Kefir and kombucha

DH has called my remedies "voodoo" ever since we were married 8 years ago. The only thing that has changed is that he now ASKS for my "voodoo" rather than running from it. I have become interested lately in probiotics... And the result is that I am, insha'Allah, going to start growing my own kefir and kombucha cultures. Basically, they both result in a drink. Kefir is like yogurt (a drinkable consistency) and Kombucha yields a tea which is pretty similar to apple cider. Why???

Drinking "living" drinks has different health benefits depending on the drink you are talking about. Kefir helps balance yeast and grow a healthy environment on your insides for optimal absorption of nutrients and general digestive health. This one is pretty straight forward and like a good yogurt regimen pretty widely accepted as fact. Kombucha tea falls further into the "voodoo" category, but basically the kombucha culture digests the sugar and tea into a slightly vinegary drink with several detoxifying ingredients and some helpful vitamins and enzymes.

I was given a kombucha culture by a friend in college and remember that it did make a pretty drinkable tea that I tryed. Of course I was young and in good health anyway, so I gave up after some time since I really thought I didn't see a drastic improvement in my overall health. Now, with all these things DH is on for his condition... Detoxing seems like a good thing. His liver has already started to show some stress on the blood tests, so I remembered kombucha.

If anyone has thoughts on the whole thing, let me know. I am new to growing kefir, so I might be crying for advice... But I have purchased it from the store in the past and yikes!!! I paid a bundle for the three week course I did to kick a case of thrush I had when the baby was about 2 months old. But, it did work. I even applied it topically for the first week. And I rubbed acidophiles on the baby's tongue every time she nursed (since I was afraid to give her the kefir since it was cows milk). And it worked wonders. I also lost my tummy pillow that I always seem to have. Of course the tummy crept back later!LOL

Ummmm, OK I'm rambling now. Kefir good. Kombucha, hopefully good. Making them at home, good. Amywhoo, back to my whole wheat bread (which hopefully hasn't over-risen).

Yellow polka dot Burqini?

So, DH and I have been contemplating meeting at the local rec center every morning and taking the kids swimming. This leads to my usual question of, "Is it worth it to try to find a modest swimsuit or will DH tease me until I run and hide in the locker room?" Ha Ha.

I think I have settled on making one, but we will have to see how expensive it is to buy that many yards of swimsuit fabric!LOL So, has anyone out there bothered to try these "modest" swimsuits? What do you think of them? I'm thinking no matter how much they suck I am dying to get into the water with the rest of the family!!!!

Of course in looking for images and ideas I came across all sorts of craziness... And if one such crazy person should happen to stumble across my blog. No, these suits are not oppressive. The fact is once you wear hijab and are committed to it you feel naked without it. I know, I know... "How's that?" you ask. Well, everyone has their own standard of modesty. I personally think that most women work hard to overcome the natural feelings of shyness to go out wearing a bikini... I know I did. So if you see a woman in a "modest" swimsuit, please just smile and say, "To each her own." Look, as long as you don't force me to wear your suit... I won't force you to wear mine, deal?

Egyptian Husbands

I have had so many people find me by searching for something to do with marrying an Egyptian... So, I thought I would humor these searchers with my take on being married to an Egyptian. Not to be mistaken for my earlier post on You know your husband is Egyptian when...

Basically, I think Egyptians make a good match for American women. Assuming that they are from a city... Because I could see where there might be more friction/cultural mis-understandings if a big city American married a village Egyptian. Overall, as long as you both give each other some time to understand the differences... Insha'Allah, you will be fine.

The things that might come up... Keep in mind that I am generalising here... But after a decade of Egyptians I have noticed some trends.

I have seen standards of modesty as a problem in some marriages. It seems to me that Egyptians (no matter what religion) are very modest people. So they really don't want to see their wife in a mini-skirt and a tube top walking out the door... EVER. I never had this issue personally, because I wear hijab, but DH has seen it happen with his friends.

Family, and visiting family... Egyptians are loyal to their families no matter what. I have seen Egyptian couples separate over one insulting the other's mother, sister, brother, whatever. This fierce loyalty is all good if your spouses family is normal, but can be a real hassle if they are not. Personally, this comes up for me all the time. I can have a lengthy conversation with my DH and feel he sees that his sister can be awful and downright destructive only to have him go visit her the next day. Alhamdulilah, I am over it because at least he lets me say how I feel and doesn't expect me to visit. But I have seen this be a source of tension in marriages where the husband not only visits the crazy relative but insists that his wife does too.

