Weekending...

So it's Friday already.. the day of the week I've been waiting for with relish... it's the day for letting go and just being...
No rainy, cold, drizzly walk to school... no breakfast too early for appetite... a chance to wake slowly and enjoy the warmth of the covers for a while longer before facing the chill..

The beds are all still down in our communal sleeping space, the big boys have taken themselves off to the tutors, and I'm thinking about what I might do with this day of ours.

I hate planning... I fly by the seat of my pants these days, taking life as it comes at me. And on the odd day when neccesity makes me scrawl a to-do list I can only work in brief stages.. planning the next hour or two ahead... no more.

It's a challenge for at least one of my children, who is an organizer, a naturally neat and ordered person who needs to know what's happening ahead of time... all the time.
I try to accommodate everyone in my house, but there are just some things about yourself you can't change... and this for me is one of them.

So my day is starting slowly... it's raining outside, it's cold enough for me to think about lighting the fire inside once all the mattresses are up and out of the way... the 3 yr old is awake and happy to have found that we've brought the kittens (newly born four days ago to a slightly slapdash mama cat!) into the sitting room during the night... it was far too cold upstairs and one of her brood has already lost the struggle for life.

Someone else has gone to put the kettle on the stove for tea, and the first wash of the day has just started tumbling about in the machine... it's a low impact kind of day... no need to rush about making sure lunch is on time... there are enough lentils from yesterday to suffice... perhaps I'll throw some bread dough in a bowl and let it sit on the fire to prove in this all purpose winter room of ours... sometimes I kinda wish we had a wood burner set in the middle or could at least bring the primus stove in here ...

And then I remember it's Friday.. and I need to put pans of water on the stove for Friday showers... and that  I need to plug in the emergency power because the rain did seep into the electrics again and we need light in the bathroom...

The 3 yr old has settled himself down next to the kittens under the fully loaded clothes horse, some of the others are watching the last bits of a film... HOOK I think...

It's a nice start to a weekend which might deteriorate at some point into siblings screaming at one another... the 3 yr old doing what he does best and creating all kinds of havoc, and me screaming at the 14 yr old in my life to clear his room up... it currently looks like a hurricane it it.

The day of course, will be punctuated several times over by prayer, and hopefully some Qur'an.. the nearly 9 yr old has started blessing us with her very own unique Qur'an recital skills.. and as a mother I'm happy to hear the happiness in her voice as she belts out verse after verse... the others of course are different.. siblings don't have the same tolerance levels as peaced out mums....

Breakfast is nearly here... the eldest has made crepes while I've been sitting here... the 12 yr old is about to brave the rain to buy butter... the 3 yr old has been crawling around on the floor pretending to be a cat... and  most of our mattresses are still dotted about the floor... it's time to start.

Time to do something slow, yet constructive... to think about grabbing my knitting bag at some point today too and getting on with that cardigan...

Here is some of our week in pictures....

:: 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?

As much as I'd like....

to give you something witty and insightful, it just isn't going to happen I'm afraid...
It's late I have brain fog from the little known disorder of, Exam stress by proxy, and any hope of me making sense is simply laughable....

So I'm not going to bother. My children have hit exam week not running but limping I'm afraid... I think my sons may have hit their academic peak on the first day of the first semester. I live in hope.
The girls are approaching exams with the fierce ambition I thought they would... exam week, one way or another gets very feisty in my house.

Friday morning was my light at the end of the tunnel. I get the children out early to their tutors, make sure the house stays quiet enough not to wake the others, and then settle back with a coffee to catch up with some online reading and emails....
Not this morning... we were locked in the house, had to wait to be liberated in time for the children to still make it to their lessons and by then everyone was up and at it so loudly there was no point trying to pretend that my Friday morning ritual was still going to happen.

Malish, tomorrow inshallah is another day....
Want to know what's taken my fancy on line?

Inshallah there'll be some of this goodness going on. I've been meaning to make doughnuts for ages.. it's just the oil that puts me off. I've now found the perfect compromise... naturally I feel duty bound to indulge now.

I'm a real sucker for food blogs with yummy photos

I've been waiting all week to find time to read some of this sisters archives. A beautiful and inspiring read mashallah. As is this mashallah, and I am in awe of my sisters who face life and it's difficulties with such strength and faith in Allah.

And that will probably be all there is time for, between doughnut making, budget planning, making sure the laundry is done before the water gets cut off, producing a couple of meals and trying my very bestest to get them all to revise...
I'll let you know how I get on inshallah.....

You would think...

that given the fact that I wake up a little after four-thirty every week day morning that I would take the opportunity to sleep in on the first day of the weekend. It was the plan.
 And even though I've had no extra sleep this morning I can't tell you how joyous it is to wake up next to a warm snuggly baby and just have free, quiet time.

The toddler eventually woke, and we spent ages just having warm, giggly cuddles. Then the seven year old made a sleepy appearance and joined me in my bed to read a nature book to the toddler. The 13 year old wasn't far behind, but by then I was ready for someone to go and buy milk and bread, so I was almost grateful for the intrusion. We had a new lock ftted on our front door yesterday, which means my front door (which normaly NEVER gets locked, even at night) can no longer be opened from the outside without a key, this is big for us because we have a never ending stream of neighbours children just walking into the house and making themselves comfortable whenever they like. It also meant that I had to get out of my warm bed to let the seven and thirteen year olds back into the house with the milk and bread. Which is where I met my 14 year old, who had already beaten me to the door. And now I'm sitting here on my sofa, with the toddler playing footie, the seven year old munching warm baguette by my side and sons 13 and 14 are in MY bed watching the TV.... I guess I should be grateful that the 11, 19 and 20 year olds are all still sleeping but it's time to get on with the day already!


It's Friday, and I have backed up chores needing attention. I'm heading out to a friends house later to downlad some stuff onto my laptop ( connection speed with my USB is ridiculous!) but before that I need to cook and bake, and get my boys in and out of the shower in time for salat-al-jumuah. And if you have teenage boys you'll now how difficult that can be!

I'm off now to brew a pot of tea and get myself moving...
before I fall asleep!