:: TEN ::

I thank you for your patience, I have been waffling for days about nothing much in particular.. going off on tangents here and there... and at last you are to be rewarded with something to look at.

Let's face it I need to do something to relieve you from my incessant and incomprehensible nattering

This is the dress yoke I'm working on for dd8, it's almost finished... it just needs a couple of straps and a bit of a scalloped edge and we'll all done inshallah.

I love yellow... I mean I LOVE yellow.. it makes me so ridiculously happy it's not normal

My secret shame is the object you see below... it's been finished for the best part of a YEAR, and has been sat all sad and neglected in my work basket just waiting for the fabric skirt to be sewn onto it... I told you I'm terrible at finishing things.

During December and January we had no internet, electricity in only the downstairs of our house.. flooded bedrooms and were quite literally freezing... it quite clearly sent me doolally because this baby was the result of being shut in one room for two months with my seven children and dh....

It's not that I don't love doilies, but really.... sometimes there has to be a bit more to life

And if you were harbouring any illusions that as a mother of 7 I need to be organised and in control... here's the space I work in...

Pretty isn't it... Currently on this table.. apart from the PC are ...

• 13 pieces of material waiting to be made into dresses
• 1 dress already cut and half sewn for ME
• half a dress yoke with skirt pinned to it
• an almost finished piece of the same yoke with no skirt even remotely ready to be pinned to it
• a baking tray with half a cinnamon loaf sitting in it...
• several of my 2 year olds pyjama tops
• my pattern notebook
• a pile of a'level study books
• pincushion
• pencil case
• last weeks discarded menu plan
• 3 baguette
• purse
• 2 empty mugs
• mobile phone
• 2 pairs of circular needles
• and a vest that dd20 just finished knitting for someone
• oh and a teeny tiny milk jug normally used to keep pens and crochet hooks in

The table isn't actually that big and it needs some tactical use of the elbows to navigate it sometimes...

So there you are... 

I'm off now to make some Shepherds Pie for dinner, hang the laundry and clear some of the junk highly useful stuff to other, less cluttered parts of the house

:: SEVEN ::

This will be my second time writing this post... my fingers got a bit slap happy while I was typing and I accidentally deleted everything... and now, as I sit here listening to the rain lashing against the side of the house I can't for the life of me start piecing that post back together again from what serves as my head...

I know menu planning was in there but after controlling the urge to take a spiteful swipe at my PC by going upstairs to check on the children I'm too cold to think thoughts of budgeting and food and ... well  it'll teach me to make some notes before I even think of approaching the keyboard in future.... 

Suffice it to say (for now at least) that it's going a good deal better this time around... I forced my own hand a little by taping the , menu to the fridge door for all to see... I gave myself less room to flake out and give up.

I even sat myself down this morning and put together another meal plan for the next seven days... 

See, I can be organised and well balanced when I have to..

It's freezing again here... after a full week of beautiful sunshine.. warm enough to have the windows open, the temperature dropped and the rains came down, and I'm shivering... I hate being cold!

if it's as cold as this tomorrow when dh goes away for the weekend... I'm going to drag the kids down for a camp out in the living room for extra warmth inshallah....

And it's the start of the weekend tomorrow inshallah... three of mine have a half day and one of them only has an hour in the afternoon... so it's a mad rush to get all the weekend cleaning out of the way before they all  get home again..... with dh being away it's also an opportunity to slow down a little and catch up on some reading and crafting inshallah.... 

I've also got some plans to spruce up the blog a little... 

What will you be doing this weekend inshallah?

:: FIVE ..

Normally, during the winter I'm fired up with thoughts of crafting and spending long winter evenings with my yarn basket beside me. This winter just gone was no exception; but for one reason or another I just never got round to making anything.

Now, with spring on it's way inshallah, I have ideas growing... 

I've even almost been tempted to dust off the old sewing machine and finish off the dress I started for myself late last summer!  Good sense prevailed however and the old faithful stayed put and I went to work instead, tidying up my forlorn and neglected yarn bag.

Now here's the thing... I live in Algeria... and we're not spoilt for choice in the yarn department. We make do with whatever we can find that doesn't bring us out in a rash or cause friction burns while we're knitting  & crocheting it up... and whats more, by the time summer comes in ALL yarn will have been secreted away to the  back of the yarn shops and won't see the light of day till the wedding season is over... which is normally from the first blush of spring till the first frost of winter...

