And just to prove ….

I’ve been re-bitten by the crafting bug, I came accross this whilst blog hunting this morning (when I really ought to have been doing chores!!)

belladia

I love the crocheted hearts ….

A patchwork life ….

A work in progress for my girly girls and yes, the youngest two are indeed VERY girly!!

I’m working on a picnic bag for their dollies, and this is destined to be a patchy picnic rug for their dollies to recline upon insha’allah….

Remember the days when …..

I used to make stuff??

Well I finally found the courage to walk right up to that machine of mine today and get something done,

a tissue holder, cos my kids love something fancy to put their tissues in, it makes having a snotty nose just a bit more special

as a girl who has vowed to start travelling light (you’d have to look back at an earlier post to see what horrors used to lurk in my bag!)

I made myself a clutchpurse just big enough to hold mobile, keys and money, what more does a girl need after all…well I could actually probably think of loads but bag filling is an addiction I must learn to curb!!

I love the lining on this little purse, and my four year old is already trying to pinch it from me,

and again in black …

I’ve got ideas floating around in my head, I think I’m on a creative streak….

Playing with my day …..

I felt it was time to up the ante and play about with my “schedule” (or lack of!) a little….

So I’ve now been awake since about half an hour before Fajr and far from feeling as exhausted as I anticipated, I feel energized and far more mentally alert than I have done for a long while. My habit had been to sleep for a while after Fajr and it was leaving me feeling drained and sluggish, I normally suffer from Insomnia and so messing with my sleep habits any more than I have to doesn’t come easily for me, but I just feel so much brighter masha’allah….

I’m tryng to make a determined effort to do everything I can to nourish my eeman and build a more “islamic” day before I leave for DZ in the summer, I know from painful experience how harsh the transition can be and I need all the backup I can muster insha’allah. My biggest defence is my deen and I need to employ every strategy I can to bolster myself when things get rough, which they innevitably will. Hence the playing about with my “routine”. And those who know me well will say “routine, you finally got one then!!”

 My sister and neice came to visit on Wednesday which was nice, it’s a “must see you a bit before we don’t see you anymore” kind of thing I suppose, but it was good to catch up and see my neice’s two boys and complain about my mum with my sister (who is probably the only other human on earth who understands the woman like I do!)

Apart from that, the week has been  just a regular kind of week, tajweed lessons, kids pretending they’re  studying intently when we all know they’re just staring at a page of text as an excuse to daydream…fighting for computer time, cooking endless meals and washing endless dishes, washing endless piles of laundry, refereeing endless arguments, tidying the endless messes, but the beauty of Islam is that there is meaning even in the seemingly mundane if done for the sake of Allah …..that the condition of the believer is always good if he has total reliance on Allah and trusts in His Qadr, even in the face of the hardest of tests and even when you feel like this life is getting the better of you…..

Ya allah bless us with a true understanding of this deen, ameen

a taste of honey…..

On a slice of homemade bread…. is what I’m planning for tomorrow insha’allah

 Sometimes a little homeliness is good for the soul….

In the Early hours…..

 

Is the name of the book that I’ve been reading…..And the most damning piece of evidence against me, which I read last night is a quote from Imam Ghazali (Rahimahullah)

“You should structure your time, arrange your regular devotions and assign to each function a set period of time during which it is given first priority but which it does not overstep. For if you abandon yourself to neglect and purposelessness, as cattle do, and just do anything that may occur to you at any time it happens to occur to you, most of your time will be wasted. Your time is your life, and your life is your capital; it is the basis of your transactions {with God}, and the means to attain to everlasting felicity, in the proximity of God, the Exalted. Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, and when it passes away it never returns”

I am trying to read my way through the book slowly, applying the principles of tazkiyah as I go, but anyone on the path to soul purification, or islamic self developement will know that Shaitaan and his army are poised and waiting to throw us off track when we’re least suspecting it. I can sense it’s going to be a hard and painful slog, none of us really like to see the faults we so carefully hide and make excuses for, but to face them with a mind to changing them is the only true way forward. Taking a good honest look withing can be a scary experience for anyone, but it’s a necessary part of growing as a Muslim, and becoming a Mu’min.

