100 things…

I haven’t blogged for a couple of months as some of you have noticed; haven’t been feeling too good so have been resting up and well… feeling sorry for myself.

I saw this ‘100 things’ thing on Ammena’s blog today and thought it would be just the thing I need to ease me back into blogging gently.   Those things highlighted in red I have done and those left black, I have not.

1. Started your own blog (obviously)
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumping
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables (grew some lettuces when I was kid!)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa (North Africa… Algeria)
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia (Visited Moscow and other places when Russia was still a Soviet Republic – also visited Kazakstan and Uzbekstan)
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (*Gulp* Nope… I am even putting off having a blood test I need because I am so scared of needles!)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favourite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar (*Yuck* by the way)
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone (My big toe!)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle (Brilliant… exhilerating!)
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem (Too many years ago to mention and it was the best trip of my life)
84. Had your picture in the newspaper (local!)
85. Read the entire Qur’an
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby (several)
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

And I think there are only 3 things on the list that I have not done that I would like to. Either I am unadventurous or I have done a lot of stuff! They are: 4, 56, 68.

L_Oman’s ‘GAME OF TAG’!

 L_Oman is asking the following question on her blog: “Am I the only blogger out there that sometimes thinks of other bloggers?” She’s also asking if it is even healthy to wonder about our fellow bloggers… in answer to that, probably not but nevertheless I do!

So she came up with a new meme to keep us occupied and it is as follows:

I’m gonna tag all you guys and start up my own little game of tag. Post at least five blogs that you read and tell us what you wonder about with them! And that goes for everyone else not listed too

I wonder when Ammena is going to get on and tell her mum everything that needs to be said (about Islam, being engaged…)

I wonder why Itto’s comments on my blog always end up in spam and spam doesn’t find it’s way to spam. I also wonder how it is living in such a beautiful place as the Moroccan Atlas and if she ever misses Germany.

I wonder how our Kate manages to do such a fab job with her family masha’Allah Tabaarak Allah ~ homeschooling her brood, doing fab arty projects with the kids, knitting, crocheting and stitching things for the family and cooking yummy things! I also wonder when the time will be right for her hijra and pray that Allah allows it to be soon.

Like L_Oman, I also think of AlAjnabiya often. I too wonder about her safety and how an American Muslimah managed to adapt to life in the West Bank and am totally in awe of her.

I wonder where Farhana gets all her inspiration, imagination, time and ‘oomph’ for all the amazing fundraising projects she has on her blog. Kudos to you sister!

Ramadan Crafting

A huge thank you to SeekingTaqwa for being my muse and never failing to inspire me whether in the kitchen or with craft activities! I really need to find a way of learning how to crochet though…

Today I finally made the time to sit down with the children and do some messy Ramadan crafting – we made cards and the Ramadan calendar which can be seen on her blog.

Here is our effort:

 

It is huge and is taking up pride of place on the first wall you see as you enter the lounge – really brightens up the place and all that gold glitter gives a special, Ramadany touch.

We are all feeling happy with our effort but now, off to vaccuum!

My first…

Copying the idea from Biscuitinabasket , a blog I discovered when doing a bit of ‘tag surfing’.

My first school… The Wyvern Infants School. I still remember my first day and seeing a huge collage on the wall of cows.

My first time in hospital… when I had my adenoids removed at the age of 6

My first overseas holiday… to South of France on a camping holiday with my mum after my parents divorced. We had the best time!

My first job… working in Quick hamburger restaurant on Saturdays at the tender age of 15.

My first car… when I was 18, it was a 1981 red Ford Fiesta

My first time in a mosque… July 1992 I went to Palestine just before I had completely accepted Islam; I visited the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem but sadly did not know how to pray at that time.

My first salah… in my uni room sometime towards the end of 1992… it felt so good putting on my hijab and doing sajdah to Allah swt that I couldn’t wait for the next prayer time to come around; I didn’t know you could do nafl (voluntary) prayer at almost any time.

My first Ramadan… 1993 in Wales. It was wonderful.

