Owl Cupcakes and A month long marathon!

My weight bothers me a lot. It bothers my family even more. I am the only one from both my parent’s side as well my husband’s, who is almost clinically obese (just a few decimals away).

I start every single day with a resolution to control what I eat. And every single night I tell myself,”from tomorrow for sure!”

In short, I am not very proud of myself in this matter.

But, the feeling is totally different when you set about something and you meet your goal successfully. The goal for April was to blog continuously for thirty days as part of Blogging Marathon. And all of us did that, successfully.

I have thirty recipes for the month of april and I am as proud as a peacock showing off. Congratulations to everyone who participated and completed this task. And a special thanks to Valli for setting about doable themes, unending patience and putting all the effort to keep the group motivated. In fact, we are actually taking her support and enthusiasm as granted by now :-)

Check out the Blogging Marathon page to know who and all participated.

For me, personally, this 30 day marathon wasn’t that scary, because by April, I had about 35 recipes in my drafts section. So i was done even before BM started! Except for very few recipes (for matching the theme), I hardly made anything specific for BM 27.

And these recipes accumulate over a period of months. Like this post, for instance. I had to skip a BM for some reason, though the posts were done. It was for a Kids Delight theme of Cooking From storybook (hosted by Archana).

I had made an easy to make Owl cupcakes from Winnie the Pooh theme, a pancake from the book Eddie likes to Eat and a stuffed Empanada recipe (basically bread) from the book Little Red Hen.

I posted the pancake recipe a couple of days back. The bread recipe got posted long time back, but the owl cupcakes are still there in the drafts section. Hubby told it doesn’t resemble an owl in any possible way, so I was hesitant.

Anyway, I had ready-made cupcakes for the base. Oreo or any chocolate cream biscuit for eyes and chocolate chips for eyeballs and nose.

The above picture of glasses and cookie cutters and bowls are from a shopping spree at currimbhoys Adyar branch. The entire stuff cost me about 1000/- rupees (20 USD, approx.) and I had about 15 single items to show for it.

Anyway, let me close the last post of BM 27 on a big note : Thank You Everyone!

ITC Grand Chola in B&W

I know this is April 2013, so let’s just say I am a bit late in posting this. Because this post should have appeared here at least 6 months back.

So all ready for pretend play?

Let’s rewind time to six months back. That would be November 2012.

Ok, a bit more rewinding. October end last year. Valli had sent across a mail to some of the Chennai bloggers regarding Indiblogger meet happening at the ITC Grand Chola.

I enrolled myself for the meet. Went to the venue on 27th. Met Valli, of course and Radhika of Tickling Palates and some other wonderful bloggers.

It was a fun meet. And there were lots of activities. The ITC staff walked us through the whole place and showed us the rooms, the restaurants, roof top swimming pool and all around.

We walked and walked until our legs ached…honestly! The place was that big.

Like I was telling my friend the other day, my camera obsession has decreased considerably now a days. So I had not even carried the camera to the event.

A.Big.Mistake!

I won’t say I regretted not taking the camera, because I was pulling it off Radhika’s hand half the time :D, but yeah - a camera would have been good!

Before the meet got over, we were all given a gift voucher each. Mine was a voucher for dinner for two at Cafe Mercara, their 24 hour cafe.

When we went there a month later. This time I took my camera with me.

My camera obsession may have faded a bit, but I wasn’t going to let the opportunity go. I clicked to my heart’s content and these are all from that set of pictures.

We went there on our Wedding Anniversary and it was a nice experience.

A big beautiful chandelier, a cosy milk bar, wonderful interiors and arrangements, lots of cups and saucers and a camera in hand….What more can a food blogger ask for!!

The staff was courteous and the food was excellent and filling. At least for me, because my husband doesn’t agree with me there.

I had a good time at the meet as well as the dinner later. Thanks Indiblogger and ITC Grand Chola for the opportunity.

And thanks Valli for the timely reminder :-)

This post goes to Blogging Marathon 27, a month-long marathon this time. Its last week of BM and its time to relax and unwind after three continuous weeks of blogging.

To Market, To Market in Ahmedabad

It’s funny how our mode of shopping changes at every major turn in our lives. When my son was born, my shopping was baby-centric. When I started blogging, the energy shifted to the Home section and vegetable section of the store.

So with 9 food bloggers, it’s hardly surprising that a good portion of Day 3 of our meet was spent in vegetable shopping, clicking pictures and again tasting wonderful food.