Disciplining children. DH jokes that some people in Egypt beat their children for breakfast. I think that may be going a little far.... But I do think the manor of discipline is different between Americans and Egyptians. Americans talk to their children and try to shame them out of bad behavior. Many Egyptians skip the shame in favor of a smack on the hand. This can be hard because consistency is so important with children. So, rather than a disciplinary tug of war, I think couples should have a policy for their home. And it should be specific.

What constitutes a meal. I have heard American wives bemoan the amount of food they have to serve in order for their husband to call it a meal countless times. It seems that Egyptians just have bigger meals, so don't be shocked when you serve what you think is a meal and your spouse asks "Where's the rest?"

He might think that you are Superwoman. It seems that men from all over the world have the impression that American woman can do everything and work tirelessly. Ummm, no we can't.

I'm sure I could go on with the trivial things, but those are the major ones that I can think of. Now for the great things about being married to an Egyptian.

They LOVE their families. Yes, along with the bad parts there are good parts to the loyalty to family. Your DH will put your children first and will love them fiercely.

They have kind hearts. Most Egyptians are kind, generous, and welcoming. You will never feel uncomfortable in your spouses friends homes. And, I think it rubs off. You will find that he brings out the sweetness in you too.

They will never be too busy to sit and have a cup of tea and some sweets with you... Providing that you bring the tea and the sweets;)

Hmmmm, I hope that I haven't offended. As I said, these are my observations. I would urge caution to anyone marrying someone from a different culture as I have mentioned in previous posts... But I think that Egyptians are a good match for us American girls most of the time;)

Magnoona has left the building...

Soooooo, if you have been paying attention you know my SIL (the one here in the states, I have two) drives me to the brink. She has been visiting us for the past two weeks, and basically just annoying me as much as humanly possible. For the finale today, for the first time in my 32 years, I yelled straight at a person other than my DH or my poor mom (whom I yelled at a lot when I was a teenager). Yes, it was my SIL.

Now, I have maintained my control with her so many times. I have kept my cool with a woman I swear would make Gandhi renounce his pledge of non-violence... But today I laid into her, and of course she yelled right back and the whole thing was rather unbelievable really. DH just woke up to go to work and he told me, "Please tell me that this evening didn't really happen."

Basically it went like this. I tell DH that even our neighbor whom my SIL saw only briefly during her visit (she was sleeping on the couch 99% of the time) mentioned to me how sad my SIL seemed and how hard her life was with her disability and thier mom dying. DH then tells SIL, see even our neighbor knows your sad story and proceeds with his usual advice about don't go around making sure everyone knows you are miserable and they should feel bad for you. Now see this is where the sequence of events should stop for a normal person... But you are not talking about a normal person you see, so then... SIL concludes that our neighbor must know from a mutual friend about her sad life and her tragic situation (which is just crazy because if you sit with my SIL for five minutes she will tell you about her sad life, you don't need secondary sources) and gets really angry that this mutual friend who knows the details of her situation only for the purpose of setting up a fund for her (some sister set up a trust fund for my SIL because of her "tragic" situation) and how dare she gossip to anyone about it (that's my SIL's job of course). But, she doesn't stop there, noooooo. My SIL then proceeds to go over to our neighbor's house at 10pm and confront them to find out what they know and who they know it from. YA RUB!!!!!!

So, I am sitting there, watching from my window knowing I can't do anything to stop this psyco, and she is about to cause a big problem. I am imagining that this poor woman is going to be berated by her husband about this since I know they are not the type to gossip and are very private people... And the wife really said NOTHING. What she said to me was very general, you would say the same thing if you sat with my SIL for five minutes. And my SIL is going to them accusing them and their friend of gossiping about her. I was ready to pack my bags and move. I was sooooo embarrassed. Then she brought the husband to our house only to continue the fight with my DH in front of him. So, the polite husband left and soon as he could and went back home. So now, my SIL and my DH are screaming at each other. Soon, she is telling me look what you started. I went crazy.

I started by telling her that she couldn't even see the point of DH talking to her. "He was telling you that you can't go around telling everyone your problems so you fix that by going and telling our neighbors your problems and dragging them into the fight with your brother?" From there, it just kept escalating. She is accusing DH of just being dragged into my evil plots against her... I'm telling her she is crazy and doesn't have the social skills God gave an avocado... DH is telling her his whole life with her is like this... She's saying she just wanted to clear her name and we are the crazy ones... And so on. So, as I am answering a phone call from the neighbor (who were masha'Allah very nice about the whole thing) saying she never heard anything from their mutual friend and let's just forget all this ever happened, my SIL just leaves. I am hoping she is going home. But no. She went back over to our neighbors to say one more thing. I was livid. DH just told me "Ma'laysh, just go have some chai because you can't stop her."

