Working Mama Muslimah

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

I'm on my way to getting a job. My husband goes abroad in September to finish his degree...and I'll be at home with the girls. Well, not quite. I'm going to go live with my dad. InshaAllah it'll be okay.

Anyway...I'm going back to school. I'm going to try to get a technical certificate as a MA, inshaAllah. It'll take about three semesters, inshaAllah...but I'm going to start looking for jobs in April. InshaAllah I'll have something by May wa Allahu Alim!

I only want to work part-time. Preferably as a receptionist or administrative assistant. That way I'll still have time at home for the girls (and my husband will be able to take care of them while I'm at work) and time to study...

Anyway...I've been wearing Abaya for about four years now. The only time I don't wear it is when I'm working. So..................I've started a search for appropriate clothing. Long skirts, long-sleeved shirts/blouses, sheath dresses that I can wear over pants and blouses, etc....things that can be bought a little bigger as to conceal the body...long cardigans to cover up anything that might be a little too tight. You get the picture.

So far, here are a few of my favorites...

Metro Style has got some suits and blazers that look nice and don't cost a fortune:

Newport News is another website with pretty affordable, professional looking clothing that can made to suit a Muslimah's wardrobe:

EastEssence also has some nice sets...albeit my goal is to still look classy while being modest......not frumpy.

Fi aman Allah!

Raving

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

I've been using the cold cream and witch hazel for long enough to start raving about it. I usually have some blemishes before and during a certain time of the month...but by my face, I can't tell that it's coming anymore. Really, I have quite blemish prone skin and I only have two blemishes on my face at the moment--which are easily covered by foundation (not even concealer!).

So here I am, proclaiming it! The cold cream and witch hazel is wonderful! My face is clean, I have very few (if any) blackheads anymore, my skin is supple, not dry. That and my make-up looks great on my face...it seems like my skin ton has evened out somehow! MashaAllah! I can't say enough about it!

Fi aman Allah!

Getting "Clean and Tidy"

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

My husband thinks I'm filthy. Not just messy. Not just untidy. He thinks I'm filthy.

I admit, I don't vacuum daily sometimes. I admit, I don't mop daily. I admit that I only clean the bathroom every other day....and the inbetween day will invariently leave some of my hair on the floor after I've brushed it out.

But I feel like my family and my happiness is more important that a house that is hygienically clean. And anyway, I don't want to live in a sterile environment...it's not healthy. Literally.

I think my husband gets it from his mother. She's the kind of person that washes the walls with soapy water and a huge brush about once a month. She squeegies her floors and vacuums daily. The countertops in the kitchen are cleaned many many times a day and the beds are ALWAYS made even after midday naps.

Now, I love my mother-in-law. She's a wonderful person and the clean stuff comes naturally to her. But it's kind of annoying. If I put anything down for two minutes, it might just be missing ("put away") by the time I come back for it. And I wouldn't dare leave anything sitting on top of a dresser or table...I'd never find it again after it had been "put away".

That's not exactly the kind of environment I want my kids to live in either. My husband grew up without toys. I'm not sure whether that was a result of my father-in-law thinking toys were kind of useless (I'm not sure if he thinks that way) or whether it was a result of my mother-in-law not wanting to deal with the mess. When I'm in Syria with my kids, they have toys...but a very select few that get stuffed into a bag and put back into a closet as soon as the kids are done playing.

In my home, there are *usually* toys on the floor. Our phones are usually lying around on a table. My daughters' bedroom is always in disarray and my own bedroom looks kind of undone by the middle of the afternoon after naptime. My books and my husband's books look fine in the bookcase, but I don't mind if my daughters just throw their own books onto the shelves in whatever order they please. I go through the bookcare about once every two weeks and organize it for them, but the rest of the time don't care.

But then, I don't think that I'm dirty or filthy. The dishes get done, the kitchen gets wiped, the stove and fridge get cleaned and the table gets cleared and wiped. The toys do get picked up at least once a day. There are clean clothes in the drawers and closets and there are dirty clothes in baskets. I vacuum under cushions and I dust tables and lamps. The toilet and tub get cleaned and the sink/vanity is almost always orderly.