I bought home some veggies which are not easily available locally. Like the fresh pigeon pea (fresh toor dal) in the above picture. I froze it first, then took it out to click pictures :)

I also brought home the juicy, bright red Delhi carrots.

Colocasia leaves are pretty common in Kerala and in fact our backyard was full of them when I was growing up. Now that I know what to cook with them, I find that the leaves are not there anymore…hmmpf

The fresh green garlic was something totally new to me, I haven’t seen or even heard about it before. So, naturally,  bought a bunch.

Colorful chilies and beautiful strawberries too made into the shopping bag. I bought eight (yes, eight!) packets of strawberries. They were my sweet-scented cabin luggage during my return flight. I had to guard it from being crushed by other passengers’ luggage. I was worried through out that the strawberries would be ‘strawberry crush’ by the end of the flight!

Luckily for me, most of it survived and I froze the rest, as Archana suggested.

 

There was a demo on how to make rotlas on Day2 and I brought those home with me. I loved it and finished it off in the next couple of days. For lunch the next day, I broke them into small pieces, drizzled some yogurt on top, mixed some nice chutneys, added a bit of farsaan and had a lipsmacking meal!

After vegetable shopping, Vaishali took us to an outlet where they served amazing vada pavs. I totally loved them! I saw this ‘I LOVE YOU” heart-shaped chocolates in one of the shops there. Archana had to remind me that I have a kid waiting for me to go back home and that this would make a great gift for him.

And she was right. My son totally loved it! Here is a click of it before it all disappeared. Thanks Archana :)

The next stop was at a farsaan shop. Vaishali again helped me pick some specialities of the place. Most of these are deep-fried and so are not healthy at all.

So I was really sure my husband would LOVE these.

The melt in the mouth kind fafdas paired with the papita chutney was a hit at home. I bought different kind of chutneys. I don’t know the proper pairing of it, I just had them with everything and totally loved it.

The thin crispy cheese butter dosas were something totally new. Vaishali recommended these. They tasted so good! Look how thin they are! I bought khakras, some farsaan and some chips & pickles too from the shop.

While all of this was being stuffed inside the suitcases, the Cream N Crunch guys delivered fresh kulchas we ordered the day before. I made this for our dinner the next day and the kulchas were nice and soft and yummy! I bought some soup sticks, cheese sticks and some other items too from there the day before.

In short, I carried back home a whole of lot nice memories and a heavier suitcase.

At Chennai airport, the minute I saw my son peeping through the hand rails, looking for me - I forgot everything else - even to bid goodbye to my friends. I just ran and hugged him tight and told him that mommy loved him a lot and missed him. (I was having too much fun to miss him too much :D, but please don’t tell him that.)

I don’t think I have put everything about BM 25 Meet into words.

And I don’t think I can.

There were just too many sweet moments of long and short conversations, moments of laughting out together, of watching and catching(literally) the kids, yacking till the throat aches and this act of trying to thank Vaishali and never finding enough words! I don’t think that I can do it even now :)

I never felt that I was meeting everyone for the first time. It was as if we have all known each other all our lives! And I hope it stays that way forever :-).

Happy BM everyone!

Picture Courtesy: Kamalika
Spot me pls…(Hint : I am wearing white!)

BM 25 Meet – Day III- Time to fly back home!

I travelled to Ahmedabad with a light suitcase and a small backpack. But by day 3, the contents of the suitcase was overflowing and the entire room was full of our purchases and the gifts we received.

I had to take some time in the morning out just for packing. While I was doing that, the rest of the BM members were doing a demo on how to prepare various podis, how to decorate salads and making Padma’s now really famous laddos.

I missed some of the demo, but I was right there when it was time to taste! I savored Valli’s and Padma’s pesarattu with great pleasure and it tasted heavenly. They had prepared a vegetable kurma too, but for me the star was pesarattu!

And talking about gifts, let me start with Vaishali’s gift hamper for each of us. I thought I had put in a lot of effort (I made cookies for everyone and was baking continouosly for 4-5 days), but Vaishali’s gifts were so thoughtful and personalized! God knows how many days she had put in for getting all this ready!!

Everything about her hamper was special - right from the name tag!

She had included a recipe booklet, which is so beautiful that I had to share the pictures here. She had also thoughtfully included a ‘Baking without Eggs’ book and some homemade carrot pickles. A pack of chocolates for kids waiting back at home for their mommies to come back.