Now, I have to say I'm not sorry I yelled at her... Although I do know that it doesn't make her see what she did. I feel better. And, Alhamdulilah DH had my back... Which is a nice feeling. I guess the really crazy thing is that she has no idea what she did. UGH. I told my DH that if his other sister comes to the states (which we have been planning for this summer) I can't have both of my SIL's here. If we want the whole family to be together it has to be somewhere where my crazy SIL can only embarrass the s&*% out of me in front of total strangers. Just what I needed after feeling drained from chasing all the kids (she brought her daughter which DH and I must watch and include in everything but never discipline) and dealing with her demands for the past two weeks so she can sleep on my couch all day. Sheesh. Well, good riddance to bad rubbish as they say. Now I just hope I can get the courage to go BBQ with the neighbors tomorrow as planned. I'm just praying that my SIL didn't cause them a big fight.

Sugar coated Islam

I have been noticing a new movement in Islam... For lack of a better word, I will call it sugar coated Islam. It seems like people are just pushing the idea and not the substance of Islam. I see it in my own born and raised Muslim SIL. It's this wierd idea that you can just "Do your best" (which is usualy pretty far from actual Islam) and everything is fine.

I know everything STARTS with La illah... But you should build on that, not have it as your only goal. And this attitude has been leading to some things that I just can't stomach. Maybe I'm a hard-nosed person... But there are things that even if I do them, I am under no illusions that I am right. What I am seeing more and more from people is a lack of understanding that they are bending the rules. Quite the contrary, they think they are good "modern" Muslims. You know, considering how different things are now, and how hard it is to be a muslim in today's world (rolling my eyes).

Now from my perspective, there is no such thing as a "modern" muslim. We should be striving for the same things that the people around the Prophet were striving for, and in the same ways. The trappings of our life may be different, but the substance should be the same. I accept that we will have a hard time reaching the levels that people around the Prophet reached (they had a stellar example after all) but I don't think that means we should stop fighting for it.

So before you tell yourself the fairy story that "we live in different times" followed by "so it's ok to pray late, to read less Quran, to let our children stray further and further from the deen... (fill in the blank here)". I want you to think about what happens when you set the bar that low. You won't jump higher one day... You will just keep lowering the bar.

Let me tell you a little story with my kiddos that was making me think about the expectations I have for them. This week my 7yo got a new bike. It was her reward for learning to ride a two-wheeler. Now, I never asked 5yo and 4yo to try to ride without training wheels, because I assumed that if my DD didn't ride untill she was 7yo they wouldn't either. But, DH and I decided to go against our assumptions and when the boys asked to have thier training wheels off we responded by taking them off and assuring them they could ride without them if they just kept trying. And you know what? I chased my daughter for months trying to get her to ride, sadly proclaiming it "hard" and it took her months to learn it. My sons went off with a smile and a you can do it... Only to have them return hours later RIDING A TWO WHEELER!

So, this weekend when I get out the salat programs and try to have DD learn fatiha and everything she needs to know to pray, I will raise the bar and include my sons. You never know, maybe they will all learn together.

NOT an all inclusive resort....

OK, so I know that I shouldn't talk but I am going NUTS here. My SIL came for an unexpected visit (which is enough if you have four kids in 800 square feet) and brought all her problems and demands with her.

Last night she woke my DH after we had been asleep for only an hour screaming hysterically (not a good thing to do with a person who has an overworked heart and problems sleeping)... Why? She was cold and didn't want to get into her chair and go like 2 feet to get a blanket. The night before she called for me at 3:30am after a whole day of chasing kids and doing all the set up and break down for a day camping by the lake to get her tums. I was peeved and I stomped downstairs thinking, you had better be dying!!! She said sorry, and I felt bad that I was mad and at least was happy that she knew it was an annoying thing to do. But noooo, she had to continue "I tried to call you on your cell phone, but it was down here." Sorry for yelling, not for waking me at 3:30am. Now, this is funny because she is just like that. She sits on the couch demanding things all day, or sleeps. THIS IS NOT A RESORT!!!! I am not a place for her to crash and be serviced. She must be doing these things for herself at home because she lives alone.