Never one to be put off by such trivialities, I've dusted off my very modest yarn stash.. discovered a few unfinished projects lurking in there, and made plans to stop by my local haberdashery store tomorrow to stock up on the necessaries to finish them inshallah....

See what a spot of spring sunshine can do to an uninspired crafter!!

On the home front, there's been alot of baking going on... 

One of my goals for march was to bake our morning bread instead of buying it. As a rule I do make bread daily during the summer, but during the winter our kitchen is just too cold.

This week I've found the perfect breakfast bread, and it's been a hit through the whole house mashallah...

I might even treat you to some photographic evidence tomorrow... 

Thinking ahead...

School, belive it or not, will start winding down for the year in May... Yes MAY!
As an ex-homeschooler, having them at home isn't the part that bothers me. What really worries me is that since we stopped home-schooling, their whole approach to learning has changed.
Part of our reason for coming to Algeria was the fact that the children would be able to learn Arabic more readily, which they have done (despite the fact that it's not actually the spoken language of Algeria); But I feel we've lost alot of ground Islamically over the past couple of years and I really need to do something about it. I think I've mentioned before that our lives were much more faith based when we were learning at home, and that was mainly because our deen was the foundation we built all our other studies and projects on.

So, I'm sitting here this morning planning some summer homeschool... yes I know it's only February but I've been out of the loop for a while. And if it takes me from dawn till noon to get my thinking equipment into gear even on a good day... imagine how much longer it will take to do something even remotely sensible.
I am therefor ignoring the mess on the floor, the fact that it's dh's day off and that he will probably be in and out of the house all day long  and I'm getting on with some long overdue planning.

Dh was impressed with my plans and even fell back into home-ed mode when ds13 brought out his maths book and decided to (briefly) explore the mass and quantity unit in the CPG book he's all but ignored since we came here... but it's a start. And if dh got a bit ambitious in guessing the mass of eggs and the possible capacity of a paddling pool, never mind! It's all part of the fun, right?

In the meantime, while we're waiting for the summer sun to bring our thinking matter back to life I've come up with a vague strategy to get them back on track before we plunge head first into our summer of learning.
Tuesdays afternoons will be extra English studies, Friday will be family halaqa, and I'm reintroducing our craft-time for Saturdays insha'allah. It's a small step forward but I'm feeling hopeful.

The weather continues to bombard us, and we're waiting for brighter, warmer things to happen inshallah. Despite the fact that I come from a cold climate, I have realised since coming here, that I dislike Winter intensely. I'm a hibernator, I have barely left the house since the start of December and I don't think very much will push me to venture into the breezy alleyways where I live, although today my dh's aunty wants us to visit. One of her daughters whom we haven't seen for a while is also visiting with her. The question is... can I be tempted?.....

We also have a casualty in the house, dd8 slipped and fell, hitting the side of her head on the bottom of our oil heater, there wasn't much blood but it did need some stitches. She's back at school with her patchworked scalp and strict instructions to obsessively stalk the teacher and stay as far away from marauding or menacing little people as is humanly possible. Algerian children are invaders of personal space... she may get feisty.

I'm off now to have my coffee and try and then it's split pea soup and cheesy bread making that awaits me this morning... connection and dh's phone permitting there may very well be a couple of recipes here tomorrow, how's that for a promise?

xxx

That was some week!

But we got to the other side of it. Not completely unscathed, but a few battlescars add to the character in my opinion. We've been easy on ourselves over the past few days. Been to see a good friend, had a couple of walks out to the market and local shops, done plenty of tea drinking and soul searching. And a fair amount of gentle crafting to stop the brain from oozing out of the skull.

In short we have attempted nothing we had any chance of failing at this week. We all needed gentle passtimes to serve as a balm. & dh went away for a couple of days which meant even more lounging about being restful so all in all, I do feel alot better. Not 100%, not by a long shot. But better.