Her BM 25 Apron (check out the first click in Day 1 post) was a huge hit already!

Going through her book was a pleasure and I loved it so much! I used to make booklets like these earlier, but not anymore.

 

She also generously shared a packet of egg replacer with us, which she got from her recent trip to US. This one is a really great gift, because now I can bake an eggless cake for my MIL with confidence.

You can see Methi masala and peeli mirch packets also. I don’t have a decent picture of her carrot pickle, but that too had her personal touch to it. It was packed perfectly so that it won’t spill over during our return travel, it also had a very cute tag of a carrot to it!

A bit of Bombay from Pradnya. You can see chakli, chivda, kokum, peda and some more stuff from her (I need to check the mails to know the exact names :D).

I have already started using many of the gifts. Valli’s, Kamalika’s and Archana’s gifts are already used as props.

Nandini’s  teddy shaped silicone mould was used the first day itself to shape my son’s dinner. She had thoughtfully gave a small gift pack for my son, which saved my day . I asked him to open it first and when he saw the contents, he forgot to cry and complain about me being away for three days.

Padma’s laddoos were finished before you could blink your eyes! I made some really flavorful sambar with Kamalika’s sambar podi. I am yet to open PJ’s gift (candles) but will do so soon.

By the time I stuffed all these inside my suitcase, Vaishali took us out again to have the BEST vada pavs I have ever had. They melted right in my mouth and tasted out of this world. We stopped by some farsaan shops and did a bit of vegetable shopping too.

I did quite a bit of strawberry shopping!

By 5 PM, we left The Nest our home for the past three days and went towards the airport. The fun we had was unlimited(the food we had also was unlimited). I will always remember these three days with a smile in my face.

Thank you my dear BM mates - for sharing some of the best days of my life with me.

BM 25 Meet – Day II : Gala Masti

If I thought Day 1 of BM 25 Meet was brilliant, it was only because Day 2 hadn’t dawned yet. This is what we woke up to, on Day 2 morning(Refer picture above, please!).

Well, not really…I woke up scaring myself in front of the mirror, but then after a quick bath and wearing our color for the day (white) dress, I was perfectly late and absolutely ready to join everyone for a trip to Sabarmati river side.

The day just got better and better with the purchase of fresh fennel from a roadside cart vendor, chocolate making session by Vaishali’s friend Ruchi and a heavy duty tasty Gujarati breakfast.

Picture Courtesy : Kamalika

Ruchi made chocolate making seem so easy to do (which it isn’t) and the best part was that we got to eat what she made :D.

And the ‘chocolate rain’ was good too!

Picture Courtesy : Kamalika

Before the thrill of chocolate demo got over, Vaishali took us to the bakery outlet Cream N Crunch, run by a friend of hers. Now with comic strips wall papers all over the place and the food displayed in hanging shelves, Cream N Crunch is a place with really interesting interiors.

Picture Courtesy : Nandini

What was more interesting than their deco, was their cake decorations!

And we were lucky to see the staff in action. We saw black forest cake, pineapple cake, orange cake all being decorated. We saw 15 kilos of chocolate ganache, they demonstrated the making of chocolate cigars and chocolate fans, edible decorations (an elephant) for cake, roses and flowers with cream and what not!

Picture Courtesy : Nandini

And with so much food around us, we were hungry again. So off we went to gorge on a scrumptous Gujarati Thali. I enjoyed every morsel of food I bit into.

Again, shopping seemed the best way to burn off the calories and Vaishali took us to Sanskruti, a shop where you get a first hand feel of how we ladies shop. I was sleepy, tired and too full of food. Yet, I sat with everyone, made the sales person show me every possible color under the sun and bought a couple of dress materials.

Vaishali informed us that it was barbeque dinner and that we need to be ready on time. (We never were, you know). And with the traditional wear dress code, it was a great thing that we were ready on time (well, almost!).

It was a huge surprise for all of us when Vaishali took us to her house and not to any restaurant for dinner. She took us through her home, and everything there seemed to match her personality.

A beautiful house, decorated in a very classy simple style . There was attention to detail and this personal touch to each and everything in there, which made her home so beautiful!

The house was lit up with candles and her whole family had put in so much effort to make us feel so special and so much at home. I don’t think I can describe here how nice they were to us, because the hospitality the whole family extended towards us, is beyond what words can describe.

I guess off the three days I spent in Ahmedabad, I liked this evening the best. Sitting under the stars, relaxing and talking with each other. Wish we could spend some more time like that!

