Two Years Later!

Bismillah (in the name of God)

   Hello friends, it appears I come here once a year. What can I say? I'm being stubborn and not giving up on this idea of blogging even though I clearly haven't seem to put aside the time to do it thus far. I just have been beyond busy but in all honesty if I had really wanted to I would have posted here but didn't.


   It comes down to making priorities and making them happen. I want to make blogging a priority. Reason being I used to love expressing myself through writing and motherhood, home-keeping and all that it entails consumes my time these days. Don't get me wrong I would not trade my position for anything. I'm truly happy and thankful being where I am and doing what I'm doing alhamdulillah (Praised be God)

   Funny thing is my last entry is from February 14, 2014! That's just over two years ago and tons have happened since then. I gave birth to another bundle of joy in January of this year. Let's call him Salster -You want to know what I call my other sweetlings? check out my about page by clicking here where I mentioned what I call them and why. Also, I'm parenting solo during the week while my husband is away for his studies. On the weekends he's with us and we just relax and spend time together doing the simple things a family does, eat together, watch a family movie together and so on.

   These days we enjoy listening to audio books on this excellent free website and try to do our school work in the mornings and the kids do a lot of lego and drawing, those are their passions, oh and pretend play all day long.

   Well friends, let's keep it short and sweet for now. the babe has awoken and mommy duty is calling.

   Till next time (hopefully less than a year :)

Schedule it is!

Bismillah,

Formal Homeschooling is around the corner. It's been on our minds a lot the last couple of days since we started acquiring the books we'll be using. I'ts overwhelming to think about it and I hope and pray that doing it will bring joy and balance to this household.

I'm thinking right now that I need to start, seriously, working on organizing my time and daily activities so that when formal homeschooling starts I don't have to worry about how I will do everything else related to keeping a house and nurturing a family. The idea is that if I have a few years of good home-keeping habits up my sleeve then they won't get interrupted by formal homeschooling once it starts.

I want to clarify that I use the term formal homeschooling since I believe that before the age of seven children should be allowed to have plenty of unstructured play instead of actively pursuing academics. They should be read classic children's books everyday to instill in them love for literature. So aside singing ABCs songs my children won't be taught in a structured way for about two more years.

Going back to my rant about schedule and good home-keeping habits. I'm thinking about  what a household needs to run smoothly:

• Nourishing meals and snacks
• Cleanliness and organization
• Well-fed, well-rested children
• Clean clothes
• Happy mommy and daddy

And this wee list includes all the basic things that need to be prioritized before pursuing anything else.

I'm hoping to:

• Come up with new healthy recipes to add to our repertoire
• Assign specific tasks to each day of the week
• Cut down on time guzzlers, i.e. the internet
• And, make sure I leave time to do the things that keep me going

I need help from my creator to get my act together. I want to, specifically, work on a schedule. I dread the word but let's face it I can't possibly escape from it if I want to succeed on this path of mine.

So schedule it is!

Somehow I want to work this in it:

• Cooking
• Reading to kids
• Exercising
• Cleaning and laundry
• Grocery shopping
• Sewing and knitting
• Blogging and Internet (sparingly)
• Personal reading
• Gardening and outside keeping
• Playing and doing crafts with kids
• Outdoor activities

Some of these will need to happen everyday, others once or twice a week. Hopefully, I can assign them to specific days and make a chart to post on an easily accessible place (fridge door.) I also want to keep an agenda to jot down appointments and things of the sort to not lose track and avoid planning things that conflict with priorities. 

I can't wait to work on such schedule for the sake of my sanity and the happiness of this family. 

An Update

Bismillah (In the name of Allah)

It's been a while since I posted here. I've been so busy taking up new interests and trying to keep up the old ones. I have to admit I yet have to come up with a plan that helps me include all my hobbies and obligations in my weekly routine so I don't feel frustrated for not having time for the things that help me relax and the things that need to be done to have a household with three children under five years of age running smoothly. Now, that was a run-off sentence!

As I have shared here in the past I started making my own bread from my very own home-milled flour. It's been a very satisfying experience but like anything worthwile it requires time. I'm more than willing to invest the time needed thus a plan needs to come into effect so this new chore blends in smoothly with all the existing ones.

