Take a Summer Walk with Me

Assalaam Alaikum sisters!

I hope you are doing well! I'm so sorry for not being much online and not posting much. I am really taking a break from computers and enjoying much time outside. I'm also sorry to not commenting much! I still love you! ;) :)

I've been spending a lot of days at my parents' place - the place where I also lived a big part of my life. Allah (swt) really blessed us with living in a town like that. Insha'Allah the beautiful nature will be preserved there.
I went on some lovely trips the days, where I didn't have to work and I want to share some of the pictures here with you. I apologize for the sometimes unsharp pictures. They were taken with my 4-year-old mobile phone... But insha'Allah you will enjoy them:

Field - The white spots in the middle are sheep :)

The houses are so beautiful

The following pictures are from another trip I went on one evening with my parents:

I would love to live here!

The next day we went for a walk in a park in the town, to a field and to the beautiful dome and the buildings around it:

I love poppies!

The dome of the town

It's not bad being the bishop of this town living in the yellow house with the car!

Another angle of the dome

Two crows

I hope you enjoyed these pictures, insha'Allah! :)

Take care all of you!

Vacation & Preparing for Ramadan

Assalaam Alaikum dear sisters!


I hope you're all doing well and enjoying yourself, insha'Allah!
As you might know, I have vacation now, my husband is abroad visiting friends... When he left, I decided to escape from the city and go stay at my parents house closer to nature. Of course I brought my rabbit too :-) She's having such a wonderful time and loves all the grass she can eat daily! Last year she was on vacation here too and even gained weight from all the grass, although she doesn't sit in a cage and therefore even gets a lot of daily excercise. Hehe.
I just love to be away from the city and stepping out on the grass and the dew with the sun in my face in the morning - it is just amazing, masha'Allah. Insha'Allah my husband and I can live in a house surrounded by nature one day :-)

Ramadan is getting closer (right now 33 days and 15 hours to go ;-) - see the countdown in my sidebar), Alhamdulillah! We are about to enter the month of Sha'ban. The Prophet (saws) used to begin fasting in Sha'ban as a prelude and towards the end of the month he would stop to gather strength for Ramadan. Therefore, planning ahead is a Sunnah. I read a lot about fasting yesterday and read how you can increase the benefits of fasting and avoid any side effects. Today I am starting a detox diet, which I'll follow for ten days. It includes a lot of herbal teas, water (with/without lemon), fruit and vegetables + brown rice etc. I'm excited to see how my body will react to the detoxification! :-) Did any of you ever try a detox diet?


Detox is not abstaining from all food and water during the day, like in Ramadan. But I hope a detox diet will be beneficial as a preparation for Ramadan, insha'Allah. And also a proper fast.
There are many things to be aware of when fasting. This piece of an article is just some of the things that we should be aware of in the holy month of Ramadan:


"The first meal of the day, before dawn, should contain complex carbohydrates in order to fuel the body for the rest of the day and keep one feeling full in order to reduce the onset of hunger pains at a later stage.  The meal at night, after sundown, should preferably be a lighter one in order to avoid indigestion and heartburn...To avoid the possibility of constipation it is important to eat foods that are high in fibre, increase fruit and vegetables in the diet, and to consume an adequate volume of liquids, such as water, soup, weak tea and fruit juices. Take care not to drink too much or digestive juices can become overly diluted and stomach bloating may occur. Sweet foods high in sugar, including most desserts, and adding salt to meals, thus causing additional thirst, should be avoided.  Decreasing consumption of spicy and fried foods is advised to lessen digestive problems." Source: helium.com


Personally I have not been taking these things into conciderations every time I cooked during Ramadan. Insha'Allah you will also benefit from this Ramadan Health Guide (2007) available online! And insha'Allah we'll all have a blessed and beneficial Ramadan!! :-) I can't wait :-) How are you preparing yourself for Ramadan? Both physically and spiritually? Spiritually I will also this month increase the amount of Qur'an that I read and insha'Allah achieve more knowledge about our deen through books and increase my dhikr.


