Skantily Dressed

Now muslims can be skantily dressed, not to be confused with scantily dressed or skankily dressed! If a skirt crossed with shorts is a skort then a skirt crossed with pants is a skant right? If you love the look of a skirt but want the ease of pants then check out shukr's new jeans and pants here. Yes I love shukr!

Vegan face and body products

Since we want to avoid pork in our products and non-zabihah meat, its nice to find vegan products. Lush has a lot but be sure to check which ones. This Ontario company with 3 locations and online ordering has a nice selection as well. With Eid coming up these would make for lovely gifts too.

Would you convert for a toaster?

You just have to see this video lol. Just goes to prove its not that easy to get people to convert, lol. And by the way I am still waiting for my toaster!

American Muslim Mom

Just found this site today and it looks awesome with so many topics. I was especially surprised to see my daughter's website mentioned here. Just scroll down to the ramadan info and you will see them recommending her site for the ramadan advent calendar. They are also advertising a conference about marketing to the huge muslim community in the US. Some of the posts are a little old and the book section has no mention of adult books so you'll just have to keep coming here to find out about new and exciting titles! :) Now if someone would just start a Canadian Muslim Mom website!

Note: for some reason the link isn't working...here it is http://americanmuslimmom.com/category/islamic-studies-kids

Cold Weather Picks

With fall now here you may be thinking of some warmer choices for clothing. Shukr has some nice baby friendly choices like this poncho and this long sweater and this jilbab. The sweater is almost running out though. Insha Allah they will get more and hopefully in all the colours that the US is offering. Al-Hannah also has a long sweater, but it doesn't look as warm. What have you been wearing with this chill in the air? I still have a jean hooded jilbab I ordered from Shukr 6 yrs ago. Still love it! Masha Allah.

They're blinding me with SCIENCE!

My son is studying cells and the use of microscopes. Today I got him to draw and label all the parts of the cell; animal and plant. I also found this for him. My other son rushed along and finished both biodiversity and flight and started his electricity unit today. He used his electricity kit to turn on a light switch, buzzer and twirl a windmill. My daughter was learning about joints and my son in grade 3 was continuing his learning of plants. Pollination was the topic for today and this website was a great help. A good project for this can be found here. Now I have been inspired to take a trip here. I wish I had learned more about science when I was young. I always shunned it but becoming muslim really piqued my interest and homeschooling reinforces that.

Letting go of stuff.

Since my house is small and I can't maximize the space any more I've decided to pare down. Oh it is hard. I have to let go of kids clothes that I've kept over the years because there is too much of them. Some of them are now out of style, some of them are not to the liking of the new owner and some are older than the newer ones that have been given to us. No kid can wear this much clothes after all so I will find them a better home. I have gone through one daughter's clothes but I need to go through more. I've gone through my clothes as well. Today I went through my cookbooks. Oh yes I have those even though I detest cooking. Did you ever have something because you think that one day you will morph into that kind of person? Don't do it! I kept all the baking ones of course or most of them but the cooking stuff just had to go. I can't keep telling myself that one day I will make those recipes but if I really need a recipe I am sure I can find it on the net and just print it out. I'm going to have to look through my kitchen stuff too and see what can go but that's for another day. Its not that its physically hard but its emotionally hard to let go of the past and all those memories and hard to let go of the possible future that never seems to materialize.

Helium

When I hear the word helium I think baloon. How about you? But recently I found out from my second daughter that Helium is a site kind of like youtube where instead of uploading videos you write articles and get paid for them. There are actually writing assignments for you to choose from. If you want to debate that's available too. If contests are your thing, you can enter those as well. Many topics are available including religion. Here is the link to Islam. So what colour is your balloon?

Storage solutions?

When you live in a shoe with so many kids you don't know what to do,things can get a little cramped! So off I went to a free organizing seminar. We got some coupons and a handout with tips first of all,then we watched a slide show with more tips and some before and after photos. I didn't feel like I had learned very much since I noticed that I was already implementing her advice. At the end there was a draw and lo and behold I was the winner of this. I decided to talk to her personally and she said I could either get another shed,rent storage ($100 a month..so not happening) or build an addition. So I'm no further ahead except for my lovely parting gift masha Allah.

Grandma

In the fall an old woman's fancy turns to....baking. I woke up this morning with a craving for molasses cookies. My favourite brand is Grandma molasses and its all good because yes I am a grandma. Its also what I grew up with. I was going to just buy store bought cookies but when I read the ingredients,well forget it..they had fake sugar; sorbitol. I don't do fake. Butter never margarine, sugar never aspartame etc..just real ingredients for this old woman. I also have oatmeal on the mind. Not the kind you eat for breakfast all hot and mushy, no sirree but the type you eat cold and use for baking. So I think I'll round myself up some molasses oatmeal cookies and call it a day. A nice, clear, crisp fall day.

PS. I brought some over to a neighbour I'd never met before.

Old Woman in the Shoe activities

You knew it was coming right? Here is a craft for a magnet. And here is a cake design. And here is a colouring page. Be sure to give the mother a hijab ok? ;)

Six degrees of separation?

Is it just me or does anyone else notice that in Canada every muslim is connected in some way to every other muslim? I guess its because there are so few of us but it seems like instead of 6 degrees its more like 2 or 3. I cannot believe how many of my friends have mutual friends even though we don't live anywhere near each other. This happens so often I just feel like bursting out laughing. I guess when the muslim community grows much larger, people will never feel this connected again. We are living in a unique period in history, in the growth of ummah here in North America. Generations from now they will never know the sweetness of this type of real social networking. And then of course there is the whole idea of being conscripted soldiers (kindred spirits) as per the hadith. Quadr Allah. Subhanallah.