Late night shenanigans

Last night, after about a dozen little break ups and make ups the hubby and i decided to end the night on a good note and we did that by devouring a scrumptious dessert.

If you're wondering how we came to such a crucial point that both Hagen Daz and Ben Jerrys were required to sort it out... Well i'll explain.

It all started when the Hubby called me from the car and asked to warm his food up, because he was pretty hungry. I should have guessed from his tone that not only was he pretty hungry , he was pretty grumpy too but unfortunately i failed to notice anything and got busy setting the table, while he walked in and hugged Mrs. sofa rather than me (another clue of his grumpiness i failed to pick up). We ate together, after which i went upstairs to the bedroom, with munchkin screaming in my ears but before i left the room, i told him to come up too.

I was just excited to show him that after spending six hours in the attic i had turned it from a cold, smelly, junk space to a freezing cold, non-smelling, storage room. And i was dying to show him all that i had done. But he was too annoyed after a long tiring day at work and traveling for two hours on an overcrowded tube. So when i called him, he just sat there staring at the empty plate or what ever but DID NOT follow me up stairs.

That is the reason why we needed to get high on sugar, to forget about our troubles...
Did it work?
Yes, we both fell asleep worried about our weight, rather than the argument.

Excitement in the air...

AAAAHHHH i'm back............ It's been so hectic. First with munchkin not feeling so well and then hectic preparations for Eid. I'm really excited now though, because I'm organizing the family function, girls henna night, and a surprise party for two nieces. InshaAllah all will go according to plan.

The hubby and i decided that with munchkin in our lives now, we have to try and steer our lives to the right path of the deen as much as possible, and among other things we decided to really let go of birthday celebrations. Which was a bigger challenge for me than it was for him. However i do feel very strongly about bringing positive aspects of the deen into our lives, such as celebrating the two Eid to the fullest. I really don't want mucking growing up thinking that just because she was born in a Muslim family there is no fun in life. So i have decided to always make an effort for Eid. Even though poor munchkins first ever Eid was ruined a little bit by the burglary.

There is so much to do and only a week left. I've just ordered Hubby's Eid gift, which I'm really excited about. Poor guy was absolutely baffled by the idea of Eid gifts as he always gets freaked out thinking I'm not going to like what ever he gets me, because i always pretend to love what ever i get. So i helped him out a little bit and told him to get me something from monsoon and some cute pj's.

I've got one of Munchkins dresses and I'm delighted to say i love it. My abayas came last week and even tho it wasn't love at first sight, it has grown on me a little bit. I still need to get munchkins accessories and a scarf for myself. Once our outfits are complete I'd love to do a post about them.

Silenced thoughts and unquestioned feelings

Sometimes when analysing myself, my life, i feel like i had fallen asleep and woke up to see that all i knew is no more and things have dramatically changed. I myself am a different person, and i constantly tell myself that this change is for the better and i believe that too, but the problem is i am finding it hard to adjust with this new me and the new surroundings. It feels like i am having to get to know a complete stranger, but instead of having time and doing it through a slow and natural process i am being forced to do it as quickly as possible and its proving to be a too big of a challenge for me.

If someone had asked me a few years ago to describe what i would want out of married life, i would have blurted out all the nonsense about a typical fairytale life, like most teenage girls. Now being twenty three i find myself in a strange and unfamiliar predicament which i would never have guessed, I'd have to deal with one day.

I got married at the age of twenty, while i was in my second year of university. The decision of getting married was one i made myself. However The Hubby and i didn't know each other before we got married. It was an arranged marriage, with the help of our parents. It may seem strange but i believe that The Hubby coming into my life was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Over the last two years he has become the most important person in my life. He has won me over with his patient, loving nature and has been a guide, a teacher and most importantly a friend to me through this whole process of change that i have gone through. I know i am lucky to have him and love him for all that he has come to mean to me.

I grew calling myself a Muslim but i come from a non practicing family. My parents both amazing individuals raised us in a way that they hoped we would make the right decisions about the Deen when the time would come. Growing up we had little influence of culture or religion in our life. Decisions were made on the basis of what felt right to my parents at that time. My mother and i have been best friends ever since i can remember. I have a strong relationship with my dad, and can discuss almost ever little thing with him. Since i was a little girl he confided in me and trusted me with anything that was happening in our lives. He always said that including his children like that in family matters would give them an insight of what practical life would be like and on the other hand would bring the family closer. By the time i was around sixteen i was more or less making all the important decisions with my parents. Even though both my father and mother came from a large families they never forced us to socialise with them. The decision was always left to us to stay in contact with people or not. This was further reinforced by the fact that we hardly had any family living nearby. Even though they kept a close eye, we were always encouraged to choose our own friends circle.