Anyway, that's my little rant for the day.

Toodaloo.

Fi aman Allah.

Skin Care

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

Since I've been married, I've gotten to be significantly more high maintenance than I used to be. I curl my hair, I wear make-up (almost) everyday, and I am very picky about the clothes I wear.

But only just recently have I found a skin care routine that works for me and makes my (sensitive, acne prone) skin look fabulous!

It's actually a vintage routine...so to speak. It's something that my grandmothers probably used. Maybe even great-grandmothers.

Anyway, it starts with Pond's Cold Cream. In the evening, I just slather it on, including my eyelids. Leave it on for between 30 secs and a minute, then I wipe it off with a *very* warm washcloth. Sometimes I do this twice if I'm wearing a lot of make-up.

The great part about Pond's is that it takes care of alllllll of my make-up. It even takes off waterproof mascara and 16 hour lipstick. It's great! Of course there's the added benefit that it literally dissolves my blackheads. I haven't seen a blackhead since I started using this, mashaAllah!....

Okay, the next thing I use is a toner. Right now, I'm using what's left of a bottle of Neutragena Clear Pore toner. I added some rose essential oil to it to make it smell better, but I'm going to switch to Thayer's witch hazel when the bottle is done.

It's old fashioned and smells wonderful, mashaAllah, and I know that witch hazel has done the trick for my skin in the past. Plus it has aloe vera in it, which has also did wonders for my skin when I was in high school.

The next product isn't so vintage. Although I remember my mother using Aveeno when I was a kid, I don't know how long it's been around. Certainly this moisturizer is pretty new.

I use Aveeno Ultra-Calming moisturizer with SPF 15. This stuff is truly unbelievable. I didn't have a bad reaction to this moisturizer and it really does sooth the redness in my face, mashaAllah (ah the joys of being pasty white-every little red mark shows up tooooo plainly).

I've been thinking about buying a vanishing cream for the evening, but until then, this works for me. I've heard good things about Boots vanishing cream. I've seen it at Target, but every time I decide put off buying it at another time. InshaAllah I'll be heading to Target in the near future, though, and I think it might just be on my list...That and the Rose skin tonic. And maybe the Body Cream... I'm a sucker for cute packaging...

Anyway the best part about this routine is how glamourous it makes me feel. It's not the typical everyday wash, tone, moisturize, but it gets the job done and it does it better than pretty much everything I've tried before for much cheaper, mashaAllah! It kind of gives me the feeling of an old silver screen star taking off her make-up or getting herself ready for the day.

This is one routine I hope to pass along to my daughters when they're old enough!

Fi aman Allah!

The vanity of youth

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

Isn't it funny how we preen over our daughters? They end up wanting to be princesses or thinking that they are princesses by the time they're three or four...or younger...

My older daughter is four. She thinks she's a fairy. Not that she really knows what a fairy is...other than that it has wings and it's little and it's cute. So she's a fairy. Oki doki. Whatever. Of course she also thinks that she's a princess and she requires her loyal subjects to be very loyal subjects indeed. This goes for everything, but especially how she looks.

She only lets me pick out my clothes to give her final approval. She's like a little queen and I'm her lady in waiting.

Her curly hair must be VERY curly for her to okay it. She hates it when I brush the top down and just leave the curls on the ends. She tells me that she's not pretty anymore if I do that... This is a big point of contention between the two of us. It's hard to get her hair to look like I've combed it without some of the curls coming out. I've used mousse, gel and hairspray on her already just so that she comes out looking like her curls are premeditated and not just wild. One of the problems with this is that she has very slow growing hair...which she managed to cut off early last year. Her hair was very short. Very short.. It's almost shoulder length now, but with the curls, it comes to just below her ears. We're trying to let it grow out now and I hope that she doesn't decide to cut it off again. Last time she kept complaining about how she looked like a boy...

