Goodbye for now

Salam alikum

I have been thinking the past couple of weeks about stopping blogging for a while to concentrate more on my marriage, my kids and my studying and after much consideration that is in fact what I have decided to do. In fact it's not just the blogging but all of my internet at the moment. This is not something I really want to do as I love my blog big time but.....

I didn't ever want to be the kind of Mother who was always on the computer or even worse watching TV  I want to be the kind of Mother who instead reads books to her kids. who builds forts with them, who digs with them in the garden. I don't want to be the kind of mother who sits at the playground on her phone constantly, I want to be able to run with them, fly kites and go down the slide. I know some people who choose to blog etc when their kids are asleep but for me that is the time to be either with my husband or else spending some time doing something beneficial for my soul. I need to get all my priorities in order.

For now I have decided to spend half an hour in the morning checking emails or recipes I need for that day and then pack the computer away for the day, and try as much as I can not to use it in the weekends insha'Allah.

I don't feel like this is forever but for this season in my life right now this is what I need to do. It may be six months, it may be two years. Allah knows best, but in two days from now my blog will be set to private so only I can see it.

I have met some of my closest friends in the world off this blog. Marie and Khedegah. My beloved American sisters Elisa and Rene and of course Salma who has been so kind to me in my times of hardship.Of course there are many more of you and you know who you are xxxx. Thank you all so much for all your support in the last two years, at times it was all I had. And in two years I was so, so blessed to not have even one negative comment, alhamdulillah!

Love and blessings to every single one of you xxxx

The flu season.....

I guess the flu season came early this year as everyone in this house seems to have been hit with it!

I know everyone has different home remedies when they get sick but I thought I would share some of mine. I  well and truly hope this all come out as coherent as because of pudding being sick I have very little sleep, now at noon he is so tired he has just fallen asleep in the middle of my bedroom on the tiles. Excuse me while I move him to his bed!

This time I managed to get away with a very mild dose of it because as soon as the kids started showing symptoms I started taking large amounts of vitamin c and d along with colloidal silver (which I can't swear by enough) I have some lovely  Bengali friends in Auckland who make and sell it online and later I will post the link for anyone in NZ who is interested. I also drink organic apple cider vinegar and raw honey with warm water during the day. People tell me all the time how they drink apple cider vinegar all the time with no results, the problem is that you shouldn't just buy and consume it if the vinegar in the bottle looks clear, hold the bottle up to the light and if you can see some murky stuff hanging around in the bottom of the bottle then that's the one you will actually reap a benefit from. I also add lemon juice to everything humanely possible.

I also make my own cough medicine which is as follows

2 tbsp of organic coconut oil

2 tbsp of raw honey

2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar

1/4 tsp of ginger

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp cinnamon

I put it all in a jar and shake until combined, then several times during the day take two teaspoons of it, it's not really like you can have too much of this! But with four people in the house I do make a jar a day when sick.

I also make my own chest rub by combining coconut oil with eucalyptus oil, sometimes I add beeswax just to solidify it a little more. No way do I use Vicks with it's nasty added turpentine oil and petroleum and my own one is just as effective and certainly cheaper as well. It's a win all round.

I avoid refined sugar like the plague, including fruit juice. Sugar is your worst enemy when you have the flu.

We practically live on soup when we have the flu. I add loads of onion, garlic and spices like ginger, cayenne pepper and especially fenugreek, I make rye bread most mornings but for times like this I keep a stock in the freezer ( I have not been able to find a GMO free bread here, as they add soy flour to it all it seems, so I have to make all my own). I LOVE Molly Katzen for soup recipes (and actually all recipes) her recipes are easy and I have never had one fail. 

Well I better go, today's soup is a Thai pumpkin soup made with coconut milk and lots of spices and I have a feeling it is about to simmer over if I leave it any longer than I already have. 

Several times a day I spray the surfaces with a mixture of water, white vinegar and tea tree oil to avoid any further contamination and I also wash all the clothes with some tea tree oil added to the water and make sure to dry all washing outside (if possible). 

