Issue 001: Winter Trips and Black Friday Thoughts

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Welcome to a new version of Wednesday Musings letters

In this letter: Some foodie highlights from our trip to Albuquerque, winter skin care round up, and we got sucked into a Black Friday trap

This Thanksgiving weekend, me and my husband were forced to cancel our trip to Texas last minute and instead drove a few hours to explore the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico in our new home state. The mountains always catch my breath while driving into town and the first thing we notice is the diversity with people of all colors living their lives next to each other. Albuquerque is a bustling city, the largest in the state, and here are some thoughts and events during the trip that I wanted to share with you:

01 // Foodie Adventures

Although I have a lot of food sensitivities (maybe allergies?), we do our best to find new places and revisit favorite cuisines whenever we go to a new place. This time we were fortunate to go to a Korean restaurant where they were able to make our favorite Korean dish, bibimbap, using brown rice. The waitress looked uncertain in the beginning but she was able to make it work alhumdulillah. And so I finally had bibimbap after quite a number of years! What is bibimbap, you ask? It’s basically seasoned veggies (and variety of non-halal meat of course) over a bed of rice, layered with an egg all sizzling in a dolsot, a hot stone pan which sits right on top of the stove. They bring the entire thing over, give you the not-to-be-missed bibimbap sauce and a couple of Korean side dishes. Get ready for an intense meal! We got our fix of sushi burrito with brown rice too from this place we have visited before, Xuan Asian. We also went to Sawmill Market which hosts a variety of restaurants in a pretty upscale building. They have an amazing matcha vendor, Plata Coffee, which always hosts a line and El Dora Craft Chocolate which carried that one bar with coconut sugar which turned out to even be loved by Hamza. Sawmill market does not have a lot to offer for a auto-immune/paleo-ish diet, but I was able to find a few things to tackle some of my cravings. Finally, we went to our first Iranian restaurant, Chello Grill, and had a burst of flavors from an ingredient profile I am not familiar with. I did not understand why the food was served in paper plates but otherwise it was a pleasant experience.

02 // Winter Skin

I love the winter. Really, every time I go to a chilly place, I enjoy walking the streets and find myself to be in the best of moods. This is my first time living in a place which boasts a pretty cold weather so I’ve been monitoring the changes in my skin and dealing with it pretty successfully so far, alhumdulillah. If you are searching for a super hydrating and moisturizing experience, this whipped body butter has been a gift, alhumdulillah. Both of us were experiencing extremely dry skin and this has saved us from further scratch marks. It was that bad! I have gotten a few things from different shops for my skin and I want to share with you those that I’ve fallen in love with: Blush Face mask and Face Serums, and Moringa Body Oils from Areesa Botanicals are an experience in themselves. The scent, the ingredients, everything is perfect. And my perfect facial mist search for after wudhu whenever my skin feels dry has been solved with Rose Glow Complexion Mist from Living Libations. The scent is incredible and it does exactly what its supposed to.

03 // Black Friday Traps + Thoughts

An interesting experience happened to us on our trip that I wanted to share with you. We had forgotten to bring a phone charger with us and being away for a few days with me being a blogger was making things pretty difficult with only a car charger. So upon seeing the store next to that sushi burrito place, we decided to venture in to get a wall charger and a cable. We had forgotten that it was Black Friday so we were rushed into an otherwise empty shop with a pretty enthusiastic employee who led us to where we wanted to be telling us about the Buy 3, Get 2 free deal. Honestly, everything went in a blur and we left with more items than we had originally planned, paying much more than I had thought we would be! Looking back it, here are a few things that went wrong:

We did not recite the dua to enter the market and I truly feel we would have had much better control of our impulses if we had.
There were no prices marked on the items (I know!) so we selected what we wanted and got a surprise at the end. SubhanAllah, I don’t know what we were thinking.
We were rushed, like really rushed. I remember asking the employee to allow us to see everything but she quickly came back and stayed with us, grabbing our items, telling us what will be free, and then we were off to the cashier. There was no one in the store so I still do not understand why we were rushed.

I think Black Fridays are a great opportunity to get the things you have been wanting/needing for a while. Like we got this wonderful price for this air fryer. If you plan well, save, and then get your items then it can be a great way to save. Why not save a little for the items on your wishlist, you know? The trouble comes in when you have not planned, when the email market is done a little too well and shaytan’s whisperings are equally as exciting. Memorize the dua to enter the marketplace so you are always ready for it, pray Istikhara before the big weekend especially if its a large purchase, and look inwards to realize if you are being swept away by a good email copy or whether it’s an item you will be using regularly.

As for us, we purchased food items that we regularly buy but now were deeply discounted for bulk, I got some journaling supplies from Archer and Olive as well as reduced skincare from Living Libations (hello complexion mist!).

We are going to be living in this era of highly consumerist society and Black Friday deals with the subsequent holiday sales are a staple in the western culture. It is best to prepare for it, handle our emotions better, take advantage of it and not be swept away by it

Read more to see some from photos from the ABQ Bio Park zoo visit that I’ve been thinking of fondly since then…