Cheers!

 

Hello Monday – salam friends!

alhamdulillah, we feel a bit better after a quiet, relaxing weekend staying at home, playing around, reading, crafting and watching DVDs ( I think I have never seen “Bob the Builder” that often before…).
Our cough is still strong but mentally I feel much stronger already.

And I wanna give myself credits today for how I managed the whole last week; being sick and pregnant with two little kids having a cold too; still in time of grief and sorrow; bad weather outside and no help around… but still able to take loving care of the children, to play with them, to learn with them to be with them, to cook healthy meals, to keep the house tidy, to be good to my belly, to manage a whole household without burying my head in the sand – alhamdulillah, thanks Allah for the power He gave me – wow, I am impressed!!
 
I don’t want to show off and I normally tend to be a very self-critic person, but I think sometimes we all need to admire and appreciate what we accomplish every day, to give ourselves credits for all the efforts and work we do as (stay-at-home-) moms, to boost our self-esteem and to pay ourselves the respect we deserve.

Cheers to all mothers! Let’s be kind to ourselves, let’s reward ourselves with a bit more self-respect and things that feel good (may it be a bite of chocolate; closing the door for a few quiet minutes with a cup of tea; a warm bath or an evening without kids but with only our husband …)!

A few weeks ago I was honoured by Umm Hibaat with the “Mom of the Year” –award on her blog. I wasn’t that sure if I deserve it, but today I am – I think we all do!

And so I wanna go on with this and begin the week with a celebration of all the great moms we are!

Here are the Rules

1. Admit one thing you feel awful about (involving being a mom). Once you have written it down, you are no longer allowed to feel bad. Remember you are a good mom!

2. Remind yourself that you ARE a good mom, list 7 things you love about your kids, you love doing with your kids, or that your kids love about you.

3. Send this to 5 other moms of the year that deserve a reminder that they too are the best moms that they can be. Remember to send them a note letting them know you have selected them, and also add a link to your post that directs people back to the person who nominated you!

And here are my answers:

1.
I yell much too much at my kids. Astafirgullah, may I get the inner mercy and patience to stay calmer sometimes…

2.
Subhanallah, I love the gratitude they show, the kisses they give me and the “Mom, I love you” they say so often even just like this.

I love to see them constantly growing, to be able to recognize every learning-process they do, to follow their changing interests and to share every day with them from morning to evening.

I love their never-ending curiosity, their natural seek for knowledge and their innocent belief in one God. I love what I can learn from them.

I love to see them sleeping near to me, full of peace and beauty, tbarakallah. 

They love when I just follow their ideas, being their facilitator to realize some new projects and to help them making whatever comes to their minds.  

I love to hug and cuddle them, to feel their little hands in my face, to smell their breath and to touch their little bodies.

I love being a mom; it changed my whole life, my whole personality. I am thankful for that gift and that responsibility and even though that it is hard sometimes and a never ending, sometimes hurtful learning process of myself, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Alhamdulillah!

3.
I wanna reward my own Mom, may Allah give her strength and inner peace now after my sister’s death.

And YOU ALL out there – blogging or not – I wanna tag you all for the wonderful job you do!! May Allah reward you all with great kids in this world and paradise in the hereafter. Amen.  

And now I am off for some sweets and tea, a good read and a smile towards myself into the mirror…

Just complaining a bit…

…astafirghullah, we do not feel very well at the moment. Dad is gone to work again after a beautiful weekend together and that always makes us sad and unhappy in the first few days after he left. In addition we all have got a cold with headaches, sore throat and weakness. I could cry all the time, mashaallah…
So we stay at home now, take natural medicine and try to fill the time with some crafting, drinking tea and eating cake.

See you soon friends and hope you feel better than we do!

