Natural History Museum: Rocks and Gems

The Natural History Museum houses a fascinating collection of rocks, minerals and semi-precious stones.  We couldn't get into the Museum's Vault room like last time  to see the gem collection, but there was still plenty to see.  The children complained before we even set out that I would bore them to death by standing around for ever by the gems trying to take pictures.  The complained when I got there and did so, then they complained some more afterwards that they only wanted to see the animals and volcanoes and not rocks.  I was unapologetic and ignored the complaining.

Some of these rocks and minerals are displayed around the museum, the sparkliest gems were in an exhibit called Earth's Treasury:

A rare kind of Fluorite called Blue John only found in Derbyshire, England, a source which is almost exhausted:

Mother of Pearl:

This one stopped me in my tracks, veins of opal in iron-rich rock from Australia:

Green Chalcedony, reminds me of the sea:

Natural History Museum: Dinosaurs and Mammals

We finished last week’s half term holidays with a trip to the Natural History Museum, after our visit last year, it felt like an easy day out with the kids.  Last time we worked our way around the Museum quite easily and got to see everything.  This time around the museum's front entrance was under construction with the famous Diplodocus exhibit in the Hintze Hall being closed or refurbishment in time for this summer.  This meant that it took much longer to get in, was harder to get in and I felt as if we missed chunks because we either going round in circles or because we couldn’t find the right lift to go up or down a floor (as we had Baby's pram with us).  I think next time I will have the sense to look at the website and the online maps before I go.

Being half term and too cold for outdoor activities, the museum was very crowded, usually I am oblivious and don't mind rush and crowds, but I had the start of a nasty headache so was less patient with trying to navigate people with the pram and it was harder to take pictures as there were more people in the way.

With all of that to one side, it is still a wonderful museum, I would definitely go back with Gorgeous (who is obsessed with animals and nature) to see the new Blue Whale exhibit that is being prepared for Hintze Hall.

Two of the most recognisable dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops:

This moving, growling T-Rex model was fun.  It was not enormous, but the boys liked it. Darling had to stop and check with me: "It's not real is it mum?"  I picked Baby up to have a look and she clambered down and run to the back of the hall where her pram was and got in quickly, refusing to look at it.  

Little Man's favourite, a giant sloth

A woolly rhino, I have no idea why it was upside down:

There was a fairly large collection of stuffed animals, life like and beautiful:

A fascinating way to spend a good few hours, I think I will take the kids back, or perhaps only Gorgeous later in the year.

My Interview with Thread MB Blog

I was very happy to find that my interview with Laura Wellington of Thread MB was published this morning, you can find the full interview here and an extract below:

Do you believe you have a “life’s purpose?” If so, share it. 

I believe that each of us is here to serve: ourselves, our families, our communities and those in need. As a person of faith, I think, we are also here to worship and serve our Creator. I think we all have innate qualities and strengths that we can put in the service of others, even if, sometimes, we are unable to see it ourselves. For me, that purpose would include nurturing and inspiring my family, acting as a coach and activist in my community and hoping to motivate and inspire others to live a beautiful and balanced life through my blog and e-books.

Finish this sentence, “The best part about being a mom is _____.” 

The awe of seeing your children grow and the amazing potential unfold in each one; the good qualities and the flaws that make them unique and human; and the things that just surprise you.

What is the one piece of advice you would give to those who may be interested in beginning a blog?

Get started! The sooner the better. I would say to begin by using a free platform, test the waters, and see how it feels to write and share. So many people start blogging and stop after a fairly short period of time, so it’s definitely something you want to try out to see if it works for you. Other than that, be honest, honor your own, unique voice and know that your experience is worth sharing. When you do this, you will eventually find that your words will resonate with people.

You can read the full interview and Laura's introduction here.

Picture of the Day 20.02.17 - Business Dress and Abaya Hemlines

I wear my abaya to work, but I try to look smart as well as modest.  There are some small things which I am a stickler for when it comes to dress, such as wearing trousers under my abaya which go with the colour of the abaya.  