 

We've been discussing moving on from this rented accomodation to another. we have seven months left on our lease.  And it can be hellish finding decent rentals here. We don't want to stay in ths house for a third year if we can help it. My landlady and her daughters are wonderfully warm and genuinely caring people. But the house has been a bit of a disaster. Alot of Algerian houses are unfortunately. And I'm ready for pastures new to be honest. 

It might not be far, having said that... it could be. It might just even be a new house in the same-ish area. But a change is as good as a rest right?

In the meantime, well dh has phoned and said he's on his way home. Children have gone off to tutors and will be home at 11-ish. It's Friday, so I need to get a crack on with lunch, which on a Friday should be cous-cous but I like to go against the grain whenever I can so that's NOT what we'll be having here.

Friday lunchtime in Algieria is about equal to a Sunday afternoon dinner in the UK.  It's a day when alot of families make the effort to get together. Some people will eat early beofr going to Jumuah, but with my men leaving the house at 12.30-ish and my propensity to lose all track of time, that's  never likely to happen in my home. Instead I fall into the second camp, which means Lunch at 2.30pm, followed by a siesta.

One of my favourite meals (and I make the exception of serving meat on a Friday lunchtime) is a chicken djouez (stovetop casserole) and croquettes. 

I always serve my croquettes Algerian style, in my casserole. but these would be just as nice with a salad, or with a cut of meat and some veggies. Today I'll tell you how to do the croquettes, and then when my dh finally opens up shop again and we have access to chicken once more, we'll do the whole thing, djouez and all insha'allah.

Right, so take a quantity of nice floury potatoes, how ever much you think you'll be able to eat! You'll be mashing them once they're cooked so boil till nice and tender.

Mash them, or put them through a food mill while still warm.To the mashed potato you'll want to add some salt, and I use some stoned cut olives mixed into my mash. (My neighbour uses parsley and tuna which is also nice). Mix in the olives and then roll the mash into golf ball sized balls.

 Make an Indent with your  thumb and put a small nugget of cheese inside the hole before closing it up and re-rolling. The cheese we use is La Vache qui Rit ( basically laughing cow) because apart from President, Camembert and Edam it's what Algeria has. But you could go wild and use something else more to your tatse.

What you need now are dishes of flour, eggs and breadcrumbs. Just enough for the amount of croquettes you've made.

Dip each croquette into the flour, then the eggs and the breadcrumbs before shallow frying the croquettes untill crisp and golden. Ideally I would have loved to show you some finished, but they don't last long enough on the plate for me to click the capture button.

These keep well in the fridge, and would probably freeze well too.
They're easy on the purse too which is always a bonus in my book.

 

And now off to tackle the ever present chores and cooking. Athough, if I might get back later to show you some wips, if I can get hold of the dh's phone for long enought to take any decent pics.

Week one...

of Ramadhan has already passed and we're finally falling into some sort of rhythm in my house.
it's exhausting and doesn't include alot of sleep at the right time, but this of course is small fry when you consider the reward insha'allah.

We had a pretty tough first week emotionally and it was tough keeping on track, but this is real life and stuff happens... the trick is to roll with the punches and to keep moving forward.

Week one for us tends to be pretty low key, as we try to concentrate on adjusting to fasting long hours, so other than keeping up with our Qur'an and (for some of us) attending Taraweeh there hasn't been much else going on.
We try to remain aware of  our reason for fasting and we've pretty much cut out all other distractions such as TV, non-islamic reading and non-essential internet usage.

For the small people there has been baking, and as we move into week two we'll include some crafts to keep their fasting minds occupied although all in all they seem to have coped amazingly well.

 

although judging by the way my sweetie looks here, the wait for cake can sometimes be just

too long!!

You can find our biscuit recipe and the tutorial for our advent calender here insha'allah

When I lived in the UK I was fortunate enough to have a kitchen I could keep a table in, and I did for many years...until the size of my family outgrew it.

I no longer  boast a kitchen large enough for my table..but I do have a table now that the whole family can sit around.

And it sees alot of activity masha'allah.

I have a typical old Algerian kitchen that boasts no cupboards or workspace, so the table that lives at one end of my sitting room has become my work station and food prep area.

My 19 year old most often prepares afternoon treats for us all here, and it's wonderfully heartwarming to see her gather her younger brothers and sisters around her to let them help, it's also the place she's most likely to give them an impromptu science lesson.

