Believe

 

Someone once said, don't believe a person who tells you, "you can't be anything". Because, no one knows you better that you do yourself. You only know you and what makes you. Nobody can be a better judge of you than yourself. You will see between right and wrong and the path that you need to follow if you look within you. Because within you lie all your abilities and inabilities and knowledge of what can make the best or worst of you.

One of my favorite stories when i was young, still tops my favorite list. And the above dialogue from the story still holds so true. It teaches us a very important concept of how we must believe in things, people around us and ourself. We are all busy believing in someone else's dream(as our own). Without differentiating from fact that we are just helping them build their dream, we start owning it and making a living to sail through life. As we grow up we forget our dreams and we stop believing in them. We also consider them a fantasy of our childhood. As, we grow up, we see every problem as a problem, rather than opportunity waiting for solution. We see our dream fading away in the distance, bound by rules of life and see clearly (or so we think) every problem which deters us from achieving the dream.

When we are young, we hear a lot of things like opportunity knocks only once make the best of it. And for days we keep looking out for opportunity, as if it were a piece of cake. And we would find it by some luck. When one day we realize that we create opportunity by working in direction of things we actually believe in. It knocks our door only when we knock on its multiple doors to find it. It does not come to us by luck. We make our luck by hard work and by helping others fulfill their dreams. Success and happiness don't come to everyone. But it definitely does come to the most passionate people. Because success does not come to them through a lucky opportunity, they make their way towards happiness and success by believing and passionately following their dream.

What do you do if you forget about your dream?, you listen to yourself, you listen to people around you and feel what makes you happy

What do you do when you forget about hard work? you see other people working hard and following a dream

what do you do when you think someone is lucky? you find the actual story behind the luck and you realize there was none except that of passion

what do you do when you think someone got the right opportunity? you realize you could have got it too..had you believed!

Living hygrometer

Moving to a humid city has not only been a difficult for me, but a big, huge bane for my hair. Yes, this might not be important for all guys out there, but for the ladies its totally a head turner, 'aha' topic. All of us have a bad hair day once in while. In a humid city, we have a bad hair day every day, thats how bad it is! Perfect hairdos LA style or upclass manhattan executive women type hairdo is a long distant dream. Long hair with great styles, layers are another dream. So all you get to go with are boycuts or short bobs or chin length hairs. All, boy love long hair girl ideologies, go down the drain, with ofcourse the falling long hair.
I wake up in the morning, somehow dreaming of my life in another city a few months back, showing off my beautiful perfectly layered long hair. But alas! one look in the mirror and I am reminded of my bob. Well not that the bob looks bad, but it looks good only with unkempt volumized hair. My beautiful bangs, continually slide across from my forehead towards the eyes, making me irritated enough to pin them up. But alas! fashion, I cannot give up my style for that small streak of hair causing eye irritation or a few jolts of sneezes daily. I do tend to manage it a bit, when talking to people because it seems to irritate them a lot, that they cannot make complete eye contact with person they are talking to. Rather than seeing them crane or turn their neck to talk and get a sprain, I save them the trouble by just pulling and pinning my bangs back for a meeting.
This reminds me so much of the Hair hygrometer experiment, we did in science project where it would show the effect of humidity on hair. Now atlas I can relate something I studied to real life! Bingo!

TUFFY:
This is a memoir of our beloved dog. Someone who taught us bravery, compassion, kindness, companionship and love. I learned a lot from him and he gave us a lot more than we could have given him. There is no question about the fact that dog is mans best friend. To us tuffy will always be a sibling and best friend, a companion in all the mischiefs and fun.

I remember the day we brought him home from calling a newspaper adv. A person infact his owner dropped him at our place. He was just a few days/weeks old. He was barely able to get around. For the longest time I feel, he sat in a corner of the room, looking at us and gauging the situation to figure out who we were. What he was doing with us. At the same time we kept figuring what we have to do, since he was our first pet and the fact that he was so young. As we inched closer, he moved farther but slowly and steadily, we were able to warm him up to us. He was if I would say a fir ball. He looked like a ball completely. As we offered him some milk on the first day he lapped it through till the end of the dish. With a few hand gesturing and petting and the milk he quickly began to recognize us. In a few days he figured there were 3 members in our house and we figured he was too cute :D