This morning I went back to work after a week off for half term holidays. I managed to get dress for work on auto-pilot without thinking too much about I was doing.

I couple of hours later, I noticed this: 

I remember reading somewhere as a teenager the rules of wearing clothes for the office, most likely Readers Digest, because I was that nerdy kind of kid.  From what I recall, you wear black tights with black skirts and nude with everything else.  You generally match the colour of your tights to the hem of your skirt or trousers.

So although I wear an abaya, I wear black stockings with a black abaya and tan with everything else.  I usually wear my back abaya on Mondays as I rotate through the colours through the week.  But my black work abaya was in the wash thanks to someone very small using it as a hand towel while I was wearing it.  So I wore my pink one, but clearly in my head I was still wearing the black one and wore black stockings.

Such a silly little thing, but it bugged me all day. 

Picture of the Day 19.02.17 - Precious Stones

We visited the Natural History Museum with the children yesterday and the mineral and rock collection scattered across different parts of the museum is brilliant.  I couldn't stop taking pictures and this is one of my favourite:

I thought it was amethyst at first, but this is a rare kind of Fluorite called Blue John only found in Derbyshire, England, a source which is almost exhausted.  The banded patterning on it is just beautiful, subhan'Allah for Allah's creations.

Picture of the Day 19.02.17 - Colour Charts

We visited the Natural History Museum with the children yesterday and in amongst the dinosaur bones, stuffed animals and fossils, I came across this lovely colour chart:

It is thought to belong to the Bauer Brothers (Franz and Ferdinand), travelling botanical artists - even the job title is wonderful.  This is one of a series of numbered colour palettes they developed during the 1770's onwards into the early 1800's, for use when they travelled to number their drawings.  Later palettes contained up to 1000 drawings.

Examples of their drawings and paintings:

Page from sketchbook for Iris Germanicus showing numerical colour codes as not all of the colours needed could be taken into the field

(image source)

Grevillea banksii by Ferdinand Bauer (20 January 1760 – 17 March 1826)

(image source)

Three Months to Ramadan 2017/1438

I was writing to a lovely sister this morning who contacted me because of the blog.  Have I ever mentioned that I love, love, love getting e-mails from sisters?  I should also mention that I am awful at replying and might respond in a day or in six months (to my shame).  But this sister’s e-mail reminded me that Ramadan is just over three months away.  

This got me thinking about a couple of things: my husband will probably spend Ramadan away again this year doing dawah, this time hopefully in Pakistan.  He could not go last year due to the refurbishment of our home and I could see it weighed heavily on him.  

I am hoping or both my mum- and dad-in-law to stay with us this Ramadan, usually it is just mum-in-law alone.  With hubby away, this will change the family dynamic in terms of routine, meals and how we plan our days.  It's funny, every Ramadan is different and unique in our home with a different mix of people.  I have to say, I am really looking forward to having dad-in-law here, we get on like a house on fire mash'Allah and it is really funny watching him wind up mum-in-law.

A third thing that comes to mind is that it is about time to update my annual Ramadan and Eid Planner.  I am hoping to do this over the next few days and have had some good feedback from the last version which is here.

 I would really, really appreciate any feedback from readers on any of the following points:

• Have you ever used the planner and have you found it useful at all?
• Do you like the design and colours?  What would you change?
• What else could I add to make it useful?
• Was there any part that you did not find useful?

Any and all feedback is welcome either through the comments or e-mail at umm_salihah@yahoo.co.uk as I hope to update the planner soon insh'Allah.

Muslimah Mastermind Group: Our Purpose

I recently blogged about the idea of a Muslim Mastermind Group.  The Muslimah Mastermind Group is about being part of a group of sisters who are all committed to improving their lives and achieving their dreams. These individuals each bring their own unique perspectives, resources, skills, and networks to the group. Most importantly, each one is committed to working towards their own goals and also supporting the other members in achieving theirs Insh’Allah. A true win-win opportunity.