It would seem that once homeschooling is in the system it's there for life!

It's where I sit to work out my monthly housekeeping, write up my monthly menu plans and generally find a way of budgeting the unbudgetable.

I'm never alone though masha'allah..I budget at one end... dd19 bakes at the other, and everyone else comes and goes and interrupts for one thing or another.

More often than not we clear a space somwehere in the middle for afternoon tea.

  

Some days of course there's no room for anything other than crafting... and then the whole space lies victim to whatever we're all working on. From sewing to crochet to knitting, sometimes our whole table looks like the debris from an explosion in a haberdashery store!

 

 and even though we may no longer be able to build the hub of our home around our kitchen, we've managed to create  space we can all gather around and enjoy each others company and share snippets of our day

Remember...

 those dress collars I told you about?

you know, the ones that are dirt cheap to make and yet seem to cost an arm and a leg to buy?

well, this is my first attempt..

 my dear friend sat by me almost every step of the way to stop me self harming with my crochet hook when things got a bit fraught.

And I'm happy enough with the result..

and even better than that, I'd say it counts as learning a traditional Algerian craft which means I can tick it off the demon list of to don'ts..

 This one has been claimed by dd11, and I've even been productive enough to cut a simple house dress to sew it on to....

these normally fall into a couple of categoies..ones worn for everyday and those worn by new brides, and the dress codes and female politics of Algeria make it  a scarey business if you get it wrong...

the heartwarming thing is that most  women here love it when you master something typically Algerian..

and are more than happy to teach the skills that more and more of the younger generation of Algerian women are less inclined to learn.

summer...

is arriving in dribs and drabs here in Algeria, we've had some gloriously hot days interspersed with rainy days that have seemed like they would never stop. Rain here is relentless, in the past week we have had our whole top floor flooded and had to all camp out in the salon dowstairs and wait for the sun to come back and dry us out. Things like that used to frustrate me, would have had me in tears and pledging to return home on the next boat out.  Now however, I just put down towels, close off the rooms and wait for a drier spell to sort it all out... almost everyone I know has the same problem so railing against it, now seems incredibly futile. It's now just a case of hunkering down while it lasts and then clearing away the debris when it's done with us.

Apart from rain, I've been crafting Algerian style... learning how to make crocheted collars for house dresses. They are very sought after here and cost about 1500 Algerian Dinars for a basic collar, so it's a good money making oppertunity, non-labour intensive, and enjoyable into the bargain.
Ladies here buy collars as seperate pieces and have a dress made around it, and because I sew my Algerian friends have been encouraging me for ages to sell what I make..
I however, have been resistant.... mostly due to laziness if  I'm honest but with a whole summer (children won't go back to school now till after Eid in September!) to play with I'm just going to dive right in and see what happens inshaallah.

DD19 and I have also been busy in my aunt-in-laws kitchen over the past week or so... learning how to make osban, a traditional Algerian dish of stomach stuffed with lungs, onions, rice, spices, intestines and a whole host of other wonderful ingredients. It sounds a bit yuck but tastes delicious... the downside is that it takes an awfully long time to clean out the guts, clean and cut the stomach..sew it up  and stuff it... the company however was glorious and we had a great time listening to my husbands aunty telling stories, in an attempt to distract us from the pain we were feeling from stabbing our fingers so often trying to get our sewing needles through slippery, stuffed douara.
My dh is a butcher, and we were making up osban for his shop, so it may very well become our regular pre-weekend chore.

Today, we're taking a walk out to get some yarn for a project that dd19 has been working on and wants to get finished,and then it's back home to get some cleaning and laundry done before the weekend. I had intended to have a slow restful weekend last week and somehow it just didn't happen, this weekend however I really need to set aside some time to plan my next month of housekeeping, possibly a menu plan and dd19 and I are busy planning a  new blog project, and it would be nice to be able to find the time to get some of that done. So apart from going for Salat-al-Jumuah with my aunty and dh's cousins tomorrow, I'm not planning anything more strenuous, lets just see if it works out that way this week...

it has been a long couple of weeks without internet....
my connection is a bit unstable most of the time because we dont have a land line and rely on our incredibly shonky USB which has almost no connection speed and won't load pictures on ANYTHING...