He started growing up and with that came his pee and potty training. Which my mom at one time thought was the most important thing to teach. It was her mission for a few days, but she soon realized that he decided to go downstairs in garden to relive himself than use our spare bathroom. We realized he had his own way of things and was pretty adamant about them. He was a fast growing furball. My dad was at that time traveling for job and would come home once in few months. He soon realized the 4th person, though dad was here only few days. In a year or two he was a completely grown but to a bigger furball. In amidst all this we decided to name him, and in quite a funny way. One afternoon, my mom asked the neighbours toddler to pick a name from two, tuffy or''. She picked tuffy. We ultimately decided to call him by either name and see to which one he responds. And to our surprise he started responding to Tuffy. After hearing his name called a few times a day now, he learnt pretty fast it was all about him. He loved being called. He was the cutest little person around and it was as if he knew it,

We started taking him for walks daily. About 3 times a day. To me it was my favorite activity of the day. Since I was more of a shy person, I loved a fact I had a play companion all the time. His morning started with barking a couple of times and jumping on the bed trying to wake us up. My mom spoilt him majorly by taking him for walks at 6am in the morning and then as soon as he came home happy. He did pounce on the bed to wake us all up. My mom was just glad she had delegated her job of waking us up to him. He did snort and roll and do all his cutsies. Lap up on the face, bark at us, scratch our backs, anything that did work to wake us up. He knew his daily mission. As soon as we got up, we would play with him for sometime, get ready and thats when he would go for his nap. He was usually up all night guarding the home as we call it. He enjoyed every bit if it. Being pampered and we loved his pampering to...all that yapping.

Temple Project

                       Summer home project-Temple Making

Temple Assembly Drawings

Don't be overwhelmed by these designs, done by my architect husband. I was surprised and confused when I looked at them too! I even thought of taking a step back and rethinking about our decision and just buying one ready-made :) It had been a long time since I wanted a temple and all options here in US were dark wood or copper/tin. They were nice but making something by hand was so interesting. Also I found some temples online made by others from home depot/lowe products ;) and to dismay of my husband the DIY bug bit me.  The examples online were so awe inspiring that I surely thought it was an easy project. Ever since then I have been asking him if we could work on one. So this summer we decided to! :)  Well, the truth being we thoroughly enjoyed the concept planning to basic modelling to aesthetics phase of the project, I would now say it is a moderate difficulty project. Below is parts info. You can directly skip and go to instructions and come back to it later.

Temple Assembly Parts

Home Depot

Temple Base and Pillars:

PS: The numbers mentioned below are part numbers from home depot, which can be entered directly in their search box on website to pull up the item.

185435000907 SHELVING 1X24X48 LAMINATED PINE  -- cut base(2ft*2ft) and drawer top (1.5ft*1.5ft)  = $17.87
750805419148 PRIMED BALUSTER 5205 SQ TOP 41" - 4 staircase bar used as temple pillars-cut according to height 4*4.98 = $19.92
750298153253 2X4-96 STUD2X4-96" PREMIUM KD WHITEWOOD STUD -- used for drawer/plinth support cut into 4 parts of 1.5 ft each to support the top of drawer = $2.87 204771223 1/4 in. x 2 ft. x 2 ft. PureBond Red Oak Plywood Project Panel -1/4 inch thin for top cut into (1.5ft * 1.5ft) = $5.40

Temple top:
095624515672 1X36DWL SQUARE DOWEL 1" X 36" $3.58 000868926047 BLOCK 7-5/16 X7-5/16 PINE DM358 O/S CRN $26.82 000868926023 CROWN ISC 7-3/8 X7-3/8 PINE DM358 I/S BLCK $7.51 100544892 DM ICBB458 - 1-1/8 in. x 1-1/8 in. x 4-1/2 in. Solid Pine Miterless Inside Corner Block for Base Moulding 4*1.35 4 ft. x 2-1/4 in. x 3/4 in. Maple Galley Rail (16.76*2) = $33.52

Tools:

764666663602 OT SCRW PK  ASSORTED OUTDOOR USE SCREW PACK $8.94
6920000601097 CAULK GUN  SMOOTH ROD CAULK GUN 10OZ $2.77
022078190728 LIQ NAIL HD  LN HEAVY DUTY 10 OZ $2.52
037083050035 TB II 8 OZ TITEBOND II WEATHERPROOF WD GLUE 8OZ $3.97
3-2/3 in. x 9 in. 60-Grit Coarse Garnet Sandpaper $3.97  021200471032 EXT MNT TAPE EXTERIOR MOUNTING TAPE $4.97
Drill with suitable drillbits

