Taraweeh Wknd #2

Topic of the Day: Sugar Cookies!

So another week has rolled by of fasting. Now that it was the weekend I had time to create some sweets for prayer. I had a few ideas in mind of what to make but I decided on sugar cookies because they seemed the most easiest. I spent six hours the last time making cupcakes (we still had a few leftover we didnt have time to wrap) and I did NOT want to spend that same amount of time making sugar cookies. I think it took me around three hours (with the help of my little sister) to make the cookies. :)

I went to Target and Party City for supplies. Target for the Sugar Cookie Mix, Frosting and Sprinkles and I found these great round clear goodie bags at Party City for the cookies! It was a steal of a find. They had 100 for around $3 bucks. I had found other goodie bags from Target but they were straight and not clear more of a foggy color, didn't look good.

My sister was a lot better at making the little round balls of dough and centering them perfectly in the tray. I know it probably doesn't take a lot to do that but she did do a better job than me, lol.

Fresh outta the oven! The cookies weren't touching each other, were all nice and round and baked to perfection!

We mixed in food coloring like we did last time for the cupcakes.

With a shade of lighter blue, lighter purple and a pretty orange color.

I really love pastels! The sprinkles added just the perfect colorful topping!

At first I thought I would put in two cookies in each bag, but one fit pretty snug.

We'd be able to reach more people as well with one cookie per bag. :)

Here they are all wrapped up. I was thinking we would have more cookies than cupcakes this time around but it turned out to be about the same, like 50 cookies. I'm happy with the way they turned out in taste, looks and packaging! :D

Meeka Meeka

Topic of the Day: Updated Pics of Meeka!!

     I haven't updated my blog with recent pictures of Meeka even though it's been almost a month that I've had her and I have hundreds of pictures and numerous videos of her. So I thought it's about time I share pictures and stories of her personality!

This is the most recent picture I have of her taken yesterday night.

True to her name she is a cat and she grooms herself. That's about the only thing that she does that's considered normal - for a cat. Although from the pictures it looks like she's more picking her nose with her tongue.. Well that's cleaning too I guess!

Now for her unusual habits. She hates treats. I've given her four different kinds to give her a variety and she hates them all. When I say hate, literally she doesn't eat, lick, sniff or touch them. The following below is what I've tried so far.

     

Secondly she hates catnip. The kitten that I had in high school would go absolutely nuts for catnip. Even with friend's cats and kittens they would do anything for catnip whether it be infused in a toy or their scratching post rubbed with it - ANYTHING. Meeka however doesn't like it at all. She'll run away if she smells catnip. Which creates a bit of a problem as there's no way that I can get her to use her scratching post, she doesn't like treats and doesn't like catnip. Her scratching post remains untouched.

     The orange toy that I'm giving her is a teething toy that's supposed to help sooth her gums so she doesn't bite.

It has catnip and this is her reaction. I made a video and then snapped some screen shots of her.

In the last picture she's pushing it away with her feet and then runs away high speed.

     Next unusual trait? She loves water. I know there are specific cat breeds out there that do love water like Turkish Vans, Bengals, Maine Coons and Siberians. There are probably others but those are the ones that I know of. Ragdolls are not one of them. Granted every cat is different but she's just so bizarre! I bought her a spray bottle to teach her not to jump on furniture and just certain areas. First time I sprayed her she ran towards me, grabbed the bottle with her paws and wanted more. Whenever I turn the sink on and she's on the counter she will put her whole head under the faucet getting herself all wet.

I bought her a little kiddie pool so that she can enjoy herself more.

It was a hot summer day and the water was nice and cool.

Within a few minutes she plopped herself in and wadded around.

She didn't like her wind-up frog so much though, lol.

Here's a picture of her going outside when it was drizzling.

You can see the patio is dark - it was soaking wet.

She was rolling around in the wet grass.

She has the most beautiful eyes. They seem to change color in every shade of lighting. In the dark her eyes look an eery glowing green (that'll be a separate blog post - she's freaky at night!) inside the house her eyes look a turquoise blue and outside they seem to look sky blue. Regardless she's a cutie in whatever shade of color her eyes are! :)

     She loves sitting by the screen door waiting to be let outside. Even if I don't, she'll sit in front of it and let the breeze ruffle her fur and guard the door from bugs! She's quite the bug killer! I've never seen her torture and murder so many bugs! I didn't even know we had that many in the house. So far I've seen dead beetles, mosquitoes, pill bugs, flies and stink bugs.