In comparison things were very different in The Hubby's house. He grew up in a strict traditional family, with all outside decisions made by his father and inside decisions made by his mother. Religion always played a big role in their lives. All decisions were put through to their father who would have the last say about things. In a family of two mothers and eight brother and sisters the authority was always held by his father. All most all socialising was and is kept to strictly family.

Once i got married The Hubby told me that we would be living with his parents until they were alive. It was something i hadn't asked him before we got married because i never thought he would want to live with his parents. Anyway after a few days of getting married when he told me this, i realised how important this was for him and therefore made the decision to support him with all sincerity. The first two moths after our wedding his eldest sister and her two children lived with us. The day she moved out his other sister came to live with us and stayed with her family for seven months. My troubles started while she was with us. I had been married for six months and it had all started to dawn on me that i couldn't cope with such a life style. It was too strange to constantly have so many people around, to have no privacy, no personal space and room for individuality.

Fast forward nearly two years and i feel like i can't cope anymore. Everyday is a struggle because i feel like i am in a constant battle with what i want and the love i have for the most important person in my life. I want to be able to do what i promised him but i feel like giving up every second of the day. I know my troubles are hurting The Hubby a lot too, because i am not the same girl he married. I am constantly angry and upset and in a foul mood most of the time. I cry a lot. I try to run to my parents house as much as possible and have started to despise his brothers and sisters and their families who are at our house too much for my liking. I understand that they only come to meet their parents and its their right but i can't cope with the constant invasion of my privacy. I need my space. Other than my bedroom i hate the rest of the house. The Hubby being the youngest is really close to everyone and i know my feelings are affecting his relationship with his siblings in one way or another. But i have no control over my feelings. I feel suffocated in my own house. I can't stand the people closest to me. Life has started to look like an uphill struggle which is getting harder day by day.

All this may seem pathetic or simply immature banter to some but its my test. I know that a lot of it has to do with the fact that after getting married i have started to understand the Deen a lot better, with the help of The Hubby so i have stopped doing things that used to please me, because they contradict with an Islamic lifestyle. Like going out with friends - once i got into the Deen my friends and i just grew apart- listening to music, fashion. i know that had i been able to keep my personality, my environment would have effected me less. But that didn't prove to be the case and now i am so unhappy that i constantly try to think of ways to alter my life. The only reason i fight with myself is the love i have for my husband. For him i wake up every day and tell myself 'lets try once again'....

This is where i am....

I have always argued that its natural and normal for individuals to grow intellectually and evolve with the passing time. The idea of people being stuck in a certain time frame all their lives has always seemed bizarre and slightly disturbing to me. Seeing grown men and women act as if they were still in their teenage years by either dressing a certain way or just completely living that lifestyle is something that has never appealed to me. I remember a few years ago, when i myself used to be a very different person, one of my cousins got married to a guy who was a musician in his younger years. This guy had a well respected career by the time he married my cousin but still there was an air of 'life is all fun and games', 'lets party' aura that always surrounded him. I was a teenager at that time, so needless to say that i was in total awe of this person. I always thought that he was not like your usual boring adult. You could 'chill' with him like he was a friend. I remember i used to love having him come to our house and we'd all hang out for hours, with cousins who were of the same frame of mind.

Anyhow, i left college around that time and started my degree and would get less and less time to spend with family and then in second year of university i got married. I didn't get to see many of my cousins a lot over the last few years, and we never really 'chilled' the way we used to.

A few months ago The Hubby and i were talking about families and i was trying my best to scare him of the horrors he'd have to go through when he would meet my cousins. The Hubby, regardless of his young age (twenty six) is an old chap at heart, who prefers to sit with the adult males (all over the age of fifty) in family gatherings. So when i picture him with the loud, in your face, crazy bunch i am proud to call my cousins (there is about 30 of them) i can't help but feel sorry for him, with a funny smile on my face. Anyway while we were talking about this torturous topic (for him) i took the honour of describing a few of these lovely individuals to The Hubby. That's when the musician cousin got mentioned but when i described him to The Hubby, to my own surprise i was thinking that i could not sit with these people for too long anymore or hang out for hours the way we used to. When i told The Hubby this, amusingly enough he was as shocked as i was to hear that from me, because he knew i used to be pretty close to my cousins. However, The Hubby asked me to explain and the only suitable reply i could come up with, was that i had grown up and couldn't talk about music, movies, TV and other family members for hours. I truly couldn't understand how one of them was still finding time to change his hairstyle every month. I couldn't understand how in their thirties and forties they were still into the same stuff that my fourteen year old sister enjoyed. I was simply perplexed.

I tried explaining to Hubby that i thought some of my cousins were still acting like they were young kids. Didn't Allah swt create us in a way where we our constantly evolving. From our looks to our tastes and interests, don't they always change. And if these things don't change, surly our priorities do. I remember we discussed this for long enough for both of us to forget what we were talking about.

