Crocheting the Auditory Way

I had a crochet/knitting get together last night at my house. It was wonderful just to have a get together, especially on a day that normally I am stuck at home with only my toddler to keep me company. It was also nice because I got the house cleaned despite being tired, in preparation for them and I even got my crocheting going.
I tired and failed at following a pattern for mittens for my toddler so I thought I would improvise one. I did, and made a cute looking, if not perfect looking mitten this afternoon. It did not, fit over my toddler's hand though. It was long enough, the thumb a little too long, but it was not wide enough.

Red Heart Yarn: Black Light

I think I need to try following a video. I do so much better with someone telling me what to do and showing me.
I know this, why I don't initially go for this method I don't know. Maybe because I am "supposed to" be able to just read the directions and do great. That is just plain silly, but that's what I have allowed myself to learn.
I have to say I am so glad I am an introspective person. I think being so allows me to grow more quickly if I don't get caught up in a destructive cycle. I would like to think I am out growing that but I can't say I am completely past it either.
Anyway way, I replaced my missing size G hook and got some neon colored yarn to make my big boy a pair of mittens as well. We were talking about making them alien mittens, where the thumb, first two, and second two fingers are each in their own spot. I have no desire to try to crochet gloves and I am thinking mittens might not be versatile enough for a rough and tumble ten year old boy.

My Month of planned meals,

I am a bit burnt out on cooking. I'll share my plan with you and I actually have lots and lots of leftovers in the freezer so it's not really a big deal that if I don't cook because I have stuff in the freezer.
I cooked less and less as my morning sickness ampted up and didn't cook what so ever for a while. Then I started cooking a bit here and there until 2 weeks ago where I have been cooking from scratch at least 2 meals a day and often more.

Here is the meal plan:
Dinners, I picked 6 genres plus leftovers night then 4 main dishes in each.

American, burgers, pot pie, BBQ, roast

Italian, pizza, red sauce, white sauce, pasta e fagoli

Mexican, burritos, enchiladas, fajitas, nachos

Indian, chickpeas, tikka, rajmah chawwal, queema

Leftovers

Soup night chicken noodle, Tuscan bean soup, veggie lentil dumpling, pumpkin shrimp

Fish, curry, creamed tuna, lemon pepper fillets, fish tacos

Lunches, I did the same basic thing. 

Soup and sandwiches

                               Tomato and grilled cheese

                                Bbq and dry veg soup

                               PB&J and potato soup

                               BLT and minestrone

Hand pies

                               beef hand pie

                               mushroom hand pie

                               chicken and kale hand pie

                               lentil hand pie

Mac and cheese

                               With black beans and carrots

                               With TVP and corn

                               With bacon and green beans

                               Texmex

Fried rice

                               Veg

                               Shrimp

                               TVP

                               pineapple

Wrap sandwiches and crudités

                               Tomato and cheese

                                Creamy avocado and white bean

                               PB and sunflower seeds

                               Hummus and grilled veg

Left overs

Stuffed veg

                               Cheese stuffed tomatoes

                               Cabbage rolls

                               Curried lentil stuffed squash

                               Blackbean stuffed sweet potato

 For snack I picked 14 things that I knew we could repeat happily.

Snacks

1)      Nuts

2)      Fruits

3)      Muffins

4)      Pretzels

5)      Popcorn

6)      Granola bars

7)      Trail mix

8)      Applesauce

9)      Cheese ball and crackers

10)   Chili con queso

11)   Pinwheels

12)   Bean dip and corn chips

13)   Cheese carrots and crackers

14)   Pumpkin butter and crusty bread

I did the same with sweets as snacks and knew both could be saved if we didn't do them at all or didn't want a second time in the month.

Sweets

1)      Pecan pie

2)      Cookies

3)      Cake

4)      Stewed apples

5)      Pumpkin bread

6)      Pear crisp

7)      Bread pudding

8)      Chocolate mousse

9)      Fruit cake

10)   Apple turnovers

11)   Cream puffs

12)   Carmel apples

13)   Nut brittle

14)   Spice cake

Because we really prefer variety and I prefer spontaneity talk to my husband about what choices are left out of the week genre wise and then we decide on what main dish to serve. The only problem is I am tired after 17 days of cooking 2 or more full meals a day, exceptions being leftovers. 

LOOOK Muslim Homesteaders!

LOOK LOOK! There's a family, MUSLIM family doing what I would like to do one day, inshallah! http://www.thegomamas.com/2014/11/its-so-hard-to-say-good-bye.html Homesteading!

Thinking about how we eat.

