Wedding BBQ

Erwin had lots of fun letting his West Indian side out at Uncle Curtis and Aunt Jean's house. Thank you so much to them for an absolutely wonderful time. I haven't eaten that well in a LONG time. We were eating jerk chicken for days... :)

Here are some pictures from the BBQ.

Wedding pics!!!

Decided to create one post here with the links to all the different sets of pictures.

Big BIG BIG hearty thanks to my longtime friend and wedding photographer Susan Bradley. She made this weekend memorable. Anyone who is looking for a photographer should contact her at 650.329.1695. She's located in California - but obviously travels!

Early pics from Dorys that we just love

Bridal brunch the day before the wedding

Dressing for the wedding

Guests mingling before the wedding

The ceremony

Just after the ceremony

Hasan and I walk to the river for the group shots

Group shots

The wedding brunch

Hasan and I on the bridge after the brunch

Wedding brunch and bridge shots afterwards

The final set of pictures - yay!

Here are the pictures from the brunch - lots and lots of wonderful pictures of friends and family. Very tough to choose. Be patient :)

Here are the pictures of Hasan and I taken afterwards on the bridge. I was a little shiny - yuk.

Group shots!

Here is the walk to the river (just Hasan and I)

and then the Group shots...how lovely everyone looked. So thankful to their patience :)

Ceremony pics!

Here are pictures of the ceremony...

...and here are some other pictures of just after the ceremony.

Dressing and before the ceremony

Here are the pictures from our getting dressed, and the guests prior to the ceremony starting. Big shout-out to my niece Anaya for being my helper. She promised to be my helper forever. I'm going to hold her to it.

Dressing pics

Pre-ceremony pics

Who knew pictures could be so much work?!

Here are the pictures from my bridal brunch - the day before the wedding, bringing my Philadelphia friends together with my out-of-town friends. A blending of old and new, if you will.

Click here to see the pictures

First set of wedding pics

These come from Dorys who so graciously served as an additional photographer when she should have been totally enjoying herself as a guest.

Thanks Dorys!!

Here are the pictures

Stay tuned for a ton more coming from our photographer Susan...

Bridal Shower pics

It's been over a month already since the lovely bridal shower my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law threw for me. It was a wonderful afternoon full of lots of conversations and presents I can't show or talk about here :)

Thanks Ms. Evans, Shineal, Ebonie and Evelan - it means the world to me. Your decorations and preparations were more than I could have asked for. xoxo

Here are some pictures.

Happy May

May was a nice month. Lots of birthdays - Hasan, his mom, my mom's lunar calendar birthday, Wendy, sister-in-law Evelan, cousins Varun and Akhila, and some others I'm sure.

Happy Birthday to all!

We took a nice trip up to Providence, Rhode Island for Akhila's graduation. What a beautiful drive through New Jersey, New York City, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and even a bit into Massachusetts where we stayed. Had a lot of fun driving around Hartford, CT on our way back - that's where Hasan grew up in his teenage/high school years. Strange to think of your partner as having a whole life before you knew them. And really really neat.

Here are some pictures from the trip. Thanks to Varun for taking such beautiful pictures.

We're getting married!

Very exciting news...we have a wedding date! Sunday July 25th, 2010 in Lambertville, New Jersey.

Lambertville is a very sweet, charming town right on the Delaware River. When Hasan walked into the dining room of the restaurant where we'll have brunch afterwards, he said "this is like my dream wedding". So that's how we knew which place we would get married.

Here are some pics of the Inn, right on the river. They're not the best pics - we had nothing but our iPhones on us. The wedding will be on a deck outside of the Inn. Hillary, one of my oldest friends, asked me years ago to not get married outside in the middle of the summer heat in Philadelphia - oh well. Thank goodness she loves me enough to come anyways.

For those who would like to get us a gift, we appreciate your sentiments and well wishes. We have everything we need, so we would ask you to give to a cause we believe in: Doctors without Borders. We've set up a charity registry where you can make a donation to them if you wish. You can visit this site to make the donation.

In other news, my wedding dress is in full swing. I'm having it designed from scratch - I've put a picture of it below too. It's actually being done out in San Francisco, which is why it's nice I have a client out in SF who keeps having me come out there...I get to do the fittings on their dime! What a blessing!

