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I am done

Posted on May 21, 2015 by sheemsters

Shit, it’s been a long week.

I recently completed a 48 hour school workathon, which is the only type of marathon you will ever find me participating in.

I can assure you, it was just as much of a bitch as the real thing.

Seriously, I think I’m applicable for the Guinness Book of World Records or something.

By the time I hit the last submit button, I was almost awash in tears of relief.

I am DONE DONE DONE with school for now. And I am ready for a vacation.

That’s why The View Through the Window is going to Florida!

Our vacations are usually on the shorter side. We take four day treks to a city within a few hours drive and get back home in just enough time to say mother eff, tomorrow’s Monday!

But this year we decided that a good vacation is a very important part of life. Everyone needs to exit the traffic circle of work, school, home, repeat once in a while.

And what can be a better destination than the happiest place on earth?

After that bitch school workathon, I needed to find a happy place.

I still have my concerns, though. The drive from Chicago to Florida is around 18 hours long. Add my kids to it and we might as well hire a donkey cart for our mode of transportation.

We’d probably get there just as fast.

Flying is completely out of the question. I swore I would never board an airplane with my boys again after my last plane ride, one of the many highlights of which was my very concerned son, a first time flier, asking things like why there were so many cops at the airport, was something wrong with the plane, would it crash and would we all die?

Loud and clear enough for everyone on board to hear. He apparently inherited my flying apprehensions.

This was me.

Everyone knows you don’t say crash when you’re on a plane, especially if you’re a Muslim. I couldn’t believe it, but most people just laughed when they heard him voice his concerns.

Me? I almost threw up all over my friendly fellow passenger from the stress, combined with plenty of air sickness.

I’d rather drive to and back from Florida ten times than go through that again. Any humiliation we experience will be confined to the privacy of our van.

I tried to persuade my husband to postpone the trip until our kids were older, but he was adamant that they were at just the right age to experience the magic that is Disney.

And because he’s paying for everything, I felt I should agree.

And when I did, he was all

So we are going. Suitcases have been packed, Florida relatives have been notified, and neighbors have been asked to keep an eye on our place for us until we return.

Wish us luck! I am sure one hour into the drive I will want to shoot myself, but I believe in living in the moment. And in miracles.

Last week was also my birthday. I am now 31 26 years old.

Here are some birthday dinner pictures.

Half the menu consisted of alcohol 😦

Came with the bread

Delicious

Smoked salmon appetizer

Vegetable tagine

Chocolate mousse

Creme Brulee

My mom refused to eat the restaurant’s prized steaks because “they bleed when you slice into them”, so she ordered that enormous vegetable tagine instead.

Here comes the best part about birthdays.

It pays to be old.

Abdullah Saleem isn’t the only one

Posted on February 18, 2015 by sheemsters

Head of Elgin Islamic School charged in sex abuse of former employee

Can’t say I’m shocked.

Sexual violence happens everywhere in the world and in every type of society. But few will admit that it is rampant in religious institutions where extreme sexual repression is practiced and endorsed.

It happens and it happens often. In secrecy, of course. Similar to the scandal that rocked the Catholic community.

What I am shocked about is that the perpetrator is facing charges. People who hold high, powerful positions are not brought down easily. Major respect to the young lady who had the courage to speak up for herself. Major respect for the family that supported her. Her bravery has led other women to come forward about being molested by the same sick bastard.

Laying allegations of sexual abuse against a figure such as Abdullah Saleem is no small feat. For the Chicago Muslim community, he might as well have been the Pope. That’s how revered he was, and still is, to some people who believe the victims are lying.

You might be thinking that I’m too quick to judge. That everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

True.

But I speak from personal experiences and observances that very often (but not always, of course), those who speak the loudest are mostly full of shit.

If you feel the need to sermonize and make a big tada about your actions, odds are you’re speaking from the mind and the wallet. Not the heart.

And if your actions are from the heart, you don’t need an audience or a spotlight to showcase you. The beauty of your deeds and your work will speak for itself and be satisfaction enough.

I am also well aware that a victim’s reputation is always at stake in cases of sexual abuse. To speak up is to be faced with questions and accusations against ones own ethics and principles, especially in a religious setting and against such a highly esteemed figure as Abdullah Saleem.

No woman or man would tackle something of this magnitude were it not for some major, MAJOR shit having gone down. No amount of money can equal the fight and the heartache of tackling the tsunami that is the backlash from a large religious community.

Salem Witch trials, anyone?

I can’t sum up in words exactly how awed I am by the young lady who has now given a voice to other victims.

She has more balls than the entire male staff of IIE put together.

This scandal brings to light how powerful a recruiting tool religion can be. I’m a sexual predator won’t sell, but religious school for the learning of Quran or Bible classes for young boys will have people lining up to patron your holy cause.

Put a supposedly divine stamp on it and it’s amazing what you can get away with.

