LIFE AS IT IS

Sometimes you wake up in the morning and the dream from last night lingers on - it takes some time and effort to bring yourself back to reality.

Potty-cleaning occupies such a large part of my life nowadays that it's no wonder the first word the letter, P, reminds me of is "potty." My husband and I first started to potty-train our daughter after she turned one. We went through a lot after that - we braved many storms. And at one point, we simply gave up. Every child has his/her own growth chart. Some babies learn things earlier than the others and vice versa. When I heard that the daughter of a friend was potty-trained at 18 months, I felt I should make that happen too. I asked my friend for tips, she gave me a bunch of them. But I was not satisfied so I went to parenting websites for additional potty-training tips. I tried them. I tried many things, which included, but were not limited to, decorating my daughter's potty with stickers to make it appear appealing to her, and buying a musical potty, which screamed, Yay! when the sensor felt the heat of weewee and poop. Everything failed! I talked to my bio

The aroma of dates, spicy chickpeas and fried food prepared from lentils and vegetables is missing in the air, so is missing the ambience of Ramadan, but life goes on - we fast like we did when we lived in Bangladesh. But some things are not the same as before. Muslims are fasting for more than 16.5 hours here in the U.S. state where I live. Ramadan is so different away from home, where work starts late and ends early during this holy month. Here, on most days, we skip suhoor/sehri, the early morning meal. We eat our last meal at 11 p.m. and go to sleep. But in Bangladesh, eating sehri with family was an integral part of Ramadan. We would drag our half-asleep body from bed to eat sehri with other family members. The early morning meal was followed by chitchat over steaming cups of tea until the muezzin's call for Fajr prayer echoed in the air. Eid-ul Fitr shopping almost always began before Ramadan. Here, Eid comes and goes by and most years, we do not gift ourselves new cloth

We changed four cities in the last five years. Exciting, it may sometimes sound, but "changing city" is a stressful affair. We hired movers the last two times - the movers are a blessing but it does not mean that you can relax in a couch while they work. You have to be with them in case they have a question, or need help with something. Once you are in the new house, you need to clean every nook and corner of it to make it livable(!). The property managements' definitions of cleanliness almost never match mine. What a sad thing! So, I usually have to start with the bathrooms, followed by the kitchen, bedrooms and then the living room. Then my husband and I fret over where we should place our bed, the dresser, the couches, the floor lamps, the rugs, etc., etc after they arrive. Should we place the TV in the right or left corner of the living room? Or should we just mount it on the living room wall? Then the size of your new house also matters. Our new apartment in

If fame makes you want to fly then you are probably not worthy of fame. The word, modesty, exists for a good reason.

Very few things are as soothing as the sound of rain at night.