My first time living overseas… in 1993 I had to spend a year in France as part of my degree. Was newly married and missed hubby terribly!

My first baby… my daughter was born when I was 22

My first umra… April 2004 and I did Tawaf and Sa’y carrying my 3 month old baby son in a baby sling. He was good as gold masha’Allah.

Anyone else care to share some ‘firsts’?

Da list

Inspired by ‘Da List’ on Ammena’s blog who was in turn inspired by Molly, I have decided to make my list of things I would and would not miss in the event of leaving Saudi Arabia.

Things I’ll miss and not miss when we finally leave Saudi Arabia. Things in green I will miss, things in red I most certainly will NOT miss!

1. Adhan!
The shops staying closed for over half an hour for every prayer and the shops being closed between zuhr and asr which is generally 4 hours.

2. Going out shopping or for any other activity and having a mosque or prayer room in the vicinity
Having to rush and go to the mall in the morning if I want to go anywhere apart from the supermarket as the mall shops will be closed between zuhr and asr and then it will be really hectic in the evening especially after isha.

3. Going out in Abaya/hijab/niqab and feeling just like everyone else, not different
Being stared at when I start to speak to my children because I look like everyone else but don’t sound like everyone else.
My pretty, hijab-wearing 12 year old being gawped at by perverted weirdos.

4. Living on a compound where the children can go out and play freely
Having to listen to moronic, bigoted compound politics… well actually I just try to stay out of the way and ignore it as much as possible

5. Having a decent sized, spacious home
Trying to clean it!

6. Halal food everywhere, not worry about pork or alcohol
Nothing not to miss here!

7. Going out to eat where everything is halal and no bar in sight
Again nothing not to miss! Actually… having to get into the restaurant right after isha prayer before the restaurant really fills up

8. Being able to do exciting things like driving to Makkah, Madinah or UAE
Having to leave all the driving to dh and some of our trip within KSA are approaching 1000KM which is a LOT for one person.

9. Being in the close vicinity of other countries like Oman, Yemen, UAE, Qatar and Bahrain
Having to get a stupid exit-reentry visa every time we want to leave the country so unless we have a 6 month exit-reentry there can be no spontaneous, “Hey! Let’s go to Bahrain!” We decided at last minute to go to Al-Khobar recently and would’ve loved to drive that little bit further to Qatar or Bahrain but… no exit-reentry visa!

10. Having to rely on taxi drivers who seem to speak no known language fluently and getting stranded at some location for a period of time while I try to rearrange return transport due to misunderstandings. Grrr!
Where’s the positive for that?!

11. The sales – they really are fab here! Bargains galore and sadly enough, am very much looking forward to getting back from Algeria to browse the sales in August!
Nothing not to miss about that is there?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few additions from my two eldest daughters.

DD2 (10) says, “I will NOT miss:

• The stupid maniacs who crash everyday
• The people who do that annoying gesture and go “shway shway
• How only men can work in malls and supermarkets and women can’t
• Having to get the school bus to school every day.”

DD1 (12) says, “Things I WILL miss:

• My friends
• Compound – having freedom
• People wearing abayas and being fully covered
• My school
• The fact there is a swimming pool, shop, recreation centre two minutes away from home
• The sun

Tagged: Six Word Memoir

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Thanks for the tag American Muslima Writer! It was a hard one!

The Rules:
1. Write your own six word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post
4. Tag six more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Perpetually Run Ragged By Crazy Kids!

I tag:

Al Ajnabiya

Amina

Ammena

Sonya

Umm Hibaat

Ummihabibati (aka Rainbow in the Grey Sky)

Trying to get mummsie

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I haven’t been on the internet so much lately, partly because I have been finding it so slow and frustrating and partly because I have been enjoying getting more mummsie around the house and with my kids! OK, so even after 15 years of marriage and 5 kids this doesn’t always come naturally so I am happy with progress!