Can I just say that this is not the time for this? We have so many things going on with the businesses and our lives. I am ready to have a throw down with the guy I am renting my store from. The permits for our property are taking an eternity. Our tax guy is sooooo behind I am going to have to go to a new accountant soon.... And so on. I need a break, and am in no position to give one to someone else right now. Sheesh.

OK, rant over.... Now I'm going to try to post some pictures of DD2 eating the cake we got her for her first birthday yesterday... Incidentally, she liked the bath she got after the cake more than the cake itself!LOL

cupcakes

These are some cupcakes that I made for teacher appreciation day at the kid's school. But I'm sure you can imagine that I have bigger things on my mind. Yet somehow focusing on cupcakes makes things seem more manageable.

The new place is small but good. DH has so many issues... WOW. My baby will be one, insha'Allah, on the 4th. My store has to be moved by the first and I don't even have a new storefront yet. I am treading this bizarre path back to the certainty I had about the deen when I made shahada, and it's slow and mind boggling, and deserves it's own post. DH might go to Egypt without the family to save some $ in a few weeks and it will be the first time we have been apart for more than a week since we married. This week we should get the news about the development of a property we have been working on and see if the city will let us do what we want to do or not.

Anywhoooo.... I am just kinda rediscovering my entire life these days. It is weird, but there are so many things going on for us lately. So, here I am sitting online at 5am trying to decide how to use my Shukr store credit, ordering some things from land's end and finding deals on essentials that I can't get in WY on Amazon.... Allah help me through this weird time.

MIA

OK, so I have been missing in action lately and I wanted to talk about why.... It seems I have too much going on right now and hardly have time to think let alone get online. But, insha'Allah, things will settle down soon.

The big thing is, my MIL passed away and we have been trying to get ourselves in a state where DH can feel comfortable going to Egypt. There is some debate about all of us going, but it looks like that would cost too much.

The other thing is my store. It has to be moved because the guy who is doing all the work (leaving me w/o finishing my store since February has bought the building and I now have to move the store. UGHHHHHHH No, I don't want to move ANYTHING right now thanks sir!!!!

And for flavor, my washer died 2 weeks ago and I have been doing laundry at a coin operated place spending roughly $30 a week on laundry. GRRRR But DH got me a new washer (which I was in charge of the search for) and it's a front loader! YEAH! And in the same truck load I got a new bed and found it for $470 when here in Wyoming (at the same store mind you) it was $650.

Anyway, things are crazy here. I have been in Denver, Cheyenne or whatever and driving a lot more than usual. And of course on the phone to all sorts of passport people, travel agencies and airlines too... Insha'Allah I will get DH to Egypt and things will settle down a little.

OK, I know I said no more you-tube...

DH saw oiur van at the dealer where it is on consignment the other day and he told me... "It's not even our van! They got that wierd smell out!"

Duhhhh

I actualy found myself having this conversation with DH the other day...

EH: I can't believe this. I looked in the mirror today and I said where is all this grey coming from?(Egyptians think grey hair is a sign that your days are numbered).

UL: Well, you went bald early... So maybe the grey is the same thing. (Great, bald and grey!)

EH:?????

UL: *blushing* Well, I mean your hair thinned when you were younger than usual.

EH:?????

UL: *stamering* I mean maybe it's just in your family...

EH:?????

UL: I mean I love you honey!

I know, I know!!!!

Last you-tube I promise... But this song brought tears to my eyes the first time I heard it on the album and I think if you haven't heard it you should. Pay attention to the quote at the end.

Muslims love thier mothers...

Why do I feel bad?

My little store has been closed for about three months now because of construction in the store next to me. There are holes in my walls, drywall dust everywhere, no bathroom, no lights in the hall/storage area and I lost about half my square footage. Oh, did I mention my back door doesn't close anymore?

I have been feeling bad for the guy who owns the building and paying full rent anyway. He hasn't offered me one penny of compensation. Grrrrr. Why do I feel bad for people who don't feel bad for me?

So, today I am going with the intention of talking to him about it. I was hoping to draw him out by not paying April... But it hasn't worked. And I HATE these confrontations. I know I will end up caving and saying I understand when he tells me pay up and if you don't like it move... But sheesh. I feel like I deserve some compensation. The construction started with no warning. The guys working there were sleeping on the premises, and eating and smoking... Now, here I am with a hole behind my register, no phone line to run credit cards and lovely enough... No bathroom which means I don't even have any running water to clean all that dust and I will be stuck with a 4yo and no bathroom and my employees will be working an entire shift w/o a bathroom break or closing to go next door to use the restroom.

Well, wish me luck.