Several times a day I spray the surfaces with a mixture of water and tea tree oil to avoid any further 

Wishing you all a blessed weekend xxx

My week and beyond

I haven't written one of these posts in a while. Half because my life is coma inducing boring much of the time and secondly because my camera hasn't been working since I got here and my husband keeps forgetting to get it fixed, and it's really just not the same without photos.

Last night my husband went to some Egyptian thing. I don't like to go because the women alternately talk only in Arabic and watch WWE (yeah I don't know either.....) but while he was gone it become like the 'old days' I could eat whatever I wanted for dinner! There is no way I could eat what I used to eat for dinner which was a salad, or soup or something like that. But tonight I really felt like rice pudding, except not the one of my childhood days :) This is certainly not a family recipe! Mine is a vegan version which I usually make with a  mixture of wild and brown rice and cook it in coconut milk, cardamon and agave.

If you want to know how to make your own coconut milk, to cut costs and miss out on the icky BPA's lining most cans then you can find out here (it's super easy). I also top mine with some pureed mango (since mangoes are super cheap here) I can buy a box of six or so for the price I used to pay for one in NZ. And the kids get some raw cream on theirs.

Speaking of raw cream, which is actually illegal in New-Zealand and you have to do a whole lot of weird things in order to get the clandestine milk and it's really expensive. Here they sell it outright and it is cheaper than the milk I was buying at Woolworths! Milk in South Africa usually has rSBT in it. For those who don't know rSBT is a genetically modified growth hormone that is injected into the cow, rSBT allows the cow to produce much more milk than normal (and if that wasn't bad enough to be already drinking growth hormones) in turn it often can give the cow mastitis along with a whole lot of other infections, which in turn leaks pus into the milk, there is actually an allowable amount of pus per liter  Gross. I don't know about you but I prefer my milk without a side of puss and GMO to boot. I don't even drink animal milk but the kids do and no way would I let them consume that on a daily basis.

Again just going off the GMO thing, I thought it best to plug now for 25/5 which is occupy Monsanto protests. They are worldwide but in South Africa will be in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.

This week the clothes debate continues in our house. You see my husband would love me to dress like this....

And most of the time I just don't. I dress much more like this

I want to love abayas but I just can't. I do sometimes wear them to make him happy. But he is the same way actually. I beg him to wear thobes because I think he looks so handsome in them but most of the time he doesn't. So he wears his jeans and t shirts and I wear my hijab and cardigans and for the most part life goes on.

At home it is another story. You see at home I tend to wear dresses like this one

But guess what my husband wants me to wear. No seriously I bet you can't!

We were in a store and I tried on some jeans and a hoodie as a joke. He knows I wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of pants. He looked at me and told me how beautiful I looked. I seriously thought he was joking but sadly he was not. He wanted so bad to buy them for me but he can forget it. You can take me out of New-Zealand but you are not taking me out of my vintage style dresses.

Ok I can hear pudding in the other room demanding to get up. He chirps in the sweetest voice "Mum? Mum? Mum?" until I go in and when I do he throws himself down in gratitude :)

I am sorry for not replying to any comments on this blog or anyone else. I LOVE your comments and I love reading all your blogs. When I try it just redirects me to my sign in page. I will get my husband to try and fix it today, he is good with stuff like that while I can barely even manage to turn the computer on.

Have a blessed and beautiful Sunday xxx

My thoughts on love

I have been in love exactly three times in my life. Maybe that's too many I don't know. Some people believe you only have one great love of your life and who am I to tell them they are wrong. Different people have different thoughts on love. But I do believe each person is sent to teach you a different lesson in life.

My first love was my first husband, I was young and impressionable and he was Turkish and taught me to cook. I so wanted a fairy tale ending He was like me in many ways, he loved food and fashion and Singstar. I wanted the big white wedding (which I got), I wanted picnics in the park and Sundays spent at church and lots of babies and most of all I wanted him to complete me. Seriously my identity was in him and when it ended I had a complete mental breakdown. He taught me though in the end that no man can ever complete you. You can never, ever give the place in your heart that is only reserved for Allah and expect to remain whole. And alhamdulillah the end of our marriage is what brought me to Islam.

The second man I fell in love with was someone I will just name by M. M was incredibly kind and generous to me and I believe Allah sent him to me in a time where I badly needed someone who was as kind to me as he was. He understood me like no one else in this world ever has or possibly will and for months I was almost in a rage at us not working out I one day found a quote that I felt summed up why I met him in the first place.

