A few good laughs

I feel like I should say something funny, but it is 11:42 pm and I can't sleep.  It's hard to be funny in the middle of the night.  (I have kids, 11:42 IS the middle of the night for me)
However, I do have a good embarrassing story from a few weeks ago.  Laughing with your friends is better than laughing by yourself, so I am sharing this one so we can all have some giggles together. 
A few weeks ago I went to a movie with a friend here.  So fun!  I was excited, but nervous.  I mean, I have no idea what it is like for women to go "hang out" together in India.  So my friend told me to meet her in our parking garage at 5, she will drive.  At about 4:45 I happen to run into her down by our playground, she looks me up and down and says "will you be able to be ready to go at 5?"  I start to doubt my choice of clothing (I thought I was ready).  I tell her, yes, I can be ready at 5.  I tell Ben I am going to go "get ready." I brush my hair again, look through my cloths and realize changing is totally pointless.  I am going to the mall to see a movie, I am going to dress like it.  (Kurta, Dupatta, jeans) If I had taken a picture I would insert it here, but you can imagine that I am wearing something amazing and I will pretend that you are correct.  I arrive at the designated spot at exactly 5:04 and I do not see my friend.  I am nervous.  I begin to have a conversation with myself.
She is Indian, she will be late right?
But I just saw her and she said to be here at 5.
Am I in the wrong spot?
No, she is Indian, she will be late.
Are you sure because she seemed like she was wanting to leave right at 5.
Just sit down and wait.
Is it OK to sit down on the floor of the parking garage?
Should I be standing when she comes down?
Seriously?  Sit down.
Do you think I am dressed OK?
What else are you going to wear?
Should I change?
Into what?
If you leave, she will come.
By now it is 5:15.
Did you notice the time?
Yes, she's Indian, everything will be fine.
You don't think she's somewhere else waiting for us?
No, she's just running late.
Ahh!  She surprised me.  She is here but I didn't hear the elevator open because I was busy having a conversation with myself.  Was it out loud?  I hope not.  She doesn't seem weirded out that I was sitting on the ground and talking, so I think I am good.  We start walking to her car. We get to the car and I reach down to open my door.  She says "Actually, I'll drive."  I look into the car and remember that in India they drive on the other side of the street and the steering wheels are on the right.  I am trying to attempt to get into the drivers seat.  I start to laugh out loud.  She does too.  We both have a really good laugh about it for about 20 minutes.  I still can't think about it without laughing really.  Have you ever tried to get into the drivers seat of someone else's car?
We did, in fact, have a great time shopping and seeing a movie.  Turns out she was nervous too.  She locked her keys in the house (which is why she was late) and we had to go to her mother-in-law's house to get a spare key, go back to her house, get her key and then return the other key to her mother-in-law. All in all the night was fun. 
Comment on this post with a smile if you got a laugh!  I can't hear you laughing, but it would be the next best thing. :)

