Updating my blog layout...

Please bare with me while i try to improve my blog, im trying to make it nicer to look at, easier to navigate, and less busy. Hoping to add some new pages soon - one for categories and one for links. Il have a new post soon about choosing wallpaper for our big house re-do this year insha'Allah!

Dying hair naturally

I'm almost 27 now and have been dying my hair since i was 14. My natural hair colour is a dullish brown, rather uninteresting to be honest, so i usually dye it darker, anywhere between auburn and black. Im dying my hair 'Natural Chestnut' this week (see image above).

For years i was using the brand named (Loreal, Garnier, Clairol etc) chemical packed but readily available dyes, but i became very conscious of the ingredients about 4 years ago or so and switched to natural dyes. Ive used henna a few times but always found it a bit messy and unpredictable, and too temporary (i prefer permanent colours). So now i always use Naturtint or Herbatint (same product, just has two names) which contains no ammonia, parabens or resorcinol and is enriched with Soya, Corn, Coconut and Wheat Extracts. It delivers just the same result as the chemical dyes but is healthier for me in the long run. And not just for me, my family wont have to breathe in any harsh chemicals, and the manufacturer does not need to use so many toxic ingredients which harms the environment and its workers. Its important to look at the effects of our actions on a wider scale than many of us tend to do.

Naturtint / Herbvatint is fairly easy to get hold of. In the UK, you could buy it here (Holland and Barrett - currently 2 packs for £14.98, i normally pay around £10 each).

Of course its not the best option, it still contains some unnatural sounding ingredients, and we know that henna is a natural dye (taken from the crushed leaves of the henna shrub). I will try henna again at some point, its just that for now herbatint is easiest for me. And better still, we should push vanity to one side, and go natural! I'm really hoping that one day God gives me the strength and confidence to stop feeling the need to dye my hair at all. I'm getting there...

• There's an interesting article here about why we should stop using regular hair dyes, and what the alternatives are.
• Try to use the Skin Deep cosmetic safety database - search for the beauty products that you use, or the ingredients within them, and this site will inform you on their toxicity levels and harmful side effects.

Nostalgia

I'm very nostalgic (too nostalgic to be honest with you) and will often think back to my past at some point every day. I remember a lot of my childhood and teenage years quite vividly, my relationships, the clothes i wore, the TV i watched, the music i loved and the food i ate. I don't take these mini trips down memory lane to avoid my present life, i just genuinely enjoy thinking back over past events and how they made me feel. My husband is completely opposite in this respect, he neither thinks back to days gone by, or towards his future (i think too often about what the future may hold too - always planning how i hope to do things someday) but he lives completely in the moment.

If you also love a little bit of nostalgia, then take a look at these two sites - Do you remember, and YTTM. Do you remember is a forum that covers the 70's, 80's and 90's (I was born in '84 so im a real 90's girl) and there are sections on music, dance, tv, food, fashion, world events, adverts, toys, books, school and more. YTTM is like Youtube, but you pick which year you would like to see videos from, and can choose from categories such as computer games, TV, adverts, music, world events, sports and movies.

Hours (days, weeks?!) of viewing pleasure for you there!

Out and about

Its been very Spring like here recently, in fact, since all of the Christmas snow melted ive noticed quite a few days when the birds have been singing more often, the sunlight has been brighter, and the air has felt warmer. Ive even managed to start preparing my vegetable beds in the garden wearing just a thin long sleeve top! We have several shoots rising above ground level and our first (and i think only) snowdrop has appeared too.

Whilst the snow covered our garden i didn't see much of the squirrels, but now they are back here every day filling up on (or hiding) peanuts from our squirrel feeder. We hung the birds peanut feeder from string to stop the squirrels from taking theres as well but it seems that they are hungry enough to give it a try... and succeed.

During the winter its very easy to stay indoors and lose ones excitement and enthusiasm for the natural world. But we've been trying to go out just as often as we would in the warmer months and have been visiting farms and parks. Leicester has a city farm which we have visited many times and is one of my favorite places to take Little D.