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? No. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to God.

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love


I love the part where it says break your heart so new light can get in. Just before I even agreed to marry my husband and I had packed my house and the whole Singapore thing had fallen through and I had no idea what I was going to do at all. I was on the bus and a song came on with the lyrics.

"Maybe it's about the timeTo let all of the love back in the lightMaybe it's about the perfect placeTo let go and forget about the hate"

And then I just knew it was time. It was time to forgive my son's father and give him another chance. We had both hurt each other incredibly but nearly two years had passed and I knew he could give both me and my kids a better life. If you have read my blog for a long time you know the kind of things that went down those years ago. And maybe we are not at a place of complete forgiveness we are working in it. Good things always take time.

So of course my third love is my husband now. Our love is not an easy love, it is not based on a fairy tale wedding or love at first sight. We are from two very different cultures and our lifestyle and religious beliefs actually differ quite a lot ( I would consider myself on the sufi side of things almost) and every single day we have to work really hard at it. But it benefits us both the type of sacrifices we both have to make because every day it forces me to think of the akhirah (hereafter) and not just the joys in this dunya (life). Maybe it is not from a romance novel of ANY kind and women would certainly not weep over my own love story but in the end it brings me closer to Allah and in truth that is what it is all about.

I found a poem today and thought I would share. I actually wish I had this when I was a teenager.


After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn
that love doesn’t mean leaning
and company doesn’t always mean security.
And you begin to learn
that kisses aren’t contracts
and presents aren’t promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child
and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow’s ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn…

Thoughts

It's nearly midnight and I am up scrubbing out the fridge and making hummus. I am so tired! it's been a crazy, busy weekend and I have to get up in three hours but I found this and I had to share it before it officially became Monday because I want this week to end on a good note! I seriously think I need this when I think I am nearing thirty and I am nowhere near the person I want to be!

Sadness and Bangladesh and other things

I haven't written for a while and I am thinking rather strongly these days about giving up my blog for good.

I have had a lot of struggles in my personal life and it's more than that at the moment there is much pain in the world and it really, really hurts my heart. Beyond that I have no tolerance for judgmental people and they seem to be everywhere I look online and off. I have real troubles living here, too many times I have had an 'encounter' with someone here and sat in my car screaming out loud to myself how much I hate this country. Then my poor husband gets five texts in a row about how much I hate this country and then I call my Mum when I get home to tell her as well about how much I hate this country.

I miss people who think the same as me. Here I feel like a very square peg in a round hole.

 I am so careful about what I eat here, eighty percent of the maize and soy among other things  here is GMO, even the milk is made with a genetically modified growth hormone, I don't let my kids eat artificial colourings that are derived from tar for example and because I do this people literally laugh at me and make fun of me.

When I told the nurse I am not vaccinating my son she made a huge fuss about it. She told me straight out what I am doing is child abuse and my son will die. I told her in a very polite way to just PO. She told me she should just do it anyway. I told her in a very loud voice that if she touched my son I would be calling the police for assault and will sue this clinic so fast her head would spin.

Not that calling the police in this country would do anything at all.....

I don't like having to be so aggressive all the time, it's really not my nature.

We are leaving for Singapore in a couple of months and I truly can not be out of here fast enough. Just today my husband was blackmailed by the women processing his work visa, she told him that he had to pay an additional 1000 USD than we he had agreed to and if he didn't then she was keeping the passports and as I said earlier ringing the police will result in nothing. She somehow has this idea that because he is an engineer that he is rich, she is more than welcome to come and view our apartment. We don't even own furniture! I am so tired of the nastiness of people, the scary lab experiment food and the big scary fences surrounding everything in sight. I am aware I am whinging but I don't care. It's my blog and I'll whinge if I want to.

