23 Weeks

 

- alhamdulillah, being vivid, strong and just feeling good, most of the time
- no more sickness or vomiting (nearly)
- still seeing the top of my toes
- feeling how the baby plays soccer
- loving how my little boys kiss my belly
- liking all food again
- being thankful for some friends who took vacation to come to help around the birth, inchaallah
- still not knowing if it is a boy or a girl
- having first littlest contractions
- taking opportunity of the last few weeks being allowed to travel by airplane…

… I am off for the weekend, see you next week friends, inchaallah;
asalamou alaikoum and happy Friday!

(post inspired by Meg)

Sewing Progress

 

I did it!
alhamdulillah, I managed to sew two really nice bags by following the great tutorial from Melissa of Tiny Happy (one of my daily reads)

And I also took her girl’s wrap dress pattern and transformed it into a maternity dress with my first self-made bias tape!!!

Subhanallah, I am really happy with the outcome and so I took the flowing opportunity and even changed some clothes into baby-belly-fitting-mother-to-be-trousers/skirt by simply cutting out the buttons and zippers and adding some stretching fabric.

Now I am having a whole new city-wardrobe for the upcoming months… thanks God!
and thank you Melissa for those great ideas!

 

A Berber Woman’s Winter Day

Recently I was honoured to be asked by some of my dear readers to tell more about a Muslim woman’s life, about her role, preconceptions others have on it and about the reality of reverted and natural born Muslimahs.
I don’t think that it is right to generalize, so I can only picture glimpses of my view, of my personal impression and experiences and of my own thoughts.
 
On this blog of mine you see parts of my life as a Muslimah:
I was blessed to be guided to Islam at the age of 24; so I lived a big part of my life as a Christian western girl before. Since then my whole being has totally changed, alhamdulillah, and what I am living now is a very individual mixture of several ways of life, influenced by my rich past, by the exceptional reality of having settled into a traditional rural area and being guided by a strong desire to attain taqwa (God consciousness) and to become a true servant, a true believer in Allah, inchaallah.
 
I don’t think that my personal life can be taken as a general example of “the life of a Muslimah”, and so I find it quiet difficult to make statements about “the Muslim woman”. I think everyone lives her own experiences, has her own thoughts, dreams and problems and sees the world from a very personal view: the reverted- or the natural-born-Muslimah, the young or the old, the rural- or the city-Muslimah… everyone has her own background and her own future to live.

 
 

That’s why I decided first to picture the every day life of a Berber Muslim woman of the special area I am living in; of the women I have lived and shared my life with for more than a year before I moved into my own house; of friends and neighbours who nearly all live a very similar traditional life, dependant on nature’s seasons and dedicated to Allah. They all are lovely, great and strong women, born Muslimah’s, most of them illiterate but proud to be mothers and housewives and masters in their chores and tasks.
 
Here you go with their daily winter schedule:
(it surely differs a little from family to family and if there are children they mostly live a bit “beside” playing outside, going to school and helping with the chores):

07.30 a.m.: waking up with the sun, heating up water for a quick wash in the kitchen (bathrooms are rare), praying Fajr and then preparing the dough for bread and more water for the breakfast-tea.
08.30 a.m.: feeding the cows and sheep and baking the bread.
09.30 a.m.: taking breakfast (sweet green tea, bread and olive oil), brushing the courtyard, cleaning the rooms and sweeping floors. Eventually getting water from the well (not all the families do have fluent water at home yet).
10.30 a.m.: preparing the lunch “Tagine”; cutting vegetables and putting them together with little meat into the so called pyramided pottery to cook for about 2.5h (Fridays-lunch is Couscous).
11.00 a.m.: washing laundry by hand at the river with other women or at home and hanging it to dry over trees and bushes into the sun.
13.00 a.m.: praying Dhour and serving lunch; this is normally eaten together as a family but gender-separated if there are visitors.
14.00 p.m.: washing up and cleaning the kitchen before sitting into the warm sun, sort out wheat or doing some craftwork such as carding wool or weaving rugs.
16.00 p.m.: praying Asr and then making some snack with milk coffee, bread and oil.
16.30 p.m.: feeding again the animals and putting them into their stables.
17.00 p.m.: watching television (which is quiet new; electricity is available here since only 6 years). Most women love to watch cookery-shows or Mexican telenovelas but also religious programmes.
18.00 p.m.: praying Maghrib and preparing dinner (mostly Couscous or soup).
19.00 p.m.: sitting together in the living-room (salon) as a family, watching TV, doing crafts (often crocheting) and playing with the kids while waiting for the meal.
20.00 p.m.: eating dinner while the TV still is on.
20.30 p.m.: cleaning up the kitchen and praying ‘Isha after a little evening wash.
21.00 p.m.: watching news and preparing beds with lots of blankets. Most of the family members do not have their own rooms and sleep on mattresses in the salon.
22.00 p.m. good night!  

