Our Eid Party

I've been meaning to post about this for days but didn't get around to it.

This year we had an Eid-ul-Fitr party at our place.
I love parties and any other kind of entertaining. I love planning a menu out, thinking about personal touches, paying attention to the small details. I love it from start to finish. Sometimes I think I should be an events organizer, but I would only want to do halal events with no booze or pork products! But lets face it, every Muslim household can put an event together.

Anyway, this year I decided to put up a red canape on the ceiling to create a cosy Arabian tent like feeling. Last year on my step daughters birthday we came up with this idea and we all liked it so much.
So we had the canape up, we had fairy lights draped over a bookcase, red lanterns with candles inside, the dining table was decorated with red flower arrangements and candles. Next to where I served the starters I also had a wide shallow bowl filled with water which had floating candles in. It was lovely, everyone was so surprised and really impressed with our creativeness.

The food was well liked too. For starters I made mini shami kebab, mini samose and chicken tikka. I didn't want people filling up too much on starters, so I made everything in a mini size, with them I served, mint and coriander chutney, a yogurt chutney, imli and a spicy ketchup type chutney.

For main course I served lamb curry, chicken curry, channe, pilao, naan, grilled chops, yogurt, salad.

And for desert I made gulab jamun and served them warm with vanilla ice cream. Yummy!

Everyone really enjoyed the evening. There was a lovely atmosphere, we chatted and laughed until late, one of my guests did my mendhi after I served tea since I didn't get around to it the night before, (because of all the prep).

For the little kiddies, when they arrived I gave them little goody bags to keep them busy during the evening. I put in those bottles you get to blow bubbles with, some chocs and treats, that went down nicely too. After tea we gave the children their Eid presents, everyone really liked what they got. And as everyone left I handed out little packages of cupcakes I made the day before, packaged in cellophane and tied with ribbon.

Everyone appreciated the thought and effort that went into it, and I think this one will certainly be a memorable Eid for everyone, not only because of the decoration and attention to detail, but also because of the lovely atmosphere. My younger step daughter said it was the best Eid ever, so that's a massive compliment!

Here are some pics:

Eid Mubarak

The blessed month of Ramadan has passed so quickly.
Eid Mubarak to everyone everywhere, May Allah (swt) accept our prayers, forgive us for our sins and continue to guide us and keep us on the straight path and protects us from shaytan. Ameen.

Being a stepmum

Some days I think its harder being a step mum than it is being a biological mum.

With your own child, you've bonded, nurtured it, you can explain things in a way that he/she will understand. There is your imprint on that child, a connection.

When you're a step mum, you have to find ways of reaching that child, of communicating, bonding and understanding one another. All the while, you constantly have this barrier between you of someone elses imprinting, another persons heavy influence and that's when a push / pull situation starts.
Don't get me wrong, both my step children are lovely, but there are testing moments, as is the case with all children, and perhaps even more so with teenagers.

A big part of the tension I think is that their mum has brought them up very differently to how my husband and I now do. They haven't had a religious environment and now although they would never say, I think at times they find our religious practice a little too much, perhaps "slightly overwhelming" is a better description.

They are both bombarded with western influences and their friends parents are a lot more relaxed about things than we are.

Another part of it I think is their age, with toddlers you still have a chance to bond with them. I want to spend more time with them bonding, I really do, but sometimes I'm busy with work or chores and sometimes they've already made plans. On several occasions now, I've thought to myself, "tomorrow perhaps we can do this..." and then when tomorrow comes I find out they've already made plans and its too late. I need to get in there quicker before they plan something else.
Other times, we make plans, and then something changes and it doesn't happen.
Like yesterday for example, the youngest said to me, "we haven't spent anytime together in ages, I want to spend some time with you" (so cute), so I jumped at the chance, this was my window, I changed my plans, decided to postpone a few things, and cleared my diary and suggested a few things we could do. She popped out to buy something and when she came back, she'd decided that instead she wanted to do something that just involved her, she said when she's done, she'd like to do what we had planned. But that never happened.

This kind of thing has happened a few times now and I don't blame her, it's not intentional on her part, she doesn't realize that she's making plans with me and then not doing them. She's free spirited, the kind of person that thinks outside of the box, and I like that.

There are so many daily challenges that I couldn't even list them to you. All I can do is be patient, make myself available and be kind and loving.

If anyone has any suggestions on fun activities to do with teenagers, I would love to hear them. Funny thing is when I was a kid, my elders never made time to do fun activities with me. In the holidays we just kept ourselves busy and helped out around the house without being asked. These days things are different. And even if they were my own biological children, I would still be thinking of things to keep them entertained.

Ramadan & Food

This year I decided that during Ramadan I am not going to make as much food as I usually do.

