Well...

I'm thinking that I will never make it as a serious blogger. I mean, really! Why is it that I have such a hard time updating this on a daily basis? Could it be that I really don't have much to talk about? And why am I so freaking nervous about the idea of sharing this blog with people I know? I really need to get past this because I think I'm pretty darn funny and insightful too and have a lot to offer with my opinions and thoughts on random things. Hopefully, I'll get past my issues and go on to the success that I know I deserve (I think). Insha'Allah.

NSV!

Awesome NSV. Being told by lady at clothing store that the dress size I picked out for myself was gonna be WAY to big for me (she's my new best friend) AND fitting into pants that I haven't been able to fit into for years. Yay me!!! Alhamdulillah!

Cooking Adventures....Musings of a wanna be chef

It is wise that when cooking with very hot oil that one be very careful. Yes, this should be a common sense, already know and understand this type thing but apparently some people (ME!) need to be reminded of this. Today, my first day of fasting this Ramadan, I decided that I wanted to make sambusa. I proceed to make the filling with no problem. The princess and I wrap them, no problem. I start frying them and things start out great. Well, I don't know if it is because I am fasting or feeling rushed (because it's crunch time and I need to start getting ready to go to masjid) but things start to go horribly wrong. The metal tong things that I am using to flip and remove sambusas from the pan are coated pretty well with the popping grease. I go to flip some sambusa and as I put the tongs in the pan they slip and pop open and splatter burning hot oil onto the right side of my chest and arm. Imagine a boat paddle pushing aside water and it cause a big splash. Needless to say I am in pain. I have officially gained cooking battle wounds. I have always been scared to cook with hot oil. This seriously does not help the matter. :(

Sooo, hmmm....

So, we are six days into Ramadan and I haven't been able to fast a single day. That makes me sad but I know that I am excused because it's "that time", but I still can't help but feel left out. That is my fault entirely though. I need to step up my ibadah that I am permitted to do during this time of the month. I need to be reading more Quran and need to start reading Seerah like we said we would be doing in my family for this month. I really need to get focused!



I also haven't been able to workout either. I am dreading getting on that scale. I am going to put it off until I have few workouts under my belt because I don't want to go into a downward spiral. Man, this weight loss journey is taking forever. I keep stalling and that is just frustrating me so much! I am at a point where I feel like I am going to have to starve myself to get more of this weight off. But no worries there, though, because I just don't have the patience to do that. I like to eat too much (obviously) so that wouldn't work. But, honestly, I don't know what else to do. I have truly changed my eating habits and am more active then I have ever been in my life, so why am I stuck where I am. I know that people plateau but why do I have to do so while I am still in the 200's?! I'd hoped that I could at least get to the 180's-190's before that happened. Crap! 


On the brighter side of things, my knee does not hurt as bad as usual. That's a plus. That's pretty much it for now though.


Anyway, for anyway who may be reading this and are Muslim, Ramadan Mubarak to you all and your families. Please keep me and my family in your blessed duas. 

Stuffed Potato with Tomato Sauce

Stuffed Potato with Tomato Sauce This is the next recipe I am going to try, inshaAllah.

Cooking Adventures

Trying to be a chef musings: (i.e. Note to self....and apparently the world): 1) Invest in a large stock pot. All kitchens should have big sturdy stock pots. Obviously, if every tv chef has one, it must be an important part of the cooking process. Duh.
2) When looking off of someone else's recipe for the first time follow all directions. For instance, if they say use only 1/2 a pound of ground beef, use 1/2 a pound of ground beef instead of thinking "oh no, that is simply not enough imma make it a pound and then get stuck with so much stuffing that I have to now find recipes for ground beef raw rice mixture because I don't want to make mahsih for the third night in a row" DON'T make ingredient adjustments until after the first try. DUH

Finally

Finally, after about 3 years, the baby mama decided to help contribute to raising this child and buy her some clothes. It is about damn time and pretty darn ridiculous that we have to practically embarrass her in order for her to do something. This woman has no problem buying new flat screen tv's, computers and high end clothing for herself, but buying clothes for her child, with money provided to her on a monthly basis no less, that's like pulling teeth. I'm really sick of this BS and am looking forward to something changing. Like that'll happen though.

I'm so tired. Can't sleep. Thinking so much. About life. About death.
I am 35 now. Alhamdulillah.
I never thought I would be still stuck at this age. Granted, I never thought about it but now that I am here, I can't believe it. I go through this every year though. Sometimes I feel like I have nothing to show for myself. No obvious talents. No career. No children.
I am grateful for what I do have.
My husband.
My stepdaughter.
My family.
Life.
But I am not living up to my potential and at some freaking point I would like to change that.
Now, if only someone could lend me a million bucks.
:)

Update: Better Week

So, I lost the weight that I had put on and then some. Alhamdulillah. On top of that my Doctor took me off of one of the BP meds that I was on, which I have been waiting forever to be taken off of. I am going to give it a month and see how it goes without it and hopefully wont need it anymore. I am still tired of working out but I know that I must do this in order to get to where I need to be. It is just so frustrating learning how to be healthy. Every time I learn something new I get even more overwhelmed. But it is better to know than to be ignorantly killing myself with food.

