{"id":65,"date":"2010-10-12T17:08:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T17:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2010\/10\/12\/how-do-you-do-it-uh-i-dont\/"},"modified":"2010-10-12T17:08:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T17:08:00","slug":"how-do-you-do-it-uh-i-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2010\/10\/how-do-you-do-it-uh-i-dont.html","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Do It? Uh, I Don’t…."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim<\/i><\/b>

<\/i><\/b>
Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah<\/i>

<\/i>
I got a message from a friend on Facebook. \u00a0\u201cMashAllah, how do you do it? \u00a0Take care of the kids, the house, everything?\u201d \u00a0Well, much as I would love to bask in the plaudits of my loving friends, I have to set the record straight. \u00a0To the question of \u201cHow do you do it?\u201d, my answer is \u201cI don\u2019t\u201d. <\/p>\n

See, what you see on Facebook or my blog or elsewhere is a snapshot of my life. \u00a0A very, very brief snapshot, and only the picture I choose to share with you. \u00a0I\u2019ll post a status update about cooking, cleaning, chasing the kids, working on my cross stitch, curing cancer, bringing about world peace, and people will get the idea that I\u2019m \u00a0actually accomplishing something. \u00a0But what I don\u2019t <\/i>mention is just as telling.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mention that I forgot to pay the water bill (again), that the kids need to have their nails trimmed before they gouge their eyes out scratching their noses, the baby should have had a bath yesterday and the floor under my dining room table looks like what the surface of Mars looks like if it was infested with a bunch of children who like to throw Cheerios and Ramen noodles at each other. \u00a0Seriously.<\/p>\n

I am so <\/i>not Martha Stewart, or Rachel Ray (is it just me, or do you want to smack her every time she explains that EVOO is extra virgin olive oil; or calls that stuff in the pot \u201cstoup\u201d; or says \u201csammies\u201d\u2026. but I digress). \u00a0I am not Holly Homemaker, to which my long suffering husband will attest. \u00a0I didn\u2019t clean the spilled blueberry juice from the bottom of the fridge not because I was too busy doing other stuff but because, dang it, I just didn\u2019t want to. \u00a0And anyway, white\u2019s such a boring color for a fridge I thought the purple would liven things up a bit. \u00a0Til it started to mold.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have perfect kids and I don\u2019t pray all my prayers on time with perfect khushoo and \u2013 gasp! \u2013 sometimes I don\u2019t brush my teeth before I go to bed. \u00a0And I hide candy from my kids. \u00a0In other words, I\u2019m just like you, and there\u2019s a very high likelihood that you have got it together better than I do. \u00a0If that\u2019s the case, can you please come over to my house and help me organize? \u00a0Please?<\/p>\n

What I do try to be strong in is not staying on my pity pot for long, and not whining about stuff that happens in my life. \u00a0I could tell you all the negative stuff, but that would be a major buzzkill. \u00a0I sprinkle in just enough reality to so you can relate \u2013 we\u2019ve all had kids get sick in the middle of the night or babies poop outside their diapers or husbands who leave the seat up or moms who simply don\u2019t get us or jobs we hate\u2026. I can mention that, but I won\u2019t obsess over that, unless I can phrase it in such a way that it\u2019s good for a laugh.<\/p>\n

I guess that\u2019s my key. \u00a0I have a lot of earnestness \u2013 is that a word? \u2013 in my soul, but humor as well. \u00a0I absolutely love being a \u00a0Muslim and it tears me apart to see any of my Muslim brothers and sisters in a bad situation. \u00a0It bothers me to see any <\/i>human being in distress. \u00a0So I offer some advice based on the fact that I\u2019ve lived on this planet for over 43 years and have made a lot of the same mistakes someone else is about to make, and perhaps, just perhaps, I\u2019ve gained some perspective and a whit of wisdom. \u00a0I like to leaven my stern words with some humor, a spoonful of honey to help the medicine go down, because no one likes to be harangued. \u00a0That\u2019s just the way I am.<\/p>\n

So, don\u2019t ever make the mistake of thinking I\u2019m a scholar or I\u2019m up on some pedestal or that I go through my days sweeping and dusting and doing white glove inspections of my home. \u00a0For every wall I scrub, there\u2019s a chair with a dust bunny growing ever larger under it. \u00a0When I clean the bathroom, the kids are behind me shoving crayons between the sofa cushions. \u00a0I\u2019m fighting a losing battle against the bugs of surburbia and the squirrels are mounting a flanking attack on the balcony. \u00a0I don\u2019t have a college degree, I am \u00a0not a doctor and I don\u2019t play one on TV. \u00a0I\u2019m just a normal, everyday, opinionated revert Muslim woman trying to make sense of it all. \u00a0I\u2019m just happy to have you folks along for the ride.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bismillahi Rahmani RahimSalaam Alaikum wa RahmatullahI got a message from a friend on Facebook. \u00a0\u201cMashAllah, how do you do it? \u00a0Take care of the kids, the house, everything?\u201d \u00a0Well, much as I would love to bask in the plaudits of my loving friends, I have to set the record straight. \u00a0To the question of \u201cHow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Do You Do It? 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