Then there's make-up and nail polish and pretty dresses, etc. She always wants pink. I don't know where that came from? She doesn't watch cartoons or television other than random classic movies, islamic cartoons, and a Adnan wa Lena. So it's not because of tv. Can she really get all of that from the toy aisles at Walmart? I just don't know. It's possible that girls are just meant to be girls. They seem to naturally gravitate towards all things girly. Which is alright by me.

I didn't find my inner girliness until after I was married. I thought that I was becoming girlier when I was in college, but then I always used to wear black and I cut my hair off, etc. The only thing that was really girlier about me was that I started wearing make-up and I kept trying to feel good in skirts (I didn't succeed with the latter).

After becoming Muslim, I started feeling better about being all dolled up and making myself look attractive. I guess the easiest part about it was that I was dressing up for my husband and (when I visited them) his family only. If I had visitors, they were usually accompanied by their husbands...so no make-up or cute clothes at those times. It's much easier to deal with only one person's opinion than with all of mankind. Call me sensitive, but I didn't want to imagine what other people thought of me or didn't think of me while passing by on the street. It made me nervous. So up until I became Muslim, my look was very natural. I never used anything other than taupes on my eyes and rosy browns or nudes on my lips. Blush was very sheer and mascara.......well...at least it looked like I had eyelashes when I used it, but I wasn't interested in really accentuating my eyes with it.

Now, I've been married almost six years. The only people who see me all full of make-up and dressed up nicely are family and close friends. I LOVE to look good. I love waking up and taking out curlers/rollers to have beautiful hair...I LOVE putting on my favorite eyeshadoes and making my eyes pop with mascara (I also use Lancome Cils Booster, no matter what mascara I use) and evening out my skin tone with real foundation. Don't get me wrong...I don't look like I'm wearing five pounds of make-up...but with red lipstick and pretty eye make-up you definately wouldn't say I was going for the natural look.

And these days, skirts and dresses make up the majority of clothes hanging in my closet. I've got some pretty galabiyyas and I have some cute pants...but I guess that I'm just more dressy these days.

I've started to dislike most things "fleece" and all things make out of sweatshirt material. I'm sure that if they're tailored correctly (there are some nice jackets at F21) they could be mildly attractive and put together...they're just not my kind of thing.

So maybe it's me that's wearing off on my daughter (and probably daughters)...I can't say I'm very much into pink, but I do have my own idiosyncracies about the way I dress and the way I look. I even got the contact lenses that you can wear continuously all month, because I don't like the way I look in glasses with hijab...I'm really horrible about taking out my contacts and used to leave them in far tooooooo long.

I hope that I'm not giving my daughters the wrong impression, though. I try to be healthy...and I hope I'm making it clear to them that I only make myself up, because it makes me feel good. It's not something that I do for other people. They must know this, because when I do out, I'm covered nearly from head to toe without make-up or frills. I do not choose to allow random strangers to judge me based on the current beauty ideal. But as unimportant as it is what strangers might think about the way I look, I want them to know that it's important to look nice for the people we love. Our families and our friends. It shows respect.

An example. If a wife/mother/daughter doesn't make herself look nice at home, what does it say? If she's not sick or exhausted from something unusual...that not only is she herself not worth putting out the effort to make herself look nice, but that her family isn't worth her making the effort either.

So as an end to this rambling, I guess I'll say that it's okay that my daughter thinks she's a princess and a fairy. It's okay for her to have certain expectations about the way she looks. At least it shows that she cares.

Fi aman Allah.

Good old-fashioned fun

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time preoccupied with the way I look. Sounds bad, huh? I don't think so, though. I'm married with two kids, mashaAllah...and I think it's important to keep up my looks for a couple reasons. The first is that I don't want to feel like I'm letting myself go. If I'm wearing my flannel pj bottoms at 2 PM and haven't combed my hair yet...I don't feel very good about myself. My second is that I've been married just shy of 6 years and I want to keep my husband's interest. Now, we're both heavier than we were when we married...and we both have more responsibility...and I know that my husband doesn't look at other women (the women that most men would look at, my husband finds kind of disgusting)...so............I exercise and I wear nice things and I just try to take care of myself in general.