Decoration and Paint:

043374560169 SHEET METAL 1'X2' CLOVERLEAF AL SHEET - BRASS $18.98
3LT DIMMABLE LED PUCK - WHITE (lighting) $19.99
Greecian White 4 in. x 12 in. Polished Marble Base Board Wall Tile (4.99*2) $8.98
White spray paint, White regular paint, Red paint
Liquid gold leaf paint
wood brass coasters, drawer knob, essence stick stand from world market
Part of materials list from amazon:  http://amzn.to/1UapgP8

Temple Assembly Instructions

1.Use 2ft*4ft laminated pine piece. Cut the plinth of the temple 2ft by 2 ft 2 and cut the base 1.5ft by 1.5ft. Get them measure and cut at home depot.
2. Cut the 2*4 - 96inch stud in: 4 pieces of 1.5 each to support the base on plinth.
3. To the plinth(2ft*2ft piece) attach 3 of the above 4 pieces and create a raised platform for base/drawer. Remember to keep one bottom panel open as drawer opening.
4. Determine the height you want for the temple and cut the four staircase baluster each same height. Sometimes home depot won't cut such small pieces for you, at those times we found ourselves struggling with the tools in cutting area of these stores, working up a great appetite and gaining some workout muscles :) at the same time asking dumb questions like if we could rent an electric saw to cut those 4 tiny pieces.
5. To base (1.5*1.5ft) of temple attach the four blusters as pillars. For both the steps above use screws from the screw box.  As shown below:

6. Place the base on plinth like a raised platform as below. Remember to keep one bottom panel open as drawer opening or you will end up removing the screws again :P Though we remembered to keep the drawer piece of wood open, we had a really long discussion till a day later about how we want the drawer to open - sideways move, hinged rotate, pull push! Remember the number of options is equally proportional to time it takes to complete the project. Such are the complexities of life:P :)

7. Cut the 1\4 inch thin top plywood panel in 1.6ft*1.6ft and place it on top of the pillars. Again attach the pillars to ply with screws as per pic below. For the top, my dad suggested something more authentic and similar to top of temples. So with ideas from him we dismmised the design below and continued to think of something else.

 

8. Cut the Maple Galley rail to place over the top and base of the temple to create a verandah. Also, stick the crown molding outside corner and inside piece together with wood glue and make a temple kalash out of it a below. Before attaching the temple kalash create a small hole in center of plywood top for wiring for light.

9. Cut back plyboard size to desired height. Place the cloverleaf metal sheet and attach it to the back of temple. We used push pins/needles to actually hold them in place since  anything else was too thick for the metal and top plywood. Attach the ply board behind the metal sheet again with very thin screw.
10. Use the remaining pieces or stair baluster to make side staircase.
11. Add knob to drawer
12. Attach the puck light with a 3M mounting tape.

 

13. Spray paint base in white.Paint all the decor pieces, poles, kalash, back panel etc with liquid gold color, so as to maintain uniformity. Decorate with colors and stickers the way you like. If you like put some flowers, bells and toran decoration.

14. Use Marble pieces in front of drawer where you can put diya and dhoop so that the wood does not get stained. Also (not shown here) get a piece of marble slap to put atop the base to place idols on so that it does not stain during pooja and prasad. This piece was a home run! It is a no work but awesome usability kind of piece:)

This project took about 3 weeks from start to completion with numerous trips to home depot, atleast 10:) and an ultimate question from my dad "why are you making this?", because he thought we were making this for some occasion or event :). Since we didn't actually know what to buy, what will work, what will not etc, it took longer to complete and more trips than expected. I think we solely took up the project because we stayed within 1.5 mile of home depot :) Thought of putting together this DIY post incase we need to make improvisations in future or if someone wants to try making a temple. If you do plan to build one, please take all necessary precautions in using various tools described above and share the pictures!