This past week I am sure most of you have heard about the factory collapsing in Bangladesh. I was in Bangladesh exactly a year ago and to hear this news really makes my heart bleed. I love that country and the people and it made me think a lot about something I wanted to share. While I was in Bangladesh I needed to get some clothes for my son. I was not prepared at all for how hot it was going to be! I brought him some shirts which cost at least 50 USD at home however when I brought them from Bangladesh they cost about two or three dollars. If I am buying the fifty dollar shirts for a few dollars than just imagine how much the workers are being paid and the conditions they are working in.We need to think more about where that cute shirt or new jacket is coming from. People are literally paying with their lives so that we can have cheap clothes. It's not OK at all. Someones mother or wife or son will not be coming home tonight and we have a part to pay in that role.

I hope everyone has is having a good week. I have so much more to say about Femen, about the Boston bombings, about everything really but I guess it will have to wait. I am going to heed my husbands advice about staying off the internet for a while (or at least the weekend :)  It really does more harm than good sometimes.

Love and blessings to all.

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

― C.S. Lewis

Missing you

"So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing."

My Muslim name

There is a constant question I get asked here

"So what's your Muslim name?"

"It's Bonnie"

"No but you should have changed your name"

"There is not one single ayah or hadith to support that fact unless your name means something bad, as well as the fact my parents gave me this name and I want to honour that"

"How about I call you Khadijah"

"How about I call you Lucy. It's not nice to call someone else by something that's not your actual name"

"But you are married to an Arab, you should have a nice Arabic name"

"I may be married to an Arab but I am not one, I am a New-Zealander and I am proud of who I am. My husband did not marry me trying to change my racial heritage"

It's weird how so many people here believe that if you convert than you MUST change your name. I have not fought against so many culture and Islam clashes than I have here. Sometimes it's like they want to encourage me to become more of an Arab. I can't become more of something that I am not already to start with!

The abaya issue was the first one.

I don't like abayas and never have. I usually wore them to Eid or something like that. Now I wear a black one every time I leave the house, on my husbands request. But when I first moved here the sisters would say to me (because I would wear my maxi dresses and cardigans) that I should wear one so I can look more Egyptian and fit in. Again how can I look 'more' Egyptian?

Weird.

And then today.......

Today we went visiting an Egyptian family, where there were others visiting as well. One of them was about to have a baby and I asked if she had brought a cot for him. BAD idea.

She told me that he would sleep with her until at least two or older. I said OK but she looked at me suspiciously and asked where my son slept and I told her that he slept in his own room, she looked shocked and asked how long he had slept in his room and I told her since he was three months old, she yelled at everyone to come and when they did proclaimed what I had done. I swear if they could have given me a dunces hat and put me in the corner then they would have. For the rest of the day I was the bad, evil western mother and they gave my son pats on the head and whispered reassuringly to him in Arabic.

Finally I had enough and told them "Look lady, the fact you want to sleep with your son until older than two is to me frankly a little creepy, but that is your culture and your choice and your son so it's not really any of my business. I need my own personal space which in not a concept to you but again that is my culture and my personal beliefs. We are not the same person and what's right for you is not always right for me"

It didn't go down well.

Most likely because they couldn't understand half my accent anyway and so the point was lost.

I quickly got out of there and on the way home I told my husband and he told me "Egyptian women are the best Mothers in the world but at least you take fantastic care of yourself and don't let yourself go"

Gee thanks honey.

Never mind the fact that I home school whilst all their children go to school and they get a ten hour break everyday! Until I sleep all night with my little man I just don't cut it I guess.

Seriously next time I am staying home and making cookies.

Speaking of cookies I have a new trick. I love to bake but today I just didn't have time as I had to spend all morning at the dentist and then we went visiting all afternoon and evening. So I went to the supermarket and found muffins, I then sat in the car took them out of there wrapping and squished and deformed them a little, put them on some ceramic plates I brought cheaply and wrapped them in plastic wrap. They so looked homemade and I saved face all at once. Of course if they had asked if I made them I would have told them the truth but no one did! My husband just shook his head at me and laughed. He knows me well.

Hope you are all having a nice holiday (those in the west) and for everyone else big hugs.

xxxx

You deserve better

Girl meets boy. Girl is besotted by boy. Boy proposes to girl. Girl asks boy to meet parents or otherwise show some form of commitment. Boy makes excuse. Girl patiently waits. Boy makes more excuses. Boy strings girls along. Girl cries herself to sleep every night. Boy eventually ends 'engagement' by marrying someone his family picked, being secretly married all along, or just by ignoring all contact from her. Girl is left in pieces, having lost her self respect and a fair bit of iman in the process.