 
 

Simply Breakfast and a Quote

“Whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day should be hospitable to his guests; whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day should not trouble his neighbor; and whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day should either speak what is good or remain silent.”
 
(Bukhari, Muslim)

Felted Pebbles

 
 

Felted Pebbles – Tutorial

this is a felting method which is great to be done on these cold grey inside winter days even with your smallest kids.
Don’t fear a mess or wet clothes; you will have a lot of fun, a sensory perception and a good learning experience with the soft wool and the warm water.
Best place to do it is the kitchen counter or somewhere you don’t have to care about wet floors and tables…

You will need:
pebbles (take the round ones with smooth edges)
soft wool in different colors (Märchenwolle)
warm water (as warm as possible, but still comfortable for your hands)

Soap (hard or liquid one, I think olive soap is good for the skin)
a tray
a bowl
towels beside and probably a waterproof kids-apron

Method:
place all the needed things around you and put the tray in front of the working kids and yourself.
Now take a pebble in one hand and place it on some wool. You do not need a lot of wool, just enough to cover the whole stone until no more of its surface is seen (pic.1). Take some more wool (a different color) and put some design around (pic.2).
Then take with your free hand some water and sprinkle it over the woolen stone. Take some soap and again some water in your hand and turn now the pebble in both of your hand just like you turn a snowball into shape. Be careful not to touch too hard, but to work all the sides with same pressure. You will feel how the wool begins to shrink because of the warm water and how the soap helps to make the whole process smooth and better working (pic.3).
Continue like this and always make sure to add enough warm water and soap. The more you work like this the smaller, harder and nearer to the pebble the wool surface gets. Make sure that the second color sticks well on the first and that they build one cover together. Work on by always taking fresh warm water and soap until you feel that the pebble is hard surrounded by the wool and the surface is solid (pic.4). This takes about 5-10 minutes, depending on how big the pebble is and how well the shrinking qualities of your wool are.

Then take the pebble and wash it under cold clean water and put it somewhere to dry.
 
If you are working some stones like this, they will give a very nice decoration and bigger pebbles even work well as weight-downs for letters or to hold open doors and windows.
 
The smallest children will not be able to finish a perfect product, but the whole process of sensitive work with these different materials will give them joy and fulfill their senses.

Enjoy and have a blessed Friday!

 
 

Today

 
 

Today, I planned to post a felting tutorial, but since the weather outside is so nice with all the white and the sun I decided to leave the creativity until tomorrow and to show you some nature beauty instead.
Subhanallah, how beautiful the icicles and the untouched glittering snow is.
It means a lot of work to clean the flat roofs, but it also means a lot of fun to play in the white winter wonderland…
Happy Thursday to you!

 

Ten things…

 
 
 
 
 

Subhanallah, ten things I am enormously thankful for, right now…

 

-          Having daddy/hubby with us at home, alhamdulillah!!

-          My faith and religion that gives me inner stability and leading support whatever happens, inchaallah

-          Watching snow falls and the warm feeling it brings while sitting inside

-          Our cosy house with the warm little places beside the fire, the comfort and peace it gives and the blessing of having a home in general

-          Inside plays, creativity, discovering, learning and being together as a family

-          Sewing-me-time and some sweets beside

-          As always: warm tea and good comfort food

-          Fluent warm water and a hot shower (at least for one day, because today tubes are already frozen again…)

-          The gift I won on Linneanongrata’s blog which just arrived: a beautiful card and two beautifully sewed bags with some of her illustration, so sweet!! Thank you Julia!