This is a thinking out loud kind of post. This is what I am thinking, We eat lots of carrots, onion, and apples regardless of other factors. In part because they are cheap, in part because my big boy loves to eat carrots and apples and in part because they are nearly always available. Except for this pregnancy, and even still, tomatoes and cheese are the 2 major staples of our diet.
Meats are eaten more in colder weather and beans in warmer weather. I bake more in cool weather, serve many more salads in warmer weather and cook Indian recipes more frequently in hot weather. I make candies around Ramadan and in the fall.
Typically we don't each much citrus fruit, given we live in mountainous desert the quality isn't usually that good for what I buy anyway. We eat more fish in warm weather but not very frequently. We nearly only drink water and milk with hot beverages on occasion and juice slightly more frequently. We also do drink pop rarely.
I much prefer, since my pregnancy with my 1 y old, meals that take less than 20 minutes to prepare, or at least 20 minutes or less of my standing at the counter or stove. I don't mind a meal that took 6 hours to cook, I just don't want to be in the kitchen the whole time.
I'd rather serve rice than potatoes because they require less attention and bread over rice as once baked bread requires nearly no attention at all.
As far as meats go I would rather touch a red meat than poultry or fish. I would rather toss a hunk of meat in a pot or in the oven than any other method and I would rather eat ground beef than any other meat.
I love the taste of berries but they are more expensive than apples or even grapes. I love trying exotic fruits but again the price is a big factor, as well as questionable ethically. That is to say, is it really justifiable that I spend my limited dollars on a piece of fruit that was definitely grow many hundreds of miles away, probably under conditions bad for the environment and bad for the farm workers? For most likely very little pay, if any?
I buy very little candy in a given year, buy dried goods in bulk generally and do buy frozen dinners occasionally.I justify the frozen lasagna or whatever in that I am not spending as much money as I would if we ate out.

SO given all that how can I make meals easier, cheaper and faster?

My thoughts are making freezer meals, freeze leftovers, make simpler recipes and get others to share the burden of cooking.

I post on those ideas in the future, inshallah.

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Pregnancy

This would sound odd if you knew me and what it's been like the past 3 months but, I am starting to feel really pregnant now. The past 3 months I have been on the couch feeling awful with all the time but most especially in the evening morning sickness.
Now at 16 weeks pregnant I feel a lot better and it was kind of sudden. I even cooked THREE times today! Plus made "dirt clods" aka no bake cookies.
I am feeling really pregnant because now I am starting to show and have other symptoms like needing to pee a lot, it's harder to get comfortable and I had my first imagined conversation with the new baby.
I said hi.

Precarious Stairs and Sleeping Arrangements

I have a list of projects that I would like to complete in the near future, including making the stairs safer. Because we rent there are limitation in how much I am willing to invest and limitations in how much we an afford anyway.
Ever sine I fell on my back on the stairs I have been leery going up and down the stairs. I turn, taking one step cautiously at a time, while having a death grip on the rail. It's not so much that I am worried about pain as I am worried I will fall bad enough to kill the baby. That and if I were holding my toddler would he get her if I had even a little fall?
So I have been avoiding the stairs. This means I have been making myself a bed on the couch as my bedroom is down the perilous stairs, through the dungeon other wise known as the store room and into the bedroom.
I don't mind sleeping on the couch that much because for one it's much closer to the bathroom, the boys room, far from the chainsaw that fidgets (aka my sleeping husband) and warmer. The part I don't like is not being in the same room as my husband and that I am sleeping on the couch. I tried sleeping on the floor but that was too hard and cold. I tried dragging our futon matrice up to the office and sleeping in there but that was so lumpy it was terrible. I even tried making a bed on the floor with all the couch cushions but that was no good as well because my bed had to be disassembled each day, reassembled at night and there was a big hole in the middle because the cushions are rounded. It's funny but true.
I think possibly investing in a cot would be a good idea. Something like this

The type seems to range from $70 up. If we had one of these I could just fold it up and put it in the office closet. Cleaning that out is yet another project. 

My Boy Shined Mashallah

My 10 y old son preformed Boa Constrictor by Shel Silverstien at our local homeschool co-op fundraiser tonight. He did a great job, mashallah. He had practiced for a month and we both were so excited. The fundraiser was a success as well alhumdulillah. We now have more than enough money to do what we were aiming for, register as a non-profit with the IRS so we can use a building that we would like and have a wonderful co-op.

Giving Myself Credit

Let's face it, unless I congratulate myself or ask my 10 year old to, I wont get any at home. I have social media accounts so I can put, "I put my socks on." up and solicit accolades but I'd really like someone, especially my family to say to me on their own "Wow! I really see you have made a difference!" Since that's not going to happen and I would like actual sincerity it was a pleasant feeling to open my long neglected household notebook and feel pride, May Allah guide me ameen, in my work.

