Ramadan 2020/1441: Ramadan Gratitude Journal Day 29

What talent are you grateful for?

For all of the years of education, work and life, I’m a bit stumped by this one. What talents do I have (as opposed to compassion, which is a characteristic)? Are any significant enough to be called a talent? I’ve always thought of myself as a bit of a Jack of all trades and a master of none.

Perhaps rather than choosing by thinking about what I am amazing at, I can consider which talent I am grateful for as it is, even if I am not great at it.

I love to write, and I’m grateful for it because it has allowed me to vent, share my life, reach out to others and connect to sisters across the world alhamdulillah. Most of all it has allowed me to work through my feelings and thoughts on so many occasions, dissecting them, understanding what lies beneath and rising above the most painful or confusing ones.

What talent are you grateful for?

You can find the original Ramadan Gratitude journal challenge here and my take on it here.

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Ramadan 2020/1441: Ramadan Gratitude Journal Day 18

What invention are you grateful for?

The invention that stands out is both blessing and curse: the internet.

It has allowed us to connect to anyone in the world, even relatives in my parent’s village whose names I didn’t previously know.

Information is at our fingertips for almost any subject or problem.

It is an equaliser in some ways in that anyone can carve a space for themselves and make their voice known.

At the same time there is the negative side of being too connected and never offline, chatting to people, but missing face to face interactions. Time wasting and overwhelm also come to mind. And we can’t forget the faceless, cowardly trolls that hide behind their keyboard and in some case spread false information.

So the invention I am grateful for is the internet, for the opportunity to connect with sisters across the world, learn, be informed and entertained and share my experience. But that comes with a disclaimer to use it in moderation and not believe everything I read.

What invention are you grateful for?

You can find the original Ramadan Gratitude journal challenge here and my take on it here.

Keep in Touch

Assalam-alaikam all,

I have finally had a little time to get online to deal with my two thousand plus e-mails. It was a bit overwhelming and there was way too much spam and things I need to unsubscribe from. The one thing I do look forward to in my e-mails is messages from readers. So I you have written to me in recent weeks and not got a response, or want to write 😊 please feel free to prompt me about an e-mail you sent or write and I will try to keep up this time insh’Allah.

Also, if you want to keep in touch, please do follow me on my Instagram account where I am a little more active these days, especially on my Insta-stories. 

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Writing Little Bits

Assalam-alaikam to all of my lovely readers and the wayfarer who happen to come across this blog and stop a while. Peace and blessings insh’Allah.

I haven’t written in a little while for various reasons – my laptop giving me problems, taking ages to re-install software, or just the general business of life.

But I realise really, there are two big reasons for not writing – overwhelm and the opportunity to be creative elsewhere.  When I started blogging about 12 years ago, it was because I found myself with three little ones and in a very tedious job that stifled my creativity and half bored me to death.  Perhaps also a little loneliness on my journey because I didn’t really know any other working Muslim mothers.  Blogging allowed me to vent, write, look inwards and connect with other sisters over the years alhamdulillah.

My current job has had me in a euphoric head spin for the last nearly two years.  I can be creative, develop my own work, lead on things that interest me.  The role challenged me in all sorts of ways and meant I had to work fast, research, network and find new ways of doing things.  The current job also meant connecting with my community and volunteering for various things, which has also taken up lots of my time outside of work but has felt sooo rewarding.

I think because of these reasons, I have mostly quite fulfilled in terms of creativity and in my spare time, I just want to let my brain unwind and not do anything challenging.  But I am starting to realise that being creative outwardly is not the same as exploring inwardly, which blogging allows you to do.  Writing helps me to unpick what I am thinking and review how I am doing things.  It is a mechanism to clarify your thoughts to recognise your mistakes and to grow in your thinking.

The second reason I mentioned I stopped blogging was overwhelm.  After a few years of fighting my older children, I have come to realise that what worked when they were little, isn’t working now and I have had to re-learn how to parent them.  I have the youngest two girls, who require a different set of parenting skills (mostly cuddles but with lots of firmness, they are both strong willed in very different ways).  Work twists my brain in knots and then sets it running full speed in different directions, all excitement, ideas and then working out how to make something happen. I still have to do daily Arabic practise with the girls and most of the time the house is 80% tidy about 75% of the time.  Don’t get me started with cooking and fussy kids.  Any time I was free I wanted to switch my brain off and watch rubbish online or childish junk on Instagram. 

Then I got the reading bug and just wanted to read and read and read.

So today I finally had a free Sunday afternoon to sort out the software for my laptop, organise my documents and have a little think. In that time I also had a neighbour visit, had to get the girls ready for Arabic class and plan dinner. So it took a lot longer than expected to write a few words. 