And as we are only a 10 minute walk away from Brock's Hill Country Park then we visit there a lot too. We went last week and the air was so fresh, with each inhalation i felt calmer, healthier and happier. The atmosphere was wonderful, peaceful and i felt so far away from the bricks and mortar of the town. Little D chased dogs, kicked leaves, splashed in puddles, ran through the woods and frequently decided to sit in the stream that runs across the land. So he went home wearing no trousers. Fortunately he was snuggled under a crochet blanket and a foot muff in his pushchair and didn't seem to mind the lack of a bottom half to his outfit!

A blog award and a tag...

I'm very pleased - i have been given a blog award and somebody tagged me too! Yara from 'A Muslimahs musings' gave me her 'Top 5 blogs of 2010' award. Ive known Yara for about four years, we first 'met' on Myspace, then she started making YouTube videos, then we became Facebook friends and now she has a blog too. I'm very flattered to think that i am one of her favorite bloggers of 2010 - lets hope i can be someones favorite blogger of 2011 too!

Then UmmH from 'Muslim Mummies' tagged me in a '7 random things about me' meme, so here goes, il try to tell you 7 things about me that you don't already know:

1/ I hate owning a mobile phone. I ignore it as often as possible. Id much rather see people face to face, write letters, or talk on the home phone.

2/ When i was learning how to walk i fell over and cut my lip on a door frame. Since then ive always had a half an inch scar rising from my upper lip.

3/ When i was 14 i went to the Clothes Show and was approached by someone working for Storm Modelling agency - the agency once responsible for Kate Moss, Elle Macpherson, Cindy Crawford etc. They wanted to enter me into a modelling competition. I didn't get through to the finals, but it was very flattering and confidence boosting to be asked! I also got voted 'Most attractive girl in Year 12!' whilst i was in sixth form (age 17) - Woop woop!

4/ I get frustrated by spelling mistakes and bad punctuation. Also, when people say or write a popular phrase but say it wrong or in the wrong context - grrr!

5/ There is one blog that i view pretty often, but the author really irritates me, gets right under my skin, i hardly ever read her words, but she takes such inspiring photos and is genuinely unique so i always find myself going back for more (even though my nickname for her is TW*T)!

6/ I often get stared at, sworn at, laughed at, and shouted at when i am out and about. Ive been threatened, had things thrown at me, and been interrogated by strangers. But on the positive side, i also feel welcomed and respected by many of the elderly, and quite often people will be especially friendly to me. And children seem to love me too :-)

7/ I never wanted to get married or have children. I thought marriage was a waste of time - how can two people stay together their whole lives without ending up fed up with each other? And why would anyone want to lose their independence by having children and having to revolve around them all the time rather than enjoying their own lives? When i became Muslim, my priorities were to A/ Get married, B/ Have children and C/ Stay at home to look after my husband and children and forget all about my 2:1 degree, my career prospects, and all my dreams of independence.

So that's it, 7 random facts! Please join in with this and then let me know so that i can come and read your 7 random facts!

Carrot cake muffins

I made some carrot cake muffins today and they are so delicious and unusual that i thought i should share them with you. They have a soft cream cheese centre and have pecan nuts, coconut and sultanas in them which really makes them stand out as something just a bit classier than the plain old traditional style of muffin. Here's the recipe, let me know if you try them!

(Makes 12 muffins)

Ingredients

200g golden caster sugar

100g chopped pecan nuts

75g dessicated coconut

150g soft cream cheese

300g plain flour

1tbsp baking powder

1.5 tsp mixed spice

50g sultanas or raisins

2 large eggs

175ml milk

100ml oil

175g carrots, grated

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180c / 160c fan / gas mark 4. Then put your paper cases in your muffin tin.
• Mix 1tbsp sugar, 50g pecans and 25g coconut and set aside.
• In a separate bowl mix the cream cheese with 2 tsp sugar and set this aside also.
• Sift the flour, baking powder and mixed spice together into a mixing bowl. Add the sultanas / raisins and remaining sugar, pecans and coconut.
• In a separate bowl mix together the eggs, milk and oil then add them to the dry ingredients with the grated carrot. Stir the mix together.
• Put enough mixture in each muffin case to just cover the bottom, then a dollop of cheese, then more mixture, topped with the sugar / pecan / coconut mix.
• Bake for around 25 minutes.
• Leave them to cool on a rack, then enjoy!!!