I had made the thing, when my oldest son was off to his dad's house for about a month in December. At first I spent my time sleeping in, watching TV, lazing about. Then I began to get busy. I got the house clean and amazingly it stayed pretty much clean. I tackled long over due projects like washing the curtains, dusting the laundry room. Well, I don't remember if I did the latter during that time but I found I was increasingly happy. I decided redoing my household notebook and making it very attractive me pursued my to use it more often. I bought a large photo album and crafting supplies.
I should tell you I am of the "good enough is good and done" camp and so it was unusual for me to be so meticulous in doing something.
I made minute details on things like a 2 inch cut out of an oven, a 1 inch cut out of grapes, and lettering using tiny silver beads to imitate bullets for the finances heading. My divider pages have texture and color schemes.
I was so refreshed that when my son came home, schooling was much better. I also got pregnant, I remember conceiving my 1 year old, with in a week of my son coming home.
And really, it is such a good thing because I got back to who I was, not just the wife and mom but the other part of myself.
Now, with a toddler and pregnant again I am very much absorbed in the demands of babyhood. I look forward to when I can start and finish a project in a day, focus uninterrupted for hours on a task and clean house and even if it doesn't stay that way, all I have to do is supervise to get it back to order.
I do enjoy the phase I am in, watching my abdomen grow, celebrating my toddlers accomplishments but I know that this is temporary. That one day there will be just me.

Realistic Expectations

Realistic expectations may or may not be easy for you. For my ten year old it seems to be very challenging when he wants to make plans. I don't want to be a nay sayer and crush his dreams but when asked to make a list of goals ending all wars was very close to the top of the list. Yes that is a great and lofty goal but you are setting your self up for failure if you think that you are personally going to do that in the near future.
There are lots of places to go to learn about goal setting as an adult but I have a feeling much of it will come from experience. My 10 year old just has very little experience in setting and meeting goals. On top of being very young he is a very live in the moment kind of guy. He would rather eat the icecream now than wait half an hour and take the chance that something will happen and he wont get to have it after all.
Maybe I have contributed to that. Weather or not I have, giving him opportunities to set goals and learn, by experience what a realistic goal is for him, personally, will, inshallah, help him to thrive.

His first time making mac and cheese without any help.

Who am I and why bother with this blog?

As nearly everyone is aware, or at least everyone with internet access or living in a country where that's very common know there are a bazillion blogs out there. What I haven't found are a bazillion or very many blogs at all that are in English and are made by Muslimahs who are homemakers. Therefore I will fill the gap, or attempt to do so.I am by no means perfect, may Allah guide me ameen, so I will make no promise to blog every x period of time. Seriously, I'm pregnant, have a toddler and homeschool my ten year old. What I can commit to is honestly sharing my experience and my ambitions, inshallah.So who is this woman making me, JP McReader, a promise, or nor promising as the case may be?Well I am not going to give you my name because I do have to account for nut jobs out there but I can tell you why bother with this blog.Because though I feel bashful to admit it, I AM actually a person of VERY interesting circumstances. A Muslimah, an American muslimah, a WHITE American Muslimah, a white American Muslimah from the bible belt living in the mountain west in a  Mormon town who HOMESCHOOLS her 10 year old from a previous marriage and who's exhusband is not nor has ever had any interest in being Muslim  AND this bloggers husband and exhusband hang out sometimes for the fun of it, AND who's husband has always been a welcomed part of her oldest's sons life AND this blogger wears hijab AND is a feminist AND is a political progressive very left wing, proudly so AND who most of her friends are conservative right wingers AND who was adopted by her second cousin when she was 3 AND has 2 brothers, and no sisters BUT has 3 sisters and 4 brothers biologically AND didn't grow up knowing that part of her family AND has a GED as well as spent 3 years going to college year round AND was her Job Corps equivalent of valedictorian and gave a much better speech, agreed all around, than the special guest speaker AND this blogger has over come clinically diagnosed major depression AND this blogger is the mother of a amazing 10 year old and a adorable 1 year old AND this blogger has 11 LONG weeks experience as a mom in the NICU AND this blogger is now 15 months into parenting a former 27 weeker micro premmie with IUGR and who is delayed with gross motor skills, and who took this long to get big enough to even be on the adjusted age growth chart at a whopping 2.25% AND who has experience, 10 years, in parenting a child that is very easily overstimulated most especially by noises AND this blogger loves meeting new people AND this speaker is a big NPR junky AND this blogger is a really nice lady who wants to share her pursuits of homemaking and homeschooling with anyone interested! AND who now at 3:29 am is finally going to BED! After she pees of course, being pregnant and all.