Barbie Friend or Foe?

By Aminah Muhammad
Barbie the toy young girls have played with for years. Over the years barbie has been made into more races and more careers. Including President Barbie, Beach Barbie, Alvin Alley Barbie, ect. Barbie has made even her own movies. Although, Barbie shows girls that they can take on any role they set their mind too. We have to ask ourselves is Barbie really are friend?
Bye Barbie
The media fl00ds us with the untrue idea that beauty is everything and Barbie only reinforces this idea. Every barbie is thin not even a little chubby & Barbie would have a 39 inch chest as a real woman. Also every Barbie has makeup why cant a girl be pretty without mascara? Over the years barbie has gotten less modest also telling girls that normal girls aren't modest. In the Barbie movies the main character is always a white skinned blond haired barbie. Why cant the main character be a Hispanic barbie. One day one of us may create a more realistic Barbie, but until then lets be our own role models.

Clove Hitch Knot

Greetings! Happy Summer! I hope you are enjoying life.

I took a nature class a few months ago. A segment was on knots. We learned how to tie and use several different types of knots. I must admit that I do not recall the uses for many of them but I do recall how to tie a few of them. One of my favorites was the clove hitch.
"Mommy, I like that clothes line you made in the backyard. It is cool. Do you think we will use that more often?" "Yep, dryer broke!"
Needless to say I excitedly turned to the clove hitch to create a clothesline. I have no idea if this is a good knot for this purpose. I do know that it was good practice and that it has continued to hold up just fine with heavy loads after about 5 days now.
I plan to take it down soon and try another knot for practice. Maybe the tautline hitch.

I encourage you all to learn how to tie a few knots (and their uses) for we never know when this knowledge will come in handy.

Around the Table

Greetings and Peace to you all,
     I pray everyone is doing well. The children and I were discussing their goals for this upcoming Ramadan. Their goals are simple yet superb.

• The Boy's goal is to perform his prayers at least 3 times a day.

• Faith's is to read the entire Holy Quran, memorize 2 prayers and do the rakahs at least twice a day.
• Peace's goal is to read the Holy Quran, pray at least 5 times a day, fast at least one day, cook breakfast and lunch so that my mom, since she is fasting, doesn't have to.

May Allah bless them with success!

Oh, for those that do not know. Ramadan is a very special time for Muslims because it was during this time that Allah chose to call Muhammad to be a Prophet, and sent down the first revelations of the Holy Quran. It is a time of spiritual and physical discipline; a time for making extra effort to spread love, peace, and atone with self and others. Fasting involves purposefully cultivating a peaceful and prayerful attitude of mind, and undergoing the physical discipline of giving up all food and liquid during the daylight for the entire month. It is not just about going without food; that is only one aspect and not the most important. If a person could not give up evil ways, violence, greed, lust, anger, and malicious thoughts, he had no need of giving up food and drink. It would be meaningless.
"There are many who fast all day and pray all night, but they gain nothing but hunger and sleeplessness." (Hadith Abu Dawud)

Ramadan 2011 will begin Aug 1

Early Summer 2011

Greetings, A lot has been going on around these parts. Not sure where to begin. A few things I wanted to blog about but haven't.

• Cooking in the solar oven. Goal is to cook in it once a week. The last thing we cooked was baked potates and chicken. It was good. We put it in prior to leaving for half the day. Children came home to a healthy home cooked meal without fuss.

young zucchini plant with blossom

future tomatoes

zucchini

• Progress that is occurring in the garden. The Boy picked a few tomatoes. A few zucchini are growing but not ready to be picked. And we have a few LONG green beans. We just got some in our food bag so we plan to use those once these are gone. Home-grown green beans are delicious. But then again, all home-grown veggies taste much better.

• Broody Chicken. This was interesting and kinda funny. Mothering instincts are amazing. For those that do not know a broody hen is simply a hen that is sitting on her eggs waiting for them to hatch. She will forgo her own needs (food, water, and exercise). You literally have to remove her from the nesting box. And not without a fight. I believe that episode is over. 

         Oh! We do not have a rooster so it is pointless to allow our hen to sit on unfertilized eggs. 

• Girls first swim meet. HHHmmm let me see if I remember the results. When girls wake up these stats may be corrected. Faith took first in her individual races (freestyle and back). And did a marvelous job in the team events. Well, we have to get that breaststroke a little faster but it wasn't horrible. Peace looked beautiful and took first in butterfly. And did all right in the IM. We have to work on a few strokes. She said she was tired. And she also did well in the team events. This should be a fun season. Once again, we are beyond grateful for those that sponsored the girls in this year's swim-a-thon. 
•  
• Thankful for Albany Bowl for participating in Kids Bowl Free Summer Program. (And Victoria for reminding me to sign-up). The children and I went about 2 weeks ago and had a great time.

• Today I went and worked on Soul Flower Farm. It was great. I learned a lot and got more experience which will be great for our next leg of this journey.

 Ideally I would like to post once a week but... .
May God Continue To Bless Us All,
Erika
p.s. thanks to all those that give me words of encouragement to post.