But to get back to the overwhelm, I realised the idea of “catching up” on blogging and writing up book reviews and travel posts felt like too much and made me want to run away and not bother. So I have decided to start small.  A few words on what is happening, something I have learned or a simple picture.  Sometimes a few words open a dam and sometimes its enough to ease you back into writing without feeling too onerous insh’Allah.

“Start before you’re ready.” ― Steven Pressfield

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” –  Arthur Ashe

“Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.” ― Ray Bradbury

Instagram Story

Harlequin Sister was encouraging Shutterbug Sister and I to use Instagram stories with the explanation that I was always in the middle of something so I would have lots to share.  I thought I would give it a try and just snap life and whatever caught my eye.

I’ve been adding things to my stories for the last 24 hours including my Ramadan blogging prompt and what I was up to in the garden and kitchen.  I have to say, I have been having so much fun and so many sisters shave been in touch to leave comments, suggestion and encouragement.  I am still getting the hang of it and keep spotting typo’s or photo’s that in hindsight, I could have been a bit more careful about:

If you are an Instagram user, do check my account out and leave a comment or say hello if you want to.

An Honest Reflection

I haven’t been writing as much in recent days and there are a number of reasons for that.  I get so much encouragement and love from sisters who read this blog and that means a lot to me alhamdulillah.  When I started out on this journey I felt isolated and different to everyone around me.  This blog helped me to find my voice, find sisters who understood me or were in a similar situation to me.  It allowed me to be honest about some of the challnges in my life.

When I started out on this journey, my children were also small and it was easier to be honest I think.  In the last year or two, there has been so much change in my life: redundancy, new job, career growth, dealing with strong willed teens, ageing parents and in-laws, struggling financially a little. Hubby has been super busy with work and the management of the local masjid and it has made me feel a little clingy and down, something I am only just realising and dealing with.

Some of this has been harder to talk about than when the kids were little or even quite get my head around.  Work has also been super busy. When I started blogging, I was bored and under-challenged at work, blogging let me use my brain and offered opportunity to introspect and reflect.  My job at the moment is so full on, from 8am to 4pm, I only get up to pray. Every day has something new to research, plan or solve and I have had the best work year of my life. But I am also left mentally drained and exhausted on many days and just need to do something physical – like housework, or brainless – like looking at rubbish on Instagram to wind down.  I have spent the first few days of this week’s break from work cooking and cleaning and de-cluttering until my brain has climbed down from the roof and things make sense again.

In the last few years, I have heard a lot of debate around whether blogging is dead and whether there is any point in maintaining blogs.  This was a little bit discouraging, but I realised that this blog is the platform that hosts my content, but it can still be shared on whatever the latest social media or platform is trending at the moment. I also think long form content is valuable in a world full of super-fast minute-long or even seconds-long content across social media that sometimes has no space for reflection or deep thought.

Finally I have been reading like crazy. I have piles of books everywhere and I am trying to counter the lure of Instagram and twitter which are oh so fun, but rarely very productive (half an hour of silly videos anyone?)

So now I have had the chance to think on these things and clear some mental space, I feel good about writing. I feel brave enough to share again. I am looking forward to connecting with sisters. I want to document my growth because so much happened last year and I feel it has set the foundations for so much more next year (Post to come on work and the beginnings of community engagement insh’Allah).

Most of all, I want to do things more consciously, rather than just because it’s easiest when I am tired, or on auto-pilot.  I want to manage my work so that I have energy left for life. I desperately want to improve the quality of my worship, improve my iman (faith) and be confident in living my faith.  I hope you say with me for this journey insh’Allah and continue to share your stories, teach, guide and advise me insh’Allah.

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Feedspots Top 20 Muslim Women Blogs and Websites

Rather nice news this morning, I have been included in Feedspots Top 20 Muslim Women Blogs and Websites To Follow in 2018 List alhumdulillah. Not sure if I am second or the list is not in any order and I just happen to be mentioned second, but happy either way.

It’s nice to be included but will also be good to visit and read the other blogs that have been included, some I am familiar with and others I am excited to find for the first time.

Curious About You 2: How Do You Keep Organised?

I would love to get to know more about who reads this blog, connect with them and learn from them insha’Allah.
But I know people like to maintain their privacy, or they feel shy, or they don’t think they have anything worth saying (which is simply not true).
So instead of pestering you with surveys or just going by my stats about readers, I want to pose a question every now and again and see what insight I get from people’s answers – I’ll start with my answer and look forward to hearing from reader’s insha’Allah.

How do you keep organised?

This could be at home, at work or to keep the kids organised. What are the tools, methods or approaches you use to keep your life organised?