Oh wait...there's even more important news (turns out my dress isn't the most important thing in the world). Hasan just graduated last week from Temple University. I'm so proud of him...and I'm glad to have him back in the world of being able to make plans again. :)

From this happy place to your happy place...much love!

Dreams coming true - because of me

A few of you might know that last November I had an idea come to me by listening to a program on NPR. It has to do with single women-led low-income families and providing a new kind of housing structure for them. I don't want to write too much more because at some point I know that lots and lots of people in the media and government are going to Google the details and I don't want our personal website coming up in the results.

Suffice it to say that I set my mind to make this thing happen - and in the past few months I've been meeting with all kinds of people, leaders in their fields, to figure out what I don't know and what they think of the idea. The big milestone in that process was a meeting that I coldcalled and emailed and emailed and emailed to get with the professor who was being interviewed in the program. Her work inspired me and I wanted to meet her - to get her feedback and maybe plug into her resources. Somewhere secretly I hoped that she would help me or want to be involved...but it was a distant hope.

A month or so ago I felt a real inkling that this could be something big when I met with a leader in the nonprofit community here and within 2 minutes of our talking she suggested I meet with...that same professor! She thought we would hit it off and promised to send her a note saying that she should meet with me.

Well, today she and I met. And she LOVES the idea. Turns out the women she works with (the same people I'd be looking to provide this type of housing for) have been asking for just this very same thing. And she wants to be my partner in this. More importantly, she really seems like a fantastic person - really dedicated to providing solutions for a lot of the issues that I am concerned with. I was so thrilled - I almost started to cry for joy...literally had tears well up. And her resources and connections are going to be invaluable. She asked me to edit and send her my one-pager and proposed project plan so that she can show it to the SENATORS she's meeting with in DC next week. She and her credibility and knowledge can really take this vision and make it happen. There's a lot of red tape that needs to be cut through, and I think I found just the perfect person to be my partner in crime. She knows a ton about social issues, research, making change happen through public policy, and I know about business and real estate. To quote her "we could really do something here together".

This feels like a real turning point in my life. It is yet another affirmation of why I decided to start my own businesses. This freedom to dream and to make things happen.

I feel the success of following through on this idea to find this person (and indeed all the 20 or so people I have found over the past couple of months who want to help me - but she's the key). And I feel great about being an articulate, passionate, dedicated and generally good person who has the power and knowledge to help others. There is so, so, SO much work to do next, but for tonight, I am sitting in awe at the fact that, for this project, I met my inspiration and I have my partner. That's pretty fantastic.

I still miss you Cookie

Today is the 1 year anniversary of our Cookie's passing. I think of her often. It's funny - she's still the only being whom we've taken the time ourselves to put up a picture of in our home. She was SO cute and sweet, and I miss her...especially when Roxie is driving me crazy with her antics! (Turns out spaying had no effect on Roxie's personality...but yes, secretly, I'm happy about that.)

I'm in San Francisco today, and that's a bit disappointing for me because I'd love a bit of time to visit Cookie at her resting place. It's so beautiful in Fairmount Park near the big cat statue where she rests. But I asked Hasan to go visit her and to take one of Roxie's treats for her. That's probably weird, but I think it matters.

Spring is in the air

After punking out on getting back into the pool for the past 3 days, I went this morning. Turns out I haven't forgotten as much as I thought I had. Cardiovascularly, I need to get better, but my strokes were pretty ok. I still can't swim all the way across the pool, but even the mean lifeguard (one of my excuses for not going back the past couple of days) didn't have anything to yell at me for this morning. It's quite funny to be at the YMCA at 6 am with all the elderly folks...and me.

As usual, I've got a few personal goals and projects in the works - I don't really set these things up for myself and not accomplish them, which I got to say is something I like about myself. Hell or high water, what I say I'm going to do, I do. So here's the lineup:

1. Re-train for running a 5K. I used this running plan back in 2007 to train and found it highly effective, so I'm doing it again. I hate running, which is ironic since I was on the track team in high school. But my sense is that every person should be able to run 3 miles - God forbid, an attacker is coming after me, I'd like to think I could run 3 miles to get away. He or she might not be able to, but I should. So anyways, I'm on week 3 of this plan.
   