Ideas and design by Sayli Deshpande and Aditya Deshpande (ar.aditya at gmail.com)

Alternatively order some parts from Amazon except cut wood:
Basic structural wood pieces are from home depot since they can be precision cut as per temple size.
Pillars:   http://amzn.to/1eDvmYb cheaper available at home depot
outside corner: http://amzn.to/1MweIYo

inside block: http://amzn.to/1MwfTah

Maple Galley Rail http://amzn.to/1KBm39E

Dimmable Puck Lights amazon: http://amzn.to/1U9PotA

CloverLeaf Brass back: http://amzn.to/1Ibj4Po

60-Grit Coarse Garnet Sandpaper: http://amzn.to/1SP7iiz
Mounting Tape for light: http://amzn.to/1DduqWk
TiteBond 2 weatherproof wood glue: http://amzn.to/1U9SRs6 
Caulk Gun: http://amzn.to/1KBGS4J
Liquid Nails: http://amzn.to/1SPkhkg
Assorted screw pack:  http://amzn.to/1U9QCVx

Liquid gold leaf paint: http://amzn.to/1JyBFcC 
Drill: http://amzn.to/1Ub6Iyd Drill bits: http://amzn.to/1eEPlpy

Materials list from amazon:  http://amzn.to/1UapgP8

The train along the west coast...

When you think of the west, cowboys horse ranches really come to my mind. Thats is one of the most wanted thing on my to do list for now "horseback riding". Well we can save that story for later. But for now the West I am talking of is away from the dessert heat and cowboys, it is the West Coast.
I had gone for a training to Sacremento, which is the capital of California. I had taken an extra day off for visiting my brother in Sunnyvale as the training ended Thursday. Sacremento is not one of those bustling cities and you would really feel out of California there, according to my observation. I took a cab from my hotel to Training site every day but hardly noticed many people except when I went out for lunch. So, on Thursday as the training got over, I decided to quit exploring the city and go to Sunnyvale before nightfall. I asked one of my training mates to drop me to the rail station nearby.
As I looked at the small old architechture station building, I saw a lot of beggars and some people just sitting around without a reason there. I gathered some guts to go in the station. Thought to myself "there is definitely going to be station staff". I entered the station and it was no better than a Bombay local station. Some stench and again the similar people inside as the one outside. I walked across the hall and came to the ticket window and asked "when is the earliest train to Sunnyvale". The ticket counter lady infomed me it just left 10 min back and the next train was at 7PM, 3.5 hours from now. Well as I had no other option I took the ticket and kept thinking to myself, would it have been better to take a plane ticket, but I so much wanted to experience the train journey. What about Greyhound, but then it was not going to be any better. I thanked the lady and again looked around.
This time more keenly as I had to sit there for 3.5 hours, again beggar, beggar, person with colored hair, person with piercing and guitar, person in tattered clothes. So I was not sure how much I wanted to sit there trusting that at the end of journey I would have all my baggage safe. It was still daylight so I ventured out to see if there was a deli or coffee shop around, and see if I could catch some interenet. And well starbucks came to the rescue, it was like 200ft from train station and I was relieved. Well thats the safe feeling something familier can provide. Another thing crossed my mind, mostly ppl working at starbucks are students or they have other jobs, so they might be nice people. I entered the coffee shop, It was really small and a bit stuffed. Ordered my regular hot Chocolate Mocha, well sometimes the regular feels really special and this was one of those times :), where you thank the regular speical things in your life. While I eyed tha cake, which I usually skip at starbucks because of already heavy caloried coffee, I had no intention of doing any such thing this time. "A babana loaf cake for here" came the words right out. Somehow I was able to get hold of a single chair and table near the window and sat sipping my coffee. I had a book to read "Micorsoft course book", but I had already had 4 days of crash course and this really was those fun + exciting moments where you are enjoying your time along sitting in coffee shop, knowing nothing and noone around you. One of those least bothered moments.
I peered out of the window for sometime and wondered at the people walking around and the calmness of the place. It was definitely eerie, I was still surprised, maybe I was in the "No tresspassing" area of the city. While I conjured up something to write about this place then its only now that I am writing it after 7 months.

