August & Ramadan

So....

It's mid-August. And tomorrow (inshallah) is the start of Ramadan. Yay for Ramadan; blah for mid-August.

Mid-August means that I have less than 2 weeks before students return to campus and the fall semester begins. It TOTALLY doesn't feel like school is starting again soon. 1. It's too hot! 2. We just didn't do (or I don't feel like we did) as many projects this summer like we normally do in the office. (of course, that's because we got a new webpage which has pretty much taking up all of our time and bitching... lol) 3. I'm still figuring out the mess from the spring (ok, it's not THAT bad, but not where I would like it to be)

So, that is a lot of what I'm thinking of now, but because it's mid-August (ie, vacation time for most people), I have really lagging in being productive. NOT good.

On the good side, Ramadan is starting tomorrow (inshallah) and while I'm not fasting this year on account of my breastfeeding, I am excited and will still need to adjust my schedule over the next month since my husband, sister-in-law and mother-in-law will be fasting. I certainly prefer to fast during Ramadan- it bring a level of spirituality that's hard to feel otherwise. By fasting,

you really focus on what's important in life and since you change your life around so much for the month, it bring a nice peacefulness to your life... I'm going to miss that.

But, I still need to change things a bit- mostly since my family will be fasting and I need to eat with them!! :) I think what I'm going to do is eat breakfast and drink water during the day, but not eat after - breakfast, so around 10:30/11 am. Of course, if I feel my blood sugar get so low (like this past weekend when I pretty much didn't eat until 6 pm!!!), I will eat again, but at least keep things small...

LOL! I always see people write about ill-positioned ads and thought this one was HILARIOUS!!! "How big is your weight loss goal?" ad on a page about fasting?! Ummm- FAIL! lol

Oh- so a big difference between Islamic fasting and (for example) Catholic fasting is that Catholic fasting lowers the total amount of food consumed (unlimited water and other items), while Islamic fasting is more time-based to eating/drinking/etc NOTHING during certain times of the day. I was brought up Catholic (to which I must note that I really do think Catholicism is fun) and it's kinda' funny looking at the 'official' rules for fasting because it's different from what my church taught and I remember traveling and basically having people in other countries not think I was Catholic because we didn't fast like they did. But, overall Catholic fasting is intended to make you suffer- like Jesus- and Islam fasting is more about spiritual focus (and empathy for the poor).

Of course, once nightfall hits, there is lots of eating and drinking and so I always say Ramadan is like a mix between Lent and Easter- each day! My husband thinks it's like Thanksgiving every day.

Ramadan Kareem!!! :)