The Random Act of Kindness week was celebrated from Feb 13 to Feb 19 this year. As, I was helping my daughter to make a list of super easy random acts of kindness still worthy of mega points of goodness for her class. I thought I will jot down a few here too so that all of us can get in the rewards. An important reminder though that we should try our best to make kindness a habit, being good muslims as well as good human beings and not a day or a week thing. Your kids will catch it from you too, so try to to set an example for them.

* Help a sick friend or neighbor

* Pick up a piece of trash

* Say thank-you to the people we usually consider do unimportant jobs like a janitor or a crossing   guard

* Hold a door for some-one

* Carry stuff for elderly people

* Plant a tree

* Give up your space in line for someone in a hurry

* Use less water

* Help the elderly cross a road

* Be kind and patient with everyone and specially your parents

* Greet everyone with a smile

* Forgive easily and forget quickly

* Give a gift even if its just a hug

* Donate to charity

* Offer a drink of water.

Everyone is welcome to add and share any other acts here…

I am usually not one of those who want to get their hands on every new techno gadget that comes in the market and then brag about it :).But I have been enjoying my Kindle a lot and wanted to describe it briefly here in case if any of you is interested in buying. ( I am writing this for the plain kindle I have, there is Kindle2 and Kindle fire in market but I will not comment on them as i have not used them. Specially Kindle fire has been called a competitor to IPad and is much more than a book reader.)

OK, So Kindle is a must for all those who love reading like myself. It gives you a world of books in this small handy device without having to carry around the heavy books everywhere and of course there are no space issues as to where to keep saving all those books which you buy, specially for people living in apartments:). The one I got is available at a very reasonable price now and is approximately 7.5″ by 4.9″,smaller than an average book and lighter too. You will definitely need a case for it, I bought the one with a light from Amazon and it helps me to read easily at night, it has become one of my favorite accessory to take everywhere I go. You can get most of the books in Kindle form now from Amazon and even if it not available in Kindle format yet, you can send a request to make it available for Kindle. There is one thing that I feel lacking is the support for PDF files, all PDF files open as graphic images and there is not much you can do to enhance the visibility specially if you want to read something in a language other than English, I tried but the visibility is not good enough. However, most of the PDF files in English open up easily and the visibility becomes much better if you are reading horizontally. I recently found Sahih Bukhari in English in PDF and reading it is so easy on the kindle, so I am loving the Kindle for that. I also downloaded the Arabic Quran with English translation in PDF on kindle but the Arabic again is a bit blurry and you are worried about reading a word incorrectly but the English translation is very good and clear. The charging lasts for a long time and it’s very easy to download books. Of course, you will miss the beautiful colored pictures on the title of each book, that divine smell which comes from every new book and the pride you feel when you look at your collection of all the beautiful books you have read so far but once you start reading a book and its good you will forget if you are reading it on Kindle or a paperback. In my opinion buying Kindle is money well-spent for all book readers.

I am a mother of two young kids living in USA. In spite of all the hype related to luxuries and comforts of living abroad, my life here is tiring and monotonous. And although we have to do everything ourselves,and I mean everything literally. Still, my husband and I try our best to find time for our kids, because we realize we are the only ones they have here,except for the times when their grandma is visiting or vice versa. We take them to parks , we play with them at home, read them books and tell them silly jokes, we paint, color and watch cartoons together. But still I feel there’s something missing, their childhood doesn’t seem so much fun and easy as our childhood was,which is hard to comprehend when you look at all the activities, toys and other stuff available to kids these days. At first I thought may be its just me , maybe I am being nostalgic but I talked to some of my other friends and siblings living in Pakistan and abroad alike and they all had almost similar feelings and in fact , all of them agreed that kids are becoming more and more difficult to raise. I certainly don’t blame the kids for that, after all they are still born with a clean slate. However to me, it does seem like that the world has changed so drastically in the last 20 years or so, that it doesn’t give the kids the chance to have an innocent,content and simple childhood like we had. Life has become very demanding, even for the kids. They are growing up too fast and don’t get to be kids for too long anymore. I read an article a few days back which mentioned the same fact with statistics, it stated that kids these days do things 2 or 3 years earlier than the kids of the same age group used to do 10,15 years ago. For example ,kids 8 to 10 years old are interested in the stuff which 12 and 13-year-old kids liked a decade ago. Kids of Kindergarten are expected to have knowledge which kids of 1st and 2nd grade used to have. All the advancement in technology,the floods of information available on internet and the overexposure through television is wiping out the innocence and simplicity which were the trademarks of children in our childhood. Look around today, you will find kids going to daycare and schools as early as 2 years old and watching all kinds of tv.It breaks my heart to see how the UN_CENSORED use of internet and cable and dish tv is affecting the young minds.The fact that kids are becoming more and more materialistic and ungreatful even after getting so many more things compared to us is sad and disappointing, but then how can they not when every time they go outside they see this new wonderland of toys and gimmicks. Maybe that is part of the problem that they get too much too soon ,without actually having to do anything for it or even wanting it.Where again the blame goes to those parents who satisfy their unfulfilled childhood fantasies through their children and consider it a part of their duty to buy everything the kids dream of and they dreamed of in their childhood.

When I think of my childhood now, it feels as if it was spent in a fairyland where kids didn’t have to worry about starting school before they were 4 or 5 years old, where watching a movie was a ayyashi you could only afford once or twice in a month, where paper airplanes, boats and kites made by your parents were the most precious toys,where eating a paratha with sugar and cream was more rejoiced than eating out, where the most fun outdoor activity had nothing to do with shopping malls or buying expensive toys rather collecting stones, dried leaves, feathers and somewhat edible fallen fruit and playing out in streets was considered as safe as playing in your backyard. I really wish there was a way for me to bring back that lost world for my kids to grow up in. And, although I am a software engineer myself, I would give up internet and cable tv any day,if a world without them would return the kids their innocence, call me old-fashioned if you want to but I would like my kids to grow up treating a feast of daal,chawal,achaar and mangoes eaten on a dari  with their family more of a celebration than eating outside, call me nostalgic but I would like my kids to use paper cards more often than using ecards and sms. Okay maybe giving up internet altogether is too much 🙂 but I definitely want to find a way to show my kids a glimpse of that lost fairyland where I spent my childhood.

Irfana’s notes : I found this article very useful and informative and i think this is the best time to share it.Dhul-Hijjah mubarak…the link to the article at Iqrasense,

http://www.iqrasense.com/hajj/celebrating-the-first-ten-days-and-nights-of-dhul-hijjah-hajj-season.html

Most Muslims very well know the blessings of the nights of Ramadan, especially the last ten nights. However, not everyone knows that the first ten days of the last month of the Islamic month, Dhul Hijjah, are equally packed with blessings.