we usually buy our internet on a month by month basis, which requires someone to go into town and renew the contract... and if you know North African men you will know that they travel at a speed all of their own..and waiting for most things becomes a test to even the most patient of people...
at the same time our satellite dish decided to die, so I have missed everything from facebook updates to crochet goodness, tsunami's and revoloutions... I have a whole lot of catching up to do it seems, which is of course why I haven't been able to peel my bottom off the sofa so far today....

the good part of the story is that I spent a whole lot more of my time with a hook in my hand and even managed to accomplish a couple of tunic tops for the 11 year old girl in my life, one of them just needs a bit of crochet embellishment  on it and it will be ready to be blogged about.

we're waiting for some more news on my mother, niece and great nephews coming over for a much longed for visit in April... it only takes two hours to get to Algiers by plane from the UK, which should make it easy..but the visa and ticket costs have been ridiculously high for them and we have to send a letter of invitation the the consulate in London for them to take along with their visa applications... if it's one thing we do well here it's high prices and red tape!

anyway...in the hope that they will indeed be here in a few weeks we're starting to get the house ready, spring cleaning, moving things around, anticipating days out and sharing the past two years of happenings with each other.

I've even got a do-able (in the time that I have) project in mind for my mother..who is having a hard time health wise lately. Something to cheer her up and put a smile on her face...

and there are photo's to share, but not yet...
dd19 has been dispatched on a a photographic mission so that I can show you the bits of flim-flam I've got my hook into at the moment...

so hopefully, after my cuppa, a few household chores to make me feel less like the slob I have become since the internet came back into my life, and poking about in the kitchen to make some dinner.. I will be back to show you goodies in the making.....

There was a whole different post meant for these photos, but at some point between writing it and hitting the publish tab my connection was lost and so were the words I had carefully chosen to share with you.

And in true Kate fashion there is absolutly no way I can hope to recreate the post that was meant to be...it just isn't living in my head anymore I'm afraid.

I'll share the pictures of bits of my home that went with it though insha'allah.

It's somebody else's house of course as we're only renting, but it definately feels like home masha'allah.

We took these on Thursday, which is our day for a big clean up and getting ready for the weekend. Hence the reason you see my trusty old broom propped up against the wall...

Cleaning is bad enough anywhere but here in Algeria the dust is relentless and the morning clean is a ritual that is the most commonplace part of everday life for women here.

And it's strenuous and monotonous work... alot of homes are old, tiny, overcrowded...and you can forget things like dishwashers and washing machines.

Most of the women I know wash laundry by hand or have an old fashioned twin tub, that requires almost as much manual labour as washing the clothes by hand.

This is the third house we've lived in since we came almost two years ago and to be honest I don't mind moving around or even the moderate uncertainty that comes with renting.

Having said that we're a least hoping to stay put for the next year insha'allah.

The area isn't the most beautiful it's true, but the children have put down roots and our neighbours have been so helpful and supportive that it's hard right now imagining moving away.

I don't even mind that the top of our house is completely open to the elements, in fact in summer it's lovely being able to look up and see the outside inside.

This is taken from the second floor where the bedrooms are, and directly above where you see the tarp, is where our sheep lives and where our laundry gets hung.

The rooftop terraces are so close together in our ziniqa that you can easily chat with neighbours from up there...

and there's been some tentative steps on the crafting front

I lost my mojo a bit over the winter, but there are loads of ideas germinating up there in my head..it's just a matter of finding the time to get some of them done.

I'm working on a couple of cardigans, a  baby one and one for the 19 year old in my life...she chose some lovely deep teal yarn that's a joy to work with.

Yarn is a bit hit and miss here, and there's certainly nothing close to the gorgeousness you can find in the UK, but it's cheap and you can find nice soft yarns at a fraction of what it would cost back home. You just have to be prepared to look hard.

Also we only seem to be able to purchase yarn in 25, 30 and 50g balls...which is a bit of a bummer..especially when you're working on a larger projects..but them's the breaks I guess.

and tomorrow...

well, we've been planning a trip to the opticians for glasses for dd19

and there will no doubt be the usual round of meals to fit in somewhere.

