This Joy’s Life

DO NOT go to the mall when you are seven months pregnant and HATE all of your maternity clothes for the simple reason they mean you are as big as a house because all you will see are skinny girls in their skinny jeans coming out of trendy stores that would laugh out loud at you if it even looked like you might walk in.

As promised, here are some pictures to give you a feel for the traditional Indian wedding I attended at a Sheraton in the cornfields of Iowa this past weekend. It was a full on two-day affair. The fan-fare, outfits and colors were amazing, but, of course, the best part was seeing my friend marry his beautiful bride:

Fun times at the Sheraton!

The happy couple at the Sangeet

Kevin, the best man, Suzanne and Sylvia

Me dressed in my Salwar Kameez for the Sangeet

Sylvia, Suzanne, Me, & Jessica decorating the groom's car

The groom in his wedding day garb

Sylvia, Kevin & Yashan

Mother of the groom, Chetna

The groom's father, Praful

The groom's sister, Ami

A ceremonial coconut

Surrounded by ceremony

Man & Wife

Thank goodness we're finally married!

I'll dance to that!

On Tuesday we got to the Atlanta airport an hour early so that we could quickly meet Nicole and Brayden for lunch. Brayden has just turned 1, which is amazing to me. Tempus fugit. Them Latins said it best!

NicoleBrayden:
Clara and Nicole:
Choy:

Today Chad and I are celebrating six years of marriage, which makes this post a little inappropriate. Still, the other night I had a dream that Chad left me for Jessica Alba, to which he responded, “That could never happen.” Could. Could never happen??? As in, it could never happen because she would never show up on our doorstep “could never happen?” As in, if she did then, yes, then it could happen?!

Chad didn’t follow this line of reasoning about his response and dismissed me as a lunatic. Therefore this post is dedicated to Dream Chad (to whom running off with Jessica Alba could happen). Hear this, Dream Chad: Dream Joy has a backup in Jensen Ackles, oh yes she does! (Even though, in truth, he’s probably too short for me, so it could never happen.)

Since my Joe The Plumber post, I’ve been thinking more about what my blog is and why I write it. Some folks felt taken aback at coming to my blog, expecting to see Clara sitting on a pumpkin, and instead seeing a post talking about my political beliefs and which may have expressed an opinion that was completely at odds with their own.

Attention was brought to the fact that this blog has focused more on Clara for the last two years and I have a separate “writing” blog, TheJoyOfWAHMing, where I’ve done more lengthy posts ranting about my opinion on things. However, ThisJoy’sLife is really about just that – my life – and though Clara is a huge part of it, she is not all that I am.

I started this blog when Chad and I were living in Ireland as an easy way to keep my friends and family in touch with the adventures we were having. I starting writing stories and found I really enjoyed it. Once I got back to the states and we had Clara I found this blog was an excellent way to keep my friends and family in Georgia involved in the day-to-day that is our lives out here in the Pacific Northwest. But, I found that I missed the writing and I wanted to go back to that form of expressing myself. In fact, I found I needed it. It was a way for me to be ME and not “Clara’s mom” at the end of each day. I created TheJoyOfWAHM-ing for that purpose, but what I’m now realizing is that I’m at a place in my life, two and a half years into Clara’s, that I no longer need to separate MYSELF and CLARA’S MOM. We are one and the same.

During one of my “joe the plumber” talks, a friend noted that my blog was a “living” document. I think she is right. It lives and breathes right along with me and is a reflection of how I have grown and changed over the last few years. Though some may not like it, it will continue to do that, as I am a blogger. And, right now, the discussion I’m interested in is why I blog.