 
 

Review – A cup of Tea with my Lord

Last year I wrote an article inspired by this post on The Imam’s Daughters Blog. I wanted to remind myself and you about the beauty and blessings of the first fresh morning hours. I know myself how hard it sometimes is to wake up before the sun, especially when the bed is so warm and cosy and lifting the blanket feels just urgh…
But don’t give Shaitan (Satan) a chance (audhu billahi), let the leaving angels of the night witness your sincere worship, let’s wake up with the new day and begin it with remembrance of our Lord.
It feels so much better to begin the day during the first hours of morning, there is so much blessing within seeing the sun rising up and listening to the birds first songs, and being awaken long before the little ones has its own beauty too:

 

- Wake up with the call to Morning Prayer (al-Fajr, approximately an hour and half before sunrise, see here for your city: www.islamicfinder.org ).
- Make Wudu (obligatory washing before the prayer).
- Put some water to boil.
- Pray Fajr.
- Put your favourite tea into a mug and pour water over it.
- Read one page of the Qur’an or another religious book while your tea steeps.
- Drink your tea while reading and reflecting on the translation/tafseer or the pages of the book.
- Pick out some topics to discuss with your kids during the upcoming day and enjoy the calm before busy family life begins…  

Blessed week to you friends!

 

Hello Spring – Good bye Winter!

 
 

Subhanallah it is officially springtime now!

I do like winter a lot but I really love the changing of all the seasons, to be blessed with four different types of nature every year, to celebrate this beauty and to pay gratitude for Allah’s creature.

In our garden first flowers blossom and we cleaned together the house (I have to admit that I am not very patient with this, I am really struggling to stay calm when the kids turn the whole living room in a swimming pool…).
So now it is time to also change and clean our lifestyle a bit.
Last year I found a very interesting article in the second issue of the www.sisters-magazine.com . It was called “How to Spring-clean your Life”. I liked how the writer not only talked about how to clean the dust and clutter but also our daily lives and relationships. These are the main topics to clean in our lives:

1. Become a grateful servant of Allah, be grateful for His blessings and make you see your life with new eyes.

2. Get to know your Deen (Islamic way of life) again. Get avoid of routine, try to perfect your current acts of worship and to learn and establish new Islamic manners.

3. Guard your time in the best way, use it effectively. Schedule it wisely and incorporate more acts of worship.

4. Cultivate your marriage relationship, give freely of your love, time and energy and aim to be the wife who is the coolness of her husband’s eyes, all for the sake of Allah.

5. Cherish your little ones. Remember how much you really love them and how you wouldn’t change them for the world –They are only young once: enjoy them while you can.

6. Reach out to family. Write a letter to your brother, send your dad a gift, and invite your sister-in-law for lunches…try to strengthen theses family-relationships.

7. Tend your friendships. Take the time to look at the state of your friendships, try to keep better contact and address any problems that have arisen.

8. Do some good. Do things that focuses your attention on others for the sake of Allah will boost your Iman (faith) and make you feel better about yourself and your life.

So welcome spring! And winter, see you in nine months, inchaallah!

 
 

 

Felting update

It is nearly a year ago when I began the felting project in our village here.

For all those of you who do not know how all began, I’ll post my introduction from last year again here: 

“I am happy and proud to tell you about a new social project here in our valley:

We are building up a Berber Women’s Wool Cooperative, specialised in felted products.

Since three months I am working with a bunch of girls from the village to teach them how to felt, how to dye wool naturally, how to create good designed products and how to run a business on their own. We are in the very beginning, but I am really thankful and excited about their motivation and the innocent sense of creativity they have. Masha’allah, it is so fulfilling to have the chance to work with them and I learn so much myself, too.

So we build up, little by little, by the will of God, a cooperative with a sustainable spirit to encourage the women’s independence and to ensure their own income.

Here are some of our first products and the work in progress…”

 
And now, a year later, I can give you some updates:
We worked very well last year, alhamdulillah, every week we tried out something new and we even sold some of the products, so in the end every girl earned a bit of money.
Since November we are not working because weather is too cold. The girls are preparing some wool at home but not a lot. I realize that for them the working process itself is enough: they love to meet, to be creative and to have fun together. But all the responsibilities and sacrifice a real established business-cooperative would ask for is quiet too much for them and they are not interested in working hard for earning a lot of money.
So we decided soon to continue as before, to meet independently and voluntarily, to enjoy the process itself and to leave all in an open frame, like a weekly woman’s meeting group.

