff we're doing.
And if you're like me, then you probably sleep with your smartphone plugged in next to you. And let's be honest...how many of you actually check your messages or your emails in the middle of the night when you are between sleep cycles. I know I do...and until recently, I would even reply to emails while half asleep and surprisingly managed to do it coherently. ( or so I think).
But its this business that literally drains our energy. The advancement of modern technology was intended to make our lives easier but instead has only added more things we feel we absolutely must do.
So I propose a challenge. For the next 7 days starting tonite, leave your phone plugged in the living room for the night instead of your nightstand. But if you use your phone for your alarm then plug in your phone as far away from your bed ( but in the same rm) but perhaos turn your phone on airplane mode. Lets try this for just 7 days. No checking our phones during the night or even first thing after waking up.
But what will you do with all the time you have after you wake up in the morning? Well here's an idea... How about we go back to the good old days of waking up, sitting up in bed and saying our prayers. Then we can actually get out of bed and stretch for a few minutes before we start our day.
Now please realize that this is going to be a challenge for me! Perhaps even a bigger challenge for me then for most of you because I literally am addicted to my phone. In fact I'm writing this post from my phone. But I'm brave! And I'm game!
So let's check in during the week and see how we do. All the best to you all!
Love, Light and Blessings
Anita
Sunday, March 16, 2014
One weekend! Two weddings! Three hectic days of memories and strawberries! ;)
With Mahi!
Boys wanna hold her, feed her and kiss her every chance they get!
At the pithi. Boys were fighting over who got to put their arm around which of my shoulders. 
At the reception!
In the plane on the way back to paradise.
It was a rough ride back with severe turbulance that woke us up from our naps. It was scary as Zayn kept asking half jokingly, half serious, "Are we gonna die?" which made me quickly reflect on the last few days. I responded calmly with a "Ofcourse not!" but inside I kept saying the Nade Ali prayer under my breath. Finally things calmed down and we made it safe and sound to paradise aka Fort Lauderdale!
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
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