That’s right, my husband and I are expecting our first baby inshaAllah later this year.  The due date is 10/10/10, and as a math teacher and major nerd I am excited at the prospect that my child could be born on a day that’s entirely binary!

I’ve completed 15 of the 40 weeks.  Alhumdu’lillah everything is going well.  I haven’t had many problems at all.  I’ve thrown up on two occasions, and I don’t really think the baby was to blame.

The hardest part for me has been my really poor sleep during the night.  During the day I get pretty exhausted from being on my feet at work all day.  When I come home in the afternoon I usually try to take a nap but all I can think of is all the things I have to get done in the mean time.  Then at night I can’t seem to get comfortable, or my body is just… awake.  (more…)

The time has come for me to finish what I planned on starting.

December 6th, 2008

Through this new series I hope to share with you my thoughts on the epic weddings that I attend, one failure at a time.  But I also want to hear about experiences with epic weddings that turned out to be epic failures.  I don’t want to this become a series where I just bash on people who spend a lot of money on weddings.  I want there to be some good to come from this and come up with ways to advise the people on how to make their weddings more Islamically sound and socially acceptable.

So hold on to your ghararahs and shirwanis, because this is going to get interesting!

My first topic of choice is going to be targeting the program of an epic wedding, and what causes it to become an epic fail.

American-Desi Wedding

Weddings in the motherland don’t normally run into this problem.  People back at home know what is important at a wedding–the marriage contract and dinner.  The problem starts stateside, where desis are now trying to incorporate American cultural norms and traditions into our cultural norms and traditions to create some type of blockbuster summer wedding program extravanganza.

What do I mean?  Well at a typical non-Muslim American wedding there is the actual wedding ceremony in a church followed by a reception.  Usually at the reception there are some set parts of the evening:  the bride and groom are received by guests as the new Mr and Mrs; the best man and the maid of honor each propose a toast; the cake is cut; there is the first dance; and last but not least, the bouquet is thrown into a crowd of the bride’s friends.  Each of the moments is expected and takes very little time.  There are only two speeches–which are toasts, and only take about a minute or two max.  All of these practices, by the way, are appreciated by all the guests, because there are only about 100 of them there!  Nothing takes up a lot of time because there is not a huge crowd to manage.

In our weddings, on the other hand, there are about 500 people, average.  So if there is going to a be a program, it requires a lot of planning–planning on a conference-size level.  Planning that requires all the guests have arrived (on time, not a chance), that they are seated (busy eating a samosa, sorry), that they’ll all show interest in what you have to say(not going to happen, because no one cares what your chacha has to say about you.)  (more…)

Welcome to a new series on my blog.

What is an epic wedding?  It’s a wedding where the hosts go the extra mile to make anything and everything an “epic” moment.  From the procession, to the entertainment, clothing, dinner, seating, speeches and decorations.  Everything is made out to be a big “to-do”.

I’ve found that in the past year or so I have attended more and more epic weddings that have been nothing more than an epic fail. In the time I spent planning my wedding I kind of appreciated these weddings because they provided me with examples of what not to do.  But now that I am married, and I still have to attend these epic failures, it’s just getting old.

The interesting thing is that most of these epic weddings are failures based on the following points

1. Timeliness–guests are forced to sit and wait for the wedding to start for sometimes more than an hour
2. Program–guests are forced to sit through too many speeches
3. Seating–guests are forced to sit with or around members of the opposite gender
4. “Entertainment”–guests are forced to listen to music or live singing
5. Extravagance–guests are forced to find out just how much money you make and are willing to spend on your kids

Some weddings fail on some of the points, and some weddings fail on all of these points.  Note that all of these failures affect the guests.  When hosts think they are doing something epic, in actuality they are conjuring up ways to make guests uncomfortable and disappointed for 4 (or maybe 5 depending on how late the function runs) hours.

Through this new series I hope to share with you my thoughts on the epic weddings that I attend, one failure at a time.  But I also want to hear about experiences with epic weddings that turned out to be epic failures.  I don’t want to this become a series where I just bash on people who spend a lot of money on weddings.  I want there to be some good to come from this and come up with ways to advise the people on how to make their weddings more Islamically sound and socially acceptable.

So hold on to your ghararahs and shirwanis, because this is going to get interesting!

I got married two years ago today, and I’m really happy.

Alhumdu’lillahi rabil ‘alameen.

The bags are packed.  The Garmin is out.  The cooler is set.  Our path is marked.  Tennessee, here we come!

Saqib and I are first hitting up Newport, TN and staying in the above photographed, lovely inn called Christopher Place.  Next stop is Gatlinburg, TN, a town nestled in the heart of the Smoky Mountains.  It’s only 2 miles wide and filled with neat little touristy things to do.  On our agenda is horseback riding and a sky lift right over the town and mountains.

If you know Saqib and I, the first thing we planned out was what we’re going to eat for the next five days.  You can look forward to a reflection post for our meals.  And of course, pictures will be included!

Until then, sit tight and wait patiently for a lot of pictures and a lot reviews.