In previous years, we've broken our fast with a feast! Feast for our eyes, feast for our taste buds and for our bellies! Juices, dates, fruit salad, samose, or pakore, or kebab this chutney and that chutney and such. Pray Maghrib, then sit down to a pretty big meal.

This year, I decided all that food wasn't necessary so I've kept it simple. We break our fast with water and a date or two. Pray Maghrib. Then sit down to a small meal. Something we would usually have any other time of the year.
So for example, some grilled chicken, green beans and a salad, or a stir fry. Something simple, and low carb, (I find it so difficult to finish a meal with carbs after fasting the whole day).

Then insha'Allah when Eid comes round, that'll be when our feast happens and we'll all appreciate it more too.

I just keep thinking of all the poor people across the world who won't have any food at all to break their fast with, Muslim or not. So many people will go to sleep feeling hungry tonight, while we get to quench our thirst and satisfy our appetite.

My family in Pakistan were saying that before the floods happened, milk was already difficult to get hold of, and the cost of meat was very high, but since the floods, so many animals have died, they don't know what will happen now.
We are blessed to be living in the west were we have supermarkets and halal meat shops on almost every high street. I don't want my family to take that for granted.

Ramadan Mubarak

Its finally Ramadan! Ramadan Mubarak to everyone, May Allah (SWT) make our fasts easy for us, and forgive us for our sins, continue to guide us and draw us closer to His mercy and love for us.
May this month be full of learning, enlightenment and growth, insha'Allah, Ameen.

Rheumatoid Blues

I feel so awful today. I haven't felt this bad in ages now.

I had a million things to do today, I wanted to get so many things done before Ramadan starts, which is only tomorrow! But I just couldn't get up today and resting or sleeping for longer usually helps my joints when they're bad. But today not even that helped. My joints are painful, my cartilage is crunching, I hate that acid like feeling inside the joints, everything hurts, my chest is even more painful than usual today and I'm struggling to stand up straight.

I wanted to finalize all our Eid outfits before Ramadan, I don't want to shop whilst fasting especially as these fasts will be pretty long. Which is why I really have to go to the shops today and tie up a few lose ends on outfits. I also need to make a batch of samose and someone as organized as I am now feels terribly disorganized and that's really bugging me too.

I feel like crawling back into bed but I haven't got time to sleep, but then again, if I don't rest today I may not be well enough to keep a fast tomorrow :-(

I think I'm going to have to rest and just do as much as I can sensibly manage.

Allah knows best

I've recently been thinking a lot about a friend that I haven't spoken with in some years now.

This friend used to be a colleague of mine. We worked in the same office but in completely different departments, we would get chatting over the photocopy machine and that's how our friendship started.

When I got married, she and one other person were the only people I invited from my office to my wedding. I had a small wedding, so each and every person there was very dear and special.

Soon after I got married I changed jobs and my new office was nowhere near the old. But we continued to stay in touch over email, SMS and phone. We met up a few times, and when I was with her I always enjoyed her company, we got on well, understood each other, had a similar sense of humour, made each other laugh a lot.

Soon after that I started wearing hijab. I was a little nervous at how certain people might feel about it, but thought if they are true friends it won't bother them.
The response I got from colleagues was really positive actually. It was a great conversation starter, and people were sincere and interested to hear about my reasons behind it.

People from my office were also friends with people from my old office where I used to work, where my friend still worked.
Gradually I found that every time I texted her, I wouldn't get a reply, if I called, no-one answered, if I left a voicemail no-one returned my call, if I emailed, still no response. This went on for almost a year and then one day I finally got a response to a voicemail, in the form of a text, saying "sorry, manic year, all is well, hope you're ok". That was it, despite more attempts on my part I have not had any other contact from her. And lately, I have been wondering if she had heard about my hijab from someone and maybe that was why she stepped away from me. I know that if that is the case then I should just think that I now know that she isn't a true friend, but I just find that so hard to accept. You have to remember, my wedding was really small, and she came to it because her friendship was really important and valued, how can such an important friendship just vanish like that? I thought she was a friend for life.
So it hurts.

But yesterday when I was reading Qur'an something I've read many times before just clicked something new within me.

I won't go into what it was that I read, as I don't wanted to be quoted out of context later by anyone, so often in the western media verses from the Qur'an are quoted out of context and makes our holy book and Muslims look bad. But the point is that Allah (swt) has given us so much guidance in the Qur'an and He knows best, and even though that has been difficult for me to swallow that I no longer have her friendship, I now feel satisfied and at rest about it since reading that verse, and its something I've read so many times before, but this time, its meaning had something more for me. I love that about the Qur'an no matter how many times you read it, you still learn something new from it.