How To Eat a Pomegranate

It's Pomegranante season! I just got 8 of them for $2 at this great bargain grocery place near my house.

I thought I would share this great fruit with my readers along with an easier way of opening them.
Some people cut the pomegranate in half to remove the seeds. Don't.
Its messy and destroys a lot of the seeds in the process.
Instead, score the blossom end like a plus sign (+), but only go as deep as the outer skin.

You can see the lines if you look closely

Next, pull the top of each section, and it will begin to split along the membranes. After you pull a few of the seeds away, you will able to break it in pieces from the outside with very little pressure. When it breaks this way you will be able to brush off the seeds section by section into a bowl very easily.

 This is where it starts to split easily
Notice some of the seeds are brown, maybe thats why they were so cheap!

If you find that there are little pieces of the membrane stuck to the seeds, you can rinse them in a bowl of water and the membranes will float away.

Do you eat the whole seed? Of course!
I think its wasteful to just suck the juice out and throw the seeds away. Plus, the seeds give you all the vitamins and fiber too!

Enjoy

Food Diary Day (In progress)

After reading this post on Steve and Paula Runyan's blog about the food pyramid, I was curious to see how many calories I consume in a normal day, as well as the ratios of certain nutrients, and servings of various types of food. Of course, the actual things I eat vary from day to day, so some days I probably eat healthier, and I do occasionally eat some junk.

 According to the USDA my pyramid site, I should be eating about 2200 calories a day for my activity level.

Here's what I actually ate, with individual numbers provided for calories, fat,  protein, and carbohydrate grams.

Breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 low-carb toast slices with about 1 Tb. real butter, weak coffee with whole milk and sweetened with stevia (didn't count the coffee as anything though.)

Calories: 280
Fat: 15g
Protein: 17g
Carbohydrate: 18g

Snack: 1 mozarella cheese stick and cheese-filled pretzels

Calories: 220
Fat: 13g
Protein: 9g
Carb: 17g

Lunch: 1 turkey corndog with mustard, 2 cups salad greens with 1/2 avocado and 1 Tbsp dressing.(I don't like much dressing and think ketchup is gross on hotdogs.)


Calories: 400
Fat: 27g
Protein: 15g
Carb: 33g


Snack: 1 crunchy granola bar, Somali tea with milk, sweetened with stevia

Calories: 95
Fat: 3.5g
Protein:: 2.5g
Carb: 13.5g

Totals so far before dinner: 
Calories: 995
Fat: 58.5g
Protein: 43.5
Carb: 81.5

Dinner: Beef chili with beans (2 cups) and 1/4 cup shredded cheese
I didn't have an exact calorie count of my chile recipe because I didn't really use one. I am using the calorie information for this recipe from Fit Day that has almost the same ingredients. 
Calories: 730
Fat: 35g
Protein: 50g
Carb: 55g

After Dinner totals:
Calories: 1725
Fat: 93.5
Protein 93.5
Carb: 135.5


Snack: 2 cups fresh cranberry salad, 4 dates
Calories:300
Fat: 0
Protein:2
Carb: 55


Final Totals: 
Calories: 2025
Fat:93.5
Protein: 95.5

Carb: 190 (prob. about 40 of this was fiber)



Well, that was fun wasn't it? This is something that would get really tedious if I had to do it every day, but I was always curious about how many calories I eat in an avg. day. Its a little less than the 2200, but I think I eat like this most days, then on occasion eat more when I'm out to eat or buy something I really like.

Fall Leaves

I don't know about you guys, but fall is one of my favorite seasons.
I just wish it lasted longer. . .
If we were to eventually move to the Middle East, I think fall would be one of the things I miss most.

.

Layla had fun the last week or so playing in the leaves just outside our apartment. We've also been getting lots of time outside for walks and playing in the cool weather. The rain has just started here, so now we enjoy every bit of sunlight we can soak up.

I am still teaching the kids and translating Somali 1 day a week during the ESL classes. I would love to add another day, but the school is on the opposite side of the city from where we live. I also met another guy at my friend Leila's restaurant who wants me to volunteer for another organization called Africa House.
I would love to do it, but I'm just trying to make sure I still put Layla and my hubby first. I feel like I'm lazy sometimes, but I just don't think its a good idea to be running back and forth doing different committments every single day.

My hubby is still looking for a full-time job, so once he gets that it will be a little easier to invite friends over to the house and such. I would love to have some ladies over for tea, but its a little strange when your hubby is sitting there working on the computer doing his homework all day. It has been really wonderful being able to spend so much time with him though.

Young Women Discuss Hijab

This video was made for the Minnesota Historical Society in 2004. You will see a lot of the girls aren't wearing what is technically proper hijab, but more the cultural versions that are popular among Somalils.
I think it gives good insight into the variety of factors that influence a girl's decision to cover, as well as to what extent she covers.

Some of the terminology they use is Somali too.

Indho-shareer=niqaab
shuuko=long slip-over khimar or sometimes an open abaya

Somali Women Flogged for Not Wearing Socks?

More lovely Al-Shabaab nonsense out of Mogadishu:

(CNN) -- Militants who control parts of Somalia's capital city are beating women in broad daylight for violating their radical brand of Islamic law, according to local officials and witnesses in Mogadishu.

"Just today, Al-Shabaab dispatched men with whips to the streets around Bakara market and they are flogging any woman who is found not wearing socks," according to a female maize trader at the Mogadishu market, who spoke Thursday.

She did not want to be named for security reasons.

In the past two days, more than 130 people, including women who were not wearing headscarves and men chewing dried khat leaves, have been detained for violating Al-Shabaab's interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, according to witnesses and officials.