Blogger ?

Can you make posts private on blogger? If so how? I have some posts that I can't really have just out there for everyone, but I want some feedback on.

Short Update...

First I want to say THANK YOU SURVIVING! You made my day.

In other news, I have been trying to close up the old house and get it ready to sell... But it is slow going. I have two of the four rooms all cleaned out and ready... DH's room I will never be able to do , that's his thing... So now I have to get the main rooms emptied and clean the kitchen and bathrooms which is hard because DH is still living there! Grrr. Well, it is officially the end of the month and he will have to move his butt here very soon.

We are having a debate over the actual fixing of the house... DH has yet to produce anyone to do the work, so I called my cousin and DH is claiming there are just too many issues with using my cousin. One being cost, another being he thinks I will want to hang out with him. Well, I know I'm American and all... But I think I know better than to hang out alone with a guy even if he is my cousin. But, at the same time I am thinking, "DH, he's my COUSIN and I'm from a culture where the marrying cousins thing doesn't exist..." It seems like this is where I get stuck on everything I try to do. Do X. So, I do X. No, do X that way... And that way always involves more work than I have time, money or energy to do. Dh's typical response... "The shatra(good/skillful) knits with a donkey's leg." Well, maybe I'm not shatra.

Also, we have been having a little run of bad luck... Keep us in your dua, maybe it's all for the best but if one more bad thing happens I will freak out.

Sorry for not posting in so long. Things are crazy here. Insha'Allah I will finish some things I have been writing about evangelical Islam and other thoughts running in my brain these days.

READ THIS

If you have a girl in this generation that will have to be vaccinated for HPV by age 11, read this article and think about it. I have been harping on my suspicions that this vaccine might be a mistake and is mostly about money... I think this researcher is just the tip of the iceberg.

Top researcher: 'Untested' vaccine could harmSays HPV 'experiment' on girls might even increase cancer rate
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54713

**Sorry that I don't have a link, but stupid new version of blogger wouldn't accept my html for a link, anyone know about this?**

Does not play well with others

So, I am wondering if what is happening with me is normal married person stuff or not... I am feeling like a big failure in this whole partnership of marriage thing.

For the past few days I have been in the new apartment and my DH has been in the mobile home getting his things in order (theoretically anyway). And aside from having to clean two kitchens every day... I am much happier this way. I kinda wish we had the cash to just stay like this.

Maybe I am just happy to have a dining table to eat at and no one calling me to do something every 20 minutes.... I don't know. Is that just shallow selfish and unloving? Maybe because we have four kids I just am not coping very well with a needy adult right now (not that I think he's faking his illness or is just a lazy jerk).

Today for example I got up and made blueberry muffins and sent the kids off with nice lunches I had prepared most of the night before. Layla actually said on the way to school this morning, "Mommy this is the first time we are really ready and on time to school." It broke my heart because I knew what she was saying. I was just there getting them ready and they had a bath and everything the night before and their clothes were all laid out. Normally DH consumes so much of my morning with all his little requests that I end up feeling all rushed... And since his work is all over my dining table I just let the kids eat at a little craft table they have and everything is really loose and I somehow never get things done in time.

Now I will admit that in my discussions about all this with DH he has proposed a solution. Wake up earlier and do all your prep then. But somehow it just doesn't feel the same. No matter how early I get up I feel like I am rushing to get a lunch packed and clothes ready... I am just the type of person that has to do it the night before.

I am more centered when I am not with him. I think most of it is this night job truthfully. I wake up and the kitchen is a mess from him preparing food when he gets up, his clothes are all over the place and no matter how I left things when I went to bed they are always a disaster when I wake up. And for a person like me the overload means I just give up. I don't know anymore. I am starting to think that we are clashing to a point where it is effecting our time with the kids, and the way they are being raised.

I guess the truth is that if I have to choose between being a good mom and a good wife, good mom has to win. But how it is right now I am in the middle and doing a bad job at both. It's like both are a full time job and I am just taking from the one I am not focusing on when I am dealing with the other and both end up being half accomplished.

DH needs a wife with no kids. I think all the time about suggesting to him that he finds a second wife but I think that is not the solution really. What if she wants kids? How can he even commit to someone else when his health is so uncertain and he is not even sure about the security of the family he already has? How would he have us both so involved in his businesses like he wants his wife to be? There is no easy answer. It just seems that in the current situation every ones needs are going unmet, mine included.

YES!