However, the story has altered now. If i am to still go by my theory of change and evolution my own life would not make sense to me, because even though my theory has proved right it has been only been half true in my case. I have indeed changed my tastes, interest and image, maybe even a little more than a normal person would. I am no longer the person i was a few years ago. Friends from college and university have walked right passed me, without giving me a second look and i am thankful to Allah swt for that because i needed that change desperately. Nevertheless the problem is that even though i have stopped being that person, and have shed all remains of that identity as much as i could as it didn't have even a shadow of the Deen, i have not evolved when it comes to my interests and tastes, my hobbies and the things one loves. Not much makes me happy these days. There is no more me, no individuality in my black abaya. No personality in my room i share with The Hubby and Munchkin. I no longer have my large circle of friends to define my social status. My life doesn't seem like mine anymore, its empty of the feelings of small pleasures. Moreover i feel depleted and unhappy and not only does that make me feel like a hollow shell it also fills me with fear and scares me tremendously. I am scared because i dread that i might start to miss the old me, the one i put all my efforts in forgetting...

I am back at my parents house after less than two weeks and i intend to do nothing other than relax, unwind, read and think... This is my time, when munchkin is taken care of and only brought to me when hungry. I know she is in safe hands (meaning taken care of the way i would and like) so i don't worry about her even when i don't see her for hours. I intend to write a lot, think and organise my thoughts and clear my head. lately i feel like there is such a build up of emotions and thoughts in my head which i intend to untangle as much as possible over the next few days as i escape to what i call my pretend life of no responsibilities.
As i look at this blog, i am ashamed to see that it resembles more and more something that i did not want it to be. A daily rant page about nothing. I want at least some, if not all of my posts to mean something to me, i want to talk about the things that have been making me upset and the things that cause me to ponder where i stand in life at this stage.
other than that dear sis Salma has invited me to a very special blog which i am very excite to be part of and would love to contribute something to, so i hope to be able to get some time to do that.
Last but not least i want to spend lots of time with one of my favorite people in the world, my dearest mother.
Ohh and i have already started missing The Hubby :(

New Look

My new background reminds me of pretty country cottage decorated by a sweet old lady. Thing is i love country decor. Imagining myself in a country cottage evoke feelings of relaxation and peacefulness in me. As much as The Hubby and I love the idea of traveling the world and seeing all the Islamic countries, we have more or less come to the conclusion that for us nothing beats a week spent in English countryside. Doing nothing from morning till evening in a beautiful secluded cottage, having no neighbours and only the sound of birds and water (if you're lucky and have a stream nearby).

When you live in London (20 minutes away from an airport) the sound of nothing is like heaven. And after spending a week in a place like that, we always come back with our batteries fully recharged.

When the Hubby and i got married, we had talked about going for Umrah and then maybe Dubai for a week after that. But due to the fact that i had applied for a indefinite stay in the UK around that time, my passport didn't come back straight away, so we couldn't go abroad and initially dropped the idea of going any where. But soon after we realised that in order get some US time we'd have to leave...

That's when my mom suggested we book a cottage somewhere and i remember looking at her like she had just insulted me, but like always The Hubby and mom seemed to be thinking along the same lines and we booked a cottage and went away for a week. To this date i believe that those few days helped us build a foundation for a beautiful relationship. A week without any interruptions, distractions or worries was exactly what we needed. Not only did we have all the time in the world to get to know each other, we learned that we loved each others company. I really believe that had we gone anywhere else, we would not have enjoyed ourselves as much as we did. Over the two years of our marriage we have managed to go back three times to spend time doing nothing and have loved every minute of it.

Ohh and the picture above is of the view from our garden of our first cottage.

Brief encouter with my sole mates

Many know of my long affair with Timbs (timberland boots). It all started when i was a wee girl in high school in Amsterdam. I saw Timbs, and it was love at first sight. Even though the first time i laid my eyes on Timbs, Timbs was providing support, comfort and style to someone else, but i just knew i had to have Timbs. I did everything to get Timbs, it wasn't easy convincing my parents. They didn't understand that ours was a love that was going to last. But somehow i managed to convince them of Timbs durable nature, and its flexibility to go with anything. They agreed and i brought Timbs home. Ever since then we had our ups and downs but things always worked out, until the day hijab came into my life. Timbs and hijab never got along and i had to make a decision. In the end i went for Hijab and Timbs and i parted our ways.

UNTIL last week when i went into TK Max to buy my little sis a pressie and saw Timbs again. It was awkward at first, i hardly recognised Timbs. The years had done Timbs some good, as the new look was making my heart melt. I had a long look at Timbs and Timbs stared back at me with that 'i know you want me' look.

Then i took a picture of my most beloved footwear and gave them another long hard last look and walked the other way. All because i have stopped wearing heals...
While i was walking i said out loud 'Dear Allah, this is a challenge, all i want to do is take these babies home, but i love you and don't want to upset you so i wont.' I have to say that made me feel better and alerted a few shop assistants that there might be a looney in their shop... Ahhh well.