There was one time I noticed that she had a black smudge on her nose, I guess she got sprayed by a defensive bug! It was a hassle getting it off too, you can still see a bit of black smudginess in the picture. Way less than it was!

Here she is hanging in one of her favorite spots, the windowsill!

I open the window (it has a screen) and she plays there most of the time!

Her fur is so soft and fluffy! For a long haired cat she doesn't shed all that much either. Of course I'll see some white hair here and there, but it's not a lot, granted I do brush her everyday! She goes limp like a Ragdoll too when you pick her up. She'll sit in your lap and purr. She loves people and will run up to every stranger she sees, whether they like it or not!



Taraweeh Wknd #1

Topic of the Day: Cupcakes!

How many of us can say we did something good for other people RECENTLY? This Ramadan I want to do something special - every weekend. I don't have enough time during the weekdays, nor the energy, though I feel people deserve them more on the weekday for coming out after work and praying until midnight.

I slaved for 6 hours over these cupcakes. I'm serious. I spent an hour shopping getting supplies from Target and Wegmans. An hour baking the cupcakes and then 2 hours decorating and 2 hours wrapping. I spent a lot of my time and money to make these PERFECT. I'm a perfectionist and one small crease has me redoing the whole thing. I had a friend, Amina, helping me out who was spending the day with me. I love her, she's great. 

I wanted to make fruit cupcakes, a healthier alternative to candy toppings or sprinkles. Plus who can resist fresh fruits? :D I got colorful cupcake holders that would match the frosting and fruit they would hold. Green would have Kiwis, Purple are for Blackberries, the Blue holds Blueberries and the Pink is reserved for Strawberries!

I made two different types of cupcakes, one was the Yellow Buttercream and the other was Chocolate Fudge. I only took a picture of the Buttercream, I got so wrapped up in making the cupcakes I completely forgot! 

Next up we have the vanilla frosting that I mixed a dash of food coloring in to create beautiful colors! The picture doesn't do it justice, they were absolutely gorgeous looking in person. The pink was a cherry blossom color, the purple was a deep lavender and the green was more like a mint, I also had blue frosting that looked like the Caribbean blue sea but I didn't snap a picture of it.

Then was the fun and easy part to put the frosting on the cupcakes after they cooled down! :D They looked absolutely beautiful I couldn't stop telling my friend Amina how pretty they looked! We gushed and ooed and aahd over our creations!

       

Here is the green vanilla frosting in the green cupcake holder with delicious Kiwi's sliced on top!

I figured slicing them in fours created a better image instead of a chunk of Kiwi. :)

The pretty beach sky blue ocean water frosting. I love it!

Three blueberries go onto these cupcakes! :)

Last but not least we have the Blackberries and the Strawberries!

I decided to put them in cups to make it easier to carry without getting messy.

To wrap it all up I covered them in clear plastic wrap and tied a ribbon!

Also attaching a spoon to make it easier to eat without getting sticky messy hands!

I'm really happy the way they turned out. The cups looked so pretty wrapped up, the fruits were fresh and delicious, the frosting wasn't too sweet, the cake was scrumptious and the spoon was a great idea!

A pic of Amina and I on Eid! :D



Bath Bomb

Topic of the day: Lush!

I've heard a great many things about the store Lush. How the products are amazing. I would always pass by it in the mall and love the wonderous aroma wafting from inside. But I'd get overwhelmed with all the choices and just leave. Well the other day I walked in there with my Boo and as he was getting the track list of the current song playing (as he always does) I took my time to browse around and was drawn to a particular amazing scent, the sex bomb. I know I know it sounds so.. risqué.

It looks beautiful too. The whole thing is almost pink with a greyish-purple color on top like chocolate syrup that was gently lathered over the ball. The inside held a pretty pink rose in the middle. I tried to cut it in half to make it last longer, I've seen videos of people literally just tapping it on the side and it splits in half. I didn't have a chisel and a hammer by my side so I improvised. Quite badly might I add. I used a lollypop (the stick of it) and my hair brush. I ending up poking a bunch of holes all around the middle. Oh well. Next time I'll use a different method which will hopefully yield a different result. :)

1.2.

