Hi friends,

 

I am writing you this while I enjoy a few hours to myself this Easter Sunday while my husband pampers the kids and their visiting cousins with a water park adventure. The Easter day routine this time is different, as we lost a dear family member earlier this year, and the family gathered last night instead of today. 

 

The past few days have been well spent attending Holy Week prayers at church and going out and about. We went to Dar Ne’meh restaurant, located in Amman Citadel, and I was happy with the food, the coffee (Bunni, of course! See the special offer in the notes below), and the gorgeous view of the old downtown and Citadel.

 

If you plan to go there, please note that you can’t reserve in advance, so make sure you go early or expect some waiting. It seems it is not usually busy, but we found it so because we went on the Labor Day holiday. For breakfast, we tried and loved (يلنجي، قلاية بندورة، فول مدمس، مفركة بطاطا، بطاطا حارة ,مناقيش زعتر). Dar Ne’meh has other branches in Amman, Ajloun, Jarash and Aqaba. Check them out here.

 

Today, I did not go with my husband and kids because I needed this alone time after our many family activities. I wanted to work on episode 69 of the podcast, which you will listen to tomorrow morning. It is the 12th weekly episode this year, so, as promised, the podcast is my focus for this half of the year (plus writing on my blog), and I am excited that I am more than halfway to achieving my goal of  20 episodes by the end of June.

 

Before I leave you to enjoy the rest of the Sunday Spark, I wish you would dedicate some time this week to do your fourth (or first!) monthly review of the year and plan the rest of this month. Your December 2024 self will thank you for it.

A snapshot from my week:

My mother's handmade crochet art for Easter shared last week, 

now placed on her creative Easter tree.

Here is your weekly dose of The Sunday Spark ⚡️ a newsletter listing 3 sparks that I thought were worth starting your week with: 

 

1. 🌳 From my desk: Have You Watered The Forest?

 

2. 📚 A book I recently finished and would like to recommend to you is High Energy Habits; here are my Kindle highlights on goodreads website. Do you follow me there? Goodreads is the best way to track the books you finished and check reviews of books you plan to read.

 

3. 💬 I loved the simplicity of the book's suggestions, such as this part from chapter 2, titled: Get Rid of The Little Things That Annoy You:

 

"What do I mean ‘those little things that annoy you’? Virtually anything that annoys you, such as the things listed below, which were all either suggested by my coaching clients or by people I know:

 

—Bill Ford, High Energy Habits

 

(Thank you Readwise for helping me find this quote. Readwise is my favorite app to recall favorite passages in books and articles I read and now they have a new product, Reader, which will make you forget about all the other read-it-later apps)

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you next Sunday First name / my dear friend

 

* Note: To the best of my ability, I am trying to share content by authors who have not disappointed me, and they are hard to come by! Please let me know if any author I share about was disrespectful to Palestine.