If you don't see me much online this week, it's because I'm at my parents' place and have chosen not to sit too much in front of a computer. Like today I want to go on a bike trip on my own to the water and forests nearby :-) insha'Allah.


Take care all of you <3

Raindrops are Falling

At 7 AM the sun was shining brightly and my husband and I had homemade bread and afterwards cheesecake for breakfast. Yummi. And now it seems like somebody seriously turned on the big shower outside with a mix of water and snow!! Whew! And I have an appointment in the city around 1... :-/ Now there is thunder and lightening too... If I had a lot of money I'd definetely go by taxi. Hehe. But I'll wait just a little longer, perhaps have another piece of cake, and some green tea with roses :)

I wish you all a beautiful day :) no matter how the weather has turned out. And before you leave, listen to how wonderful Allah's (swt) creations sound: Alhamdulillah if you were blessed with normal hearing and can listen to these birds and the raindrops touching the leaves and ground...

Almond Oil

I love natural oils! Recently I discovered the benefits of almond oil and would love to share them here! Almond oil is really great to keep your skin beautiful, clean and smoothe. Use it as your daily lotion or as a massage oil.

Every evening, after cleaning and washing my face, I gently massage some almond oil onto my face and leave it there all night. Sometimes I give my feet such a treatment too. By now I have only been using it for a few days and I already got rid of dry spots on my face. So this is especially good in the winter time, if you live in a cold area and your skin dries out easily.

I also give myself a hot oil treatment once every 7 days.

Hot oil treatments are very popular since they are easy to use and give good results if you have very dry hair or hair that has been damaged by over processing. Hot oil treatments help to restore shine and condition to your hair.

Procedure

Gently heat the oil in a pot. Remember that oil heats very quickly and can burn quite easily: NEVER leave unattended. You are only heating it to the point of warming the oil. Once it is warm, remove from heat. Be sure you test the heat of the oil before putting it on your hair.

If it seems too warm, wait several minutes before applying. It is not recommended to use a microwave to heat the oil since temperatures are hard to control and you might wind up with part of it being much hotter than the other. Apply the warm oil to dry hair.

If your hair is long, thick or very damaged (as can happen to bleached, permed or dyed hair), it is best to use a comb to work it in and make sure that you have covered every strand, paying particular attention to the ends of the hair. Then you can wrap your hair in plastic wrap to help keep the heat in and leave it on for about 30 minutes. If your hair is shorter or not as damaged, you can just work it in and leave it for 5 minutes. When the time is up, you will need to shampoo the oil out. You will probably need to shampoo twice. The first time you use it, you might skip using additional conditioner. You don't want to weigh down the hair too much, but if you notice that it seems dry after shampooing it out, then you can use conditioner after shampooing. I add the shampoo before making my hair wet!

For very damaged hair, use the treatment once a week at least, twice if it is very long or damaged. Otherwise, every two weeks is all that is required. If you have problems with your scalp, try adding some tea-tree oil to your hair treatments. Tea tree oil isn't cheap, but you will only use a small amount. It is a natural anti-fungal and can help greatly with dandruff-like problems and seborrhea. You can buy tea tree oil at health food stores.
You can also just do the ends of your hair (use less oil).

Source: Homemade Hot Oil Treatments

I hope you'll have just as great results with this as I did.

Duaa, a Fisherman & Birds Singing

أَصْبَـحْـنا وَأَصْبَـحْ المُـلكُ للهِ رَبِّ العـالَمـين ، اللّهُـمَّ إِنِّـي أسْـأَلُـكَ خَـيْرَ هـذا الـيَوْم ، فَـتْحَهُ ، وَنَصْـرَهُ ، وَنـورَهُ وَبَـرَكَتَـهُ ، وَهُـداهُ ، وَأَعـوذُ بِـكَ مِـنْ شَـرِّ ما فـيهِ وَشَـرِّ ما بَعْـدَه

The morning has come to me and the whole universe belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, O Allah, I ask of you the good of the day, it's success and aid and it's nur (celestial light) and barakaat (blessings) and seek hidayah (guidance) and seek refuge from the evil in it (this day) and from the evil of that which is to come later.

