October

This is the first city I have lived in that I have actually experienced a Fall. The mornings are mild and the sun just barely burns up all the vapor in the air by noon. The afternoons are bright, airy, and you can take off your sweater and replace it with sunglasses. By three or four, the wind kicks back up and the evenings are cool. I know Lola would love this weather. I really am enjoying it and in Hangzhou, the osmanthus blooms. The entire city smells so sweet as you are walking down the streets. The streets are lined with osmanthus trees and their yellow buds are captivating. Wish you all we here with me!

Happy Diwali

I hope everyone had a great Diwali. I ended up meeting a friend for dinner at a local Indian restaurant in Hangzhou. We then stopped into a chinese bar for him to have another drink and I was happy to watch CCTV 5 which was showing the World Gymnastics championships. The Aussie's had an Indian on their team so naturally I was rooting for him.

But now this morning I have woken up with a sore throat, drainage, and just feeling bleh. I think it's that I'm not used to cigarette smoke and in bars in China you are bombarded with it. The ill-effects of smoking are simply not talked about, the people aren't educated. I have thought several times of opening up a quit-smoking group similar to ones in America as there are no support structures educating people or helping them through the process once they have made the decision to quit.

Anyways, I am paying the price of my few minutes of tv bliss.

So even though I'm not feeling a 100% I'm still going to the Yoga Summit today to take some classes. It's their anniversary so there are a bunch of free classes. I'm taking three. Well, we'll see. I just can't pass this up when a normal class costs $40. Yes, 40USD.... and we are in China. Who can afford that!??! Well, the rich in Communism get richer, that's who.

Dream Theory

I woke up the other day and what happened next might have been the turning point in deciding that I need to get back into writing a blog. Not because I think I'm an excellent writer and everyone out there should know all about my life, but more so because my blog last year was definitely an outlet, a processing zone, a space to journal and get all the thoughts out. It also helped that friends do like to know what I'm doing over here. But there are so many thoughts in my head that it helped to let them have their space.... far away on the internet. You might wonder why choose such a public forum to detail these thoughts, but in fact I find the internet to be a wall rather than a web. The thoughts bounce on the wall and as I read and reread my work they slowly bounce back to me and allow me to see myself and my life.... gain perspective if you will.

So I'm off the soapbox now. Anyways, I woke up and incase you didn't know this little factoid about me, I have my best thoughts in the first few moments of waking. The saying, "sleep on it" is definitely (now underline that 100 times) how I make the decisions in my life. My mind speaks clearly after my subconscious and my heart have made the decision over a night's sleep. It's that simple. So I do my best to wake up slowly so I can hear what my heart feels before the rest of the days chaos takes over. And this Sunday morning it spoke:

Prana is a Healing Energy.

Deep deep within my gut this message was sent to me and I was in denial that I heard it. Did I make that up? Did I put that together? I've never heard that sentence spoken to me but somehow my subconscious new it and needed me to hear it again that morning. There was nothing wrong with me. What did I need to heal? But it is the truth. The pranic feeling after a sweaty session of yoga doesn't make you feel tired, instead you feel uplifted. I'm usually springier, brighter, happier, lighter, fuller. Even the flow of prana after you come out of certain poses are like a euphoric feeling that you want to hold on to, recreate in your life, and sustain. Not that I'm attached and clingy to the actual feeling. But I am privy to the fact that it is an energy that is like a gift that we humans have within us. So I treasure that gift. So long as we can practice letting prana come into the whole of our body and reside in its home we can never be broken.

First Things First

Well, I am so excited to be able to blog once again that I just had to post some pictures. Our wedding pictures are up on www.katemeffordblog.com. These are just a selection of what our photographer chose to put on her blog and I encourage you to check them out. The whole selection will be on another website in the near future.

Anyways, she wasn't there to take pictures at the Rehearsal Dinner hosted by Chase's parents at the Four Seasons, so I thought that you could have a look at some shot from our camera.

My parents looking fabulous. They don't look stressed about the next 48 hours at all, don't you think?

A close-up of the gorgeous centerpieces Chase's mom, Donna, put together.

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This is after the dinner. I thought it was really great that almost everyone wore black and white that evening! Even my cousins who aren't pictured were in sync! Which brings me to my next point that my bridesmaids pictured below showed up to the reception in purple dresses without consulting each other.... that was one of the wedding colors. I had asked them to wear what they pleased and how cool is it that they matched!

Facionable

So I have entered the world of the fashionably encrypted! So far, my computer thinks I am surfing the internet from Italy rather than China and all my toolbars for blogger.com are in Italian. Makes it quite fun really. Who knows, maybe I'll be in Vietnam next time I log in!

So I must say it took me so long to "break the rules." I am such a by-the-book kind of person that I felt an sense of guilt just looking into the bending the cyberwaves.

But I took the plunge and now I am free! It feels ...well, freeing... I can now connect with all my friends within all that freedom, wouldn't you know?

So if there is anybody out there still wanting to know what's going on in little chinatown over here... here I am... And I promise to not let that Great Wall get in the way of being fashionable in cyberspace.