There are lesson plans to write out for Tuesday

and I need to phone my Mum, even though the poor old love can barely hear what I'm saying these days.

Other than that, nothing is set in stone.

We'll wait for the day and just roll with it insha'allah.

xxx

today my brother-in-law returned to me my new and improved laptop...complete with entirely new system, without the excess baggage of ALL my files AND photos, and ENTIRELY in FRENCH...but I'm assured the fan is now clean enough to ensure it will no longer overheat, and so far so good. It's just a shame my schoolgirl French is having such a hard time trying to decipher it all...but heck if it means blogging in bed and browsing in peace while the family are sleeping then I guess I can't complain.

for me internet use doesn't happen past dinner time..I have a wee fella who insists on having his mummy close by while he's sleeping....and short of dragging the desktop into bed with me there wasn't much of a soloution.

insha'allah I'll be able to share some of the creatvity going on around here at the moment... including our once weekly crafting session for some of the local girls. We're attempting a project per month..and this month it was cross stitching their initials onto Aida fabric (which they had never seen before and were instantly obsessed with). I have to say  wasn't prepared for so much difficulty in putting crosses onto fabric, but the girls are happily enthusiastic, so we persevere ....

and now I'm off to get my fix of ravelry before I finally hit the pit insha'allah...normally I'd be alseep by now (having to be awake by 5.30am sees to that normally..) but clearly the laptop has made me naughty...we'll blame the bil shall we?

So, it's a new year huh?
time to look forward and face new challenges.....

We actually passed the Islamic new year already, and in my house we celebrate neither.
But it is a chance (on both occasions) to think and reflect about how we passed the year gone and what we hope to achieve during the one facing us...

Personally, I'm suffering partial brain fog right now....
and can barely think past the next few minutes,

but things looming on the horizon this year are....
hopefully a visit from my Mum and neice and her beautiful boys insha'allah, which is something we're all looking forward to. It will be two years by then since the last time we saw them, and with our patchy communication (too expensive to phone UK, and we're not even going to discuss the internet connection!) and lack of decent postal service it's been really hard to stay in touch. We have managed, but barely..and it will be nice to have them here and show them the place we call home.

School remains our main focus of attention for the first half of the year, it's all consuming at times, and the school system makes for a really frustrating experience both for the children and the parents. Here the emphasis is on exams, exams, exams...and each term is so full of tests, mock exams and real exams that you begin to wonder where the real learning is happening.
Here in Algeria, if you don't reach the required total in your exams you get the opportunity to repeat the whole year all over again...so we will spend the next few months coaxing, cajloing and worrying our children into studying, revising and re-revising until we're all fit to burst!.

And hopefully there will be some studying for the older family members... I've only just managed to drag out my study books and dust them off, hoping to be able to pick up where I left off. Just don't tell anyone the last time I did any serious amount of studying was when I was still in the UK...

And insha'allah this year we hope to get out and about a bit more...car problems meant we were pretty housebound this summer gone,  it'll be nice to finally get to explore!

Our English lessons in the masjid look set to continue this year, and we may even introdce a craft session for the girls.

it would be good to get some of  THAT  bloomin list accomplished too.....

Really I just hope to have a year full of goodness and blessings from Allah ta'ala..in whatever shape or form they may come. And I pray that all those out there who are suffering hardships find some relief from their problems and gain a bountiful reward for their patient perseverance, ameen

Crochet...

is a must do craft in Algeria...

women everywhere will take out carefully put by packages of crochet that they've made and kept and show them off with a real sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

in the past a woman would spend the months and weeks leading up to her wedding making all manner of crocheted household items to help decorate her home..these days though less young girls are learning to crochet, preferring to buy from older women and relying on their mothers also to prepare beautiful pieces of crochet for their new married lives..

this piece was made up for my very special aunt-in-law...she and her lovely husband have become my surrogate parents and I love being able to gift them with things that make them happy...

I have made the intention almost daily (since the last time I posted) to come here and share some thoughts...
I'm not sure what stops me more often, life or just my lack of motivation and inspiration...
It's not hard to put words down... I guess I'm just easily distracted...

and the distractions...well....right now it's mostly (but not ONLY)  this...
I could lose hours lusting over STUFF...and I'm not even a stuff person!!!

