It certainly calls for a celebration…

.. when you finally get hold of a new laptop 🙂

Oh the joy! The joy of typing on a proper keyboard, instead of the one on the phone! Who would have thought I would be so happy 🙂

Finally, my torture comes to an end. I will get to see the pictures that we took on holiday. Get to browse around aimlessly(that also means more time wasted, but I’m beyond caring, at the moment). And hopefully some travel posts, now that I can go through the pictures and do a proper post.

I wish I could bake a cake or just go get a cake to celebrate, but husband’s six week holiday literally ended up on my hips -I’ve put on 5 kgs. We’ve eaten so much, that the thought of eating out makes me want to throw up. I absolutely have to find a way of working it out. Last week, I was all set to start working out in the gym(finally, after 7 months of being here), but thanks to a bad throat infection, all I could do was laze around in bed. That cook of mine, turned out to be a true blessing, because I could actually relax. I’ll start Monday, unless something else crops up to derail my fitness plans.

Being ill, did mean that I read a few books, rather quickly, so much so that I ran out of books. Which is the worst that can happen to anybody, in my books. That and a bad throat meant that I could not even talk to anybody on the phone. How annoying is that! Those were the times, I wished I could just watch some TV soaps, leaving my brain behind. Talking of TV, the only thing that I watch these days in Arnab Goswami on Times Now. For all the noise, he still seems to have his heart in the right place. He seems to be the only one asking the right questions, of everybody. If we do go back to the UK, I am sure going to miss him, we only get NDTV there.

So what are your weekend plans? We are doing nothing. Daughter has a test on Monday, and I just want to relax. Read. Browse. Eat. That’s about it. And may be do some stretches. My frame doesn’t really look decent carrying 60Kgs of weight 😦

This post took longer that I had planned – the keys are a little different from my old laptop – the UK keyboard, and I keep hitting the wrong ones! So very annoying, I tell you.

Be careful what you wish for(2)

Is something I come to realize again and again.

You see, I have been telling friends how I used to wake up to birds chirping, in Leeds, while here, I have the melodious tones of horns honking to wake me up(and keep me awake, sometimes). So fate decided to take away my compliants. Now I get to hear baby pigeons in a nest somewhere, but they just can’t stop chirping! I wonder if there are multiple nests there – I can’t see it , it’s somewhere hidden away… I feel sorry for the poor mum and dad pigeons. Actually not so much. If they are the ones who break off my saplings, well, they deserve it. I just wish their nest was at another floor!

And remember how I find Americanisms everywhere these days? I found some more. Our good old ‘zed’ has become ‘zee’ and Maths has become ‘Math’. Zee I can still accept. Math, somehow, feels incomplete to me! I know, I sound crazy, but it still feels foreign to me 🙂

In other news, I am having a ball doing container gardening. I’m so tempted to plant more/buy more planters. The only reason, I have been holding back is the uncertainty of our situation. How I would love to buy some colourful planters, and some hanging ones, to add to my balcony. Hoping hard that things turn clear, and I can go to town with my gardening 🙂

Can someone inspire me to bake again? Although my heart jumps in excitement at the idea of baking, for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to get down to it. Anybody up for a baking challenge?

Just a little randomness..

Just as the title says, this post is full of random nothings.. Please feel free to skip!

– I was suddenly reminded(out of nowhere) of the time when we were first introduced to Statistics. My Maths teacher told us that we are going to start Statistics the next week. He made it all exciting by telling us that with Statistics, we could figure out the probability of India winning the next one-dayer. In those days, when I was cricket mad(I must be the only wife who wishes her husband watched cricket!) – that was all that registered and I was waiting with bated breath, to figure out this amazing subject 🙂 Needless to say, I was a tad disappointed – but still ended up loving Stats 🙂

– My thoughts seem to be going back to my school days quite a lot these days! I am reading Gavin Menzies’ The Lost Empire of Atlantis, and couldn’t help be bemused. Twenty years back, I was so happy to see the last of history lessons.. I would have never imagined that I would enjoy reading history so much!

– Sometimes, husband starts experimenting with the camera, and comes up with shots like this 🙂 Sure makes my everyday cooking seem exotic 🙂

– While on pictures, I love the way my house looks 🙂 Far prettier and neater than in real life. If only I could pretend that that is how it looks in reality 🙂

– I had a first today – my car refused to start! Thankfully it started when I tried it again after 2 hours. It did have me in a state, I have to admit. The thought of not having the car made me feel – more than a little helpless.

