Good morning world!

Sunrise over the Atlantic ocean. 

Hallandale Beach 

Love. Light, Blessings!

Anita

Birthday Celebrations!

Celebrated the best birthday of my life and received gifts that money can't buy and are worth more than all the diamonds in the world. I feel like a rich woman! I am soooo blessed to have treasures of love, respect, friendship and laughter! All the best words compiled together fail to express my gratitude to all my amazing friends, students (past and present), my boys and my family for their outpouring of good wishes, prayers and blessings on my 40 sexy one birthday!!! This more than made up for the worst 40th birthday I spent last year!!! Shukranlillah Walhamdulillah!!!

Day started with birthday cake in bed! And it was the most delicious red velvet cake ever!

My personalized, handmade gifts included these gorgeous candle set. 

And a bouquet of flowers that will never die with words that fill my heart and soul. 

 

And balloons! 

And still more surprises when i got hm!

Shukranlillah wal hamdulillah!

Love, Light, Blessings

Anita

Raksha Bandhan!

Everyday Life!!!

Boys throwing the sponge football in the driveway while
waiting for carpool ride.

How can something so little cause so much pitter patter in all of our hearts!!!

How much more God?

The steps leading up to the tomb at Delhi's Humayun's Tomb.

I've made it a point to not use my blog as a "venting session"  and have strived to be uplifting and positive. I have only blogged when I felt I had something positive to share. But the reality is that life is hard...it kicks our behinds. Life doesn't discriminate when it comes to kicking people's behinds. None of us are immune to it. That would explain why I have not been blogging much since I've had my behind handed to me over this past year. I'm done sugar coating it. I will try not to use my blog to complain about life. well not all the time, but perhaps occasionally I might. And today just happens to be one of those occasions. So here goes....

Life has been good but not without its challenges. So let me just make this clear... I am extremely grateful for the blessed and charmed life that I live. I truly am. But it's hard...so I ask God...how much more...how much longer...when does this change....Does it really need to be such a struggle?

It's tough being a single mom...happily divorced, single mom and mind you, I have plenty of support from my mom and family but it's still hard. I do feel bad complaining because I know one too many married mothers who might as well be single mothers since they're doing all the kid work themselves. I'm not trying to say that being a single mother is harder than being a married mom but somehow I can't help but feel that there must be some truth to that.  So yes, I am frustrated that it's been ten years and I am still doing this alone. But its not like I didn't have opportunities along the way but I decided, given my options, that I rather be alone and happy and have the autonomy to raise my kids as I deemed best instead of having to deal with uninvited feedback or instructions. I didn't want to choose a relationship because I felt lonely. That is so not the right reason. I believe that a relationship, a partnership should be one that brings both joy. Partners encourage, support and stand by each other. Partners want the best for each other. But I also am realizing that perhaps I'm being a bit idealistic in my expectations. Relationships are hard work or so I've been told. Well I do see that too. A partnership comes with a healthy dose of making sacrifices on both sides. A partner must be willing to put their needs on the back burner to bring joy to their partner. And I'm okay with all of that. But what I'm not okay with is when its only one person in the partnership making the sacrifices and giving while the other is just on the receiving end. Somehow, being single is more appealing that being in a unbalanced partnership. But I digress...

Ignorance is bliss...or is it?
Just the other day, a new friend told me a joke..it goes,
"Nice Face! Want a banana?"
I just thought that was hilarious. My kids didn't seem to get
the humor. Oh well!

Recently, a few of us girls got together for dinner. The conversation got deep as we shared our individual life stories including the triumphs and the struggles. We girls joked that some of us were in the regular course of life while a few of us were either in the Honors or Advanced Placement (AP) track in life. The Honors or AP track included a rough childhood whether we were dealing with sexual abuse, an alcoholic parent, domestic violence or poverty. But the course work continued as we became adults and had to deal with a bad marriage, a divorce, being single mothers, not being able to complete our education as our hearts desired. To top it off I realized that so many of us in general are dealing with either ourselves or a loved one's substance abuse issues, depression, learning disabilities or money struggles. Some of us chose to have an easy ride this time around while others decided to really pile up all the lessons needed to be learned in one lifetime.

This is me back in Bombay, India competing in a dandya raas competition. I think I was probably around 10 or 11 years old.

But a spiritual perspective would be that before we came into the human form, we sat or rather floated around with our spirit guides or angels or God and decided what lessons we would be working on in this lifetime. Why did I have to choose so many damn lessons in this lifetime? UGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Love, Light and Blessings,
Anita

That's the life!

Experimenting with styles of blogging

I'm taking a online course with Susanah Conway called, "Blogging From the Heart," and thus I will be playing around with a few different styles of blogging...so here goes..
this one is a style where the blogger shares only photos with captions ...I'm learning that blogging has to be for me...and not for an audience...how I'd forgotten that...or did I ever really even know that...much more to learn....

And she walked not just into our lives, but into our hearts..

And here is more proof of HIS beauty and generosity!

she has brought a softness in us all...

 O Blessed Day!

Christmas 2013

Every year on Christmas day for the past few years, I have been hosting a non-Christmas Christmas party for a few of our closest friends, family, my students (past and present) and anyone else who wants to join us. Please let me explain. As many of you know, I am a practicing Shia Imami Ismaili Muslim and as such, don't celebrate Christmas in the religious sense.

But I LOVE CHRISTMAS and the entire holiday season. For about 25 years now, we have put up a Christmas tree and decked the outside of the house with beautiful colorful twinkling lights. The wreaths are hung on the front door, the garlands are wrapped on the staircase banister, my santa claus collection  goes up, and the house starts to smell of pinecones. My favorite thing to do is to sit in the darkened room with only the twinkling lights filling the room with the soft glow of the holiday season.