2. Improve the flexibility of my hips and upper thighs - my massage therapist Meagan has told me that this area on me is too tight and will be painful someday when I get pregnant. So, I'm working on that through a new stretching plan, more yoga, and the addition of a new type of yoga - it's called Yin Yoga, and it's not movement-oriented. Rather, you hold each pose for 5 minutes. I have been dreading a class thinking how in the heck would I hold a pose for 5 minutes, but yesterday I went to my first class and it wasn't bad at all. I think Hasan and I will go on Sunday.
3. Reward the yoga with a yoga retreat :) Not sure when, possibly next Spring Break if my friend Meredith is going to come with me to Maya Tulum. That's where I've settled on going for this retreat...I mean, LOOK at it. How can you not want to do yoga there??? Wendy went there a couple of years back and loved it. I can't wait.
4. LEARN TO SWIM - My goal this year is to learn to swim. I'll deal with the fear of deep water thing later, but I've got to learn to swim laps. This is it. 2010 - I'm not leaving you without knowing how.
5. Become an Indian-American that knows how to cook Indian food. When I was in India, I realized that one of the few things that connects me to India is a love for the food, which is something I'd like to share with my kids someday. And I barely know garam masala from channa masala. Sad, but true. And my sister-in-law-to-be Ebonie keeps asking me to cook India food for Family Dinner on Sundays. So, in the spirit of Julie (of Julie & Julia fame), I'm going to make an India food dish per day. I do have Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegeterian Cooking cookbook to cook from, so I'll give it a try. Although the one or two recipes I tried from there I didn't love. I was in Borders the other day and thought to spend 35 bucks on Madhur Jaffrey's cookbook, which seemed so much easier and better, but I can't conscience spending 35 dollars on a cookbook when I have one at home I've used TWICE in 10 years. So let's give the Sahni book a try and if I really find it's no good, I can treat myself a new one.

This weekend Hasan and I are going to look at some places to have our wedding/brunch. It's supposed to rain - if so, we won't make it. But the places look pretty and seem in line with what we're thinking.

Our Roxie got spayed last week and I'm worried (Hasan is "concerned") that her wound site looks funny, so it's back to the vet we go today. I hope the vet says she's fine and can start running around again, because she and I are driving each other crazy cooped up in the office. Seriously, have you ever tried typing documents with a cat sitting on both of your forearms? I'll tell you what...my forearms are getting stronger!

All the more to swim faster with, I say!

It's back to work time. I just signed a new client on Monday - yay! Also had final interviews with that big company last Friday (haven't heard anything back and don't know if I'd take it) and an introductory interview with another big company that found me (not sure if I'd take that one either).

In other news, I talked to my niece Tanuja briefly this morning and asked her how to spell her name, something I taught her when I was there. She said "I don't know" and hung up the phone. Hmph.

Life is bountiful. As Hasan is fond of saying these days: from abundance, I get abundance, and abundance remains.

Ponder that.

Not sure what Roxie's hourly rate is...

My cat has been very anti-me the past couple of weeks...feel like she's mad
at me because I have been away so much. So I spent some quality time
playing with her last night and now she's all over me. Maybe she knows that
tomorrow she will get spayed and therefore she's being nice...I keep telling
her to watch out with her attitude because she's going to get snip-snipped.
It's probably not nice to say that, but she's a cat.

This is a picture of us working this morning. She's not in the way as long
as she doesn't put her paws on the touchpad...then all heck breaks loose
when you're trying to design and there's an errant paw drawing lines for
you.

It's snowing here again...it's already been the snowiest winter on record in
Philadelphia...I don't mind it, but I do have to go out in this weather for
a massage in a couple of hours. Oh yes...poor me.

The health in the Garimella family is on the mend. Tanuja is her bouncy
self. Spoke to her yesterday and she is a-ok. I went to a GI doctor
yesterday to find out what's going on...and GASP...he's asked me to cut
dairy out of my diet for 6 weeks. Somewhere Wendy is gasping with me. Upon
his recommendation, I'm going for the blitz approach of Nexium (prescription
antacid), overdrive on fiber, cut out dairy, overdrive on yogurt (which
apparently doesn't have lactose), and some blood tests - all in the hopes of
getting me in tip-top shape in a couple of months. He thinks that I could
have developed a TEMPORARY lactose intolerance due to the intestinal
infections from India. You KNOW I walked away emphasizing the word
"temporary" in my head.