Well, I have been moving things to the new house slowly... And I actually hooked up the comp and YES! High speed interenet without any fees! Wow, I am happy with that. It's the cool thing about where we moved (and why we choose it) no fees for cable, internet, phone, heat, power, NOTHING. Alhamdulilah. We were paying too much for all that at our mobile home. The only bad thing... No Arabic channels for DH. Sorry DH.

I am getting things in order, and running a pretty tight ship as far as getting rid of clutter. However I haven't convinced DH to move anything. I have the bad feeling he will bring tons of stuff... And I have a hard time telling him no. Insha'Allah he will see how nice the no clutter feeling is that he will be inspired to keep things at the office he is making. Oh, and not be tempted to buy too many groceries. Sometimes I wonder if that man grew up in the depression or something the way he loads up on food.

So, here I am in the new place. The beds come tomorrow and we will be here full time. Now if I can just things out of the way for the movers at the old house... Good grief, maybe I should just get a shovel and a dumpster!LOL Wouldn't DH love that;)

Calgon take me away!

Well, we haven't moved yet. Or rather I haven't moved us yet... And of all weekends to get the flu, I chose this one. I feel like I have been run over by a bus and I spent all of yesterday in the bathroom. To top it off DH had the urge to ask me about the to-do list he made on Thursday night to enquire if I had done it all yet. UGH I think the man has a death wish.

I guess what urks me the most is that he only does things related to his work, and he has this bizarre tendency to complicate things. So, he takes twice as long to get his work done since he goes about it in such a weird way. Sometimes this saves his behind, to be honest... Because he does everything like three times and has double and triple back-ups for everything. But mostly, I think he is making his job harder than it is. Now the weird thing in all of this? He hasn't done billing in so long that we have money out all over the place. Now why be all anal retentive about the parts of the job that don't bring you money to the point where you don't get the parts that do finished? I wish I had an answer.

So I have my to do list which includes some really impossible things (DH is always playing lets make a deal with everyone and lately sends me to do all the work, which I hate) and I have this house to move. I don't know if I will ever get it all done. I have to sell two cars and 14 church pews, get a conditional use (city permit) for our new property, move an old trailer we have (or convince them to break their no rentals rule), and get a handy man to start on the trailer we are living in so I can sell it. Who knows how huge a bill and a headache all this will be. Can you say OVERWHELMED? This man needs an assistant, not a wife.

All of this really messes with my head to tell you the truth. We are like rats on a wheel... He thinks we are investing and getting ahead, I think we are getting ourselves in too deep with all these complicated things. But this is from a woman who has been running a store for almost three years and hardly ever seeing any real profit from it, so I guess I am biased. And I guess I am irritated that all these new things are all about me. I am the one who has to do all the work for all these new projects. I don't really want to work more than I do. Insha'Allah it will all work out and we will see some money from this and DH can stop with the work he is doing and get a teaching job or something. And maybe I can actually be at home once in awhile...

Foreign Relations(hips)

I think there are many of us out there married to people from other countries in my generation. I applaud that, but I think you have to know that you will have to address your differences (and they do exist no matter how much you are convinced you are perfectly compatible in spite of being from different places). IMHO, if you are going to marry a person from a country and culture other than your own I think there should be a few ground rules... Here are a few I have thought of, maybe you have more:

1. Both persons should be amicable to living in the other's country. You never know where you will end up. The only exception I can think of is if one spouses country is just plain unlivable due to war, poverty, whatever...

2. Take off the rose colored glasses. Both spouses have to be willing to see their culture/country for what it is... Faults foibles and all... So be ready to really examine they "why" to how you do things and be flexible if the why has no clear answers.

3. Try to learn your spouse’s native language and have your children learn it too (usually one spouse already speaks the other's language and this is the common tongue for the household). If you are person speaking the his/her native language all the time try to imagine how your spouse feels not being able to speak to his/her own children in their first language.

4. Remember and be considerate of the fact that one of you will always be the foreigner. Before you say no to helping the other person with something remember how you would feel if you were trying to accomplish such a task in his/her country.

5. Make Islam (or whatever your core values are) the tiebreaker in all your decisions. There will be no "cultural norm" sometimes and you will need it.

6. When in doubt, talk it out. You can never assume that you have the same picture of a situation as your spouse (this may go for any marriage) and you don't want to get caught up in this... So make sure you see things the same way (or at least know how the other sees it) before making any life altering decisions.

7. Enjoy the diversity in your family and respect it. Don't let yourself choose one culture and make it the norm, let both cultures thrive. You will find there is good in both.

I'm sure there are more... Post them if you can think of any!