– I love reading Daughter Roald Dahl books – they are so much fun! We are on ‘The Witches’, and me, being the evil mother, I am, have been scaring her while reading it. If you have read the book, you’ll know why 🙂 If you haven’t go get the book – it is so much fun!!!

– I am now in a quandary – I ‘m not sure if I should publish this post, or the review of The Lost Empire of Atlantis’. Yes, I completed it by the time I reached this part of the post.. And now want to declare how great that book is 🙂

So publish, it is!

Hungry Kya?

Believe it or not, I wake up hungry. I can eat as soon as I wake up.

This morning, I woke up at 3:45, thanks to daughter having a racking cough, which acts up only at night. I couldn’t go back to sleep, and before I knew it, I was starving. Try as I might, I could not ignore it and go back to sleep. As soon as I wake up, I need to have my fix – breakfast. No matter what time it is. It is, of course, another story that I get hungry if I stay up late in the night – which I rarely do. But sometimes, when I am up reading an un-put-down-able book, I get hungry.

Going back to breakfast hunger. Husband is the exact opposite, he can’t understand the idea of an early/heavy breakfast. Did I mention, not only do I need breakfast, I also need a decently heavy one. Can’t start the day with hunger in my belly! Husband takes ages to wake up, and he can go on until lunch time without feeling the need for breakfast. If he has had a heavy dinner, he doesn’t even feel hungry at lunch time. He happily goes to work without breakfast – much to my horror. I cannot even imagine – even now, after so many years together.

How I envy him, sometimes! I, on the other hand, no matter how heavy the previous meal has been, will be hungry – dot on time. God forbid, I miss a meal – I will be doomed with the most horrid of headaches, and it certainly is not easy on people who cross me then 🙂 Husband, after 11 years of marriage knows better than deny me food 🙂 I find it tough on flights sometimes, when the times get all mixed up – I try to grab a sandwich or something to keep me going, rather than wait for the meal on the flight, like husband does. Some of my friends skip meals to maintain their diets after a heavy meal – I wish I could do that – I somehow cannot. I end up hungry at mealtimes – no matter what.

Daughter, is like me in this regard – she needs her meals on time, and her breakfast as soon as she is up. Which is quite painful when you want a lie-in. ‘Wake up, Amma, I am hungry’. I can’t really complain, because I am happy that I don’t have a struggle on my hands with breakfast time. She eats her food, without any complaint 🙂 On a side note, both of us are morning people, in that sense. She does her homework, reading, all work related stuff before she goes to school, so after school, we are both free to relax. No pressure to finish work before dinner time – thankfully.

So how are you when it comes to hunger? Do you have to start your day with breakfast, or are you alright to skip meals?

 

 

Remember the cake I mentioned here. Well, I made it! *Jumping around the room in joy*

Now that was the easy part. Keeping myself from sampling it – that is far more difficult. We are having friends over for dinner, and I have to somehow restrain myself from cutting into it 🙂 I did lick clean the ‘Tres Leche’ mixture. Yum!!!  I am feeling too lazy to take a picture right now. I will update the post if I do take pics.

While I was preparing ahead for tomorrow’s dinner, I realized how much my style of hosting dinners have changed. A few years ago, pre-Poohi and while working, to be precise, planning dinner was so different. We never had the time to do even the basic grocery shopping in advance. All shopping would be done on Saturday morning, lugged home, and the actually cooking would start only by 3 or 4 in the evening. Some how, cooking, cleaning, sorting out everything would be done and completed by the time our guests arrived. Most of them were in similar phases of life, and would be perfectly at ease with our offerings. I would not even think of making desserts – that was one luxury I never had. Store bought desserts were the only option.

These days on the other hand, I plan in advance(does not mean that I do not remember things last minute). Today for instance I ran out out oil – I barely have enough to make do for tomorrow. But still, a fair amount of things do get planned and sorted in advance. Not just the food, the decor, flowers, candles etc etc etc all get a looking into…

As I do all this, I can only shake my head and wonder – how much have I changed, Five years ago, I would have dismissed it as impossible, if someone told me that I would be like this. Much less be writing a post about it 🙂 Who had time to blog in those days!

Some things however, are still the same. I still hunt for recipes on the internet, I still go a l still love having people over, and I still agonize over my food – I am always worried that something is not quite right with my cooking 🙂 , I still try to read something in the middle of all the mayhem 🙂

Some things, as they never change!

PS: Post written was written yesterday – I just never got around to posting it!

