40 Grand

I don't know how long this post is going to be because I don't have my little keyboard.

So the students of Tasawwuf have this thing called the forty grand where for forty days you work on your deficiencies and get them under wraps for forty days and then you can move on to the next thing. This is what was presented in some information that I received in the Shuhba about the Shadhili Tarriqa or at least Sheik Nuh's strain.

On a side note I didn't join the Tarriqa mainly because my heart wasn't moved to do so. My Istikara came back negative so I didn't go forward with it. I talked to Sidi Ashraf about it and he said to make Istikara about it and I did and I wasn't moved to do so. Insha Allah when I go to California in two weeks I'll ask Imam Zaid about it or Sheik Hamza, but I have a more personal relationship with Imam Zaid.

So any way I do see the spiritual benefits of the program so I put myself on it. The first step is to make all prayers in time/on time and to not get angry. This approach makes sense because it takes like forty days to break or form a habit so it makes good psychological sense. They keep it simple for the first forty days and they also add a wird onto that for extra benefit. I chose not to do the dua but instead to read two hizb of Quran a day. The two hizb I've been able to keep Alhamdulillah, but for the last two days I haven't been able to get up for Fajr. Yesterday was the first time I was able to get up for Salaat which is odd because I'm particular about Fajr because of all of the Hadith behind it. So yesterday I wake up for Fajr and I'm going to start and as Shaytan would have it the entire house went off. My wife was frazzled because she had an important Dr's appointment and we had to get all of the kids out of the house early. My eldest daughter had a whole entire cobra up her but with attitude to match and later on the day got really rich. So my wife is yelling at the kids trying to get them out the door which is usually my job, but today I'm more laid back than usual so I'm like sauntering along. My eldest has to write lines for punishment and I'm coming close to yelling but I regain my resolve up the consequences of not having her stuff done and tell her to choose her fate. I'm composed. We are late leaving out, but I'm calm wifee's not but I am. So were rolling finally 50 miles to empty the gauge says Subhannallah we have to drive 67 miles 'we can make it I say calmly' so we are driving wifee's speeding but making headway. We're almost there 5 miles till empty 'we have enough I say' so Alhamdulillah we make it my wife has called a couple of times to tell them we we're coming in hot and they tell her to come on. She gets out runs upstairs to her appointment. Wisdom would have dictated that I kept on driving to the gas station afterwards, but I didn't we all got out and went upstairs for moral support. When we got there she was already engaged so I didn't go back to hold her hand :(. She got an IUD which I'm only saying to let the reader know that it is halaal, but permanent forms of birth control aren't halaal unless there are extreme risks to the mothers health. It is not halaal for a man to have a vasectomy. So she was in a ton of pain as she had been aptly forewarned by the women's news network, but in our haste she forgot her meds at home so she went in with only a tylonol (whatever) and not the heavy duty stuff that she wanted to have.

So she comes out in pain and we go downstairs for the standard family lunch that we get at this hospital, grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries, so healthy. So I'm saying to myself while we are eating that I should go upstairs and get her meds that they prescribed, but I stayed with the fam.

After we finish eating we go to get her meds and right after we take our number and prepare for the wait the system crashes and they tell us they can only take handwritten Dr's notes so we will have to go all the way upstairs and go through that process. So we say bang it we've got 800mg tabs at home so we jet. We get in the car and are abruptly reminded that we've run out of gas. Subhannallah! She's not just dry she's past the point of reviving. I called a friend and we put in like 4 gallons to which she said thank you, but how dare you starve me like that. So now we have to call a tow truck to tow us to a service station. Now that's going to be a minimum of $90. So much for another bill that I was going to pay. However in all of this I am still calm.

The earliest the truck could come is in like 3 hours or else it would have been $150. So we wait and wait and wait. Now its late the service station is closed. Alhamdulillah my friend that helped me with the gas allowed me to borrow his car because when the tow man came finally he had his girl in the car and I was unable to ride with him. So we pile 7 people into a camry and away we go. The Tow man was rude and detatched I'd never use that company again. So we drop our car off at mike pallone chevy dealer and I'm puzzled because I thought we were going to a Nissan dealer, but there we were and the customer service at this place was horrible too I'd never buy a car from them. I went through the whole place and not one hello can I help you. Snotty attitudes and the whole 9. So no Pallone for me.

Then we leave scrunched in the car for the 60 mile trek home. Once home my wifee has the baby and I have to get everyone else to bed. It was a long day and since this post is taking so long to post it turned out that my timing chain is broken which runs $1000 plus to fix so I guess better now than later. So the whole one step forward two steps back routine.

Well before another day passes I'm going to post this.

Blogging with my treo. Man I love this thing.