I often meet girls who tell me they are Muslim, I ask them how they came to be Muslim 'Oh my boyfriend is Muslim' "your what is what?" I ask. They are girls who either in real life or online have met a man and come under their charms. Now some of these girls are fly by night Muslims and when the man leaves, they leave Islam.

But some are not. They are women who truly believe and worship Allah. They say their prayers, they read the Quran, they wear hijab and they they want only to complete half their deen. And then they meet Ali who promises them marriage, but she must have sabr and just wait until his parents approve/he finishes his degree/he saves money. But in the meantime he sends her letters of loves, she talks to him on skype any moment she can and he asks her to send him pictures of her. But she never meets his family, is allowed to call him on his home phone and feels ashamed to tell people about the nature of their relationship.

If a man really loves you though he will never be ashamed of you, he will tell his family and he will contact you through your wali and not ask for photos of you or even worse........

Don't you deserve a husband who will tell the world that he is proud of be marrying you instead of treating you like a shameful secret to be hidden away.

A man who does this to a woman, is one of the worst types. Who don't want him. You want a man who will treat you as you are. Special and unique and above all to be treasured.

Without getting into too many details a similar thing happened to me. The man promised to marry me but kept making excuses and in the end I found out he was nothing the man he said he was. In fact he was already married! He claimed to me that they were Islamically divorced but they were still living together and going on holidays.Yeah that sounded plausible....There was a reason I was a secret and although I wanted to believe I was special the second it ended he was online looking for another convert to prey on. I pray for this sister and that Allah guides her like he guided me. Of course you know now that I am now married to a man who tells the world that I am his wife, he didn't make excuses and as soon as we agreed to marry, we did within days. Alhamdulillah.

Maybe you feel he loves you and you wont find someone who knows or understands you like he does.

You will.

But this time you will find something better

Happy Monday!

I'm sorry for the late post! I've had several health problems especially since I arrived in South Africa and just have not been up to writing a whole post, I have had to reserve all the mental energy for home schooling and being able to support my husband. Insha'Allah I will see a new specialist this week.

Life here has been rolling around as per usual with me cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. I am the only person I know without a housekeeper here actually, I don't know it's just weird to have a stranger in your house cleaning your bathroom, or maybe it's just me to think that way......

I am starting to make a life here for myself, something I wondered if I could possibly ever do. I've made friends and swapped recipes and am somewhat involved with one of the local masjids. I went to one women's Islamic classes but when the women there started treating me like a ghost there because I was a convert I never even glanced back, I left that crap behind behind when I left high school, they are well welcome to their clique.

Speaking of being a convert, if looks here could kill! If I go into a public place (where there are more white people) they give me death stares lol but if I go into a more Muslim populated area and they hear my accent they want to know everything! And try sneaky ways to gain that information. We were in a Bengali restaurant once when the waiter waited until my husband went to the bathroom to come and ask me where I was from, I felt sure they had a bet going on out in the kitchen, but it wasn't appropriate to ask in a restaurant which prides itself on it's Islamic atmosphere and after the chewing out my husband gave him I doubt he'll be making that mistake.My husband tells me they (as in the people inquiring) just can't rest until they know where I am from, how we met, why I converted and quite possibly even my blood type ;)

I think in part it is a cultural thing. When I was in Bangladesh it was AWFUL the way people would just stare. It was like they had no shame at all. I loved the country but hated the staring oh and the asking. It makes you feel awful. Sometimes when I asked them to stop they would, but otherwise no. I read a post on the staring of men today and how she deals with it (these in particular are South Asian men) I don't know if it's more acceptable in those cultures, I haven't quite had the same with Oriental Asian, African, or Arab Muslims, I absolutely love her blog and you can check it out here.

Anyway I had better go now and put pudding to bed.

I WILL try my best to get started on my 'How I converted to Islam' story tomorrow.

Wishing everyone a happy Monday and blessed week ahead.

Lots of love

Bonnie xxx

Our week

Salam alikum!

