Shiva Parvathi

Troubled sleep: I was having troubled sleep lately (hehe.. lately manney its been a few years) and like someone has correctly said  i have been hit with meena kumari syndrome. I believe everybody has those low times when you feel , OMG that lyric is so for me, that song is so me right now ( i feel embarrassed even to admit it :D ).I think i should save the meenakumari syndrome for different post, so where was I , right , having troubled sleep always make me listen to old song(which i love to do even otherwise) those rain sounds which makes u feel heaven . But that day i just wanted to either write or sketch something. And i decided to sketch . I don't exactly recall why i felt like sketching shiva , but i ended up sketching shiva and parvathi . I haven't completed it yet,  just sketched an outline. Hopefully planing to complete in another troubled sleep night. But here is a sneak peek on what i sketched.

Lag Ja Gale ..

Hum ko mili hai aaj yeh ghadiyaan naseeb se, jee bhar dekh leejiye humko kareeb se
Phir aap ke naseeb mein yeh raat ho no ho...Shayad phir is janam mein mulaquaat ho na ho.
Lag ja gale se...

I am in love this song again.. for a while i have been listening to same song every evening and humming the lines every time.

Its so magical that these old songs really touch your heart, the lyrics just blends into the mood.

These evenings every time i sit near the fire place or have my tea, i just love gazing the christmas tree lights listening to these tunes.It simply brings out emotions. Yes i really mean the word emotions, i am not sure if its sad or happy ones but it just brings out and creates a wonderful mood. Someone truely said Music is magical :)

                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cp0Ena1Kec&feature=youtu.be

Listen to same with me near the fireplace gazing tree lights:)

Mr H's Story

You would be thinking what is this post about. I have decided to dedicate a few space in my blog for Mr H so that you guys would be also blessed enough to hear Mr H stories:)

At my office there is a Mr H who is very famous for his emails and more importantly the email content, you won't understand it unless you personally read em :) So here you go i present before you Mr H's Story .

Ps: i have replaced name as where ever its necessary

Mr H's work from home email when his dog was sick

Team,

While I was unpacking groceries last night my dog discovered the sack of white castle burgers on the floor and he began consuming them until he later became sick.  By the time I found out what was happening it was too late.  

Let’s just say I had a lot to clean up and I was up the entire night beyond 7:00 a.m.  

I can probably accomplish much more at home than in the office so this will work out well.  

-Mr H

When Mr H newly arrived the team and he broke the code build and it took hours for him to figure out:)  he has continued that a few times even after below email

Hi K,

The build issue has been resolved – I uploaded another version of the XYZ library JAR into the Maven internal artifactory.   Please trigger a new build. 

I don’t think I have ever broken any continuous build before now that I think about it so history has been made today!  J

-Mr H 

Dolly Parton Songs

I love to have the old hindi songs, slow melodies , country songs playing in one side ,while i do the chores or walk around the home. I love the ambiance of slow music and yellow light. Today happens to be the day for dolly parton songs

If i choose to stay i will be only in way

Well, I would only be in your way

And so I'll go, and yet I know
That I'll think of you each step of my way

Wola.. she sounds so sweet :)

Jwellery making Bug -KGJ

I have been recently caught with a new hobby bug , Its Jewelry making bug. Though I do not personally wear a lot of jewelry , but I have this sudden urge to make jewelry and bring out the ideas in my mind.

I call this new venture as KGJ. hehe something I use to refer in family, every time make a piece of jewelry. Let us see how long this bug lasts, till then I will be making jewelries :)

 

Alaula's Sister

Hello all,

Alaula now has a new Sister Blog . For all those things that goes less noticed everyday , for all small things in life , I take a moment to capture them and share with you all. Presenting to You "Other things in my life".

http://otherthingsinmylife.blogspot.com/?zx=8db68174ff9a3951

And the weeks that passed by...

Had some pretty busy days, happy days, sad days , sick days, boring days..I think every one will have one such list 

Flue for more than a week, had awful sick days. (Sick days)

Parthiv's became 1 year old. (Happy Day)

Mango chillie chicken from Chillies (boring day end with happy meal )

Welcome new member to family, being an aunt to Sid baby :)..(Happy , excited day )

Kitchen emergency day (Disaster day)

Supposed to be spring, still snowing..(Sad, angry day)

CTA trip to downtown, (Lazy morning ended with happy evening )

St Patrick's day celeb(Happy day , Dance day :) )

Jaded Thai after long time(Happy food day)

Appam kadla curry (Happy mallu breakfast day )

Shahi paneer (Content day )

Game day - Clue (Friends hangout day )

Fish roll and apple baked chips ( Yummy day)

All time favorite- Alaipayuthey (Sad , happy  day) 

No nonsense, only work day (Busy busy day)

The Birdie

The first effort on pastel blocks.., i tried it my way, but i would really like to learn the real techniques

The Birdie..:)

The painting....

2. The Painting..

Bindiya

I have decided to give it another shot, to see if i have anything left in there. My first Effort is bindiya 

Bringing bindiya to life :)

Did u really Read the Book?

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

I have Bolded those books that i have read in their entirety, italicize the ones I started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. 

I will try to keep this updating with ones i read this year, and adding new ones which i feel is worth reading ;) .. Interesting enough.. gives u a nice list to choose books to read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 

6 The Bible 

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding  

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert 

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce 

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola 

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

My AddOns
101 The Immortals Of Meluha - Amish Tripati

Year that passed by

I got inspired by reading another blog and decided to list down the important moments from 2012

Things I remember from 2012.

1. I met Aamir Khan and Abhishek
2. I danced Thiruvathira
3. Dream came true at Disney land
4. Baked my first Cake for Christmas.
5. Went to India
6. Started knitting again
7. Parents visit to Chicago
8. Trip to Washington DC
9. Farewell to my roomie
10.To know that i am gonna become an aunt :)
11. Celebrated by 27th birthday 
12.New Year with family

Baked with Love

Its easy to remember the date: 24 Dec 2012
This day i baked my first cake..:) its such a wonderful feeling . I was worried at first, will i spill when i mix it, am i doing it too slow or is it too fast..did i miss something?..will it be cooked inside? why the color is not changing? Oh no is that a burnt color?..should i beat the icing meanwhile?.. so many questions ...thanks to my expert mentor..i ended up being confident about my cake.

The first time you bake a cake it must be the same kind of feeling when you have to make a speech ...Ha..isnt that a strange comparison.. As strange it might sound...when u put your cake batter into oven..that 25- 30 mins wait time, for the first time that anxiousness , the tension is same as you have when you are in back stage waiting for your turn for to go to make speech. Every 10 mins i used to look through the oven glass to see if its coming up fine, did the color change.. This was a important cake for me :)..And to my surprise it came out really well....and all that wait paid off with a beautiful cake . The best part was the feeling  you get when u decorate the cake , i loved it . The cake becomes the canvas and i become the artist :) .

 This is to declare I am a proud a baker of a Christmas cake and hopefully for many more cakes to come...;)

PS: I repeated the magic for New years eve too..But the first cake always remains the special one:)