Random Nothings.. Post 5

You know what I missed most when I took a blogging break. It was the inability to jot down random stuff that happens to or around me. For some reason, I could not just start a post and hit publish.

And now with the NaBloPoMo, it is a pleasure to write everyday, and just because I do, it somehow seems easier to blog. I had never thought that I could blog on schedule. Well, I still don’t but I seem to be able to do it on a daily basis at the very least. Which to me, is good enough. The only thing I wish I could do was reply to all the comments, and read everybody else’s posts – that would have been perfect!

I went shopping this morning, and everywhere I turned I saw people dressed totally weird. I mean, there were goths, girls with hot pink eyeliner, my eyes hurt just looking at them. It felt like some kind of fancy dress parade was on. Shops full of beachwear in bright colours! Summer/Spring just brings out the excitement in the air. I get the feeling that it makes people enthusiastic and adventurous in general… Or maybe it is just me 🙂

There were men standing outside the entrance of shops or just inside the entrance, holding on to buggies, looking bored, and then out comes the wife/partner, ‘Love, which of these looks better’. ‘Both love, both, just choose, and lets get going’. That is so what happens when I go shopping for clothes with husband 🙂 I am sure husband would have wholeheartedly sympathized with these men 🙂

I think I did far more looking around and window shopping than actual shopping. Not that I am complaining. I only wished I had a camera on me to click some pics. There were some amazing flowers in bloom and shops with ‘Sale – 70% off’  looked just as good. It is another thing that all the items in the 70% off section have only sizes like 6 and 18 😦

One thing that really upset me was, when I was waiting for the bus. An Indian( or should I say, someone from the Indian Sub-continent), spat while walking by and the spit landed a cm away from an elderly British gentleman. I was so appalled. How can people do stuff like this? Spitting and that too almost on somebody. It was gross. The gentleman just moved away. I couldnot see the look on his face, but I was so so embarrassed that somebody who could be classified in the same ethnic group as us behaved so badly.. I have so much to say on this but I guess that is fodder for another post.

So how is everybody enjoying your weekend? We have a birthday party every weekend. Sigh!  Did I tell you that I am so tired of socializing that I feel like locking myself in a cave?

Whatever will be, will be..Post1

When the right time comes, you just know it.

You know you have been away from blogging for way too long, when the ‘add new post’ page looks so different that I had to double-check that I had clicked on the right link.

That and the fact that I had forgotten my WP password. Not good, not good at all.

So when Monika, and Swaram floated the idea of a NaBloPoMo, I could not help being tempted. It was such great fun the last time we did it, that I can’t help but join. And hope that this would mean a proper resumption of blogging, because I do miss the blogworld so very much.

So where had I been? Well, I just got busy, doing the same regular stuff, spending time with daughter. The weather has been unexpectedly good, so we have just been basking in all the sunlight that came our way. A lady I met on a bus one day, did warn me though, ‘We will pay for it. It is not natural, such warm weather in April’.  I only  hope she is wrong.

That’s daughter frolicking in the sun 🙂

We just got back from a wonderful holiday, spent time with wonderful friends, and laughed more than we had in the recent memory. As I said, the weather has been wonderful to us.

I am terribly, terribly backlogged with my reader. I am so tempted to mark everything as read and start afresh 🙂 So how has everybody been? What have you been doing?

Princess Detox and random nothings..

More of random nothings actually.

Two weeks back, when we got back from holiday, I was bursting with energy and posts in my head were just waiting to be penned down. One busy week left me with no enthusiasm for doing a post, or even glancing at my reader. I go through such crazy phases – when I have no time to blog, I have too much to post, and at other times – it is quite the reverse!

The one thing I have realized is that one big reason why I am able to be a SAHM is blogging. It certainly has enhanced my life in more ways than one, and not being able to blog, certainly pulls me down.

One of the things that I am oh so delighted to announce is that Poohi is almost totally ‘princess detoxed’. This time in Disney, all she wanted was to do rides and roller coasters, much to her dad and my delight! When given a choice between ‘meeting princesses and fairies’ and riding a roller-coaster – she chose the roller-coaster without a second thought! I have to say that that made my day. Although she still is a bit of a moral policewoman. We saw Princess Jasmine and she ran to meet her, only to walk away suddenly. On being asked why, she says, ‘ I don’t like her tummy showing’!