As I had nothing to do, I called up all my friends whom I hadn't called in a long long while. It was nice to touch base. I checked my watch and there was still 1 hour to go. I felt very comfortable beeing in starbucks but still I decided to move to the station as I dint want to miss the train, specially as it was the last train to SunnyVale and I knew absolutely no one in 'Sacremento'. Well I picked up my bags and went out, looked back at starucks and thought to myself, how much is the probability of me coming back to that coffee shop, I think never. Living on east coast I usually just do one trip to West a year, but to Sacremento is a possibility in millions. I thanked it for giving me the comfortable feeling and left the place as I put it in my books as 'random meetings'.
Back at the train station, I was hoping to see atleast someone and just then an old couple came in. They looked like the usual travellers and after they were a bit settled I decided to go talk to them. I asked them if they were from here and regular travellers and explained to them , I came from Birmingham and was travelling train in US the first time. They were very sweet and told the whole story of how their son worked there and they were visiting him and going back to sunnyvale themselves. And I told them how as an outsider, I feel Sunnyvale is much better and cozy as compared to this city and why I was here etc. After an intial exchange of information, they were even more settled and started talking of theri family and stuff. Time flew by fast and I did not notice that there was noone at the station as yet. There was no announcement. As it neared 7, we walked to station and looked for the train, when one of the officers going by just showed us to the train. Now these are like some of the pleasures who have staying in small city. You always have people working at a relaxed place and helping you out and noones rushing. If you have ever travelled in trains here, you will find that they are double decker couches. The inside of the train is as in picture :
It was cozy and I could see the full outside view. I was really excited for the 4 hour journey, not knowing what was in store.I took a seat across the old couple, made myslef cozy, opened up my laptop, put my phone to charge, took out movie CD's. Well except wi-fi they had everything. I had 3 movies, but decided to watch the pink panther, as I was in a light mood. The train started in about 10 min, I stretched my legs across the seat and just then teh sun came trickling throught he window right on my face. I had no intention of sleeping and the warmth of sun in that AC couch felt nice. I put the movie and earphone on and started laughing (obviously to wonder of whoever was around, but then who has watched the movie and like that genre is surely going to know what I am talking of 'i wud lake tho have a hamdurber' :)
15 min in the movie and I raised my head above the screen and there was the whole sea beside the railway. I was so glad to be on the right side of the train, we were travellign right along the coast. The sun was gleaming into the water and as far as I cud see was the sea. I was hooked to that scene, I have never in my entre life experienced such a beautiful train view. I always thought they wen through tunnels ;)
Then came the meadows, then the sea, agan the meadows and the train going in a zig zag fashion through them. Suddenly the train scene from Harry potter crossed my mind. His first train to hogwarts from platform 9 and 3 quarters. The greenery and the sea, I was tranferred to my land of wizards. I wondered to myslef, if there is any place as serene, beautiful and quite. I could kill time there not doing anything just looking out at the different shades of sky, water and meadows and the day changed to night and back to day and not feel bad about doing nothing. Just then the ticket checker came and I came out of the dream. Am sure by now even the readers are bored about this long dream, so 'yayy' for the ticket checker. After 2 hour journey and stopping at some sacremento type stations, I was still engrossed in the view doing back and forth on my movie. The movie ended and I decided to turn on some hindi music. Its very unusual to listen to any hindi music at all in US unless you are in states like NY/NJ and thus listening to it from my seat in train, was like being in India right in middle of a sceneic view. Now I decided to concentrate on view in order to absorb all it could provide. The "In Lamhon Ke Daaman Mein Pakiza Se Riste Hain" song really went well with that place and time, the soothing effect of the music and meaning of that line in particular kind of summed up the moment :)..Yeah Indian music with a heavy classical base did the wonders, I thought to myself.
As the other songs from the movie played in loop we came to a number of stations some with coconut tress, while some with as much lighting as christmas decorations, some really old style. I am doing some research to collect pictures to post it here (to be continued..)

Alaska

Check out my Alaska travel blog at: http://dailytravelogue.blogspot.com/

Among all the trip that we have done so far this is my most favorite, not only because of the sheer untouched awe-inspiring beauty of nature, but because of all the exploration the trip had to offer.
If you do plan to go to Alaska go in May-June-July and book for the trips in Jan, because they get pretty full in January. If you plan to chalk out the trip on your own and not through any cruiseline or tour then you can do the bookings latest by Feb end.
Check out the blog http://dailytravelogue.blogspot.com/and Alaska Tour Savor book for great savings and The Milepost book if you plan to drive around on your own.