The whole process of the bath bomb fizzing in the tub lasted a little more than two minutes to fully dissolve. I thought it would last longer than that but the effects were long lasting so I guess that's all that matters. I think it funny that I was hammering away trying to halve it and it's solid as a rock but as soon as it touches water it dissolves like quick sand. Amazing stuff!

3.4.

It was an instant burst of action and color! Look how quickly it's changing, so pretty. The scent filled the whole bathroom, my bedroom as well as my sister's and even drifted off into the hallway. My mother was wondering where the lovely scent of soap was coming from. In a good way! It just smelled like fresh beautiful soap. If the word beautiful can have a scent this would be it.

5.6.

This was more towards the end, I took it out halfway through to see how it looked. The top half was mostly gone! You could see the rose starting to "bloom". In the last picture the rose flower was all that was left. I didn't expect it to be a 'thing'. It felt like the same texture as the outside of the ball so I assumed it would dissolve too, but it didn't. It was gooey and squishy, didn't feel good at all to touch. To me the feeling was like when your swimming in the ocean and a piece of old dried up seaweed grazes across your leg. *shivers* It also leaves a bit of a stain in your bathtub if you leave it floating around. Not such a good thing.

Overall I loved this product. I will definitely be buying it again, I think once a month this is a great thing to indulge in and melt your stresses away! I haven't tried any of the other bath bombs yet but I think it'll be tough to break this out of it's #1 spot! It is slightly on the pricy side for soap but halving it in twos for two baths works great! I would not recommend piecing it into further chunks. My sister (whom I gave a sakura bath bomb to) cut it into four pieces. The scent wasn't strong nor the affect.

Oh one other product that I paired the bath bomb with is the Healing Cherry Blossom Rice Milk body wash by Organix. It smells really good, one small squeeze lathered onto your bath sponge and it creates a lot of suds. It's a product that's a little hard to find. The only place I've seen it is Giant the grocery store. I've tried to look for it at Ulta, Target, The Body Shop anywhere and everywhere but Giant seems to be the only place that carries it. I love all their products. This is my favorite body wash and I love the hydrating TeaTree Mint Shampoo. My goodness the smell is like mint chocolate chip ice cream. I love it.

Ramadan

Topic of the Day: Fasting!

Ramadan has officially started as of July 9th, 2013. Yesterday was the first night of Taraweeh. My sister and I drove to Dar-Al-Taqwa for prayer. I prayed next to one of my cousin's Erum and my Aunt. This is what transpired during the time I was there.

Crab Feast

Topic of the Day: Seafood!

Living in the state of Maryland one would expect every citizen to have tried crab since day one. I can shamefully say I've never had the crabalicious full blown experience of sitting on a bench with a bib having seafood dumped at your table where you need utensils to crack open the shells and take the meat out yourself. But I've gotten closer to having that experience! Over the weekend I was down and around looking for a place to eat and a friend and I came across Joe's Crab Shack located in Gaithersburg at the "Rio". I knew I wanted to eat here the instant I saw it. It had a gorgeous view of a lake with swans and geese swimming around with a fountain and boats that resembled birds that you could peddle in like a flamingo, swan, etc. Looked like fun!

That was the view from where I was sitting! :D
They had all these mini shops centered around the lake.

I wanted as much of the full experience as I could get. They had a few different varieties, I opted for a bucket of steamed lobster, snow crab legs, shrimp, a corn on the cob and two potatoes! (The food was a bit smaller than expected).

It was pretty delicious. For $30 it wasn't huge but at least it was fresh. They gave a nutcracker and a little yellow knife thing that could dig inside the shell to bring out meat. The lobster was a hassle to cut and gave such little meat. The crab was good I really enjoyed it though it wasn't a lot. 

I'm the Queen Crab!

  

I do hope I can go to Ocean City where I hear has the best fresh crab where they give buckets of the real deal, the whole body with a hammer and everything to tear them apart. Eek I get so excited thinking about it! It really was a fun experience and I'm happy I got to do it! My dream would be to catch the crab myself, take it home to steam and then cut it open myself! :)

After dinner I caught a late night movie, Now You See Me. I highly recommend it, it's a movie I could watch over again, great plot, amazing twist at the end never would have expected it. Definitely one to buy on DVD. With Morgan Freeman and the actor that plays Alfred! Aww. I love Alfred, he's so old and cute. It's nice to see him play a different role. On that note - goodnight!