It is the last week of school so the kid will be out for the next two and a half months on vacation. I have no idea what to do with her. I just don't want her to be sitting around the house bored, so I must find something.

Well, I'm off to workout now. Pray for me. :)

Update: Bad Week

This has truly been a difficult week for me. I lost 2 pounds when I last weighed in last Wednesday. I have gained 6 pounds since then. The most frustrating thing is that I have not been blowing my diet and I have been working out. I haven't eaten fast food and no junk snacks. So what the heck is going on! I am so beyond frustrated right now. I truly feel like this process is going to take forever. I cannot believe that I am in the predicament and I am so ready to give up. I am at the point where I feel like I am going to be obese for the rest of my life so why bother with this headache. Even when I think I am doing everything right, nothing changes and instead it gets worse. 

I am genuinely happy today.

I love speaking to my baby sister Ayesha. We can be talking about absolutely nothing and still stay on the phone for hours talking. I love her and miss her tremendously. I can't wait to be able to get money to go and visit her and the rest of my family. 

My other half sister, B., texted me. It is so weird because I had been planning on texting her myself but kept forgetting to. Here's a little back story: We had a falling out several years ago and have not really spoken since. We have been in contact a little here and there but nothing more. I am thinking that because the anniversary of our father's death was yesterday, we naturally have been thinking more and more about each other lately. I actually think about my entire family so much lately. I think it's because we are all getting older. I really need to get my butt in gear and do what I told myself months ago and start reaching out. 


My weight loss efforts are going pretty well, I am happy to say. I have been stuck for a while but I think I have finally realized what I am doing wrong, diet wise, and am doing my best to get on track with that. Apparently, when working out and dieting you have to EAT MORE in order to get the metabolism to speed up so that the fat burn happens. I had been using a free site called www.loseit.com to track my calories and exercise. I really like the site. I have really learned about calorie counting, tracking workouts and over all accountability. But I just found a much better site called www.myfitnesspal.com. I LOVE this site. It really breaks down everything for you in a way that the other site doesn't and it was from here that I realized that by not replenishing some of the calories that I burned during a workout I am essentially putting my body into starvation mode and slowing down my metabolism. Apparently this is the reason why I have hit the plateau. I am praying that by changing the behavior, this weight will begin to come off again. This journey is really turning into a serious learning experience and I pray that everything I am going through will be all worth it in the end. InshaAllah. Du'as please.

I had a doctors appointment today with my gyno. Overall, it was a pretty good appointment. I am down over 30 pounds since the last time I saw her last year, which made the both of us happy. What is confusing about everything that I am going through is how little knowledge I have about whatever is going on with me. I thought this whole time that my rush to lose weight is so that I can have this fibroid removed so that then I can try to conceive. Well, I brought it up with my doctor and she pretty much said that if I had surgery to remove the fibroid I am essentially saying that I am done with having children because I would have a  scarred uterus and the possibility of more tumors coming back, or they would have to do a hysterectomy. I had to remind her that I don't have children and she said then the last thing I want to do is have the surgery. I asked her then how am I supposed to get pregnant if I don't have it removed and bleed all the time without birth control pills? She said we can make it work. So that gives me hope but not too much. I really have no idea about what I am supposed to be doing right now. 



The only thing I can focus on, is to get more of this weight off because no matter how I end up getting pregnant, I don't want to do so while still so over weight. Which brings me to another issue. I am busting my butt, injuring myself, starving myself (well not starving myself) but serious documenting every freaking calorie that I eat and am getting no where. This is what "they" call hitting a plateau. I don't like this plateau. It sucks! Apparently, not only do I need to add weights to my routine, but I also need to eat more food. Imagine that! Eat more food to lose weight. I guess I have been causing my metabolism to slow down from not consuming enough calories and in order to speed it up, I have to replenish the calories I lose from working out. o_O. Well, I will give this a try this week and see how it works out. 

:(

What a racist world we live in.

Reflection

I recently ended a friendship with someone who, technically, I was pretty close too. Throughout the course of our friendship, it occurred to me, frequently, that it was one that was disjointed; dysfunctional. She leaned on my a lot for support during her divorce. At first, I thought that it was because I was genuinely giving good advice and sharing my limited knowledge of women's rights in Islam. What I knew, I shared and what I didn't know about, I inquired on her behalf. I was her advocate. I realized, with the help of a truly good friend, that in reality "she" was turning to me because of my fierceness. Because, when it came to her ex and others that she was having issues with, I was her defender. I said things to her that she wanted to hear and made her feel validated. Nothing wrong with that, right? I never lied or said anything that I didn't think was correct. But the problem was that it was one sided. And a friendship that is one sided is not a friendship at all. In all the time that I knew her, I kept it real. Yes, I was a fierce defender, but I also didn't agree with her a lot. I spoke my mind. I was blunt. PERIOD. It came to the point that she was offended that I didn't agree with her regarding the way she and her kids treated their step mom. Funny thing in all of this is that as her friend I was supposed to "sympathize with her because she is their mother", but as my friend she couldn't remember that I AM a step mother and have experienced many of the B.S. that her kids step mother was enduring. The least that she could have done was to keep it to herself and confided in someone else about that. But in her opinion, as her champion defender, I was supposed to put my experience and situation aside. I don't think so. She also manifested herself to have a very racist attitude. You know, one of those people who think that because they have a Black friend, they can say racists things? Can't stand that. There were so many other issues, too. Thus ends that chapter of my life. I will not let anyone diminish what I have gone through and the feelings that I have about them. I don't care if it's my situation or not. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. I am not going to condone bad action. I have to honestly say, I do not miss her. That really says a lot.