Mine is:
Write everything down and then prioritise. I write everything down so that it is not all in my head making me feel anxious or stressed. I then either:
- Add it to my list of things to do today
- Plan into my trusty Filofax if it’s for another day
- Make a decision to discard it if it is not worth doing it.

What is your best tip for keeping organised?

See also:
Curious about You: Best Advice Ever?

Curious About You: Best Advice Ever?

I would love to get to know more about who reads this blog, connect with them and learn from them insh’Allah.  But I know people like to maintain their privacy, or they feel shy, or they don’t think they have anything worth saying (which is usually just not true).

So instead of pestering you with surveys or just going by my stats about readers, I want to pose a question every now and again and see what insight I get from people’s answers – I’ll start with my answer and look forward to hearing from readers insh’Allah.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

Mine is:

I have never regretted my silence. As for my speech, I have regretted it over and over again. - Umar Ibn Al Khattab (RA)

Something I have come to live by and indeed I have never regretted an occasion I have decided to hold my tongue and often it has benefitted me.

What is the best naseehah/advice you have ever received and have you implemented it to your benefit?

Request for Guest Posts for Happy Muslim Mama

Assalam-alaikam,

I love to write for this blog, but I also love to hear from readers. 

Do you have an urge to write?

Do you have a message or opinion that you really want to share

Do you have a blog and would like to share some of your content with my beloved readers.

If so I am open to guest posts from readers and other bloggers.

I am open to new, unique content that would be of interest to my readers, these are predominantly women, largely Muslim and mainly in the 25-34 years old and 35-44 year old age bracket.  Their interests include religion, travel, family and parenting, lifestyle, fashion, entrepreneurship, home making, gardening, books, food, self-improvement and beauty.

Potential content can include a recipe, an opinion piece, a photographic post, a how-to tutorial, even some good advice or dawah.

If you are interested you can e-mail me at umm_salihah@yahoo.co.uk with an idea of what you would like to write about.  Happy Muslim Mama is a well-established blog of almost 10 years with significant organic traffic from an interested and interesting readership.  In return for an accepted guest post, I would be happy to link back to your blog or business with a short bio about you (I cannot currently offer any payment for guest posts).

So if you have something to share, please get in touch!

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Can Blog, Will Blog

I have been trying for the last few days to write something...but every time I think I have a few free minutes:

Little Lady:  "I need the laptop for homework"

Little Man: "I'm going to need help with my maths"

Gorgeous: annoys the babies until they are howling

Darling:  "Muuuuum I need help in the bathroom"

Baby: "I'm hungy mama, I'm hungeeee"

Husband: "I'll have dinner in the next 15 minutes if its ready, then I'll be off to the masjid"

Mother-in-law: "Come sit with me for a while"

Me: "Okay, I'm coming"

I'm sure at some point they will forget I am here and I can sneak off to my laptop for a while.

My Interview with Thread MB Blog

I was very happy to find that my interview with Laura Wellington of Thread MB was published this morning, you can find the full interview here and an extract below:

Do you believe you have a “life’s purpose?” If so, share it. 

I believe that each of us is here to serve: ourselves, our families, our communities and those in need. As a person of faith, I think, we are also here to worship and serve our Creator. I think we all have innate qualities and strengths that we can put in the service of others, even if, sometimes, we are unable to see it ourselves. For me, that purpose would include nurturing and inspiring my family, acting as a coach and activist in my community and hoping to motivate and inspire others to live a beautiful and balanced life through my blog and e-books.

Finish this sentence, “The best part about being a mom is _____.” 

The awe of seeing your children grow and the amazing potential unfold in each one; the good qualities and the flaws that make them unique and human; and the things that just surprise you.

What is the one piece of advice you would give to those who may be interested in beginning a blog?

Get started! The sooner the better. I would say to begin by using a free platform, test the waters, and see how it feels to write and share. So many people start blogging and stop after a fairly short period of time, so it’s definitely something you want to try out to see if it works for you. Other than that, be honest, honor your own, unique voice and know that your experience is worth sharing. When you do this, you will eventually find that your words will resonate with people.

You can read the full interview and Laura's introduction here.

Some Space and Time

I have had the sincerest intention every day for many days – to write, to blog, to answer e-mails to catch up with the various things that go with running a blog (like broken links, editorial calendars and queries about reviews and advertising).

But life seems to conspire to distract and obstruct me. We are still living and sleeping in the downstairs two rooms of our home. This means that there is nowhere for me to sit comfortably for an hour or so without putting pressure on my back. We mostly sit on the floor and I can’t quite find a comfortable position with the laptop.

My laptop surrounded by mess.  I sat cross legged on the edge of my mattress on the floor to access it.