The purpose behind this group is:

To Share Resources

There is an abundance of great resources about every topic you can think of in the shape of blogs and websites, e-books, guides, checklists, tutorials and free training. I have added as many as I can to the resource pages and will continue to add things I come across or sisters sign post me towards. 

To Solve Problems and Capitalise on Opportunities

The group will present an opportunity for sisters to share a question or problem. The rest of the group will then have an opportunity to provides answers and opportunities. Examples of questions or problems can be things like:

• I want to start teaching my child Quran, where do I start?
• I am interested in starting an online business – which platform is best?
• I am launching a new product, can anyone help with spreading the word through blogs or their social media?
• I am coming to London next week, any suggestions on where to eat and visit?
• I want to increase my Islamic knowledge, what is a good place to start?
• I am thinking about sending my child to Islamic school, Is this a good idea? Can any sisters speak from their own experience with their children?
• I am sure there will be others that I can’t even imagine. I am also confident, that there will be sisters in the group that can bring great advice, contacts and suggestions to the issue at hand.

Or even:

• I've just done this amazing course, here’s the link if you want to try it out
• I have tickets to an event in New York that I am not attending, anyone want them? 

This idea partly came from my experience with working with a group of motivated women before and partly from Barbara Sher’s book Wishcraft, where she describes an “Idea Party”:

"Whether it’s a 3-hour or 12-hour workshop for public television or a corporation, at all my workshops I demonstrate what an idea party is. All of them are amazing, but one of the most memorable was at a public television show in Memphis.
I asked for an impossible dream and a woman raised her hand to say she wished she could go on a cruise.
“What's your obstacle?” I asked.
“I have three,” she said.
“First, I have no money. Second, my adult daughter is ill and staying at my place, and I'm looking out for her.
“And I'd rather not tell you the third obstacle.”
At that moment a man in shorts ran quickly from the back of the room up the central aisle waving a piece of paper:
“I just won a cruise for one person by running for the heart association, just a few hours ago. I don't want to go on a cruise. Anyway, I'm married.” And he gave the certificate to the women. We were wowed.
She was very moved. “That's so nice of you I don't know what to say, but I can't leave my daughter.”
A few rows back a hand went up. “I'm a public health nurse and I have to give 10 days pro bono every year. Would that help?”
The woman was flabbergasted (so was everyone but me, because I'd seen it so many times before. But this one did turn out to be unusual.)
“I think you'd better tell us your third obstacle,” I said.
She sighed. “My daughter's being stalked by her ex-husband and can't be alone.”
The room fell silent and then a man's voice came from the very last row:
“I'm a cop. What's his name?”
Everyone started laughing and cheering.
She went on the cruise."

Community

From speaking to sisters through my blog, I find that sisters can often feel very isolated. In this big beautiful ummah, why should anyone ever have to feel that way? I also think that success comes when we work together:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has ~ Margaret Mead

Inspiration

I hope that the sisters in the group serve as a source of inspiration to each other. Sometimes we have a vague dream but can’t imagine what it might look like in real life. Sometimes we feel lost and can’t decide what our purpose in life is. One of the aims of this group will be to act as a source of inspiration for one another.

Encouragement

If we feel as if we have nothing to offer and if we cannot do anything else, the least we can do is to make dua for each other and act as cheerleaders for each other:

…Help each other to goodness and heedfulness. Do not help each other to wrongdoing and enmity. Heed Allah. Allah is severe in retribution. (Surat al-Ma'ida: 2)

No sister should ever think she is the least in this group and each of us should encourage and support the others in the good things they hope to achieve, whether through dua, encouraging words, good advice or ideas and resources that we can share or make available.

I hope the reasons in this post encourage and inspire sisters to join and be active in the group and give a feel of what we are trying to achieve and how we can interact and work together.

The Muslimah Mastermind Group will be based around:
A private blog which you can join with a Google account
A private Facebook group
An e-mail list, which I will use to send out messages to the group if required.

If you want to join, please e-mail me at umm_salihah@yahoo.co.uk and I can add you to the above.