Hooded Al-Shabaab gunmen rounded up 50 women on Wednesday from Mogadishu's Bakara market for not wearing the veil that is required for women under some interpretations of Islamic law, according to the maize trader.

"Most of these women were vegetable traders, so they are poor and can't afford to buy veils for 600,000 shillings [about $23 U.S.]," she said.



Does anyone know how much money $23 US is for a Somali in Mogadishu? You can feed a whole family for a month on less than $100. Do they thing the women can afford these? Being forced to wear socks? Socks aren't really practical or affordable for most of the year in Somalia. Most people can only afford sandals or flip-flops, so not such a good combo with socks.

I am so frustrated just reading this...

Women are the backbone of the Somali economy. If these pathetic so-called fighters would get off their lazy rears and fix their country, maybe their mothers and sisters wouldn't be selling vegetables and khat in the market for a pittance.

Their actions remind me of these words of Jesus:

"Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness". 

These guys see no problem with beating and shaming women and public executions, yet I'm sure they are quick to run into the masjid when its time to pray. If fact, they also have flogged people for not praying on time. 

These guys are mostly young men who have seen and been scarred by a lot of bad things in their childhood.They are following misguided leaders and have their priorities really screwed up.

Pray for the peace of Somalia.

Potty Training Progress!

The closest thing to a pic of my husband that I can get away with

I am so happy to say that Layla is almost potty trained!

For the last few days she has been having very few accidents, and most of those have been while we were out. Yesterday I started to realize that she was having a breakthrough. While we were at preschool  she said "potty pants" a couple times and I told her to wait a few minutes until I could change her. You see, usually when she would say something, that meant that she had already had an accident.
I laid her down to change her, and realized that she was still dry. She went inside and used the bathroom, but then wet her pants on the way back home. Last night about an hour after I put her to bed she woke up saying "momma, potty pants," so I took her and she went to the bathroom. She did go in her diaper again during the night, but hasn't had a single accident all day.

I think we're gonna be completely done within another month and she just turned 2 on the 14th!

So here's the basic plan I used to train her:

1. We started putting her on the potty whenever she had a dry diaper after an hour or two when she was about 14 mos. old. Sometimes she would go on the potty and be surprised at the result.

2. After we moved to Portland and were a little settled in, we stared really working on the training. I would put her in either cloth training pants or a cloth diaper when she was at home, and try to take her at least about each hour when she was awake. She got to the point where she could empty her bladder when it had something in it. We also introduced the reward of giving her a date whenever she went. This worked really well for awhile, but then the novelty wore off. She still kept going on the potty most of the time though.

If I lost track of the time or she had a lot to drink though, she would just go in her pants. This is why cloth is more useful for training. They feel the moisture more in the cloth more than with a disposable diaper or trainer, so they realize that the wet feeling isn't a good thing.

3. The final stage is your baby being able to realize the feeling of a full bladder, or the feeling that they need to poop. The poop is actually easier because you usually see them straining and hiding in the corner somewhere :-0

We are just seeing the beginning of this stage now, like yesterday when Layla actually asked to go at school before she wet her pants.

The last step of this stage is night-training. This is the hardest because they will have a hard time waking up fully during the night to ask for the bathroom. I am totally fine with Layla sleeping in it for now .

Why is early training better? Babies seem to be less stubborn about learning than older toddlers. Plus, you will save tons of time and money not buying diapers and washing loads of them.

The Evil that is Al-Shabaab

Seriously?

 Is this style of long khimaar not modest enough? 

The links provided lets you access the full article. 

"MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's hardline Islamist group al Shabaab has publicly whipped women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a deception, north Mogadishu residents said Friday.
The insurgent group, which seeks to impose a strict form of sharia Islamic law throughout Somalia, amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery earlier this month. They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer."


So apparently it is ok to touch an unrelated woman to forcibly remove her undergarments because they constitute a "deception" by making her breasts firm. Personally, I don't think they should have been looking that closely at women's chests in the first place. Anyone ever heard of lowering the gaze?

Now we have another article demonstrating Al-Shabaab's increasingly perverted view of religion.

"KISMAYU, Somalia (Reuters) - The 17-year-old winner of a Koran recital and general knowledge competition organised by al Shabaab rebels in Southern Somalia got an AK-47 gun, two hand grenades, a computer and an anti-tank mine as prizes."

The greatest impediment to Somalia ever experiencing peace and safety again isn't a force outside of Somalia, it is Somalis being recruited to this so-called Islamist movement. They used the presence of Ethiopian troops inside Somalia to recruit young men into their ranks. Now they are encroaching further into the interior of the country. They even have huge amounts of supporters in Europe and the U.S. 

East Africa has been in the midst of major drought for several years now. Is Al-Shabaab working to bring relief supplies into the country? Are they providing medical care in the villages? Are they bringing useful health training to young Somalis? The answer to all these questions is an emphatic No. They are wasting time punishing people for playing soccer, listening to music, not having beards, wearing bras,  and having the wrong type or color of khimaars.

They are promoting evil in their agenda and do not reflect the values of the Kingdom of God.

I am going to suggest something radical though, let's pray for them.
Only God himself can change the human heart from reflecting something dark and evil to reflecting his light.

In the words of Jesus,

You have heard it said: Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. However, I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who abuse you. (Matthew 5:44)

Oh God, change the hearts and minds of the men and women of Al-Shabaab who support this evil agenda that is destroying their people.I know that you love each human being that you created, please reveal yourself to them, show them that they are not following the path that leads to Jannah. Bring peace back to Somalia in our lifetime.

Amiin, InshaAllah

Soomaalieey waan idiin jeclahay.