Chad pointed me to that “Why I Blog” article by the Atlantic’s Senior Editor Adrew Sullivan and I have found much food for thought there. I also thank dooce for highlighting this excerpt from author John Scalzi in a recent post:

The reader who believes a fiction author should keep his or her opinions to themselves is effectively (if generally unintentionally) saying “You exist only to amuse me. You are not allowed to do anything else.” To which the only rational response is: blow me. I’m not going to hesitate to add my voice to the national dialogue on any subject just because someone somewhere might not be happy with what I have to say. And more to the point, I think it is bad and dangerous thinking for people to suggest that fiction writers should have to live in a black box of opinion. The idea that writing fiction somehow obliges or even just encourages a vow of silence on any subject, politics or otherwise, that might offend someone somewhere, is flatly odious.

So, get ready folks, because I may be mixing it up a bit in the future and you may be surprised at what you find when (and if) you come back to visit This Joy’s Life!

Shout out to Pat Sheehan for pointing me to the Indexed blog. I particularly liked this post, as recently it has come to my attention that I may find myself in the duck and cover position if I continue to feel the need to share MY opinions on MY blog that’s about ME.

But, hey, I want to hear your opinions too. That’s what the “comments” section is for, so start using it people!!

On the 7th anniversary of the event, here are the thoughts I wrote in my journal around that time back in 2001:

Four days after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in D.C. There are so many emotions and they flow nationwide. Each individual feels as though she were personally assaulted. [My cousin] Dixie was the only family I had that was in serious immediate danger. So, even I can understand, to a degree, the feelings and fear that go along with those who had friends and family actually killed or injured there. Dixie is fine, thank goodness, although she is surely feeling the distress of all of this.

It is hard to go on with normal life when so much of my time is spent “working for a living” and not really living. But these things must be done and that is why we have to make choices about how we use each free minute. This [event] is so close to home for us in America who can so easily push all the ugliness of the world aside and live solely in our own lives. I want a house, to decorate it and to be with my family. These are the things I work for. But the reality is clear that the world, my world, could change in an instant to one where we are literally fighting for our freedom and must give up our time, goals and maybe lives for a “greater cause.” So, it is important to put those things we want in perspective, to monitor how worth our energy and time they really are and, just as important, to really appreciate it when we do finally acquire them.

This year, size matters. So myself and six other girlfriends from high school and college ventured to the Grand Canyon for our fourth annual Estrogen Fest gathering. As you can see, we had beautiful views and a wonderful time together:

Queen of the world!
Back: Andrea and Allison. Front: Christy, Gina and Amy:
Fog in the Canyon after a big thunderstorm:
Amazing view and no guardrail. That ledge drops right off!
Gina, Amy, Lynnea and myself at the mule and horse stables:
Vegitation:
Wildlife – A condor:
From the tree’s perspective:
More wildlife – Pete, the cyote:
A watch tower built on the Canyon’s South Rim:
Self portrait in the watch tower:
Views from the watch tower:

Below the rim, on a ledge!
Evening sun:
Lynnea and I as the sun begins to set on our last night at the Canyon:
Amy, Gina, myself and Lynnea at sunset:
Sunset at the Canyon:

“No pun intended”, the medic response guy said, trying to lighten the mood immediately after the accident. He wasn’t just whistling dixie on that one, either.

A friend and I were the victims in an car accident last night that left us both shaken AND stirred following being rear-ended HARD by a speeding driver who put our car into a MAJOR tailspin on the freeway. While we were assessing whether we were both okay, once the car finally stopped, I realized the car was on fire and we scrambled out of there to safety down the shoulder of the highway.

Because I’ve been playing it in my mind over and over since it happened, I decided to write about the experience in detail on my writing blog The Joy of Wahm-ing. The post is called What If and if you want to read it, you can click here.

As a teaser, I’ll provide this, a picture of my once cute little red razor cell phone that was only a few short months old, now looking like it’s been “rode hard and hung up wet” as my mother would say. Amazingly, I thought to grab my little purse that it was in when I initially left the burning vehicle. But, I dropped it by the car at some point when I went back to help pull my friend out.

If that description and this picture doesn’t leave you wanting more then I’m not even half as decent a writer as I one day hope to be!