A few months ago our van was rammed whilst we were sitting in traffic and alhamdulillah although we are ok, my back took some of the impact and I am trying to be careful not to strain it.

I have been working on updating my Annual Planner to publish on the blog for 2017, but have only been able to do it in fits and starts. This was supposed to be followed by the Inspirational Journal for Muslimah’s, a project dear to my heart, which also remains a work in progress.

The good thing about stepping back from blogging a little, is that every time I do so, I find tons of inspiration and motivation to come back to it.

Except I caught a nasty cold which left me drained and light headed. Then today the kids appear to have come down with nasty colds, so I have three of them with various aches and pains sleeping all day and me pestering them to eat and take their medicine.

Sleeping Babies

So in the end, I have decided to give myself a few days of grace.  No writing, no feeling bad for not having answered e-mails, no worrying about anything.  I will give myself a few days to see if it is enough to get my home and life in order and some space until everyone feels well again.  To find a place to sit comfortably to write regularly.  To not be surrounded by things.  To fall into the gentle rhythm of family, holidays from work and school and unrushed prayers that I am looking forward to for the next two weeks insh'Allah.

Insh'Allah I will get on with posting more blog posts and answering e-mails as soon as I can, just not in the next few days. xxxxx

Picture of the Day - 01.04.16: Blank Canvas and Bright Colour

I recently changed my blog header (at the top where the title is) into one I painted, but I still wasn't quite happy with it. I have been looking for an opportunity for a few days, so yesterday I finally got time to crack open the paints and have another go.

This is the one I did initially:

Blow is the second attempt.  There are more colours, they blend a little better and it is brighter.  With the one above I saturated the colours, I might try that with the one below to make the text stand out better.

I did a few other backgrounds in different sets of colours to use for posters that I can use in posts or on my Pinterest, I am still experimenting with how I will use these, this is a first attempt:

Your feedback and suggestions on the colour schemes, headers and posters are very welcome insh'Allah.

New Blog Design

If you visited this blog in the last few days you may have noticed some silly business with the blog header changing and the words on it dissappearing.  This was my attempt at trying out a few different things in an attempt to update this space a little.  I have felt for some time that the design was outdated and some of the format and content of the sidebars had outlived their use.

I initially spent a few weeks looking at branding, blog themes, designs for headers (that's where the title is at the top) and fonts.  Despite searching I could not find what I wanted even if I was prepared to pay for it - the colours were not right, or the image looked great, but once up, didn't look right.

After hours of searching for the right colours, themes, images and almost going mental and wanting to throttle someone out of frustration, I gave in and got the kids watercolours out to experiment.

With a little help I painted some washes of colour and some swatches.

I simply took photo's of these and cropped and edited them to create my new header and elements

The swatches I used to crop and create labels like the ones below.  The whole process took about half an hour from painting to cropping and resizing the image.
















I really enjoyed making my own and it has really inspired me to try out other things like posters with quotes and blog design elements.

I would love any feedback on the new look and any ideas on what else could be changed or added.  Your thoughts and ideas are really important to me!

Treats

I was recently asked to make some banners for a work friend and really enjoyed doing them.

At the end of last week she surprised me with some treats: a mug for when I am blogging and a book.

I really loved both.  I enjoyed a quite cup of coffee before everyone was awake on Saturday morning and I plan to make the book my best read as she has spoken about it in glowing terms.  Sooo nice to get a treat now and again isn't it.

Picture of the Day: 16.12.14 - Little Tyrant

Every time I want to write something, one of the babies is crying, or I have guests, or it's time for dinner, or the bedtime routine, or someone needs help with their homework, or I just have to pop to the shops, or it's time to nurse Baby again.

When I have had a moment, I have just stared at my screen blankly with no motivation to write.  When I found some motivation my laptop would start having health problems again.  

Today I finally got a moment when the baby was asleep, Darling was busy harassing the boys, the food as cooked and prayers were done for now.  I felt inspired and motivated to write about and share lots of things and the laptop was working.

Except:

A certain person got into a fight with me over the laptop.  For every letter I typed, she'd type three vowels and when I tried to move the laptop away, she'd throw a fit and try to wrestle the laptop away.  In the end I let her type a bit and then distracted her with a custard cream.

I'm going to try and write some more, but I think it's time to nurse the baby again...

Superhero

This lot?

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Naaah...usually this is who saves the day for me.

My husband saw how annoyed I was at not being able to write or answer my e-mails and took me seriously.  After numerous trips to various people he has got my laptop working and has had something done to our creaky family PC to speed it up.

The people who looked at it could not restore the data from my old hard drive, but I am holding onto it until I get the chance to get someone a bit more heavy-weight to look at it.  In the meantime, I am properly back online!