THESE... are calling out to me.... they NEED me dammit!! I just have to pray a little that my local market will have lemons..otherwise life might get slighlty ugly...not that I'm vengeful or anything but when a girl need her cake.....

I dare you not to feel even the slightest twinges of craftiness when you visit this lushness .. the list of things I long to make and in reality will NEVER have time for is getting to silly proportions.... but I can't resist... it's a lurve thing...

and if you're any place far away from the homely fug of toasting muffins, then get thee to thy kitchen and make some!! I'm a long way away from the land of the English Muffin now but oh how I love them!!

and no...I don't have a crafting fixation.... honestly....

We're moving towards the winter break from school, exams are finished and the children are anxiously waiting for their results...
The past couple few weeks has been filled with a mutant puking virus and exams, and the  first semester break is a welcome break form the usual routine...

we're looking forward to some quality family time... minus the sickness and hopefully insha'allah some time spent creating niceness on the yarn and fabric front... we might even let the children join in (if suddenly and inexplicably overcome with the compulsion to be nice) ..

enjoy the links...I'll be back at some stage if the crazy Algerian connection that wont stay connected for more than five minutes at a time will allow me to UPLOAD my photos with my own  bits of crochet that have taking shape over the past couple of days...

all in all,

the past week and a bit has been a pretty hard slog..and I have been more than happy to see the back of it all..

There is something relentless about sickness in a large family...

it just all seems to keep going round and round and....

well, you get the idea right?

so, I have welcomed December with open arms...

eager to start a fresh month, with new possibilties and put the  nasty old puke filled one behind us...

crafting has been happening...s.l.ow.l.y

what can I say?

the urge to craft dwells within us,

the ability however to find space in the day to achieve it is something else altogether!

Our lack of routine is seriously wreaking havoc on my craft life and it isn't making for a totally happy bunny!

I seem to be in a constant state of routine change these days,

something is slightly off kilter, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find the beat of your own rhythm when everyone else's  is so bloomin loud!

I battle on regardless though, trying to find a way to carve some time for myself while tending the needs of others, and the most routine changing decision I have made this week is to give up tutoring..

a decision that has taken me weeks to make,

but one that feels right.

Living in the commmunity I tutor has not been an altogether profitable experience in many ways.

It's just been far too convenient for people to drop in unannounced and univited for impromptu advice, lessons and requests to do any number of relatives homework..

So, apart from my once a week job in the masjid AND a few tutoring favours for friends I have decided to take no more new students and to let the ones I have go...

especially after my 10.30 saturday girls decided to take their chance in coming this morning at 9.30.

Of course it's because their mothers are busy with weekend cleaning and want them out of the way..if they dont come to me they wander the streets.

And on one hand I feel bad, but on the other hand I can't allow myself to be used as a baby sittig service at the expense of my own childrens weekend...

The school routine (especially exam time) is pretty outrageous and I just feel the need to spend some quality weekend time with my own children rather than other peoples...

Which means I'm looking forward to some proper weekends with some proper downtime insha'allah...

anyway... a walk into town this afternoon means I need to get cracking and sort myself out..

we're off to buy a couple of pattern(crochet)books

and see what (Algerian quality) yarn can possibly entice us..

Sunday...

and start of a new week for us here in Algeria...

It took me a while to get used to a Friday /Saturday weekend when I first came here

but it's normal now...and we generally look forward to the couple of days off school.

Falling into a slightly different pace & routine.

It's not altogether unbusy of course...

Friday, being Jumuah is the nicest day of our week.

My boys wander off to tutors in the morning while the rest of tidy up the house a little and make ready for any of the drop in guests we normally get over the weekend.

Boys are back in time to shower and run off to meet their Abi in the masjid and then we prep lunch and settle down to a nice family meal post salat... and hopefully to an afternoon of lounging around catching up with all the things we wanted to do during the week but didn't have time for because we were too busy doing the "have to's" of life.

Although in reality our weekend quite often gets hijacked by friends and neighbours popping in for tea and a chat.

This weekend was nicer still because lunch was courtesy of an aunt in law who sent it along with my boys..and then we drifted off in the afternoon ( they live just a short walk away)to spend some time with them all and the new baby in their lives masha'allah.