And then when I looked up at the stars and the constellations, I thought of my son who must have been looking at the same constellation, from our home. I was enjoying this a lot, but I was beginning to miss home too :-).

Will write about Day 3 events tomorrow!

BM 25 Meet – Day I : Friends and Food

This is one post I have no idea where to start from. Because this is not a recipe post, its about putting into words the unlimited fun and happiness I experienced over a three day period.

Its about meeting people you have never met before and chatting for hours as if you have been friends forever. Its about friendship, fun, food and so much more.

Its about BM 25 Meet.

Picture Courtesy: Vaishali Sabnani

My blogging would have stopped a long time ago has it not been for Valli’s Blogging Marathon (or BM as we call it). I have been part of this since 7th or 8th edition and there are only a very few editions that I have missed. Over this period of time, all of us have been interacting a lot through mails, chat and phone.

So when Pradnya of The Pumpkin Farm (now, don’t you love that blog name?) suggested that we all meet for the 25th edition, I never thought it would really materialize. Vaishali of Ribbon’s to Pasta’s suggested that we all travel to Ahmedabad - her place - for the meet. She personally called up everyone and made us believe that the meet was indeed possible.

Hubby was more than happy to get a three day break for himself and persuaded me to book the tickets. ‘I deserve it, honey. So why don’t you go and come?’ was his reaction. So I booked the tickets in November, and forgot all about it – until Jan mid when the mails started pouring in.

Finally, nine of us were able to make for the meet.

1. Archana  – The Mad Scientist’s Kitchen
2. Kamalika – Dedicated to Janaki Paatti
3. Nandini and Ikshvaku- Foodiliciousnan ( Ikshu is only 10 months old, so its Nandini who blogs ;-) )
4. Padma Rekha – Plantain Leaf
5. Padmajha and Sidhu – Seduce Your Tastebuds (Again, PJ does the blogging. Sidhu is just one year old.)
6. Pradnya and Shlok – The Pumpkin Farm (Shlok was the eldest kid there, he is three.)
7. Rajani – My Kitchen Trials (Yours Truly :D)
8. Valli – Spice Your Life
9. Vaishali – Ribbons to Pastas (of course! :) )

I was as excited as the others and couldn’t wait for 8th of Feb, 2013 to come. Our Day 1 started at 5 AM, when we reached Chennai airport. The dress code was ‘shades of red’. Jet Airways took the five of us from Chennai, dressed in bright pinks and oranges, from Chennai to A’bad via Bombay.

Vaishali and Archana received us at the airport. They later told us that they almost took another group of 5 ladies dressed in shades of red color, home!

Luckily for us, they didn’t! So, off we went of Vaishali’s hotel cum restaurant ‘The Nest’, where we were given a royal welcome. I mean it, really! Look at us lighting that lamp at arrival :). Vaishali was really really sweet!

Vaishali even let us inside the restaurant kitchen, where we all clicked non stop. You can see a lot of clicks of the restaurant kitchen, with her staff being interrupted, harassed, questioned and clicked non stop by us ladies.

Then we were fed. And later fed again. And then we helped ourselves. Then it was time for the BM Chef contest. We had to take a precooked food item from home. I didn’t make anything special for it, I had an extra packet of cookies I had made as a gift for everyone. So I kept that.

And we ate that too ( as part of judging, of course!).

After the BM Chef contest (burp!), we attended a food photography session arranged by Vaishali. And then there was this gift exchange session. I came home with a lot more stuff than I carried from here. But then, that’s for another post.

With so much food inside the stomach and so much photography related information inside our head, a bit of shopping seemed a good thing to do. Again, Vaishali (can never thank her enough!!) took us out for a shopping trip. I bought lots and lots of earrings. But hey, this trip was all about me, remember?

Picture Courtesy : Kamalika

After that she took us to THE happening place – street food joints! Gujarati pizza, pav bhaji, pani puri, dal vada, tawa pulao - you name it, they have it! And of course, we named all of these!

The final round was kulfis with all four flavors (chocolate, pista, malai and one more flavor, I forgot which one :D) in a single piece….yumm!

Picture Courtesy : Kamalika

We headed back to The Nest with a full satisfied heart and stomach. An hour later (11:30-ish), I went with Valli to pick PJ and her one year old son Siddharth, from airport. She was flying from Coimbatore. We started yacking the minute we saw her and it was only a while later that I remembered I hadn’t introduced myself. But PJ said she assumed it was me, but god knows how!! We women just know, right :)?