Have turned into a baking queen what with cakes and bread and trying to make healthy snacks. These Focaccia plaits filled with tinned tuna, hard boiled eggs and cheese were among yesterday’s offerings:

Today I thought the kids would enjoy trying to make microwave meringues; something I remember doing when I was kid (yuh… many years ago! ha ha!). They didn’t turn out quite as superb as I hoped, however there really was instant gratification for the kids. They crowded around the microwave, excitedly watching the tiny balls of mixture puff and rise into comparatively huge meringues! The next fun part was melting chocolate, chopping strawberries and whisking cream with which to decorate the pink, sugary mounds we had created. We served the meringues with a healthy strawberry and banana smoothie. Yummm!

Now with all this mummsie-ness going on, it can be a bit difficult having a 4 year old and 1 year around my feet wanting to ‘help’. A few days ago, I got creative once again and made playdough -whoo hoo! Simple recipe, wonderful results.

All you need is:
1 cup plain flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 tablespoon oil
few drops of food colouring of your choice
*Even add glitter to make some really fun playdough

Throw all ingredients into a pan and heat gently and stir until you have a dough starting to come together. When you can stir no more, turn out onto a floured board and tentatively (so as not to burn your hands) begin to kneed into a soft malleable dough. When it has sufficiently cooled, hand over to the kids!

They start off rolling…

Cutting out shapes and making cute patterns… (This is 7 year old daughter’s effort)

After a while 4 year old son started investigating the drawers for more ‘tools’ and discovered the garlic press…. yum, worms! (Or was is spaghetti?!)

Free Rice

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Please try this fun website: Free Rice which is the sister site of Poverty.com.

You will be given a word and a choice of 4 definitions… choose the definition which most closely fits the given word. For each correct word, 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. You can play for as long as you like and as often as you wish so there will be the added benefit of improving your vocabulary. There are 55 vocabulary levels although the website says that 48 is normally the highest level attained… I have managed to reached level 46 (without cheating).

It’s a cool website that really does donate rice to the UN program and this is achieved through advertising revenue. Read more in the site FAQ.

Have fun and let me know how you do!

A modern retelling of an old tale

My 10 year old had to make a poem of a traditional story for her homework. She chose Rumpelstiltskin and we worked on it together. The following is what we came up with. Quite a formidable duo we make, methinks! LOL

RUMPELSTILTSKIN

Once a miller boasted to the king,
That his daughter could make gold in a ding,
All she’d need was plenty of straw,
In order to give him gold galore!

The king was rich and far from needy,
But alas he became much too greedy,
“Gold!” he drooled, “And lots of it!”
I could even have a golden throne on which to sit.”

He filled a room with straw, and in he pushed the girl,
“Hurry and spin by morning, so go on, give it a twirl!”
Desperate, the poor girl sat and wept,
When suddenly, in a little man crept.

“Aye, aye,” said he, “You look like you’ve had a fright.”
Weeping, she told the man of her plight.
He agreed to help, they struck a deal,
Then at once he got spinning at the wheel.

In the morning, the king came in,
“Ahh, I see, you spun it in the night within!”
He was happy to see the room filled with gold
But thought, “I need much more since I am getting old.”

He gave her still more straw to spin into gold.
Again the little man came to her and thought , “This is getting old!”
They made a deal; “I’ll spin the straw but if you and the king should marry,
I want your firstborn child, but just don’t call him Harry!”

The straw was spun, the girl and king were wed,
In time she forgot the promise she’d made,
And soon she was blessed with her very own child,
The man reappeared looking quite wild.

“You must keep your promise and give me what’s mine,
Unless,” said he, “You can guess my name then it’s fine!
If you guess my name in the next three nights,
Then keep your baby and there’ll be no fights.”

She guessed and guessed, “Charlie? Bob? Dave?”
Each time he said, “No way, that’s not it. Behave!”
A messenger helped her and gave her a clue,
She knew it was right and knew what to do.

The last day came and she said, “Pot Belly? Cherry bun?”
Until, she said, “Perhaps RUMPELSTILTSKIN is the one?!”
He shouted in fury and went quite red. “You cheated!”
He spun and spun right through the floor and was defeated.

THE END