I am sorry I haven't had the chance to reply to comments this week, I seriously spend about 8-10 hours a day cleaning or cooking and because of a few health problems I have, I get very tired by the time I come to blogging.

I really appreciate the time that those who wrote to me about 'Zain'. I asked my husband nicely that he go and see his friend at a coffee shop or the gym or whatever and if we have to have dinner it can be a picnic at a park or wherever so his father can see his child's behaviour. I really can't talk to his wife about it as I can barely understand a word she says! I feel sorry for the child though, a child of that age with those problems is usually a product of poor parenting.

This morning pudding and I made pancakes, the recipe listed on my other blog so I thought I would share a few pictures from that :)

Ma'ashallah he is so precious

Starting from Monday I will be sharing my first part of three on how and why I converted to Islam

Have a beautiful and blessed weekend

Love Bonnie

xxx

Going private and bratty kids

Salams all and happy Monday! 

You will have to excuse my zombie likeness today, I took some sleeping pills last night that did not agree with me and it has taken most of the day for them to wear off, it's awful actually and no matter how many lattes I have consumed it has made no difference at all! Lesson learned with those ones is all I can say.

I will be opening a private blog and this one will turn more to do with issues to do with converts, a green lifestyle etc you can request me to add you to my new blog if I you know you or you have left comments previously and I recognize your blogger name. You can email me at bismallah at hotmail dot co dot nz. 

This weekend we had some people to dinner whose four year old was so out of control it was scary (let's call him Zain) Zain swore and slapped my daughter across the face, tore up books and destroyed toys and when I took them off him, he bit me so hard that I was bleeding and really bruised. His parents didn't do one thing to stop him except to tell me to 'give him a hiding' which of course I would never do. I know much of it is due to his parents as they feed him only what he wants which of course is sugary stuff (so many of his teeth have already fallen out) they let him beat his baby brother (to teach them to toughen up) and when he tortures animals they do nothing to stop him. It's rather scary......

The father is not bad per se, he just has somewhat of a village mentality I guess. I am not really sure what to do as Zain's father is best friends with my own husband but I seriously do not want that boy around my little one, maybe I am being selfish but after seeing what he did to my arm I can't imagine what he could do to pudding I don't want him coming.

Any suggestions on my dilemma? All welcome :) 

TGIF

Finally it's Friday! This week has seemed to drag on by, I guess in part to my dear husband and I both having a bad stomach virus and our conflicting cultural views on the best treatment, mine being plain food and lots of water and his being food with lots of chile's....Now I am not boasting or anything but I do have to say my opinion turned out to be the clear winner in this case. I was very good though, I only said I told you so about six or seven times. I really think I'm learning the skill of restraint.

Also Friday is our date night! No matter how much work he has we keep this date like it's etched in stone. I have seen too many couples become just a mother and father instead of husband and wife and we are determined that we will not fall into that. I think it's imperative a couple has time to talk together, discuss goals and dreams and requests etc. We usually only go somewhere close by and simple, but even if we just end up sharing fries in the car in the McDonalds parking lot, it's not what we do, it's that we are together.

On Saturday we are going to the drive in! So cool. My husband and daughter both love animated movies whilst I hate them but I think it's more about the experience. Plus I'll be busy wrangling pudding :) Trying to stop him from throwing popcorn everywhere and wriggle his way out of the window.

Our new home school curriculum will arrive insha'Allah next week as well, Afrikaans is mandatory here but I am trying to best to somehow avoid that. I don't even know one word of the language!

I thought I would share some photos from our week, they are not the best quality but iA this week I will get my camera fixed! I miss like it like a dear old friend. My husband does not want any photos of the kids faces on my blog anymore and although I haven't shown any of my daughter since she got older I will have to get more creative with the ones I put up of pudding.

The rain pouring down outside my bedroom

Garlic knots

Pasta salad

A tree as the sunset filters through it

Baba pushing pudding on the swing at dusk

 Pudding watching the rain fall into the pool

Ambrosia for Baba

 Pudding climbing up the slide, instead of going down!