Anyway, Day 1 ended with me and Nandini (with whom I was sharing the room) yacking till 2:30 AM and thus waking her 10 month old son Ikshu in the process. I slept after that, god knows what she did :D!

Anyway, that was Day 1 of BM 25. I will be posting about Day 2 and Day 3 soon.

Happy New Year!

My niece playing in sand

Four days into 2013 and my new year resolutions are already under a third review! I don’t usually make resolutions nor I share them with others; but this time weight loss being the target, I thought it best to say it out aloud.

I started off with a definite weight loss target initially. Then slowly it got switched it to ‘Eat sensibly and Exercise more’. And now it’s only ‘Exercise for a better life’. In case I really get around shedding some kilos, I will let you all know :D.

The good thing is that I get to reintroduce my resolutions again in March as Birthday Resolutions. Well, this blog was born as a result of such a resolution in 2011, so lets hope I will see this one through too!

Happy New Year and Happy New Resolutions!

This post is off to Fifty-2 Weeks of 2013 by Sra and Aparna. This week’s theme is ‘New Year Resolutions’.

Farewell 2012!

Its not been an easy year for me on various accounts. The pain of shifting to our new house was accompanied by total dissatisfaction with the way the house was handed over to us. The builder put us under tremendous financial pressure from which we are yet to recover.

But looking back now, my blessings outweigh the problems. I am now blessed with great neighbors and an open space which our family enjoys.

Its a different matter that there is only 2 swings for 900 families (at least they gave that!) and there is no community hall. So classes are held in a small place meant for laundromat. (For the dance class, the teacher and the students take turns to do the steps. They can’t do it together cause there is no space at all!)

What else to expect when you get a tiny 8 X 12 feet space for conducting classes for 900 families!

And the less we talk about the yoga classes and residents’ meetings, the better! The meeting is held in the lawn, with residents doing jigs and clapping dances to avoid mosquito bites.

But at least, we got our apartment. There are so many families who are waiting eagerly for their dream houses to be handed over!

With the year crowded with a lot of negative feelings (for me, at least – hubby dear is warm and positive, as always!), I wanted to bid this year good bye by counting my blessings. By looking at the brighter side of things. By thanking  everyone and everything that makes our stay in this planet worthwhile.

By expressing my gratitude.

•  I am thankful for my family for being there for me, always. My family has been with me through every patch of my life – guiding me if I am lost, scolding me if I am wrong, assuring me if I am not confident and loving me irrespective of everything. I cannot express my gratitude in words to you! My older brother flew in to Chennai on the day my son was born. He left for Bangalore the same evening, and came back a day later, per the original plan!
• I am thankful for my in-laws- for teaching me that family is not always about blood. I am grateful for having wonderful parents-in-law, great sisters-in-law & co-sister and a cool brother-in-law. None of them are plotting/ planning/scheming villain types the TV serials make out in-laws to be!

• I am grateful for the world of internet, the wonderful world of blogging and the thrill of being able to be part of it. Blogging has helped me in more ways than one. I have developed a taste for photography, though its associated with food and kids at this stage. I am grateful for being a part of the Blogging Marathon group, my blogging would have stopped long back if not for your support, guys!

• Right from my bachelor days to this moment, I have been blessed with great neighbors. It is a true blessing to be  able to get along well with the faces you see everyday. I miss Mittu and having my cousin nearby, but then you just have to go wherever life takes you!

• I am grateful for our new house. Its taught us a lot of lessons – not to go just for brand name, don’t judge the package from outside and most importantly, to read the finer print in an agreement and understand the implications. Despite the disappointments, I am glad that the society and the open space there makes the place great to live. 

• I am grateful for being married to a guy who is cool and level headed. I am just the opposite. I get tensed, angry, worried, anxious and guilty easily. Its hubby’s thankless job to bring me back to sense whenever I start off on something or the other.

• I am grateful for a whole lot of other things too, but the biggest blessings are time and health. I am grateful for each and every moment, day, week and year I get to spend here in this world. I am thankful a ‘healthy’ 2012.

Hope 2013 brings in a lot of happiness and satisfaction to everyone!

Happy New Year :-)

I am sending this post to Valli’s ‘Best of the Year 2012′ event.

Food, Photography and Workshop

When kiddo turned one year old, we relocated to London as my husband had to handle a year-long official project there. We spent that one year in a single bedroom house, which my sweet friend and her husband found for us.