I hate being stuck

I am feeling incredibly lost lately; and very frustrated. I feel like I am stuck in my mind and dying to burst out. This whole thing with trying to lose weight has to be one of the most frustrating things I have ever done in my life. It is such a slow and painful process that I feel like breaking down and crying at any given moment. I try to stay focused on my goals and to be strong. I have been trying to keep my mind off of things by trying different hobbies such as sketching and drawing and also writing. But often I find myself obsessing over the pounds that I haven't lost yet. They say that women have a biological clock that is ticking, ticking away. I never really paid that any mind until recently. I can literally hear the ticking in my ears as each day comes closer to my next birthday. Don't get me wrong; I'm no longer at a point where I have this desperation to get pregnant. I want it, it's just not as desperate as before. However, I feel like I am more and more becoming aware of my age. And not in the way that all of us women are aware of it, but the type of awareness that one gains when you've realized just how much time has been wasted doing nothing. I feel very sad. I just want to get to the point where I can finally feel healthy and happy and not always have to feel heavy and in pain.

On top of the weight loss drama, there is always drama at home. I really don't know why it seems that with each passing year, things get harder in this situation. I am really disappointed in this girl right now. We just caught her in a huge lie and to be honest, I really don't know where to go from here. I feel so much anger toward her mother because this is stuff that we should all be working together to take care of but because she seems to have the mind of a child herself, it's impossible. Why do I always have to be the bad guy? Why do I have to be the disciplinarian? And I do too, because if I didn't do anything about what is going on, it would be dealt with inappropriately and then ignored. I don't get it either. We give her everything that we are able to more than most kids, and she is so unappreciative. I know that all kids do stuff and all families go through stuff, but at this age? It's so frustrating.

Anyway, inshaAllah it will all work out. I just have to remember to trust in God always and turn to Him regarding all of this, and if it is His will, it will be done. Duas please.

Oops! My bad...

LOL, so I am doing so well with keeping up with this blog, but hey it's only been 16 days. LOL Not much new going on. More drama with so called friends but that's about it. I am so over it that I will not go into on this blog; not worth the space it will take to talk about it. I am happy to so that I am feeling more and more focused on this weight loss thing. I have been working out alot more regularly and am starting to enjoy it a lot more. I added Jillian Michaels: Killer Buns and Thighs to my rotation. I don't know if I am masochistic or something but I love to do her level 1 workout. Maybe on level 2 I will hate her the way I think I should. LOL.My eating habits are still ridiculous. I know that if I can just get that under control, I would meet my goal weight so much faster. The problem is that I am poor. And being poor and trying to buy healthy does not work very well. People say that that is a myth, but it really is not. Anyway, I trust that Allah truly provides, so it will workout, inshaAllah. Dua's please.

I'm back

Bismillah
It has been a long time since I have been willing or able to update my blog, but I decided that for the new year I would be much more consistent. It is really hard when you have so much to say but really have no idea how to express yourself and more importantly feel like there's no one out there interested in hearing what you have to say. I have come to the realization that people do not like to hear truth, or someone else's version of the truth. It hurts too much and when confronted with it, people run away. It is truly a testament of a true friendship/good relationship that when someone says something the other doesn't really want to hear, you still remain friends. (I hope that made sense). I have experienced, in the not so distant past, the loss of friends. For someone as sensitive and emotional as I am, this has been a shock to my system. I really have a hard time with the idea of someone not liking me. Not because I am vain, that truly is not the reason. It is because, no matter who you are, I give my all to that relationship. Everything I have. I overlook slights and insults, I praise even when not necessary, I do a lot... all because I feel like everyone should be happy. And I want to do what I can to make people happy. So for someone to then turn around and avoid me, ignore me, not invite me to their wedding after saying I am like a sister to her, to backbite me, and the list goes on... that hurts so much. I was told by someone that sometimes people do things not realizing the amount of hurt they are causing to the other person. I don't really believe that. I think that in excluding people from social situations where invitations are necessary, people absolutely know that there will be people hurt. What they have decide is who is it that they don't care if they are hurting. Apparently, certain people don't care that they are hurting me.
I have struggled with the idea that I must change the way I am with people. Stop being so nice and caring. Stop giving my all. But I don't know how to do that without going too far. I don't want to be a bitch. I just don't want to have my feelings stomped on anymore. So this year will be a struggle for me. I am withdrawing from certain situations. I wont be the same Hawwah who goes up to everyone at the masjid or park to say Salaam anymore. People want to talk to me, they have to come to me. We'll see how this goes. InshaAllah