Ramadan Journal 2017: Day 1 - Hello!

I was pleased to see that the wonderful Neelu of Neelu's Journal is hosting the Ramadan Journal 2017.  I have taken part over the last few years and enjoyed it.  In her own words, Neelu describes her the inspiration behind her Journal challenge:

"I was inspired to keep a Ramadan Journal thanks to Ali Edwards' December Daily and the idea of using a list of prompts came from Fat Mum Slim's Photo A Day. Having a pre-decided list to work on makes the whole process a tad easier for me."

You use the prompt in the image below to take a photograph that matches the prompt for that day and write about it in your journal, blog, Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag where possible #njramadanjournal 

image source

Day 1. Hello

At the end of the first day of fasting, the thing that surprised me the most was how familiar it all was: trying not to pass out at suhoor (the dawn meal), wondering how I will get through the day without food to distract and occupy me, then finding myself busy enough for the day to fly by.  Getting grumpy as the day wore on, trying to get the kids to bed before iftar and failing despite my best efforts.  My older three were fasting, but that did not seem to dampen Gorgeous' enthusiasm for annoying all three of his sisters and causing floods of complaints.  I was truly fed up with a thumping headache by the time iftar rolled round and told everyone they would be banished upstairs in future or I would abandon them all and head to my mums to enjoy iftar in peace. 

My husband didn't like the sound of that and offered the perfect solution by offering to take Gorgeous to the masjid with him at iftar time.

If that sounds miserable it wasn't all bad, it was nice to have more time to pray in peace and to feel motivated to spend more time in prayer.  It felt good to find my routine with my daily reading of the Quran.  I have found a nice little pattern of reading a quarter of a chapter after each salah apart from maghrib (evening prayer), which will let me finish a chapter a day insh'Allah.  

It is nice to have a little time between clearing up the kitchen and getting the babies to bed and the night prayer (isha and taraweeh) to blog in peace and take a breather.  I am sitting with my smoothie made from left over fruit and for once not feeling bloated but rested and ready to end the day with prayers and a little self-care.