Applying Tazkiyah in practical terms means being aware of Allah and understanding that we are under constant scrutinity and using this as a basis of doing better and being better and for re-defining ourselves as believers who submit to the will of Allah ta’ala….self-awareness is a vital tool for the person who accepts that tazkiya is an important part of a Muslims life ….

<<successful indeed is the one who purifies his whole self>> (al-shams; 91-9)

give me just a little more time…..

I have serious time management issues…. I misuse and abuse the time I have available to me all day long, and it’s driving me insane.

I need a better routine…no!! I just NEED a routine! but I just can’t bring myself to do it, is that from shaitaan do you think or are there just some free spirited souls who find it hard to work to a rigid schedule? Because if there are I can accept myself as I am and work within it, if not I have to get out of my present frame of mind and be more pro-active on the TM front!!

HELP!!!!!

 time is an important commodity in Islam, time is too important to be flippant about….I need to get my act together…..

sometimes I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall, I also feel sometimes, like I am the brick wall I’m banging my head against.

there is a distinct possibilty that I may not be making much sense to anyone else except myself on this one, there is also the possibilty that someone else out there has felt the same way and has the answer I need …. of course it doesnt help that I’ve lost my watch, and yes it is truly ironic that a person with such a haphazzard relationship with time should be so attached to a wristwatch…I feel truly lost without it…..maybe it lulls me into a false sense of thinking I’m doing better on the TM front than I actually am? Perhaps it’s a good thing I’ve mislaid my watch? Perhaps I should just stop blethering and go to bed?

I’ll tell you about the book I’m reading tomorrow and it will put this whole sorry post into some kind of context for you…self help books…even islamic ones….sometimes only serve to confuse…..I think I can feel another brain fog looming 

Isn’t it amazing how even the east end of London can look good in fading sunlight!

Had a good day today masha’allah…a restful morning…. well actually a housework filled morning done at a restful pace,  and then my halaqah with the teens in the afternoon, which turned out to be more of a loose discussion on the merits of sharia, and why we think so many people muslim and non-muslim are so afraid of it.

I am constantly surprised and motivated by those girls masha’allah who keep coming back week after week to discuss their deen, when I know there are a million and one other things they could,  and would maybe rather be doing. All in all one of those days that have felt good from start to finish masha’allah.

I realised with shock today  that I have only five months left until Hijrah.. where in the name of Allah does the time go?  Anyway my sister is planning a visit soon with her folk and I finally got a call back from my Mother telling me when it would be convenient for me to visit, before I leave the country with the very real possibility of not seeing her again for a VERY long time….something tells me that, that up and coming episode will NOT be an easy one..but I’m up for a challenge.

So, with five months and counting I am keeping myself as busy as I can insha’allah, I have a full week ahead all being well insha’allah and I’m looking forward to it, I  secretly have a fear of feeling dried up and useless when I  get to DZ so I’m going into overdrive big time while I still have the oppertunity.

oh well,  off to bed, I’m intent on going for a bracing walk in the morning and I still need to pray isha before I hit my pit, for an insomniac I’ve been sleeping unusually well since my last bout of illness… remind me to tell you all about the in’s and out’s of panic attacks one of these fine days won’t you!….;)

xxx

been thinkin…..

and spending quite a bit of my time wandering around my local park…thinking…and putting “stuff” into perspective.

Deliberating which paths in life to take next and which to forget about, and learning to take one day at a time again.

The community is buzzing at the moment with things going on and I’m excited to be around it but worried I’ll miss it when we leave for Algeria in the summer. So many good sisters who have brightened my days and helped fill my little world with a brilliant explosion of islamic dialogue, there have been so many good thoughts shared and and interesting topics raised lately and I am just constantly astounded by the amount of effort sisters are prepared to put into their deen.

I feel vibrant again…can you tell?