Dear Me

Dear Mouth and Stomach,
Thank you for being troopers today.  I am sorry that you feel like you are on fire.  You will live, I promise.  I will be very good to you for the next few days.
Sincerely,
Me
In other (related) news, I went to my first Indian birthday party today.  Note to self: wear a Sari to birthday parties.  I was a little (a lot) under dressed.  Luckily, Samantha wanted to wear traditional Indian clothing and was a HUGE hit at the party.  They loved it that she dressed in Indian clothing and was very polite.  She remembered please, thank you and "Aunties" all where appropriate. (Whew)
There was a lot of really spicy food.  I wish I could tell you what I ate, but I have no idea what it was.  They kept filling my plate until I couldn't fit one more thing in my belly.  I finally took the plate into the kitchen and gave it to someone so they would stop filling it up. Later a lady asked me how many children I had.  When I said "4" she looked at me disapprovingly and said "you are still so slender."
Beauty is such a funny thing.  As a woman it is so easy to think a certain way about your body for so long that you don't realize you think it until someone points it out to you.  Here in India, it is not feminine or attractive to have a "six pack" for abs.  What is beautiful is a soft and slightly round belly.  Just watch any Bollywood movie or dance video (if you haven't, you should anyway)  and you will see young, beautiful women in sari's showing of nice, soft bellies.  The other day I thought, "hey-I look like that" regarding a person on a billboard.  Do you know how often I have thought that in America?  Never.  (Although I was wishing- just a little- for beautiful, shiny black hair)
Back to the party.  I had a really good time sitting with the ladies and chatting with the few who knew English.  I have started learning some Hindi, so I was very excited for this party because I really wanted to use it.  However, no one at this party spoke Hindi, only Kannada.  One of the crazy things about Bangalore is how many languages are spoken here.  So many.  I did get to use my Hindi to tell someone on the street that I don't speak Hindi.  It is so exciting to use even 2 words! The grammar is so different, and it is really hard to focus during the lessons with all 4 kids running around, but it is still really fun.  Our teacher doesn't speak any English which is helpful for our learning method, but it also poses some challenges when we can't explain what we want her to do or teach us. We usually get a few laughs when we think we know what we are saying and find out we are saying something entirely different.  The other day we thought we had learned the name for pet, but we were really saying that we didn't know where something was.  I also told my teacher that a fish ate me (I was trying to say that I eat fish).  We all got a good laugh about that one. 
Before I go to bed tonight I will teach you something in Hindi.  If you want to greet someone in Hindi, put your hands together (like "prayer hands) slightly bow your head and (If they are your age or younger) say naMAstay (phonetically) or if they are older than you namaSCAR (emphasis on the caps).

-Please insert your age appropriate namaste or namaskar here

Death Defying Driving

Last night my sister and I took an auto home (auto's are our main mode of transportation here-kind of like an open air taxi) from visiting commercial street.  I was having so much fun watching where we were going that I forgot all about talking.  I realized I was ignoring my sister, so I looked over only to see that she had the same look of joy on her face that I know was on mine.  I know this because she looks almost exactly like me, just shorter.  The height having no bearing on her face, we look like twins sitting down and have the same facial expressions.  Our driver was...Awesome.  He inspired me to make a list of things I have learned from driving in India
1. It is perfectly acceptable to drive on the wrong side of the road here
2. Driving on the wrong side of the road is a good way to get around bothersome traffic on your side of the road
3. Red lights are to be obeyed if you can't get around the traffic in front of you to run them or if you arrive after the cross traffic is too thick to drive through (please use your judgement on how thick is "too thick," 3 or 4 cars deeps appears to be just fine)
4. Scary dirt back roads are fine to drive at night as long as you are going at least 50 km/hour-be sure to dodge the people and/or buses if you can
5. If you discover that you are heading the wrong direction, doing a u-turn in the middle of your lane is a good way to turn around, never mind if you are on a one way road, just take it where you need to go
6. It is good to be delighted in your own shortcuts
7. It is not scary at all to be asked if you know where you are by your auto driver (OK, that might be sarcasm on this one)
8. What is usually a little over an hour drive can be cut to 40 mins. with creative driving
9. I am more than ever wanting to drive here
10. I am going to be seriously disappointed when I return to the US and have to follow pesky driving laws
11. My sister and I are crazy similar-we both got out of the auto with huge smiles and said "that was awesome!"
12. You probably don't want either one of us to drive you around when you visit us here
13. We would love to drive you around when you visit
14. You might cry if you get in the car with us while you are here...out of pure joy from wonderful driving
~Love from India~