 Pudding's gingerbread man

A reminder on the rubbish bins lol

I seriously need to go and start the housework now, as much as I wish it the windows are not going to wash themselves. I try to do everything on a Friday so the weekends are relatively free. Although we have a large group of my husbands friends and wives coming on Sunday and so he reminded me " Honey, they are Egyptians so remember you have to serve them meat or we will look really rude" LOL

Have a beautiful and blessed weekend

Love Bonnie xxx

The worst housekeeper

This is a prior warning: This post is primarily about housework. If you are a man or have significantly better things to do then I suggest you stop reading now.

I've never been a good housekeeper at all. In my opinion if your house isn't being featured on hoarders or you don't have an order on your front door from the health department claiming you a notifiable health risk then you are pretty much good to go.

My sister is a scary neat freak and when she would tell me I should be like her I would tell her straight "Toni, I'm creative and we all know creative people are somewhat eccentric, it just adds to their charm". 

It's always been one of my biggest fears to live in the suburbs, driving one of those mum cars and cooking a Sunday roast while my husband watches some kind of sporting game. At least by being creatively untidy I was distancing myself from that 

So when I got married I knew what I was getting in for I just didn't realise quite the degree of it.

So welcome to my new life which includes ironing the dishcloths, scrubbing the floors at a minimum of once a day and doing things I consider really really boring. Like taking the fan apart to clean it 'properly' once a week.

I mean who does that?

Well me apparently.......

There are things I have always loved and done. I always make every meal from scratch including bread, yoghurt etc and making all my own cleaning products and soaps. But that stuff is fun. making your own cleaning products is pretty much the same as being a scientist ;) Wonder if I could get away with adding that to my CV....

And now I find myself in a dilemma. How do women married to men equally as fastidious as my husband actually manage to get everything done?

I went onto some homemaking websites and they suggested making a routine like cleaning the bathroom every Tuesday etc

Cleaning the bathroom once a week, I mean like I said I was never Martha Stewart before but that's kind of gross.... Maybe I wasn't as bad as I thought.

My dear husband offered to get a housekeeper for me but having some stranger in the house all day is really something I am not willing to compromise on.

I need to be able to eat ice cream out of the container, in my pjamas whilst watching my big fat gypsy wedding reruns without being judged. 

Anyway if anyone has got any advice on how to become a housekeeping extraordinaire then please let me know by commenting or emailing me. Go on you know you want to!

It's time for me to get pudding ready for bed now, hope you all had a super happy day!

xxxx

Storm clouds

It's pouring with rain here in Africa and as I stared out the window at the increasingly darkening clouds I thought how lately a few friends of mine have been going through hard times.

Today's writing is not going to really offer Islamic advice as a few of my friends suffering are not actually Muslim but of course as always, I always direct anyone first and foremost to our creator, the lord of the worlds.

Some really hard times.

One of them although I have never met her in person has one of the most beautiful souls I have ever had the fortune to meet. She was always there for me when I was at my lowest with some uplifting words, some presents and her prayers. Her friendship has meant more to me than you can ever know. You could not ask to meet a kinder and more special woman, although she is not technically Muslim, in many ways she is more Muslim than many other Muslims I know if that makes sense. Please pray for her as she prepares to have her baby next month. She has had the most awful time in the last few months.

Two years ago when I was crippled by my circumstances, people would say stuff to me like 'Just be grateful you are not starving in Africa or whatever' I wanted to hug those people. In the face.With a chair. Instead I just cried and held on even tighter to the few friends I did have.

You see at that time I couldn't see past my circumstances, the pain was slowly suffocating me and that was all I knew. I hoped against hope for a better future but it seemed that all that was coming my way was trials and tribulations. I begged Allah for it to just stop because I couldn't take it anymore.

My friend told me "You know whenever I am having an awful time or I met someone who is going through utter hell I just tell them, just be grateful you haven't had Bonnie's life........

Errrrr thanks??

Today as the storm raged on outside, I was more than annoyed because I really needed to go out but couldn't take pudding out in the rain of course. But an hour later my daughter came running in to tell me "Mummy, look out the window" and as I did I saw not one but two rainbows! If the storm had never come I never would have been able to experience my once in a lifetime experience of seeing two rainbows. And I was grateful for it even though an hour ago I was cursing the weather, we never know just what a storm will bring.