With the lights turned off and only the tree lights on.

On Christmas day, most of us non-Christians do not have the special Christmas mass to attend or presents to open and usually are left hanging out alone at home. But a few years ago, we decided to get together on Christmas evening and the next thing I know, we are hosting a Christmas party.

And last nite was fabulous! We had a smaller group last night with about 20 kids between the ages of 16-10 years and about 10 adults. There was Christmas music at first and then hip hop later. We stood around the large dining table, held hands, said grace (Sura Fatiha with the translation in English) and then sat down to enjoy all the delicious food. 

Plenty of yummy food: nihari, buffalo chicken wings, dum kheema, laal aaloo, samosa, wontons, brownies, red velvet cake, delicious creamy fruit salad, cookies etc.

My heart just expanded with gratitude as I saw all of my young students, some of their parents (who were strangers to me before), and my family and friends, sitting and breaking bread together. And the conversations flowed freely. It was beautiful!!!! 

After dinner, half of the boys went back to playing basketball in the backyard (beautiful Florida weather) and the rest went back to chilling on the couch while checking their Instagram, Snapchat, Vine and Twitter feeds. A few of us adults sat in another part of the house and indulged in some stimulating conversation.

Around 11:45 pm. I decided to get everyone together in the family room to have a discussion, some bonding time. You see, a few months ago, I ordered a couple of these really cool cubes that have about 100 or so questions designed to get a conversation started. They're called Table Topics. I invited them all to join and given that most of them have had me as their teacher, they were used to me so they went along. I started by saying that we would only spend about 15 minutes on this and they all agreed. We started with some simple questions like, "What color makes you happy?" and moved on to questions like "What new thing do you want to try in the coming year?" Everyone of us shared at least once and we went on for about 45 minutes and they loved it.

We started to wrap up around 2 am and all in all, it was an amazing evening.

Thank you to all who came and helped make this Christmas so special!

I'll share some pictures in a day or two!

Love and Light,

Anita

A Few Not So Pleasant Lessons To Learn in Life!

Those who know me will tell you that I am a very decent human being. (Please understand that I say this and all that I'm about to say with the utmost humility and only to make a few points.)

So here we go again...I am a very decent human being. I will help if I can and strive to live my life with a few values that guide my every decision and choice that I make. Two of these values are, "Service is the rent we pay for our lives" and "Those to whom much is given, much is expected."

Service to me begins at home and with those closest to you. Being here for my children, raising them, making sure they are fed and their school uniforms are ironed is to me a form of service. Service next extends to those in my inner and outer circle; to my parents, my brother, my sister in law, my closest friends and acquaintances.

I also am transparent and direct to a fault. Naively, I expect those I come in contact with to be transparent and direct as well, but alas, I remain among a few in today's world.

Also, I realize that I cannot make small talk. I cannot discuss the weather or some other non important matter. Now mind you, I don't mind discussing the weather if it has some relevance to my life or the life of the person with whom I am having the conversation. But life is too short and perhaps I am too simple to have, what appear to me, a very superficial conversations. When someone is extremely bubbly in a superficial sense, I literally shut down. I freeze. I am too stunned just observing them. I feel as though my energy is being sucked out of me with every word they speak. I simply cannot breathe and I end up either remaining quite or rather shell-shocked. If I'm able to snap out of it, I politely excuse myself and walk away.

I know who I am and on most days, I do remember but when it comes to those people that I have allowed to be in my innermost circle, I tend to hand over the reigns. I have on more than one occasion, let someone close to me, tell me who they think I am. And as if that wasn't bad enough, I have believed them. But thank God, I am blessed to have enough angels in my life who remind me to think for myself.

So the lessons today are:

1. Know who you are and live your life true to what you value and believe for at the end of your life, I'm pretty sure you won't care whether you lived up to the expectations of other's but you will be glad you lived your life on your own terms.

2. DON'T let anyone tell you who you are...or rather who they think you are! And when they do, which they will, simply pause to reflect on the validity of their statements. Is it true? If not, then shrug it off. So when you know who you are, DON'T LET OTHERS TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE!

And here's another one...

3. Be selective of who you let in your inner circle. There are plenty of really good people out there, but they are humans and as such, flawed.
Maya Angelou said, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time". Thus, when people show you sides of them that are incongruent with who you are and strive to be, simple remove them from your lives or at the least distance yourself from them as much as possible. Yes, easier said than done, but not as difficult as you may think. Don't you owe it to yourself to be surrounded by people who are positive and have values that are congruent to your's.

I hope and pray that you all have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! and if I don't get back on here in the next few, have yourself a WONDERFUL, SAFE AND JOYOUS NEW YEAR!!!

Love and Light,

Anita

ps: I am soooo glad 2013 is ending...I have been ardently looking forward to 2014!

The Taj Mahal

This post is only about two years late. We went to India for my cousin's wedding in Dec. 2011 and in Jan of 2012, we took a 7 day trip to see Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. Some of you might remember my earlier posts on Delhi.  I really wanted this post on Agra and the Taj Mahal to be perfect but in my need for perfection, I haven't done anything more to it than type the next sentence and upload a bunch of pics. So instead of procrastinating any longer, I decided to just go ahead and publish this post. Maybe I'll add more details later.
So here goes....I hope you enjoy the pics.
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Next stop was The Taj Mahal. One of the nine wonders of the world.

love and light
anita