Christmas in Bangalore

Hello out there! We are still alive and well here in Bangalore, although missing the presence of my dad who came to visit for the holidays.
The last month has been filled with exciting adventure.  My sister moved here!  She is doing an internship here and will be with us for the next 3 months. Woo Hoo! 
Christmas in Bangalore was different than I expected. It was strange to not see Christmas decorations everywhere and hear Christmas music playing in the stores. In some ways it seemed hard to get in the Christmas spirit, mostly because we kept forgetting that it was coming. I often wish I was a person who had really fun holiday traditions, making Christmas cookies, advent calendars, fun Christmas crafts with the kids. This year I attempted to fulfill my dreams of tradition making, although it was a little harder than I thought it would be. I thought, "I'm homeschooling. I can make this fun and have crafts and make some homemade ornaments so that when we find a tree we have something to hang on it." Then I realized that I have no idea how to find craft supplies here. So we had to resort to using what I brought with me. I love to sew. I don't have much time to do it, but I have an obsession with buying fabric that has been temporarily been put on hold here because I don't have a sewing machine to fantasize having time to spend using. However, when I left AZ I gave away most of the fabric except for a few remnants that I couldn't part with. Silly, but they came in handy for some cute owl ornaments. I got the idea from here...
Snowy Owl Ornaments
and I thought they came out pretty cute.

The kids loved making them. We also attempted to make homemade paper ornaments. We had a few mishaps before we got something that we could use, but by the time we figured it out the kids were bored with it and didn't want to make any more. Maybe next year. Does it count as a tradition if the tradition is attempting to make up new traditions?  I do have one tradition that I was able to fulfill because my sister was able to bring brown sugar from the states: Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast!  Christmas morning we like to have Cinnamon Rolls and what we like to call Tillman Breakfast (after my Aunt Becky who gave us the recipe-love you Aunt Becky!) which is an egg casserole.  We even found pork sausage!  We also had a visit from Santa...which was pretty funny.  I am not sure if he wore the mask for everyone or just our kids, but our kids wanted to know why he was wearing a white mask and had black hands.  I explained that Santa has to wear a disguise so that he doesn't get mobbed when he is out walking around on the street.  Good parenting 101.

Santa!

I went to the store to by decorations for molasses cookies (my husband's family tradition) but I realized the don't sell cookie decorations or molasses here, or cookie cutters for that matter. So, we had to give up the cookie idea (although after Christmas we found play-dough cutters and 1 box of sprinkles at the store, so we made sugar cookies with sprinkles shaped like little ducks, butterflies and stars)
We did connect-the-dots shaped like Santa and Christmas trees, and also a kid surfing. It's been really hot here, so it seemed strange to be picturing the snow and cold weather that we know is happening other places. I have been enjoying seeing everyone's Facebook pictures of cold weather, but it seems very far removed from the 80+ weather we have been having here.
Our apartment complex put up Christmas lights a few days before Christmas and left them up through the new year, so that was fun to see.   Christmas dinner was fried Chicken (we don't have an oven big enough for anything else), mashed potatoes, homemade mac n' cheese, cranberry sauce, mushroom and potato soup and Parker House Rolls.  For desert we had homemade fudge, Banana Cheese Cake Squares, and Apple Slices.   We also had the company of one neighbor for dinner and a different one for desert.  
Although it was different not to hear Christmas music and see decorations everywhere, it was also the most simple Christmas we have ever experienced.  I wish we would have taken more advantage of it to speak to our kids about what Christmas is really about.  We were able to share the story of the birth of Jesus, and to emphasize that He is what the holiday is really about. It was nice to be able to focus on that, I think sometimes it is easy in America to forget that simple truth.  Here, with no distractions Christmas was what we made it to be; which was fun, and also a time for us to sit back and realize how much we had taken Jesus out of The Holiday.  This really is The Holiday for a person who really believes that Jesus was the son of God.  I mean, a virgin birth.  Who can believe it?  The story is beautiful and incredible and the beginning of a new type of relationship between God and man.  The birth of Christ fulfilled prophesy, brought inner peace and taught us what it means to REALLY follow and obey God.  His life is a life given over to teaching obedience, serving, and loving.  I hope your Christmas was a beautiful time with family, and friends, enjoying each other and enjoying Christ.
Here are a few pictures of Christmas in Bangalore:

Cinnamon Rolls and Tillman Breakfast!

Christmas tree!

table decorations

Family picture

Christmas dinner

Cute kids

Apartment Complex