I know that nobody really cares, but I'm going to share a few of my favorite things.

I usually start with Ivory. This stuff smells great. I don't usually like the smell of soaps. Soaps today don't smell like soap anymore. They have the fresh scents and they have the fruity scents....whatever happened to the soap scent? Anyway. I like Ivory, because I like stepping out o the shower smelling clean.

Almay Ultra-Calming moisturizer is great. I have a lot of red undertones and I'm prone to acne, so this helps tons.

I like this. I really wish I had flawless skin. I'm not ashy and my skin isn't uneven...but I have a lot of large pores around my nose. This takes care of that pretty well...

Almay Clear Complexion make-up. This is the best make-up I've ever tried. I use it almost everyday and it's one of the few that doesn't cause me to break out immediately. I can't even tell that I'm wearing any make-up when I put this on.

Pixi cheek gel. I love this. It looks very natural, mashaAllah.

Of course Superstay lipcolor is awesome. I just have to be careful not to wear it during the day...I'm not sure that you can make wudu with it on...because no water can reach the lips. Of course, I wish I had evidence to the contrary...but oh well.

Revlon Color Stay Liqid Liner. This is one of my all-time favorites. I have thin, blond, short eyelashes. This helps in all kinds of ways. I find that I don't even need to wear mascara if I put this on. It's great!

Lancome Hypnose...The waterproof kind. But I still need mascara if I want to have dramatic look. This is the best mascara I've ever tried. I think that it looks even better if I use Lancome's white mascara base, but it works well even on its own.

Of course, I also have perfumes and lotions and all kinds of wonderful things, but these are the things that make me look half-way decent everyday.

More Tomato Staking

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh!

Ah tomato staking!

Alhamdulillah it seems to be going well. I don't have to swat her behind as much, she comes to me when I tell her, doesn't always ask "Why?!" when I request her to do something, and she doesn't seem nearly as whiny as she did before, alhamdulillah.

My friend who suggested this approach is thrilled with the results so far. She says that there is a positive difference already, mashaAllah!

I'll be honest, I do see a difference, too, mashaAllah. And with the behavioral improvements, I see improvements that are even more important to me, alhamdulillah!

She is memorizing Qur'an, mashaAllah. She actually prays with us. Most of the time we leave the apartment, she insists that she cover her head, because "Allah wants her to." She helps me clean up, she plays with her sister when I tell her she should, she gives Salams, she remembers to say bismillah and alhamdulillah during meals and she says dua and recites Qur'an at bedtime.

MashaAllah! Alhamdulillah for everything!

All this isn't exactly new, but it has become MUCH more regular, alhamdulillah.

So as I'm finding this approach working for me, I'm also slowly making other changes in Jayjay's life.

Up until now, I've pretty much let her determine her own eating schedule and alhamdulillah she's in the 75th percentile on the growth chart, so it's worked for her...but she's at an age, where she should start having a regular routine.....sooooo..............she gets three meals a day, plus two or three snacks now....

And she is starting to sleep in her own bedroom. Alhamdulillah she is so proud of herself in the morning...but she was a co-sleeping baby for a long time, and has trouble falling asleep. She likes to scream a lot...Alhamdulillah she only screamed for ten minutes last night before she fell asleep on her dishak (she didn't want to sleep in her bed for some reason)...I see this as a huge improvement, though, alhamdulillah!

Oh Allah! Grant us obedient children who submit themselves to You with confidence! Ameen! Oh Allah! Give us the strength to do that which is best for our children in this life and in the next! Ameen! Oh Allah! Grant my children everlasting iman; guide them on Your straight path; and make them obedient to You and the teaching of Your prophet! Ameen!

SallAllahu ala Sayyidana Mohammad!

Fi aman Allah,

UmmJayjaat