Picture of the Day 11.02.17 - Snow

It has been snowing on and off for the last few days here, cold but so pretty.

It hasn't stuck so far, so no snowmen despite the kids crazy excitement (Disney's Frozen has a lot to answer for, Darling was convinced it would be white and wintry like the cartoon outside).

I have been trying to get a decent picture of the snow, but no chance, my phone camera just wasn't picking the snowflakes up.  So I am stealing my sister’s pictures which I thought were absolutely awesome:

images from Shutterbug Sisters everyphototunity blog

Entrepreneur Interview with Osmaan Mahmood, Creator of Fenice Media and Where's Funky Monkey

This Entrepreneur Interview and Inspiring Ummah Interview posts will be a series of interviews with entrepreneurs and social campaigners who are making a difference in the world. I find that Muslim women are particularly interested in both of these areas: becoming entrepreneurs or doing work that benefits society, often both at the same time. These interviews will help to shine a light on the motivation and inspiration behind creating your own product, service, social outreach campaign or charity, how to get started and some of the challenges you may face.

As an introduction, can you please tell us about yourself, your background, and what lead you to create your business/product? 

After having worked in the publishing industry for a few years I set up my own company Fenice Media. We have three core products CorporateLiveWire, the Luxury Travel Guide and iGap Travel Guide. All of these products are geared towards adults and when looking at new areas for the company to expand we felt that we could create a product for children. 

That’s where the idea for Where’s Funky Monkey was born, we publish a great deal of content on travel via our guides and websites and it’s something that I love to do. The aim of Where’s Funky Monkey is to encourage children to want to explore and see the world. 

What made you choose to become an entrepreneur? 

I’ve always looked up to successful business people and love to create new ideas and products so becoming an entrepreneur was something that came very naturally to me. I’m always tinkering and coming up with all sorts of new ideas some sensible and some quite crazy. 

What is the overall aim of your business/product? What problem are you setting out to solve and how? 

The first goal is to teach children that there is a very beautiful and diverse world out there and they should want to explore and experience as much as possible. Secondly with the proliferation of technology more and more kids today are playing games and watching videos whereas my aim with the book is to show children that reading and books are fun and enjoyable. 

What were some of the biggest challenges for you when you were starting your business? 

The biggest challenge was getting our name out there and convincing clients why they should work with us even though they had never heard of our company or product before. Also trying to recruit talented people to a new start-up company is very challenging especially when we used to work from an office that could only fit 5 people at a push. 

What do you wish you had known before you had started your business? 

Being willing to ask for help or advice, no one knows everything especially when it comes to business and rather than trying to do everything on my own or figure everything out on my own sometimes consulting someone with a bit more experience and knowledge in a certain area is the wiser choice. 

What is the most satisfying aspect of running your own business? 

Knowing that we are making a difference in providing our clients with a satisfying experience and product that is good value for money. 

Also to be able to provide work to so many of my employees some of whom struggled to find work for various reasons and were unemployed or in unhappy positions for many years. 

Where do you see your business in the future? 

Hopefully we will continue to grow, we have so far seen 5 years of consecutive growth both in revenues and profits so to keep up this trend while coming up with new and exciting ideas to continue to expand the company and its product range. 

What words of wisdom would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who may be hesitant about taking the first steps towards starting their own business? 

Just to do it, there is never a right time or a perfect moment you simply go for it. 

Also do not have a backup plan I know this sounds crazy but if you want something to succeed you have to put everything on the line, when I set up my company in the first month I put all my savings into a new house and left my very secure full time job because I believed in what I was doing and you have to be willing to make the same sacrifice, life is too short to play it safe.

Osmaan is currently looking to raise funds via Kickstarter to fund his Funky Monkey book. The goal is to raise £5,000 to pay for editing, printing and to pay illustrators. You can go here to contribute and see what you get for your pledge. The Kickstarter page also has a timeline, risks and FAQ's. It's an all or nothing campaign, so the project will only be funded if it reaches its goal of £5,000 by 23rd February 2017.