When I was young, I remember eating Oreo or any other cream filled biscuits in a very strange way: I’d lick all the cream filling first and then gobble the biscuit. Yeah, in that exact order.

Yesterday our neighbor came by our house and brought Oreos for Pristine and you know what she did with them? Exactly the same way as I did when I was small! Is this typical behavior or she just inherited that habit from me?

(It was my first time seeing her eating Oreos like that - we hardly buy biscuits or sweets for her.)

I asked her though, why she does that and she just smiled and gave me the black biscuits short of any filling. Now that I am trying to lose weight, I feel less guilty eating Oreos without the cream. She eats the calorie-laden white stuff, I get the boring black biscuits. I have no complaints!

How do you eat your Oreos?

After work, my husband and I pass by the nearby park a few blocks away from our apartment so I can run. Sometimes it’s so hard to shove myself past the park gate but mostly after running about an average of 3 kms, I feel so good that I tell myself I was so stupid being so lazy.

Now that the weather is perfect for outdoor activities, people running/walking in the park have increased. You know what is very common among the joggers there? Most of the people exercising inside the park are overweight, almost always, ladies with extra baggage in the mid-section, including myself.

*hide in shame*

In all my three months of jogging at the park, I have never seen someone fit and slim running. Why do people (again, like me) wait till they become too heavy to run or start making healthy choices and living healthy?

I am in constant battle with my weight. Running has helped me gain more energy and take some (not all) excess pounds away. Now if only I can find the strong will to continue doing it everyday!

It’s Saturday once again and time to go back to work. As I’ve said in my previous posts, I only have one day break every week and it’s a Friday. Ok, I appreciate that tsk, tsk, you shaking your head in pity for me. I work on Saturdays and Sundays when normally, most of the people around the world are having fun outside with their families.

Anyway, no other way but to accept my fate, I got up this morning still reeling from a very bad dream, nightmare if you call it. I dreamed of plane crashes - -  with ’s’, that’s plural! And I was in one of the planes that crashed.  Whew, gory. First, I saw a plane crashing at the other side of the hill and I ran to look for it. I saw it lying in an empty field and I saw myself calling 911. Huh? I was in the USA at that time? How can that be? I guess so many things highly improbable in real life happen in dreams. Next scene, I was on board a plane about to crash land! I was desperately trying for my life vest and praying at the same time. I can’t believe God would take me this soon!

The plane skidded on the field but did not catch fire, it crash landed on a nearby river and I had to pinch myself to check I was not really dead. I actually survived and got out of the plane with my baggages. What a very unpleasant way to start the work week! When I took the shower this morning, I found a red patch in my arm, the one I pinched in that dream!

Anyone who’d like to help me find the meaning of this dream? (like I really want to know the meaning — it seems so negative!)

It’s been raining again here in desert land. Pristine and I were ready with our sunglasses as we left our basement parking when we were greeted by dark clouds and pitter-patter at the elevated exit. This caught us with surprise as this is the nth time it has rained since the new year began. The news says it has rained much these few days than the previous five years combined.

At the back of the car, I taught her the short song rain, rain go away.

Rain, rain go away. Come again another day. Little Pristine wants to play!

After three repetitions, the babe memorized the lines by heart. She was delighted with the last part and substituted her name with mine and all the members of the family from little papa to little grandma, little auntie, then with all the names of her classmates!

The next rain song was:

It’s raining, raining, raining and all the world is wet. It rained outside and now today, it’s raining, raining yet.

She absolutely loved the two songs and in no time, we were in her school grounds. Rushing to the corridors, she went ahead of me to meet her teacher and proudly sang to her the two new rain songs she learned from mommy.

Pristine is enrolled in the nearby international school that is following the British curriculum. Her class teacher has a heavy British accent which the kids mimic her without effort. As soon as Pristine arrives from school, she talks like someone we don’t know! Instead of curling the tongue whenever an ‘r’ is pronounced in the word as in the American English we use at home, words such as door, here, are, hair, butter, etc sounds different when spoken from her mouth. The ‘r’ sound seems to be missing at the end.

It’s awesome to hear her like Hermione Granger talking in the Harry Potter films!

My non-Brit mom takes care of my daughter after her classes so they spend the whole afternoon talking and singing so the little girl’s pronunciation transforms back to the usual at the end of the day. It’s amusing.

It’s another cold morning for us here today. This is our second ‘winter’ but I feel that this year is exceptionally cold. I mean, it should not be like this! Cool mornings at 20C are acceptable but not below that!

Just like any other winter victims, we are finding it hard to wake up everyday. The babe starts school at 8 am and we have to leave the house at 7:20 so computing backwards and including the waking up, cuddling, a little playing on the bed, staring at blank walls, toilet, breakfast and putting clothes on, we really need to wake up at 6 am. But how hard can it be? At 6:30, it is still dark outside and the bed looks so inviting. I always ask myself “is it not Friday yet?”.

After a rare two-day weekend we had, I am back to work. You are perfectly fine, it’s still Saturday, no need to check your calendars. Work week in the UAE start on Saturdays for most people and I belong to the ‘most people’ group. Some start on Sundays. Both suck, I know.

Today we are experiencing a very weird weather of dark skies and some rain. It is also unbelievably cold! Last Thursday we had a great weather and the sky looked like this:

Right now, it’s just gray and cold, so un-Dubai like!

Sorry for the lack of response. There’s just too many things in my plate right now I’m on the verge of throwing up. First, the little girl is sick. I was called by her teacher yesterday  saying A. had been really silent and inactive which is really unusual. When the teacher checked, my daughter was high with fever.

They have a school program this afternoon and her teacher says they would miss their loudest singer if she doesn’t show up!

Hubby picked her up from school yesterday and brought her home. I went home at 1pm to take care of her. So it was another sleepless night for me last night and with no internet at work for the past 2 days, I couldn’t have access to the comments left on this blog and on my other blog. I love comments and usually respond to them and it pains me not to be able to do that right now.

I will be back. Please bear with me. 

The three day weekend passed by with a speed of light. M and I are back to getting up early, doing our morning routines rarely speaking (we are not bubbly in the morning) and racing out to catch our buses. The little one stays at home and gets to sleep longer as her school announced they will have the entire week off. Classes will only resume on the 21st, plenty of time to do what? Particularly nothing special since my office timing is back to normal after Ramadan. I am only home after 6:30 pm, at least.

My mother is going to be very busy tending to P’s daily inquiries (she never runs out of why’s).