Rainy Weekend!

Love the rains...atleast its not snowing out there:-) its been raining since night and its so good cos its brought the temp to 40's....and it feels so warm out there...crazy i know!

Fun part of this rain, there is "flood watch" and "flood advisory" by the weather channel...God, what will this country do, if it rains like it does back home? too hard to imagine..

Long hours

Long working hours are the order of the worklife back home in India...esply if u work in Chennai! It never used to feel like am working for such long hours though i used to be out of home by 9am and back in only by 9pm! The day just used to fly by in a jiffy. Today, i realise how long those hours are for people who are at home...ha ha ha...! My hubby has been having an exceptionally long day at work today....left in the morning at 8 am and its 9pm now and still in office....LOL! Now, i realise how boring the life of stay at home wives are, waiting the whole day browsing thru boring TV programs.....how long can she gaze at FB or watch videos on you tube! Afterall, that one person needs to be back to take out all ur boredom on....ha ha ha:-)

Within 4 walls

Is this called living within 4 walls, being confined, staying indoors, being quarantined, stay closed, behind the doors...OMG, how many ways to say the same thing.....also can be called being house arrested.....well, lol, house arrested more by this horribly cold weather than anything else! I never thought, i would fight the winter so much by forcing myself to stay indoors so much. Seriously, what is with me....am so demotivated to speak to anyone, go and hit the gym, or even practice my yoga at home! this weather is making me as lazy as i can possibly get.

Just remembered that my laundry is still in the dryer waiting to be folded...what hv i been doing the whole day?? good question, but hardly any answer...except i managed to do the routine daily chores and a little extra for 15 mins. yes, I tried the microwave recipe of "mysore pak" and it came out pretty ok...not too bad for a microwave thingy! however, can be deftly much better. Thankgod i made very little of it, so, i won't end up eating too much and adding on to my pounds!

Lion & Heart:-)

Last evening we had been to a tax consulting session and came across this cute little boy there in the office! It was a very cute experience....

I walk into the reception and let them know we have a 6 pm meeting fixed and we are asked to be seated. Me and my hubby get seated and bang comes this cute little boy, around 4 yrs, and gives me a paper with a bird picture printed on it....then he moves around and comes back to me with a telephone directory and a crayon....so cute....I did'nt know what was happening and the other visitors seated around were smiling at me including my hubby.....

I asked him..."do you want me to colour the bird?" and he was like "yes"...and I told him..."why don't u do it ....please do it for me" and he was like.."no, its for u...u can do it" and I again tell him " I would like to see u do it..:-)" and then he is ok with it and takes it all from me and sits on the floor and colors it in 2 mins and comes back to me and shows me the picture....I said, " wow, this looks so nice....its beautiful" and he says..."its for u"....OMG, i was blown off....what a beautiful moment it was for me...for a strange little boy to be gifting me with this lovely piece of his

work....something made me feel very nice and light ...am unable to express that feeling i had in words..! After handing over the paper, he went around to join his parents who were sitting with the tax consultant.

When they all came out of the meeting, I spoke to his parents and told them what a lovely child he is. He then showed me his other coloring work and gave those to me and took the bird coloring with him....so, now i have a lion and a loving heart...

Anjappar!

Winter is at its fag end and yet not there still! waiting for the Spring break...Well, temperatures are rising to 50's for a couple of days and again dipping back to 30's through the next 10 days...not so great when everyone is waiting to get into the summer clothes...!

The past week has been quite a roll what with me not having time to blog. not that i hv a big fan following waiting for my blogs to roll...but it makes me happy when i someday sit back and read them. Had been to NJ to meet up with some friends and had some really good food over sat & sun! Planned fro a typical chettinadu style food and hit upon Anjappar with friends! To our surprise the food was excellent...I believe Chennai Anjappar is not all that great( per my hubby). I had this awesome "ennai kathrikai kuzhambu"....and managed to doggy pack the remaining back home...served me up for the dabba next day...what more can i ask than a reprieve from the kitchen on a monday morning..:-) all the non-veg lovers at the table must hv been wondering, what a waste , to hv someone eating veggie food at "anjappar"....true...the whole place was smelling of some lovely chicken roasts and vanjaram fish fries but that was not for me to relish ...only to smell.... its "Isha" all the way for me...

However, I have to mention, given that this restaurant was located in New Brunswick, NJ, USA did not make any difference to the ambience of the place...It was crowded with eager carnivores, waiting to dig their canines into those already dead and fried chicken, fish, crabs and goats...added to that, was the most shabby and unclean tables one can find in the United States i should say. Even restaurants in India would clean the tables and remove the left overs on to a tray and trash them....and here we could see cleaners, using a cloth and removing all the left overs on to the floor around the table....oh...what crap? I felt like walking out of the place that instant but as always, we resigned to the idea of some sumptuous meal and had them clean the table clear and the floor around too.... at-least all we could do was to make sure we had clean tables to eat!

Valentine!

Well, it could be just another day and it mostly always is just another day! I still remember my first valentine day after marriage where i was bubbling with all enthusiasm expecting to receive surprise gifts from all over the places i go......alas...it turned out to be only in that fantasy world of mine! as it is, it turned out that my better half is not as good at giving surprises as much as i love being surprised...:-) One of his best efforts in surprising me during one of my b'days back in 2005 turned out to be a major flop show with me getting the hint of it all the way through the plan....lol! So, I have now kind of resigned to the idea of not receiving surprise gifts for any occasion but the couple of times it has happened, i hv prided myself in being able to change someone from their habits...:-)

Today turned out to be a very satisfying one in many ways! The weather was super good hitting 40 def F, made it to the mall with a friend and managed to do some shopping like as if we were in some mall back home! and managed to snack something in the mall( though cannot be compared to the pani puri or bhel puri) a Mexican equal to our Indian Chaat! Oh, what a refreshingly nice day it was to step out on your own and do some shopping at ur own sweet pace and there is the Valentine fever all over the mall! Every other shop from Jewelers to Footwear sellers trying to cap in on St.Valentines Day!