Alls colorful in Fall!

The trees with beautiful orange, yellow, gold and brown colors and the rustle of leaves in autumn breeze always puts cheer in the step. But BAM! there comes the time savings and early sunset and cold chilly winter and the trees shedding their leaves looking more like a skeleton and this easily drops your mood. That's where the beautiful lights and the red and gold sparkling decorations and wonderful candle smelling of spices and pies helps.

This year I just feel like winter is a little different and much more colorful. Mainly because of the bright colorful fashion apparel hitting the racks and a cheer added to it by the wonderful polka, stripes and chevrons and all famous Paisley patterns. Though black is elegant, however much I try, I can't help putting a pop of color in every outfit!. So with my sewing machine which I almost now have for 2 months, I have done some mending projects and some brand new projects. Here is a short series of some sew and paint projects I had fun with. It was fun learning my way around things and making a few mistakes. Thanks to the plethora of wonderful sew blogs on internet for keeping me inspired.

sew sherlock Apron

sew lacy sleeves

sew diaper clutch

paint vase with stamps

sew poang chair cover

Imagine...

Imagine....

Chicken soup for fathers soul

When it comes to father’s stories, though there are many little countless things our dads do for us, I always remember telling people about one or two which have touched me. My dad is a very loving and easy going person. And I most definitely share the strong father daughter bond with him.
This was one incidence during my 10th standard exams. Back then, I used to not like history at school. As a child and also as adult I was very hard working but had a family history of weak memory. With a subject like history that had so many date based events, I should have known better than to trust my memory at doing well in it. Still I promised my dad I would do well in the 10th final exams without help. Even after his constant checks I kept assuring him about my abilities.

Before the 10th exams we had a mini prep test called prelims. I cleared history with passing marks not flying colors which as you might have guessed would take me nowhere in the rat race for excellence. I freaked out.
My dad spoke to me that evening and sent out a letter to his company very next day morning requesting a straight 10 day leave to make sure it din’t come in the way of my education. Where job is so important and he was the only working member of family, he gave such a high priority to me. We studied day and night together like buddies over the course of those 10 days. He used a lot of tips and tricks and fun filled activities to help me remember the stuff. I never knew studying for such a high pressure (well at that time it was high pressure) exam would be so much fun. The father daughter time spent then was the one I would remember for lifetime. The exams went well and the results were a straight 100% marks in history, which was only otherwise possible in Math and Sciences. We both were so proud of each other that day :)

After this there have been many more things that he did, like not taking a foreign job offer 10 years back for my 12th and accompanying me to the exam hall every single time, even to the mall, teaching me ride my bicycle, my first two wheeler and the car. For any questions of what could I do for him, all he says is seeing your smile is the greatest gift I always have. As much as I can remember he was always there. Thanks to my study buddy, friend and advisor, my dad for showing confidence and nurturing my abilities to the best.

SDDesh

Newfound love

Well with summer ending and the fall slowly setting in I need something creative to express myself. In past one year, moving to a new city has not been easy. With my husband constantly away for a year with work, the new city was hard to adjust to, right from finding a home, car, driving 40 miles to-from work, finding places, finding new friends, finding physicians, dentists and so on. The list is endless, leaving no time for blogging or anything else. Now that my husband is finally here after the long-term assignment, and above mentioned stuff sorted out, I feel a bit more settled in. I am now ready to get back to honing my blogging skills.

Recently I figured, I need to do something creative quite often to satisfy my creativity bug. I remembered something my Mom used to love doing when we were young. She loved to sew. She would sew dresses, bags, purses and more. So I called up my mom and asked her how she would love to share her sewing tips with me. And how about we both work on some fun projects to get back our lost skills. So out came her sturdy grandmas machine, she had saved all these years and I bought a Brother XLI2600. Soon enough we will be able to bounce back ideas and posts on this blog. With so much inspiration online, I would like to point to one blog, I love to follow:  http://kristinaclemens.blogspot.com/

PS: Please keep checking the posts and leave your valuable feedback.

Bridal Mehendi for a friend

Another one of my friends was getting married in the US and it was time for us all to gear up to all the prep and fun. 