I am more than happy with the decision because with soon to be three children I will not have the same amount of free time and energy any more and I do not want to be the pusher and manager of such a business. I am more than happy to meet freely with them, to share a bit of my creativity, to have contact with the people and to help them to sell every now and then some of the felted products to some of our guest or tourists around.

So, alhamdulillah, I am looking forward to the new season, to some new inspiration and new meetings with these amazingly vivid and happy young girls, and I will give you report as soon as we begin, inchaallah.
Blessed Friday to you!

 
 

Simply breakfast and a Quote

Moroccan Tea, cheese, olive oil and bread

”And they were not commanded except with this: that they should worship Allah alone, being completely sincere in the Deen (=Islamic way of life)” (98:5)

30 weeks

 
 

… feeling rose because the doctor said it seem to be a girl!!!! Inchaallah,
… thinking of baby names,
… still feeling mostly comfortable and active,
… but a lot of awaking during nights, thinking and planning ahead,
… loving how my little ones talk to my belly and how the belly responds,
… experiencing the cocooning effect: beautifying home and making space for baby,
… wondering how to put on shoes and socks in the upcoming weeks,
… being very uncomfortable in a car seat,
… but save in Allah’s wisdom and secure in my husband’s arms,
… having booked the flight for my dear midwife-friend to come for the homebirth and praying that she will be here the right moment, inchaallah…

 

A rose weekend to you, friends!

I am touched…

 

… by all the condolences people offer me over here.
Every day different people from our village come over, bringing me signs of life and hope: fresh eggs, fresh milk and their wishes for Allah’s baraka and patience.

They say: it is like if the mournful person wears a black shirt.
They say: every offer of condolences is like if it washes the dirt of sorrow away from the shirt.
They say: one day the shirt will become white and the mournful person will become happy again…

I like this idea and I really feel warmly welcomed and comforted by their compassion.
Subhanallah.

Blessed Wednesday to you!

Back home – Back to normal ?

 
 
 

Since a week we are back in our valley, back home. Winter is nearly gone here and springtime shows its first blossoming. The house was a mess after a month being away, and so felt I from time to time: tired, empty and full of questions.

But alhamdulillah, Allah gave me the strength to find a way back into normal, to clean up all the dust, to reorganize daily life, to sort out my thought a bit and to redefine my role as a mother.

I know, life will never be the same as before and what does “normal life” mean after that loss? I know grief and sadness will overwhelm me from time to time and the death of my only sister, the only sibling I had, will even become a topic again here in this place from time to time.

But for now I’d rather like to focus on life more than on death.
I want to go back to regular blogging about the positive things around here.
I needed that break but I feel ready now to share again bits of our life in Morocco, of being a Muslim, of daily pleasures and all the creative beauty that comes with children…

Thanks again for all your comments and thanks for all the prayers!
May God bless you and your beloved ones and may you have a beautiful week!

Ten things I am deeply thankful for…

 

I realize now that even in times of loss and grief, Allah blesses us with so many things good. Subhanallah, I can see His gifts in so many ways and in this special time after the death of my sister, I am deeply thankful…:

- for the blessing to have been arrived the right moment and the strength and merciful feelings Allah gave me during my visit in Germany: after the sudden sad news in the middle of the night right after my arrival; while facing my sister’s death body and realizing the pain she went through; while feeling the sorrow of my parents who bravely cared for her until the end; during the organisation of the funeral and while meeting all the different people,

- for the cleansing, releasing tears I am now able to cry and the deep grief I am able to feel after the first shock,

- for the new approach I feel to my parents,

 

- for the loving help of my husband and his kind and understanding words,

 

- for the innocent love from my children and the peace it gives me,

 

- for the prayers, the support, the care and the open ears from so many friends,

 

- for the gift of new life inside myself and all the moving the baby does,

 

- for the gratitude my parents are able to feel even in these hard times,

 

- for the beautiful gift and example my sister gave to this world with her unbelievable power, her deep hope and her strength while fighting against cancer,

 

- for the promising awakening of a new season, of new life, of colours and nature around us.