Yet another weekend!

It was an ok kind of weekend! Saturday was fun with so much shopping..:-) Shopping is always fun especially when they are gifts and shopping for kids sooo much fun especially gals! OMG, what variety ....boys could ask..."why should girls have all the fun"...lol! There was also a nice b'day party to finish off the day... got to speak so much in my mother tongue after a long time...actually i guess that was more gratifying about the party than the food...! However, sunday's always end up being boring especially towards the end of the day....anywhere across the globe, i believe this is the scene with monday morning blues setting in and the expectation of what the new week has in store! Hoping for a great week ahead and wishing all prayers come true and is blessed by the Almighty...

Anxiety

already off the blog by a day! wonder what? but was way too anxious to do anything including writing a blog ....my cookery blog has been hanging with an incomplete recipe since 2 days now...got to finish cooking it today. actually there has been not much activity from my networking circles too....no mails, no scraps and am left to wonder what am i to do .....am bored...lol!

am beginning to see some funny dreams in my sleep where i forget what my relation to a person is and yet keep rattling to her and she gives me this funny stare! am like wondering why she is giving me that funny look and then realize that am talking to her about her daughter as if she is some third person....lol! all in a dream....! the next morning, am laughing about it narrating it to my hubby and he has an equally funny dream....this being political figure in a movie like situation though!

A.Raja's arrest and the impending election situation in TN and our discussions around who might be the possible candidate for the next term, all put together triggered a dream for him too i guess. but being able to be impacted by something that is happening miles across the oceans is so intriguing:-) why should we be affected? we are not there in the scene at all but yet does not feel good to know that our country is in the hands of some people who try to control it with money and power. I mean, look at China, our very neighbor and how quickly they are progressing....some may sit back and talk ill about them being communist and all but what about the communist states of India...Kerala and W.Bengal for example. The most laid back states in the country i would say. Kerala is surviving because of tourism and W.Bengal hardly surviving at all. Nothing progresses here. Whether it be Democratic or Communist, the attitude of all in India is to make as much money in their term as possible, looting the public of their welfare and the development they deserve as a nation.

It is the attitude that needs a radical change and this is goin to be hard to change what with the political system being so fragile. So many parties, so many alliances, everyone fighting for a position of power. Unless the country has 2 really strong and huge parties and unless we have a total revamp of all the politicians...i don't think the country will progress or the people are goin to be happy either.

Probably,we could clone more Gandhi's from his grave and make him take classes everywhere on Integrity and effective Leadership! If only all wishes could come to be true.....:-)

2nd consecutive day

ha ha ha....hard to believe for myself but am here again and am going to make a habit of it. well, am kind of all done for the day.so no more of kitchen until dinner time...yipee! and it is only 9.30am. thats like a lot of time for myself. have resolved to be more disciplined from today. resolve made last night while fighting to get some sleep. Its being increasingly difficult to get sleep these days. was wondering if it is because am not giving too much work to my brains, so obviously am not tired. have been thinking of taking up some online language course and get back to quilling. have to get going on these and start ordering materials to pick on my hobby:-) to think of the idea in itself is very exciting...! have also made a resolve to be more stricter with my exercise regime and yes i managed to think of quite a lot of topics that i could blog about. so, blogging..here u go...am coming...

am bored today!

can u believe it?!....am myself not able to. its been snowing all day and i hv company at home as my hubby is working from home and am completely bored...! this has got to be crazy but that is what winter and US can do to anyone! no wonder we have so many depressed souls in this country. this is the 3rd blog am writing for the day....lol! and there have only been 3 blogs i have written for the whole of 2010....ha ha ha:-))) well actually today i even started off with my new blog on cookery....hope to add more interesting recipes in future....! I was so needing to be enthused that i ended up reading my own blogs for sometime now and felt happy that i had started blogging sometime in the past. its interesting to read what my thoughts had been sometime in the past and want to continue blogging so that i may be able to keep myself company during days like today:-)

ring in the spring!

Is northeast of US meant for snow. i never knew it can be this bad. initially during mid-nov'10, when i heard of snow in other parts of US, i was way tooooo upset that it is'nt snowing up here. but now i wish, it stops and i had'nt missed it so much. waiting for Feb to end and Spring to spring in with all its beauty. the place seems to hv been covered by a white spread for way too long.

somehow the eye does not feel bored to behold a spread of green carpet everywhere for however long a period but snow....can't endure u for too long dear...pls melt away and let the earth breath some freshness into the air. it definitely is beautiful to watch the snow fall but after it stops is when it starts getting dirty. there is so much dirt all over and with the chill, some of it turn into ice and sleet, always putting u at the risk of slipping and falling. waiting for the temperature to rise a bit and hit the 50's...so we can get rid of layering ourselves multiple times to step outside the house...even if it be a short walk to the neighboring block...:-)

not much of a blogger

well, i guess am not much of a blogger. why can i not make better use of my time speaking to the world thru blogs....but i hardly do though i resolve to it from time to time....crazy me...probably am not much of a blogger....*&%$%#%#