Did not get time to click photos after the full mehendi. But here are a few snaps of initial phase we did:

Orchid

Orchid:
I have loved that plant since I first saw it placed by itself on a table in an interior design book. It went perfectly with the serene white bedding and light blue walls.
From that day I wanted to try and grow one. Orchids are considered exotic plants. Since I stayed in an apartment with minimal light and no gallery to keep plants, wasn't sure if I wanted to buy an exotic plant just yet.
When one day, talking to a lady at my workplace who loved gardening, we discussed the Orchid among other plants.
Little did I know she had a few plants herself and she brought one for me in a beautiful handmade pot the very next day.
She advised me not to water more that a tablespoon or two of water once or twice a week, whilst the roots got wet. It was not planted in regular soil. She had just placed it in a bark mix and in a pot with lots of holes for air to pass by.
I would have never known all this information if not for her.

The orchid plant was small with two leaves and I wanted to see it flower. I watered it diligently for about a year and then there was one bud that bloomed. Imagine the joy to see it was not only living but doing well. But that was it for that year. With signs of progress I carried on an watched.
As that flower fell and in about another 8 months it was time for blooming season, a small shoot came off of an existing branch and started growing fast in direction of sun. It grew the way I turned it. It was so easy to design the shape go how I wanted it to be. It was lovely to see it grow so rapidly. After the branch grew in about a month or two. Small nodes started to grown out to form buds. The buds stayed there for about 2 months, while one of my colleagues at work asked me..when does that bud ever bloom :)
And in about 3 weeks it started to bloom. It took a while for all 4 flowers to bloom a good 3-4 weeks. But these flowers look strong and well and happy and here to stay.
I am not sure how long it will last. But enjoy looking at it through the day while its beauty lasts.

Baby cake

So I heard the wonderful news from my sis-in-law. She was expecting and we were going to visit her soon to see her. Since I had just started on baking classes, I thought of trying out a cake for her. Though it is nowhere near to a professional one aesthetically, I am glad it tasted wonderful. It was a strawberry cake baked with yellow cake mix and strawberry pudding mix. Once it was made, I cut it in 2 halves horizontally. Made some fresh strawberries juice. Put some juice in between the two layer to soak the cake a little, so that its moist. Then made a strawberry and whipped cream/sour cream mixture in the grinder. Applied that between the two layers as a cream. And kept it overnight to set. The next day cake was ready to do icing. I applied icing on the cake, but as it turns out, it was a bit yellow than white icing. Also, the green color was not exactly the one I needed. I did not go with pink/blue since we yet did not know the sex of the baby. So though as I said the cake tasted delicious, I would do icing differently next time. Probably a purple with white or something on those lines.
The writing and the design of cart on cake was my darling husband's idea. Since he is very good at drawing, he helped me put it down on paper and I loved putting our mini project over the cake.
Here is what the end product looked like:

About books n beans

One of my favourite places in Birmingham, AL where I have spent the maximum time (ofcourse other than work and home) in last 2 years is this. Its the barnes and noble book store which brews starbucks coffee!  The warmth of coffee, the smell of Mocha and crisp and colorful books,  siting in a comfy chair, by the window, with a friend beside. Perfect! for everything else there is Master card. A little wind chill or rain would be a icing to the ambiance. Since, a sunny day would usually call out to play or walk.

As I look through the well defined isles in the book store and read fiction and classics I am reminded of the summer vacation which would mean get up in the morning, play badminton and then read read read all day.

'The cherry tree' a story in gulmohar in std 5, made such an impression by its simplicity that since then I fell in love with the writing style of Ruskin Bond and still wish to go to see him and the places described in this book like foothills of Nilgiri, Missouri and Shimla.  Enid Blyton's -  famous five's treasure island, smugglers top, kirrin island and sea were the places that really existed and which I did visit every summer vacation. Chilling with the my dog on the beach, When I was young I still wanted to go to UK to actually see if the picture in my mind really did match anything up there...

The lilac inn and the Nancy drew from River Heights....were real people and places created after years of following her through her growing age and solving mysteries with her dad every other month and driving down to every mysterious cottage with her cousins george and bess...
Similar are my attachments to "baker street", Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and the joy of much cheered Dr. Watson is equally shared with the comeback of sherlock holmes after his fake death....