A fantastic Indian movie I watched recently, PK (yeah, that’s the title, a P and a K), gives an account of how warped religion has become in the hands of man. It is religion seen through the eyes of an extraterrestrial. An alien. Awesome stuff. Please do give it a look. You’ll easily find a copy with subtitles if need be.

And no, I was not paid for the advertising of the movie.

As if.

Lastly, and most importantly, please listen to your children and create an environment in which they feel safe coming to you for any and all problems. Abdullah Saleem isn’t the only one, of course. There are plenty of sickos out there, some in guises of holy pillars of the community and many not. The trauma of living through sexual abuse is something that can easily break an adult.

Imagine what it has the potential to do to the fragility of a child.

Fifty shades of gross

Posted on February 14, 2015 by sheemsters

Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️❤️❤️

My in laws did us the awesome favor of babysitting. Yay for couple time!

My husband’s work friends all asked him when he was going to go see Fifty Shades of Grey. Apparently their wives and girlfriends are all dragging them to the movie.

I haven’t even read the book yet and I’m not planning to, either. My idea of a great book/love story is Jane Eyre. I can watch that on Netflix and read it on iBooks. And I have.

Michael Fassbender makes an awesome Mr.Rochester. 😍

I heard something funny on the radio about Fifty Shades of Grey. A DJ described the movie as “two hours of the stuff you fast forward through in a porno.”

Interesting.

For richer or for poorer, but not during the Colts game

Posted on January 9, 2015 by sheemsters

Prayers for the tragedy in France. “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it must be attained through understanding” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Welcome to the newly renovated The View Through The Window. I was getting tired of that old theme and I like to switch things up now and then. I hope you like this new blog style as much as I do. Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post.

He’s the good cop to your bad cop. The fun loving parent to your disciplinarian. The one who sneaks your kids candy during time outs. I quote, “Daddy’s awesome and you suck.”

Point noted.

Husbands. You gotta love em. And because we love them, let’s start with all the things they do that make them wonderful :

-He comes home after work.

Moving on.

I’m just kidding. We all know husbands do a lot more good than just come home from work. Let’s add to the list.

-He comes straight home from work.

Still kidding. Don’t get your boxers in a bunch. The real list follows :

-He comes straight home from work to a crabby wife and hyper kids, yet still manages to remain upbeat.

-Is tired as hell but tells you to take a break.

-Knows exactly what to do when you’re angry. When I’m mad at him, my husband starts cleaning. He strongly believes that cleanliness is next to godliness because it prevents your wife from doing that head turning thing from the Exorcist.

-Doesn’t question the logic behind why I can be as grumpy as I want but he gets in trouble for not smiling enough.

-Worked for years at a job he hated because he felt he had to. His hard work is what made it possible for me to stay at home with our kids. This is the reason why I call my husband the real superman. That and because he’s survived being married to me for so long.

-Is ever supportive, whether it’s you wanting to go back to school, starting a blog or turning off all the lights and pretending no one’s home when the neighbor’s annoying kids show up uninvited.

-Is the world’s greatest dad. My husband has more patience than a monkey has love for bananas. He can play make believe games with my boys for hours. I would rather clean the house. Or watch paint dry. Or clean the house while I watch paint dry.

-He lets you blog about him.

And since nothing and no one is perfect, here are things he does that make him so very annoying :

-You send him to the supermarket for cauliflower and he returns with lettuce. You ask for parsley and he gets spinach.

-Half your kitchen stuff ends up where it shouldn’t be when he unloads the dishwasher.

-His version of cleaning is to dump everything in the kids’ toy box and/or the closet.

-You can always count on him to not answer his phone.

-Wouldn’t know his way around the kitchen even if it came equipped with exit signs.

-Thinks it’s okay to have a conversation with you when you’re brushing your teeth. Or through the bathroom door when you’re perched on the toilet. But thou shall not interrupt the watching of football game.

-Thinks we are out of <fill in the blank> if a sixty second search for it yields nothing.

-Grins and says But I picked you when you tell him his taste sucks.

-Thinks sitting down to pee is a strange and foreign concept.

-His looking for something usually ends up with you finding it for him.

-His lack of attention to detail and failure to pick up on social cues makes you wonder if he spent his adolescent years devoid of human interaction. When I was pregnant and mine no longer fit, my husband thought it was okay to tell my family I was wearing his underwear.

-Hogs the blanket. Tosses and turns enough to wake the dead. My husband’s nocturnal bed shaking (no, not that kind) once even woke him up. He turned to me, still half asleep, and asked was there an earthquake? to which I replied no, darling, your ass was just doing its sleep aerobics thing again.

-Leaves all pantry and cabinet doors wide open. Shutting them makes you feel like Vanna White after an exceptionally large puzzle solving on an early 90’s episode of Wheel of Fortune. You know, before it went all touch screen.

-He lets you blog about him with the condition that you will do a similar post on wives.

Needless to say, I accepted the challenge.