4 Weeks Down

Happy Thursday!!!

How have you been? It’s hard to believe that tomorrow is Eid. Does it seem to you that this Ramadan went by pretty fast? I don’t know what happened. It seems like just the other day we were ramping up for the first week and now Poof! Its finished.

I started this post on Monday, and because the days were super busy preparing for Eid weekend, I didn’t get it published until today.  GO Figure.  I should have stopped time so I could have 1 more hour to upload and tweak my post.  Lets still take some time and review what went well this Ramadan and what didn’t work out so great.

Suhoor – I saw this online a few days ago and I thought it was soo true. (Theirs said something about eating Kunafa for breakfast.) Suhoor week 1 – Scrambled eggs with beef, Cheese, Melon, Milk . Suhoor week 4 – Milk & Juice.  Today, the last day of fasting, I made beef and duck bacon with pancakes.  Only Mr. Fox ate.

Iftar – We are unlike a lot of families in that we don’t really change our eating habits during this month. We don’t cook big, lavish spreads. We eat leftovers. We get takeout. We eat breakfast for supper. The only differences are when we eat Community Iftars and when we invite Mr. and Mrs. Imam over, we cook a lot more dishes.

Community Iftars – Nothing to report. Seriously! Week 1 I took Watergate Salad. Week 2 we took Mango Kunafa and Macaroons. Week 3 we skipped. Week 4 we took Pig Pickin’ Cake. (Google it, I’m not lying.)

Every week, I sat with Mrs. Imam and a bunch of ladies that spoke English. Usually there was a bilingual speaker sitting with us in case Mrs. Imam was missing out on the conversation, but otherwise it was really a nice atmosphere. Last week, I was even asked to help with specific tasks.

Our community Iftars are set up segregated family style. Women on one side of the room, men on the other side and some out in the hall and prayer room. Most of the time Khaled sits in the same room with us. Baby Steps. Right?

I do know that there are community Iftars at the other mosques and even the community center in town, but I’m just now comfortable with our home mosque event. I’m not sure how well it would go if we went someplace else.  I don’t want to risk it. Y’no?

Eid Shopping – I ordered abayas before Ramadan even began so we are all set for that. No last-minute shopping. I also got them some small gifts that I knew they would like, and we picked up some books. I’m taking my ladies for Eid Manicures this week as part of their present. We are also going to be doing a bunch of special stuff this weekend so we are super excited.

Decorations – We have our lantern collection out, and I forgot that I picked up some new lanterns when I was shopping over the last year. Plus, we added those sweet Crescent Star lights and some colorful faerie lights we picked up on Christmas clearance.Activities – We kept our activities to a minimum. It wouldn’t seem like it based on my constant driving rotation, but Arabic & Quran class, Guitar, volunteering and exercising. This year we did something new and organized an activity for a bunch of the kids who were fasting. I went to a paint your own pottery place that we often go to that is locally owned and arranged for the kids to cut out crescent moons and stars. Once they were fired, we went back and glazed them and then the next week we picked them up and turned them into garlands. It was a wonderful experience. We basically took over the place. Next year I’m going to arrange it on a day where the studio is closed to the public.

Failures – I ran out of ideas on what to feed everyone. We didn’t invite as many people over as we would have liked. I woke up late one day and everyone had just 10 minutes to chug some drinks.   We didn’t listen to Quran before Iftar this year, and didn’t attend any tarweeh.  Despite my running everywhere it seems like every day…they were bored.   Our off days were filled with reading, games and a few bike rides thrown in for good measure.  I kept working and doing what I needed to keep the family comfortable.  I know it wasn’t super exciting, but really, there weren’t enough hours in the day to do any more.

How did this Ramadan go for you?