..SouthAsiaRocks..

Hey! This is just a quick blog post.... Some of you are having trouble reading my blog. If you have trouble reading the white writing (and you don't see the brown background) then you can do one of a few things... - If you're using Internet Explorer, then you just need to update it :) If you have Windows XP then you can click here to update (or you can click here if you have another Windows version). - You can also use another internet browser like Firefox or Google Chrome . They are both free :) I don't really have time to re-do the blog again anytime soon :) so I hope that helps!! you guys ROCK!

OK, so this might be really boring to some of you, but I'm going to post it anyway :) I've had a lot of people ask me about how we get our drinking water, so I thought I'd post. Until a few days ago we had a water filter called an Aquaguard but then our water started to taste terrible! It's the city water that was/is bad, but there's nothing that kind of filter can do about it. Our filter was getting out the parasites, but that's about it. We live in the South part of the Capital where the water is extra hard and the filter we had doesn't really work well in our area of the city. I haven't liked our water in a long time either, so we decided we wanted a change. We'd heard that the RO (Reverse Osmosis) Water Filters were good, but they are very expensive. A few days ago we found a lady in the city that was selling hers (that was only used for a few months) for really cheap, so we got one! Here it is below: It's pretty big but it works grea...

Our city is starting to settle back into "normal" mode :) The main part of holiday season is over (although there is still at least a holiday a week :)), so things are starting to "normalize". We definitely see less of these: This is our neighbor's house the day after Diwali - lots of firecrackers (or Crackers as they call them here). Our neighbors spent a lot of money on fireworks this year. We didn't spend anything, but got to benefit from their fireworks display :) haha! The traffic is starting to get back to normal too! whoo hoo! So, now that everything is getting back to "normal", I'll be able to post more... well, until the baby comes - haha! I guess life is never normal :) - which is good, it would be boring if it was normal all the time :)

Pumpkin ROCKS!!! This time of year there are so many pumpkin recipes out there. I don't know if it's pregnancy or just the fun pumpkin time of year, but I've been trying them all! haha! It doesn't feel like fall here (in the 90s today), and they don't celebrate the same fall holidays here that we do in the US, so it's a fun way to make it feel more like fall here :) Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes 2 cups milk 1 cup strong coffee (I used 3 T of grounds to make 1 cup) 2 T canned pumpkin or fresh 2 t vanilla Sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to taste Mix all ingredients in pot, co ok over low heat until steaming. YUM! I'm more of a decaf girl - this is good with decaf too! ............................. A lot of pumpkin recipes call for pumpkin pie spice. I haven't seen it here in South Asia Land, so I made up my own batch :) PUMPKIN PIE SPICE 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (dal chini) 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (jaiphal) 1/4 tsp ground cloves (laung/lavang) 1/2 ...

It's Holiday Season here! This is a fun time of the year. Diwali starts tomorrow (Oct 15). The first day of Diwali is called Dhanteras (Aashini was born on Dhanteras 2 years ago!). "Dhan" means wealth. It's the biggest shopping day of the year! (think of the day after Thanksgiving x 10! It's insane!). People are supposed to pray to the goddess Lakshmi for blessings in the form of wealth. Since it's the day associated with wealth, businesses & homes are renovated and/or decorated for the goddess of wealth (Lakshmi). Entrances to houses or offices are usually decorated with a Rangoli - the pic below is a picture of one of the many rangolis at the mall today. They are usually made with colored powders, colored sawdust or flower petals. Last night we went to a big Diwali fair in our neighborhood. They were selling lots of things and had food and fair-type rides. Here's the fancy rangoli at the entrance to the fair. They had lots of perform...

Here's just a couple of pics I like in black & white :) Thought they were fun :)

OK, this will be the last of the wedding posts :) After the bride & groom are finished eating, then they split off into separate rooms (they aren't married yet!). This wedding hall had some great rooms that had mats all over the floor and even had AC in the rooms! It was great!!! So the groom and his friends & family went into one room and the bride and her friends & family go into another room. The next ceremony is the last ceremony - the Saat Phere. They can't do this part of the ceremony until the time that the Pundit (Hindu Priest) has previously told them. This one couldn't start until 2:30 am. So... we hung out and waited :) Many of the women slept on the mats on the floors during this time. Here's a pic of Jaya's feet :) She had on 4 toe rings on each foot :) That many toe rings are pretty uncomfortable in the kind of shoes she had on though! She was ready to take these shoes off! So this next part is really fun but can also feel reall...

This next part is my personal favorite. After the bride & groom finish their individual ceremonies, then they get to see each other. It wasn't always like that. Years ago, the bride didn't see the groom until the last ceremony (Saat Phere - where they are officially considered married - that's in the next post). Most marriages in our country are arranged marriages (I know, I've promised to write all about that - I will, I promise :)). Some brides get to see their husbands for the first time at this part of the wedding! Jaya's was an arranged marriage, but after her Engagement Ceremony she was allowed to date Deepansh during that time. They went on a date about once a month and got to call each other daily. It's a really neat time. Anyway, I'll write more about that when I write about arranged marriages :) So, this next part is when the bride goes to meet the groom. The pic below you can see us walking to meet him. The bride's close friend...

Wow! The titles of these posts are getting long! haha! The actual wedding night is full of stuff, so I'm going to break it up into 3 posts... so this is my 3rd wedding post, but my first of the wedding night (the Shaddi). Here were are all geared up for the wedding!! Normally I would wear a saree for this type event, but pregnant with a saree is quite difficult and not something I wanted to wrangle, so I wore a fancy suit :) (I'll have some sorta better pics of it in another post). This is the most exciting and fun part of the wedding week for me :) I love it! There's so much anticipation! (you can interpret that as 'waiting' too... lots of waiting :) haha!) So, during the day the bride gets ready (as well as many other things like pujas). She spends HOURS at the beauty parlor. It's a lot of work to wear all that make-up, nail polish & jewelry and to get the outfit looking just right! OK, so while the bride is finishing getting ready, making her way ...