But storms take away the old and bring in the new. The rain washes away the debris and rubbish and brings with it a new start. When the storm rages around us we want to hide and sometimes we do but when all is over and the air is clean and the ground washed clear. Sometimes though storms leave devastation in their wake but in that instance sometimes the only way to fix something is to tear it down and start again.

If you know me in person you will know just what storms I myself went through and how for everything bad thing that happened, Allah brought me so much more than I could have ever even asked for.

So for all my dearest friends suffering through your own storm may our creator bring you better what you had before and bless you with your own double rainbows.

Reflections on love

I went into a store and saw this today, when I showed it to my husband and told him I was buying it for him to hang over our bed and he got that look on his face that he gets whenever he is exceptionally happy or proud of me. He ended up paying for it anyway so I am not sure who got it for who. Maybe we got it for each other.

I didn't blog that much in 2012. I had a lot to say but did not really want to put every little detail of my life on here for everyone to know, it still irks me to wonder who is reading my blog and my innermost thoughts.

The beginning of 2012 I fell in love. This love consumed me for a better part of the year to the degree that I felt like I didn't need anyone else in my life. I prayed and waited for the moment when I would be his wife. I gave up my own self respect and self worth almost in the quest for our marriage. This man was forever sending me flowers and gifts and he even made a website for me. If someone goes to that much trouble they must surely love you. Right?

Right??

Wrong. It was never real. And I should have known better. You know sometimes when you want something SO badly you can force yourself to believe something that it is not. You believe the lies and swallow the poison, believing that it will make you better.

It only leads to your destruction.

So 2012 taught me a lot in this regard. I learnt to never compromise who I am for the sake of someone else. And I learnt that sometimes true love is not actually what you think it is at all.

My husband now doesn't buy me flowers, he certainly doesn't write me love letters or buy me jewelry. He wouldn't ever think of bringing me breakfast in bed or telling me how beautiful I am.

However after working fourteen hours he will drive well out of his way to get me a coke zero because he knows how much I love it (even though he loathes me drinking it) he missed an important work meeting so he could sit next to me at the dentist when I got my teeth cleaned because he knows dentists freak me out, he will get up with pudding no matter how exhausted he is, when I have had an awful day with the kids he will take me to the McDonalds or whatever is open at 10 pm! Buy me french fries and a drink and tell me jokes to make me laugh.

And this is real love.

It is not perfect by any means. We fight and I cry. We disagree on a lot and life is not perfect but it is real.

Alhamdulliah for the bad times too, they help me get over my paralysing fears of being left again. I have big time issues..... But the more we fight almost the more I get it that he is not going anywhere. We are in it for life.

And so for better or worse this really is love.....

Catching up

Assalam alikum

I have wanted to write for the longest time but have about five minutes internet time a day if I was lucky! Now today lying in my bed with the internet is akin to spending the day at a luxury spa ;) Never mind the fact that I am surrounded by five billion boxes that need to be unpacked. A girl has gotta have her priorities.

We finally moved apartment yesterday alhamdulillah. For the last six weeks I have been in a one bedroom apartment with the two kids and it seriously put me on the verge of feeling like I was going to have a nervous breakdown. It was fine for my husband as he got to escape to work for 14 hours a day, I asked him if we could swap and he just patted my head and smiled.

But now we have moved to a much bigger place and the difference is amazing. I finally have my own bathroom and most importantly I could kick pudding out of my room, I love that little boy to pieces but being woken about twelve hours a night is not really conductive to a happy momma, I mean c'mon I had to deal with that for the first year of his life, I didn't sign up for the two year deal. So yesterday for the first time in six weeks he slept all night. Alhamdulillah.

We will be living in three different countries this year and so I guess I have to get used to the moving, such is the life of my husbands job. But I seriously just want to settle so badly, I want to buy actual furniture (my husbands idea of actual furniture is a green plastic garden table) but don't worry that was the first thing to go, along with the polyester sheets and faux leather couch.

I am going to get my camera fixed this weekend insha'Allah and then I will have some beautiful photos to share with you. I didn't want to live in this country by any means but I am finding the beauty where I can. I have so many stories and experiences to share with you all but it will have to wait until Sunday as there are boxes and bags on every surface possible.

Love and blessings to you all