For shools I did say I like Malory towers and Hogwarts any day over mine.
"Alice in wonderland" is by far the most random instance of imagination I have ever seen. It is a book rightly made for children keeping in mind their attention span and hence the events in the book happen quickly and randomly. I am amazed at the skill of the author to capture such randomness in one small book.
"The little prince" is a book which does total justice to the word " a child's imagination". Its published in 180 languages across the world. That tells how many more children could visualize their dreams...
"Little Women" was the first classic I ever read and a story of 4 sisters by Louisa May Alcott still is fresh in my mind.
On the similar lines, One day I came across "sense and sensibility" and with the potrayal of strong women charachters in all novels of Jane Austen, I also came to admire her simple but old english style of writing.

I will always love a book for the crisp sound of the pages, the scent of a new book, the details of the cover, the beauty of heartfelt acknowledgements, the random page of the book written as preface and the book itself.

Coffee

Well, to my tea gang and all my tea loving friends I have grown up drinking tea made with fresh milk, so I am still faithful to it. But as I enter the bookstore I have to break my vow and succumb to the warm hot chocolate bundt cake and coffee (since they don't server that good a tea there). I can as never imagined now distinguish between the taste of nescafe and starbucks as oppossed to any other. So much is the addiction is that I wish to visit the first starbucks coffee shop (started:1970) in Pike Place Market in Seattle. Well, maybe also due to the fact that that is another city in US I have so much wished but somehow never visited while many of my friends made their random trips and brought along coffee beans as token.

While I have more than 4 times visited the west coast, Peet's still has the mark there. To all those who wonder, Peet's is where starbucks came from.  The three founders of Starbucks knew Alfred Peet personally, founded Starbucks and bought the coffee beans for Starbucks directly from Peet's during their first year of business in 1971. In 1987, Baldwin and Peet's owners sold the Starbucks chain to focus on Peet's, and Baldwin and Howard Schultz, Starbucks' new owner, entered into a no-compete agreement for a period of 10 years in the Bay Area. Hence, Starbucks did not probably come into existence till 1997 in Bay area.


Peet's has been much slower to expand than Starbucks, and has maintained more of its focus as a coffee and tea retailer, rather than a coffee bar, a distinction that has long separated Peet's from Starbucks. Peet's is still primarily a California operation, while for starbucks as we all know has more than 10,000 stores all over US and is a part of many book store chains providing the speciality coffee!

So, all my dear friends, you see how mesmerizing times get and how easily we get driven to another world of memories. Here is my humble attempt to put in words the imaginations and writing of these inspirational authors with coffee on the side. Lets do it!

First Valentine Day Cake 2011 :)

[gallery]

Baking-Icing Day 1

Recently I decided to join a Wilton’s cake decorating class 1. The course was a four week course with instructor Ann at Micheals store. It ende up becoming a 2 week course with some date adjustments, which as we call it turned out to be a crash course.
After that I made a couple of cakes and saw a good lot of baking videos with impressive techniques.
My mom asked me to pen down my experiences with the class since she wanted to read them and so I took up this task. I thought it would also serve as a revision to what we studied in class.

Day 1:
Of the class was all about, how to bake a cake, what containers to use, how to cool the cake, how to ice it so it looks plain etc. Initially I don’t think I paid much attention to it, since I was just writing down stuff Anne said. But when I baked my first cake, I realized soon that was excellent piece of information. We had to get a cake in our next class.The first day we did practiced some icing on cookie.

Welcoming year 2011!

Welcome year 2011!

Well its been more than a year since I wrote anything and as much as I am ashamed of the fact, I agree that 2010 just whooshed by! Starting with meeting the love-of-my-life, working on wedding shopping, getting married, traveling between Houston and Birmingham every 2 weeks, traveling to San Antonio/Arkansas/Seattle/Chattanooga and making new friends. With everything so exciting time flew by!

Today its beautiful snowy day and I can see icicles right outside my window, again sipping hot tea by my table beside window and that is a good enough to trigger my blogging skills. So here I am and I solemnly take an oath to make this blog more active in this year....

Welcoming new year 2010

Welcoming new year 2010

Asha - Surabhi function

Raag Pilu - Amol, AyonDeep, Davey

Nahi Samne - Harsha

Sajde Mein - Harsha, Jui, Sayli

Rimjhim Ghire Sawan - Tapan

Khwaja - Alankar, Harsha, Tapan

Aashayein - Alankar, Harsha, Tapan

Medley - All