So, along with rest of Philadelphia in the pre-snowstorm frenzy, I hit Whole
Foods last night in search of dairy-free products. Cheese-like "cheese",
dairy free ice cream (think water ices), soy milk (which I've always liked),
and cheese-free pizza (think bruschetta). I drew the line at "butter-like
butter". No way. A pat of butter won't kill me. The good thing is that
this is actually a very healthy diet to be on, so I'm looking forward to
that actually.

Anyways, I better go...I'm on work time now...turns out Roxie's marketing
plans are not that solid. Need to find someone else to outsource to.

Last bits of India

Can't believe it's already been a couple of weeks since I got back from India. Just got back yesterday from the Outer Banks, North Carolina - a trip Hasan and I had planned for last August, but couldn't make at the last minute. What a beautiful place. I went this time to visit a new client of mine...awesome group of people that I had a lot of fun with.

I miss my sister and niece. My niece has been intensely sick this past week, hospitalized with typhoid fever. I'm thankful she's now getting better. I have also been sick since my last day in India - some kind of bad intestinal issue. I can tell my sister is concerned for me - so this week I'll need to focus on getting some tests done etc, make sure I too don't have typhoid. It's not something they know how to treat and diagnose that well here in the US, but my doctor is an Indian woman with experience treating typhoid so that makes me feel better. In the meantime, I'm not that interested in food...which is weird for me.

Last week, we started family dinner Sundays with Hasan's family. I like it - these sorts of traditions and gatherings are important, I think. Tomorrow is our turn to host. Hasan wanted to do a fish fry, but my lack of appetite and interest in food is making me not want to cook. So we'll see what we pull together.

Anyways, here's the last set of pictures from India - some cute ones of Tanuja.

View from the living room of the condo I'm staying at on the Outer Banks, North Carolina

Just gorgeous here in Waves, NC

A bit of buzz

My first article in a paper as a business owner/consultant!

http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/aroundtown/aroundtown_feature_details.asp?code=69

Last night in Mysore

It’s our last night in Mysore. I’m kind of sad to leave…this time with Hasan, without our businesses, school, etc. has been really nice and relaxing. It’s been nice as well to discover some things about India on my own. To acclimate independently, I suppose. Heck, we were even bargaining in jewelry shops yesterday as well as pushing back on scammy autorickshaw drivers and being very grateful for the ones that were so very kind to us.

Yet, I’m ready to move onto the next leg of the trip…isn’t that how it always is? I’m ready for Hasan to be back with Roxie. My sister-in-law, who is taking care of her, says she can tell that Roxie misses us. Not sure what that means exactly, but I want him home with her ASAP. This next week is going to be a lot of working for me – I’ve got a lot more to do for the workshop on Art & Social Media I am leading next weekend back in Bangalore (two full days!).

Today we visited the Mysore Palace which is just beautiful. Seeing 100% silver palace doors, ivory floors inlaid with semi-precious stones, wooden moldings inlaid with ivory, and so on…just gorgeous and amazing to think of humans producing such work. If we’d have stayed until 7 pm, we could have seen them light up the place – but at 4:15 pm when we were done with the tour and had enjoyed some nice relaxation time people-watching on the grass of the palace grounds, I was ready to come back to the hotel. It really can be tiring to be around sooo many people, pushing and shoving. And, sometimes the staring does get quite old. Not sure yet why so many people stare at me, us…is it because we’re Western-looking, because we’re mixed race, or just plain different? On the other hand, I remember quite well as a youngster going to the mall or wherever with my mom in the US, and whenever we’d come across other Indians, there would be staring. I thought it was so strange. Maybe it’s cultural. Or, maybe there in America, it’s about seeing someone “of your own kind” which back then was a lot rarer (since it was before the technology boom brought a bajillion Indians to America). I remember my mother saying “look Indians, Indians!” I of course didn’t particularly care for this association back then because I was trying to fit in as an American. But I can see how it would have been nice for her to see people familiar or somewhat similar. I wonder if immigrants of other cultures experience that in America as well. I am reading (er, listening via iTunes audiobooks) Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert on this trip. She talks about going to China and having mothers run up to her and almost bat her away, scared, and warning their children to run away from this “white ghost”. She really didn’t like that about her time in China. Funny what experiences are brought by traveling.