Hisn from Abu Dawood

Good morning dear sisters!

I hope you're all doing well. I've been up since 5am because I had to bring my stepdaughter to school, who then stayed home anyway, 'cause she wasn't feeling too good. So then I got lots of time to prepare a good breakfast for my family and at 9am I'm going to do the laundry and clean the house. But before all that I wanted to share the duaa above and also the picture of the man (leaning forward) in the little boat. The photo was taken by me in 2005 on the Greek island Symi, where I was on vacation with my parents and little sister. I think that vacation was one of the best ones ever. We have always gone on vacation to places, which were not too crowded by tourists. And Symi was just such a unique, beautiful tiny island. This man in the boat was there every morning around 6am catching fish :) What a life. I'd love to live on an island far away from big cities, cars etc. Everything was so peaceful! Insha'Allah, some day :)

Have a beautiful day all of you and perhaps you too enjoy the beautiful song of the birds below. Allah's (swt) creations are truly magnificent.

A White Surprise

Subhan'Allah! Allah (swt) does indeed not only answer our duaas said out loud, but also the duaas in our hearts and minds. This morning I didn't ask Allah (swt) directly about that, but I sure did need something to cheer me up a little.

I woke up to offer my Fajr prayer and when I was done, I wanted to look out of the window, but could only see a tiny piece of the world outside through the curtain. But what I saw, was enough to build the adrenalin up in my body. Big white snowflakes where falling down from the sky! Immediately I got up and opened the curtains and saw to my surprise that everything was already white! Masha'Allah! I had to thank Allah (swt) for all the beauty He is creating right in front of our eyes!!

Here you see two pictures I took of the scenery. I'm sorry I can't give you top-quality photos, since I used my mobile phone... The blue-ish light is because it's still early in the morning.

The view from our living room

The view from our bedroom

Immediately after this beautiful surprise, I put a message on my little sister's answering-machine and told her Merry Christmas (she's definitely a "Christmastime-oholic!" Hehe) and told her she has to look out of her window! Then I went to the living room and let my rabbit out on the balchony. She loves snow so much! Last year she even built a little tunnel through all the masses of snow on the balchony!

I felt exactly as when I was a kid - 'cause I behaved exactly the same way, only now without my joyful screams throughout the whole house: "it's snowing, it's snowing, it's snowing"! Hehe. Had I been home alone I'd probably have done that too ;)

If the snow lasts, insha'Allah, it will be so beautiful to go to Jum'a later!

Ya Allah (swt)... I hope all of you are having a beautiful day!

I love you all so much for following my blog and for being so sweet sisters, mahsa'Allah! And welcome Rene's Bare Essentials to my blog! It made me happy too, to have another follower :) You guys have to check out her blogs aswell, if you didn't do it already!

Take care all of you!!

Cherry Blossom-Mood

What best describes my mood today: Cherry blossoms! Alhamdulillah!

I love these amazing flowers that Allah (swt) created, masha'Allah!!

It's not a sunny morning, but what does it matter, when Allah (swt) made you feel the sun inside?! I have many tasks to be done today, but insha'Allah everything will fall into place smoothly. I wish my dear sisters out there a beautiful and blessed day, and if you're not feeling too happy, offer Allah (swt) some prayers and take a look at the beautiful flowers below and allow yourself to dream away for a minute or two:

And if these weren't enough, perhaps you'd enjoy watching the German movie Hanami, Kirschblüten (Cherry Blossoms). I love it and it touched me to tears!! - And there are quite a few cherry blossom-shots in it :) Click the picture below to go to the official website of the movie - where you can listen to one of the beautiful soundtracks to the movie).

And if that wasn't enough, there are actually some cherry blossoms in this movie too. And it's such a beautiful movie again with splendid music (click on the picture to go to the official website):

Take care sisters!!!