A Moment of Silence....

For all of those who lost their lives in the tragedy seven years ago today....I was in high school at the time far away from NY and remember being shell shocked as we watched the attack unfold on television. The very thought that someone would purposely do something that would harm so many was unthinkable. I clearly had a lot of growing up to do....

Now looking back on it, it seems like a very distant memory but the repercussions for our country have been lasting. Just recently my husband told me that he and his family were in NY at the time and faced that hysteria head on, thankfully they are all alive and well. But I imagine if just the thought that anyone of them would not be with us today causes me so much anguish then for those that lost someone the pain must have been and must still be unthinkable. So in honor of those who didn't survive that day, those who were just going about their work, those who were out sightseeing, those that fought and rescued survivors, and those that were on those two fatal planes....Let's have a moment of silence.

Product Red

How many of you have heard of Product (red) ?? Basically it is an organization set up last year by Bono and Bobby Shriver to raise awareness for AIDS and HIV for people in Africa. When I first heard about this I was really excited as both my parents and my husband were born and raised in Africa and I myself at a young age visited Africa and saw the effect of aids on the people there. I immediately rushed out and bought two of the Inspi(red) t-shirts one for me and one for the hubs. While I would normally not spend close to $30 just for a t-shirt the fact that half of it would be donated to charity motivated me. It is one of my favorite t-shirts though the material is super soft and I've worn and washed so many times and it's still as soft as the first the day I bought it.

Over the last year a few other companies joined this foundation Motorola, Apple, Georgio Armani, Converse, Dell, Windows, American Express, and Hallmark. While it is awesome that these companies are actively participating in this program I have to wonder how many people are actually purchasing these items. I definitely try to find a card from the Product Red section at Hallmark when I go, and I used the Treasu(red) bookmark as part of my pre-wedding bridesmaids gift. I have one of the Inspi(red) bookmarks at home too. When I spoke to my cousin in college yesterday she was asking more about it because she wanted to fill in her friends on the program but it seems all the companies involved are more on the higher end of the cost spectrum not exactly affordable for everyone! I hope that they are working on trying to get more companies involved that target your average consumer. In the meantime currently on my wish list are:

I'm also thinking instead of the Old Navy bags maybe I should have purchased this one....Half the money would have gone to charity!

They also have some SUPER CUTE baby gear which I couldn't find on GAP's website but that you can see here. http://www.joinred.com/products/gap/

I'll try and update later with pics of the bookmarks I couldn't find any good ones online but they are gorgeous!

Updated: Here is a pic of my pre-wedding gifts for my bridesmaids....

Quickie

Work is super busy right now and I STILL haven't gotten around to uploading pictures off my camera....This is a quick album I put together for Jay's Aunt I only had about an hour before we had to take her to the airport so it is super simple. I found a cute album at target in $1 bin (I love their $1 bin!) and added the little design on the front cover. I thought when I picked it up that it was 4x6 album so as soon as I got the pictures I would be able to put it together and add some stickers and rub-ons right onto the protective sleeves. But that would be too easy! When we got the pictures I realized the album was a 5x7 and here I was with a bunch of 4x6's. Since I was so short on time at this point I just cut up some double sided paper and put a picture on each side and put it into the sleeve. Nothing exciting but she loved it so I guess that's all that matters :)

It's Raining :)

Tropical Storm Hanna is causing a lot of rain today.....I love a rainy day curled up with a good book, working on a project, or one like today spent relaxing. I am off to enjoy some fresh baked brownies and a scary movie. Hope everyone else is enjoying their Saturday as much as me :)

Happy Friday!

This week just flew by but since it's the first full day at work I am sure today is going to drag!! I really need to upload some pictures from my camera this weekend of more projects!! For now I'll tell you a little bit about our traditional Raas-Garba Night that we had the day before the wedding.

The name garba comes from the Sanskrit term Garba Deep. Garba, when translated, most closely resembles the English preposition inside, and Deep is a small earthenware lamp. For this reason, many traditional garbas are performed around a central lit lamp. Traditionally, either the lamp (the Garba Deep), or an image of Amba is placed in the middle of the concentric rings as an object of veneration, thereby delineating the dance. People dance around the deity clapping rhythmically. At every step they gracefully bend sideways, the arms coming together in sweeping gestures, up and down, left and right, each movement ending in clap.
The Dandiya Raas dance
Modern garba is also heavily influenced by raas, this is played using sticks and dancing to a fast beat. The merger of these two dances has formed the high-energy dance that is seen today. (info from wikipedia)
For our Dandiya (the sticks used in this dance) my mom and aunt made these to match our outfits. The just took regular thick wooden rods and covered them with fabric and ribbon, for extra fun the put small bells on the bottom. This made ours stand out against everyone else's clear plastic ones. Notice how they matched perfectly!


All our decorations were on bhandini theme which is a traditional style of fabric, I even requested on our invites that everyone wear something made out of that fabric to help us get in the mood for a fun night of traditional dance! Here is a picture of what bhandini looks like....

Garba always performed in circles with a deity in the center, under the deity we had a traditional rangoli. Rangoli is a design made out of sand and are very popular at Diwali (our festival of lights). In this case we used saw dust which is quicker to make such a large design. This isn't the best picture of it but you get an idea. For more information on rangoli you can go here.
Here's another sample rangoli.....

We also brought some bhandini sari's from India to use as decoration and brighten up the place. My family did an AWESOME job and it came out exactly as I pictured it! I cannot thank you guys enough for all you did!!

And last but not least a picture of the beautiful hand painted pots that my mom made!! The matched perfect to the theme of the night and to our outfits again :)

Ok so I really did ramble today but i hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my culture and you enjoyed all the bright colors and fun decorations as much as I did! And again a HUGE thanks goes out to my family that helped out with this you guys are the best! For those of you who performed I won't post pictures for fear of being exiled from my family but there are no words that can express how much it meant to me....and mom if your goal was to make me cry you definitely achieved it with that song!! Love you all!!

ughhh

As if I need help trying to fall down and hurt myself these shoes broke today while I was out running errands on lunch! It doesn't help that they were the only pair of black work shoes I had left! The other pairs are boots which it is too warm for and just casual flats, I can probably pull those off for a few days but now I need professional looking, low heel black shoes any ideas???

Happy Tuesday :)

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend :) I got the chance to finish up a few projects as well as have a few mishaps that I will post about soon! I guess you learn as you go with all of these crafty endeavours.....

My grandfather loves having adding his personal touch to a house and making it stand out....He came up with the concept of this number plate for the mailbox at their new home and my mom and I put it together. He wasnted something gray to match the stone posts that the mailbox sits on....The bottom reads Pabari's which is their last name and the top reads Laxmi-Ganaga which pays respect to his parents. After everything was painted and glued he was too excited to pick it up! We were planning on adding a coat of glow in the dark paint over the letters and the 7 so that it could be spotted at night....Instead we just eneded up sealing it so he could put it up right away :)