Saturday is another affair altogether...back to an early start after the Friday lie

and making ready for my "Saturday Girls"

A group of 5-6 girls from my Tuesday masjid class who come for extra tutoring.

Though we've decided that Saturday should be more informal and as we're not actually covering much academic ground on a Saturday we're changing it to a crafting session insha'allah...so I hope we'll have something constructive to show for ourselves sometime soon.

My other two regular adult students weren't able to make today... so we had an easy afternoon.

Dh was out all day, so we all sat down with the knitting sticks and cast on projects to make us happy...

a rash of baby wear  is taking shape on our needles and after a few days of not being able to find a rhythm to our yarn crafts we are finally back in the groove and happily knitting away masha'allah.

Tomorrow?

Well,

it's the first day of a new week...

which, in my house means cooking & cleaning

getting rid of all my week long stash of stale bread and turning it into bread puddings

making some soup and bakeables

getting rid of weekend dust and lighting bakhoor to freshen the place up

and being ready to offer up the younger ones something warm and comforting after the long-ish walk down to the school and back...

I love the start of a new week almost as much as I look forward to the weekend...

My younger children are another matter altogether..

After years of homeschooling, Sunday morning holds less joy than it used to..and it seems more important now to make home somewhere where they can offload and relax.

I used to fight against housework and what I thought was the drudgery and monotony of everyday chores.

But I know that my job makes the other people in my life more relaxed, and makes life easier for them..after all they are the ones who are facing the real hardship of having to leave home day in day out whatever the weather....

The job I used to resent...even if ever so slightly I now (usually) tackle with relish and a new found enthusiasm.....

winter....

is beginning to take a firm hold here in Algeria...

The days are wetter, the nights and early mornings much colder.

The houses here are not built to cope with the cold... (and no... I can't understand it either).... they seem not to be able to cope with much rain either....

so we keep ourselves warm with lots of hot tea... and winter woolens..amongst which are our growing supply of handwarmers....fingerless gloves, a marvel of an invention....my girls wear them to school and keep them on in thier lessons to keep out the cold of an unheated classroom....

you can find the pattern for these here...

they were super easy and incredibly quick to knit...didn't make much of a dent in my ball of wool either

I'm not going to be a yarn snob..they were made with bog standard algerian acryllic....someone tell the nation  to stop drying the fleeces and start spinning the blooming stuff instead eh ...

crochet...

is often thought of as knittings ugly sister,

but crochet can look just as pretty I think...

to be honest I haven't done much yarn crafting this year, a couple of pairs of hand warmers was just about it I think...

so it was high time to get my hook into something.

A pretty baby dress, almost finished,

but not quite

I've enjoyed getting back to crafting after a long break...

There's already a second project on the go...

2.15am

It's been a long day, full of cooking, guests... expected and unexpected.

Stressing over dresses that need to be made within the next couple of days

Making plans to create eid day goodies with friends...

and just the general flurry of activity that always seems to be part of our ramadhan days lately.

This ramadhan hasn't been the spiritual boost that I had planned for, but it's been a blessing in other ways alhamdulillah.

I come towards the end of ramadhan with a clearer vision of who I am and what I want my goals to be for the coming months ahead insha'allah.

Our sheikh said during one of his recent khutbahs that anyone going into ramadhan and coming out of it with the same (bad) character traits had wasted their month of fasting.

And thats a good lesson learned for me this year masha'allah.

Today {cos lets NOT kid ourselves that it's NOT morning already!} is sidelined for sewing...

two eid dresses for two young ladies in my life.

I have to be kind of desperate to get my sewing machine these days, and have put off this particular task for as long as I can, unfortunately there's no more time for procrastination...

a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do..and the machine is coming out!

To be honest I have to keep reminding myself what day it is... we've been pulling all nighters since the last ten nights of ramadhan kicked in,

to get those in our household who choose to pray qiyyam in the masjid out of the house on time,

, and the strain is beginning to tell somewhat...

So I'm off to my pit, to grab a bit of shut eye before they all come traipsing back in with the sound of the first adhan to eat suhoor before shuffling back out again to the sound of muaddhin calling the second insha'allah.

That is, if I can lure myself away from ravelry for five minutes, and the yummy new craft blogs I just found.....