-          The new years gift package from my parents, with loads of cakes, toys, tea, books, and lot of more blessings inside. What a pleasure to see the kid’s shining eyes while opening it… Thanks to my lovely family in Germany!

 

Thanks God for these beautiful moments to live! Allahu akbar!

 

Wishing you too a great mid-weeks-day!

 

Review – From my sisters’ lips

Last year I began my blogging-career on myminaret.com . Unfortunately they had several server problems and I had to change the provider. My old blog still exists, but all the pictures are gone. I really liked some of my posts there, so I decided to do a little review from time to time here.
I wanna start this repeat with a post about a really good book I read.

Na’ima B. Robert “From my sisters’ lips – An extremely though-provoking book that challenges Western preconceptions of Islamic women”

 

“Covered from head to toe, with only her eyes visible, the sight of a Muslim woman on a western city street rarely fails to provoke a strong reaction. Feelings of shock, horror, repulsion, or even fear, are not uncommon. But have you ever wondered who it is behind the veil, what her life is really like and how her hopes and aspirations differ from yours?

In “From my sisters’ lips” Na’ima Robert recounts the compelling story of her conversion to Islam and offers first-hand accounts of just some of the extraordinary women she has come to know in recent years – women like herself who have chosen to live as Muslims. What emerges is a vivid and intimate portrait of a sisterhood. As they speak candidly on diverse subjects ranging from marriage to motherhood, stereotypes, submission, and slef-image, we hear the strong, proud voices of those who are seldom heard.“

 

ISBN 978-0-553-81717-1 , published in the UK by Bantam Books

 

This is masha’allah, a great book I recently read. The sister describes very well all the feelings, the joy, the questions, the peace and the trouble that comes with one’s conversion to Islam.
She perfectly explains the beauty and the basics of the religion, she gives wonderful examples out of her private life and let speak some other sisters in their own words. And she isn’t afraid of making clear personal statements about some taboo-themes, such as polygamy, covering the face, men-women relationships, etc.

It is a refreshing, impressing book which I highly recommend to both, Muslims and non-Muslims as well. I wished it wouldn’t have finished so quick, I could read more and more about…

May Allah reward the sister for all the efforts she did and may He accept her good deeds.

Sweet Push

 

I thought it probably might be helpful for some of you to get the cake recipe which saved my last weekend…
I know weather is almost everywhere very cold, grey and cloudy these days, so maybe you need some sweet push up, too.

Here is my favourite cake recipe, because it is so quick and easy to do and so variable and cheap with the ingredients.

The Magic Vegan Cake

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ cup vegetable oil

1 ½- 2 cups cold water

2 teaspoons white vinegar

 

And something for the taste, such as:
3 tablespoons cocoa powder or
3 teaspoons cinnamon or

3 teaspoons Christmas spice (clove, anis, etc.) or

Orange peel or

Grated chocolate or
some fruits or

What you like …

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
Add the liquid ingredients and stir all together with a fork.
What I really love about this cake is the lack of eggs… you can nearly eat as much of the batter as you want without fearing salmonella…
Pour all into a greased cake pan and bake in preheated oven on 180°C for about 30 min. until a knife, when inserted, comes out clean.

Enjoy with a cup of hot chocolate and some crafting!!!

Blessed weekend to you!

 

Corners of my home – the House

  
  

… Finally a new post about the corners of my home…
today I wanna show you the outside of our house, not the inside; the making of a “mud hut”, the beautiful façade and the different views.
We built our house with the earth and the soil on which it is placed. In a really traditional stamp/pound technique: just by adding water and without any modern machines.
It is built without electricity-use, all just by men-power and with the work of human hands.
The roof is made of wood, grass and an earth cover; it is flat and may be used as a terrace. The walls are decorated with old Berber signs and ornaments from the South.
 
I love this building art, it fits so well into the nature around, it is entirely recyclable and the mud houses’ climate is very healthy, the walls even protect against radiation and electric waves.  
I am fighting for this technique’s survival and with my former university we are even trying to find new solutions to optimize the sealing and the comfort of the beautiful Berber “Tighremt” to convince the people about its advantages over concrete buildings.

Subhan’allah, I really think the closer to nature, the better things are…