I have been baking and eating – a lot, and no/t getting any exercise. I have fallen in love with melt-in-the-middle chocolate cakes and can’t have enough of them! The best part is that I can make a batch, pour them into ramekins and just bake them when we feel like it. Pictures? No, they don’t last long enough for pictures to get taken. The bad part is that I end up eating them on  regular basis. Then again, life is too short to worry about a cake or two, isn’t it?

Remember that reading challenge I took up? Well, I am happy to say that I am well on my way to reading the 10 books I had committed on. I have also added a new page dedicated to the books I read. I wanted to find out how many books I actually read in a year, so I copied Monika’s reading corner idea 🙂 Hope you don’t mind, Mon. Maybe you guys could tell me which books of out of those listed, you want me to review? That might not prevent me from inflicting my reviews on you 🙂

During our holiday in America, I had a ‘lost in translation’ moment. In a shop, I wasn’t sure if someone was in the queue to bill her stuff. So I asked her, ‘ Are you in the queue’?

She looked lost, until her companion said, ‘Oh she means ‘line’!   They say ‘queue’ for ‘line’ in some language’ and then turning to me, ‘ No, we are not in the line, which language is it in, though?’

Me, ‘ Well, I did think it was English’ 😉

It’s a wordy wednesday for a change..

It’s been a while since I posted. It is funny how there are times, when I get loads of time to post, and no ideas, and other times when I have my head brimming with posts but not a minute to spare.

It had been one of those weeks, where nothing went as per plan. I think it started last Saturday. We had a fun Saturday planned out. We had some shopping to get done, and then the plan was to catch the 5:30 show of Despicable Me. We started from home later than planned and decided to catch a quick sandwich lunch on the way. Lunch out of the way, we drove to an outlet village some miles away from town. It was when we reached the village, that I realized that I did not have my handbag with me. Now, I am a person who needs to carry something. I have, till date, never forgotten or lost my handbag anywhere. It had my purse with around 50 odd pounds as well as all my credit, debit, store cards, loyalty cards, library cards.. The thought of calling up all these organisations to cancel and request for a new card itself was mind boggling.

The only logical place, I could have forgotten my handbag was the sandwich place. I remember having it with me. So we started to search for the phone number of the place( thank god for smart phones). We were hoping that we could call them and check if somebody had found it. Finally after a lot of tries, we got through to them and I can only say that it was such a relief that they had indeed found my handbag and had kept it away safe! Seriously, I can’t tell how you much of  a relief it was. And they were kind enough to hold on to it, until we got back from our shopping 🙂

Yes, we did watch the movie(although the 7:30 show, and Poohi was all sleepy at the end of it 😦 ) , and loved it.

Come Sunday and Poohi comes down with a slight temperature. All she was worried about was about going to school the next day. They have been busy with their Christmas concert practice, and the thought of missing it was the worst thing ever. Well, she has missed a few days now, is she goes to bed every night, praying to be alright the next day.

Have so much to post – book reviews to be done, and no time at all! Having the child at home is a very time consuming activity!

In other unrelated stuff – the Bihar Elections Results are wonderful, don’t you think? For a change, the focus of Bihar elections was not on caste/religion/identity politics but on the developmental plank. Now if only that could be done on the national level as well.

And we have snow(albeit light snow showers) predicted for this afternoon! We are so excited! As I was telling somebody else,  I wait for snow, until it actually snows 🙂

On a sad and wet day..

.. what do I do?

I make murukkus! And thankfully this time they look like murukkus. Last time they looked like rice powder dissolved in oil 🙂 It all started a few months ago when Poohi wanted to eat them. My normal course of action would have been to pick up a pack at the local Indian store, but clearly providence had other plans. They did not have it in stock. Daughter very nicely asked me, ‘Can’t it be made at home’, and I thought, ‘Why not!’.

Very soon I was changing my mind. The murukkus I made ended up disintegrating in the oil. And I was told very nicely by daughter, to leave murukku making to Ammamma and the people in the shops 🙂

Today, I thought I should give it another try. And hurrah! Not perfect, not great, but definitely not too bad ones 🙂 And it was all worth it to see Daughter’s excitement when she got back from school. It took me back to the days when we used to get back from school and Amma used to have all sorts of snacks ready for us. The smell of the batter reminded me of all those days, many, many years ago.. Although I don’t think I ever got to eat murukkus without eating some nutritious food first. Today, in my excitement, I let Poohi enjoy 🙂

And before you ask for the pics – I still have a laptop situation that makes it impossible(almost) to download pics. Will upload them and torture you all once I get my new laptop 🙂