Here are some pictures of the last few days in Mysore, as well as a dinner my sister organized in Bangalore before we left to introduce us to new people, as well as to recognize our engagement. Really yummy food at a Japanese restaurant called Harima.

News of the day

Lots of steps yesterday – over 1000 tangible ones to the top of Chamundi Hill (my calves are killing me today!) and one big one as Hasan asked me to marry him (once again) and gave me a ring at the top of the hill. It was romantic and poetic. I said yes…again.

He wished for peace, health, and wealth - in that order. As long as we have our health, wealth is secondary. As long as we have peace, health is secondary.

He’s really enjoying Mysore – wants to come back here again and again. It’s nice to see him over the culture shock he experienced when he got to India. The slow pace of this small city suits both of us well. I’d love to do a one week Ashtanga yoga retreat here next time. It’s the “home” of Ashtanga yoga – where better to do it? This time, I’m going to at least try to get in one yoga class here…probably Monday morning.

Today we’re off to the Mysore Zoo which I had a fun time visiting with my sister the last time I was here. I remember walking in and seeing two big giraffes just hanging out – if I remember correctly, the animals seem nearer to you at this zoo than in American zoos. I told Hasan that and he said “well, that’s cool, as long as they don’t come and eat us”. We’ll see…

In the meantime, keep in mind that the softest thing on the planet is the human heart…we have the power to empathize, take in orphans, love, nurture, assuage, care for animals, and so on. My aim this year is to be a gentler person.

Greetings from Mysore

We’re now in Mysore - about 2 hours by train from Bangalore. Came here on Wednesday via the Shatabdi Train, which offers a nice view of the Karnataka countryside. We checked into the Royal Orchid Metropole hotel, a lovely gardens-filled place. Our room is very nice and the stay has been restful and sweet. This is a big step for me because I’ve never travelled by myself in India – meaning as the one navigating planes, trains, auto rickshaw drivers, and so on. Not sure why it felt like such a bigger deal to me to do it India than in places like Brasil, but it does.

Yesterday we did some shopping, lots of walking around Mysore, and toured the Karnataka Sandalwood Oil Factory, which is where most of the world’s sandalwood oil comes from. It smelled SO good there…the trees were just so yummy. Even the scent of the shavings (wood chips) from the trees was delicious.

Today we’re off to Sri Chamundeswari Temple, where we will climb up 1000 steps to the top of the hill. It’ll be a workout!

Here are some pictures of the past week. Lots of them were taken by Hasan - the things that struck him when he was walking around Bangalore near my sister's house.

I'm getting sad that Hasan will be leaving on Tuesday, but I'm glad Roxie will have one of us back with her. And I'm happy to have some time with just my sister and Tanuja.

Happy New Year!

What a neat way to start the new year...I've never been in India during the winter time with such nice temperatures, let alone for New Year's...what a blessing to have the two people I'm closest to in life, along with my fabulous new niece Tanuja, with me as we rang in the new year.


Hasan and I spent New Year's Day going shopping for wedding/engagement rings with Tanuja. The first store we went to we found exactly what we were looking for. Mission accomplished! It felt like an auspicious way to start the new year as a newly grown family.


We're still getting over the jet lag...keep getting up around 2:30 am and are unable to sleep. Then we take 3 hour naps in the middle of the day. Kind of nutty. We went to yoga this morning at Prashant Yogashraya - it kicked our butts! I have never done Iyengar Yoga...I was ready to go after 15 minutes. If our teacher hadn't been so ridiculously funny, I would have.

Anyways, we've just spending the day with Tanuja as my sister was at work all day. She's such a treat...so smart. She speaks 4 or 5 different languages at the age of 3. And we've been teaching her some words in Spanish (through Dora!) and Italian (we learned farfalle vs. macaroni vs. penne today).

Tomorrow Hasan and I are off to the beautiful Leela Palace to have lunch at Citrus and have an afternoon of spa treatments...can't wait!