To my Mother

To me (and I am sure to a lot of you) my Mom has been a major influence in my life. My mother to me is my hero. She raised my sister and I all by herself with just $400 a month back in the mid 80's. I am still trying to figure how how she did that without going nuts! While surfing the net I found a poem called "Then which of the favors of your Lord will your deny?" It is a poem from a loving son to a mother. Unfortunately the web page where I found this did not say who the author was. If anyone knows please let me know. I thought I would share it with you all. Mom I dedicate this poem to you!

Yet how often we deny the greatest of favors that the Bestower has granted us. This favor, in the form of a woman……
A woman who carried us within her for almost a whole year of her short life in this world, bearing every hardship and discomfort to protect and nurture our frail being as the Fashioner gently prepared us to come into this worldly realm….
A woman who braved death's door, embracing pain unimaginable to even the most stalwart of warriors, that our tiny form may chance to take its first breath, open its eyes to the light of a new home, and feel her warm, soft caress, as she forgets all that she went through, to make comfortable our awakening into a new world….
A woman who had forsaken rest, slumber, and dreams for far too many nights; to rise instead, and answer the pitiful wail of a helpless creature that always new she would be there to answer its plaintive cry, even as the whole world slumbered on into the dead of the night……
A woman who bore weakness to give forth from her being, a pure and heavenly nectar to nourish our growing bodies and our thirsty souls with sustenance to define our humanity ever onward……
A woman who watered and pruned our character with all the patience and care of a master gardener turning a wild shrub into a beautiful tree…….
A woman who was always there for us, no matter how many backs were turned to us, no matter how many doors closed in our face, to give us a shoulder to cry on, an ear to heed our complaint, a comforting bosom to embrace when there was no other…….
A woman who, even after all of our blunders, all of our impudence, all of our ungrateful gestures and insolent remarks, will not hesitate to say I forgive you when no one else in the world will….
A woman who we call Mother.
If we only knew her lofty station in the sight of He whose mercy is endless, a single portion of which He showered upon the world and it manifested itself as the undying compassion of the mother to her child.
"THEN WHICH OF THE FAVORS OF YOUR LORD DO YOU DENY?"
To deny is to show ingratitude. To show ingratitude is to lose one's blessings……like sand flowing through one's fingers.
To show ingratitude to the all Merciful is to show ingratitude to the means He creates out of His endless mercy. WHAT OF THE MEANS WHICH BROUGHT US INTO THE WORLD?
If one's mother is alive, then cry out of thankfulness to Allah, go to her, sit at her feet, kiss her on the forehead, look her in the eyes and tell her how blessed you are for someone like her……
Tell her how much you love her…..

"Paradise is under the feet of the mother…."
From a loving son

FORECLOSURE NIGHTMARE

Forclosures in the United States is a major issue! Since I live in Arizona this info is specifically for AZ residents. However I have listed a few links where you might find help. Arizona is one of the hardest hit states when it come to foreclosures. According to http://www.defaultresearch.com/, home foreclosures in Phoenix and Tucson increased by 158 percent last year. Although it is going to take some time for the market to recover there are things you can do to determine wether you are headed towards disaster. I went online to http://www.azforeclosureprevention.org/ and found a great work book that gives you step by step instructions on what to do.{you will need an Adobe reader to open the workbook} Starting with how to determine if you are headed to having your home forclosed on to how to rebuild after foreclosure. There are 50 pages in this workbook but it is well worth the time if you want to keep your home. Remember you HAVE options do not dispair. I wish I could have had this info about a year ago. I am currently dealing with Bank of America to modify my loan. It is a long and tidious process that could have been avoided if I would have had this workbook. I can also E-mail you the workbook just E-mail me at monumental13@live.com and let me know. As promised, below are other links that might help. If you know anyone that can use this info please pass it on.

www.hud.com/foreclosure

http://www.995hope.org/

What a bloggy mess!

Wow! What did I get myself into?! A few weeks ago I decided to start a blog. I decided to do this without having a lot of knowledge on how to start one or anything. However in the last week I have learned so much about blogs that it can be overwhelming at times. I mean you have to figure out your layout for your page, your fonts, your colors. There are so many options to those elements alone that making those simple choices could take you hours! Then there is the question of what kind of widgets do you want? Do you want your Twitter updates displayed? do you want your YOUTUBE channel displayed? What about your MySpace link? There now you have just blown your whole day and you are still not done. So many options so little time. Thank god for websites like YOUTUBE and EHOW. These were sites that helped me out a lot on things like how to set up RSS feeds and on how to get the RSS feed to update your Tweeter account when ever you post a new blog. Like this one. I was also lucky enough to have other bloggers help me out with annoying questions of a newbie. Man, had I not had all of these resources I probably would have quit a long time ago. Overall I am having fun learning all of these new terms and HTML codes. It is pretty interesting. I have so many ideas to write about that my mind is going in all directions. However I don't want it to come of as scripted. Too much of that already on the net. Blogging so far has been a great learning experience and I look forward to more blogs in the future. I welcome any suggestions you might have so please leave me a comment. Thanks and Keep blogging!

I love L.A.!

Hi My name is Monumental13! This is my first blog ever so please bare with me.


I grew up in Los Angeles and sometimes it sucked but for the most part I loved it. I loved the fact that if you are hungry all you have to do is step outside and there are about 50 restaurants from Chinese to Salvadoran to Armenian. Anything you want seems to be at the tip of your fingertips. I really miss that. I live in Avondale Arizona about 30 minutes from Phoenix. Unfortunately you don't have that diversity here. More than anything I miss the cultural diversity. I miss the variety of museums and plays you could see at any given time. One of my favorite events in Los Angeles is the Shakespeare Festival. I remember seeing "Caesar" on the steps of City Hall. It was awesome! There are so many beautiful places in L.A. that I love going to everytime I go back home. Griffith Observatory comes to mind as well as Venice Beach. The smell of the pine trees, the smell of the salty air you can not compare it to anything else. It is very unique to Los Angeles. However nothing beats coming home to family and a warm embrace from those who have always been there for you. That is why I am looking forward to going back home to Los Angeles this weekend! I will always be an Angelino no matter where I may be. I love L.A.!!!!