I have also started speaking my mother-tongue with my children inspired by Itto and it's going well but it could be draining, mashAllah. I don't speak Spanish much since my husband doesn't speak it and I have very few friends who do, whom I see rarely. I started to read Don Quixote de la Mancha not so much to polish up my Spanish vocabulary but to fall in love with the language of Cervantes once again; I think that'll help me get the encouragement I need. I'm also going to be watching the news online from a Colombian news channel. InshAllah that goes well and I can gift my children with bilingualism.

Oh yeah, last but not least, I've taken up knitting :o) and I made a hat for my oldest one after about two weeks of practicing over and over the knit and purl stitches. The actual hat only took a week of knitting in the evenings. What can I say? I love the craft! It's relaxing, satisfying and you can make things you and your family can wear. I would have loved to have that done for me when I was a child and I can see that my son was very happy and proud of his new hat, yay! Now I have to hurry and make something wintery for my two girls before the season is over.

InshAllah, I also want to take up sewing partly because I have a sewing machine sitting in the box it came in for about three years but mainly to ba able to make skirts for my little girls and maybe thowbs (Muslim men's long robes) for my husband and son.

I want to try and keep it at this for now, perhaps for the next year or so. I am craving making things with my hands, things for the home, the family, but I have to be realistic with the season I'm going through right now in my life: The child rearing season. I want to savour it and live it. I want my kids to grow up to have fond memories of their childhood and also to have good characteristics and love for Islam. And, yes it can be done! We just have to put our minds to it; but foremost we have to put our affairs in Allah's hands and never underestimate the power of our dua's (supplications.)

InshAllah you all are having a productive and blessed week.

Precious Time

Bismillah (In the name of Allah)


Here I am thinking to write about time management- since this is an area I need to work on, who doesn't?- and I glance at the clock to see the cruel thing telling me that it's nearly 11pm- only because this past weekend we put our clocks back one hour or else it would really be nearly midnight.


I have to start by admitting that my reason for wanting to write on the subject it's not because I'm a pro in time management, on the contrary I seriously have to re-evaluate how I'm spending my time for a number of reasons. First of all, Islamically it's very important to be mindful of how we go about our daily activities and how much advantage we take of our time; in other words, wasting time is not taking lightly: it's sinful. Secondly, I have three little ones and a husband that depend on me for various things: meals, a clean and organized home, clean clothes, and just time to be together and have fun. Moreover, I'm planning on homeschooling and even though that hasn't as yet started formally the time will come very soon when I'll have to teach my son in a more structured way.


My goals are to have a more organized schedule as to how I go about my daily routines. I want to know well in advance what type of meals I'll be cooking, what type of cleaning to do on specific days of the week, and leave plenty of time for unexpected things; with little ones I don't want to have a very rigorous list of to dos.


I'm in the very primitive stages of wisely managing my time but I prefer to be here than to be in denial of my little problem. And one good thing I can learn from my poor time management skills is that I must instill early in the life of my children how to efficiently spend their days so that it becomes a natural thing for them to do instead of having to figure it out all by themselves when they're in the middle of raising a family. But I have to be good at it if I want ot teach it to them, don't you agree?


I grew up without being taught much about being mindful of my time. But it's never too late, it's a little more challenging but not impossible to teach onself good habits in adulthood. I want to incorporate good time management in my life and make it become a habit that stays for good. That's where I am right now; I'm trying to make planning and scheduling second nature. I believe it would make me and my family happier and more productive.


Here are my short term goals:

1. Go to bed at around 11pm.
2. Wake up before Fajr (the pre-dawn prayer) and stay up for the day. To read some qur'an and Islamic literature before the kids wake up.
3. Monitor and limit my time on the internet and on this blog. *sigh*
4. Rest for 1/2 hour after Dhuhr (the mid-day prayer)

If I can only accomplish these 4 little goals I believe I could make serious positive changes in the life of my family.


My long term goals are, to name a few, to make these routines a habit, to cook in the morning and leave the afternoon for some cleaning and playing with the kids, to spend the evening just being with the family and avoid the interruption of technology.


Now, my challenges are the phone, internet, sleep deprivation, laziness, low energy levels, procrastination, and I leave it here for now. I have very good ideas as to how I should address each one of this challenges; just need the discipline to put them into practise and make them work. InshAllah (God willing), I will work on them and keep track of the improvements and obstacles that arise on my path and post on this blog mainly for future reference and to share with whomsoever happens to come across my little corner.


P.S. I finished off this little piece of writing in the morning; I was a little bad by starting it at 11pm but made it up somewhat by putting it off till today even though my fingers were itching to type some more last night.