It was the time I started baking and clicking my culinary trials so that folks back home can be assured that I am not starving my family. Being a novice, but very enthusiastic baker (unfortunately), I had landed myself in really embarrassing situations. Once, I ended up gifting a half-baked cake for my friend’s birthday. Imagine the scene when someone cuts the cake and you find uncooked batter in the middle! (Thankfully, it was a very private affair and I had a ‘trial’ cake as backup :D.)

Another time, a cake which I baked for my hubby’s friends was returned as such. Excuses offered varied from ‘stomach full, stomach ache, on diet’ and many more.

Surely, it was time for improvement! That started the search for online recipes.

And that’s how I landed myself in Aparna’s My Diverse Kitchen.  It’s almost four years now and I am still following her blog.

I have cooked and baked many recipes from her space successfully and I am a great fan of her pictures. I love her ‘Less is More’ style, when it comes to props and styling. Check out the picture below of Lime Posset from her space. Great picture with minimal props!

So, when I saw that Aparna is conducting a Food Photography Workshop in Chennai, I registered for it immediately.

The session started at 9 AM in Kettle, a coffee shop in Anna Nagar. It’s a beautiful cafe with great ambience and great food.

I use a Canon IXUS 75 point and shoot camera for all my photography. I had borrowed my brother’s DSLR (Canon 400D) specifically for the workshop. I have been following the Food Photography basics in My Diverse Kitchen, but now that I have a dSLR, the posts make a lot more sense.

The workshop had Aparna talking about various elements of photography in the forenoon and after lunch, it was time to try clicking with our cameras.

What I learnt from the workshop (what I remember now :D):

• Learn photography first, food photography is a subset.
• Invest patience and passion into photography. The rest will follow. Of course, good equipment helps! (Are you reading this, hubby dear?)
• Practise, practise, practise.
• Learn the Rule of thirds, Rule of Odds, Rule of Space. Learn lighting. Food off centre looks better than right in the middle (rule of thirds), try different angles while clicking.
• Train your photographic eye – learn to look for the light source, look at the direction of food, look at the empty space in the frame, look for rule of thirds
• Use geometric patterns in the subjects.
• Rules are meant for breaking! So don’t be afraid to try new ways of looking at food.
• How to use reflectors, how to diffuse light, how to block light, using color wheel for composition
• Don’t compromise on the composition, ie, don’t click with ‘I will crop/edit it later’ thought
• Use a tripod (I am doing this since the workshop and no shaky pictures anymore :) ! )
• Also, try to read and practise as much as you can, before you enroll for a session. It’s good to be prepared, so that you can utilize the workshop better.

A lot of what is mentioned above comes with experience. For example, after this session, I realized that I was shooting with odd numbers, mostly with three items. Also, I follow the triangle pattern (using geometric patterns) a lot. And about the props, less is really more!

The session made me realize that I am in the right learning path and thus encourages me to look out for more things now.

I had the opportunity to meet fellow bloggers who had come to attend the workshop. It was a lot of fun clicking together. I am thankful to Meena Thennaapan for patiently holding the ‘white background’ (thermocol sheet) for some of my clicks :-)

We came home with a goodie bag from Urban Dazzle. You will see them in my clicks soon :)

My baking did not improve tremendously from the minute I started following Aparna’s blog. I had to find my way about to reach where I am now (still a long long way to go!) though perfect instructions from her space help a lot.

Similar to that, my photography and my composition is not going to change overnight because I attended a workshop with Aparna. Here too, I have to invest time and patience to get to a higher level. But I am happy for the guidence and more than anything, for the reassurance that I am in the right path!

Thank you Aparna and the girls, I really had a lot of fun at the workshop :-)

What a thought!

To all those who miss me…

• To my friends who were able to reach me in my mobile before, the signal is pretty bad in the new house. That’s why I am not reachable.
• To my friends who used to reach me in the land line phone, the builder is not even done with laying down the cable.That’s why I am not reachable there.
• To those whom I used to mail once in a while, I am busy with sweeping, mopping and washing the dishes. That’s why I am not responding to your mails.
• To those who visit my blog, I am using data card for internet now. Do you have any idea how slow it is! That’s why I am not blogging regularly.
• To those whom I used to meet regularly, I am out of station. That’s why I am not at home when you visit.
• To mom, dad and brother, don’t say I am not reachable – cause I am right here next to you now!

I know you miss me, I miss you too and I will be back soon :)