Wordless Wednesday

Now or later

Day before yesterday my mother-in-law's mother-in-law fell down and broke her hip. My grand mother-in-law (don't know if that's the right word for the relation) is almost 90 years old. She had to undergo surgery. It was a very risky surgery considering that anesthesia can be fatal at this age in some cases.
                                                   As a result my in-laws who were supposed to be visiting us for a month had to cut short their vacation and rush back home. My grand mother-in-law survived the surgery. But she will have to be on bed rest for about 3 months which sure isn't a pleasant thing for any age!
                                          This episode made me think about how short lived our plans are. We can go on making as many as we would like but life, destiny, time, God (or any other name you would like to give it) can change them anytime. Like in this case there were things that we had planned to do in the later half of the vacation - go out for a short trip, celebrate Diwali together - which we wouldn't be able to do now.
So does this mean we shouldn't make plans?
Or should we go ahead but be flexible when life throws a spanner into our plans?
Whatever the choice - this and many such incidents make my belief stronger that there is something called destiny!

Old vs New

Every new generation should learn to be more flexible with their ways, views and words.
Every old generation should let the young ones learn from their mistakes rather than trying to teach them everything.

By The Water Cooler - our love story

It was my first out-of-the-country-trip for work. I went on an assignment to Los Angeles for my now ex-employer. I was enjoying the whole experience of being independent, being overseas and doing the onsite-offshore work thing.
                                                                                It must have been a few weeks into my trip when I was working late one evening. One of my team leads walked into my cubicle with a sheaf of papers in hand. I didn't work with him directly - we were on separate projects.

He - "I want to talk to you about something".
Me - "Yes, tell me."
He - "Not here, lets go to a conference room."

I was slightly perplexed about why would he want to talk to me. Then I noticed the set of papers in his hand - they belonged to a project I had worked on a few weeks back when I just landed in LA. The launch hadn't gone all that well and there were a few bugs found post launch.
             My mind started working frantically - he was going to tell me to pull my socks up. I should have been more dilligent about my work instead of being so happy to be in the US of A. I followed him; my head bowed down, my heart pounding like a hammer, twidling my thumbs. As luck would have it the conference rooms were all booked so we walked past them one after the other. He said "Lets use the dining area." I went numb thinking "Oh shoot! Now I'll be reprimanded in front of everyone!"
                                                           Thankfully there was no one in the dining area at that hour. We sat down - me as far away from him as possible. I am sure anyone within 5 feet could hear my heart beating. He started speaking " Since the last 15 days...." and I wished I could hide somewhere. Ofcourse I had been having fun since the last 15 days - trips to malls, lunch at a new place everyday, weekend trips with friends, work was the last thing on my mind.
                          ".....I have been feeling very differently about you. I like you." Wait a minute!!! Whaat! This is not what he was supposed to say. I sat gaping at him. I couldn't utter a word for about a minute, seemed like ages that time. He continued on with what was his version of proposing to me :))
I was relieved at first that this wasn't about me not working properly et all. Then came in the happy-in-my-heart feeling!

What happened after that is another story altogether (and maybe another post) but eventually we are together now with a very active 2 year old! Even today when I think of that day I end up smiling.
Our love story started literally by the water cooler ;)

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This is my entry to Parul Sharma's "By The Water Cooler" contest.  Check out the link for a sneak peek into what her new book is all about!

N's 2nd birthday

Read my earlier post on N's birthday party invitations. To match the transport theme I ordered a customized cake from the Institute of Baking and Cake art Bangalore. They were so good, I loved their Customer service. In terms of taste the cake wasn't out of the world but the cake looked great and matched my theme!

The food was made by a lovely lady who caters to birthday parties, store openings and any such personal parties. She makes most of the stuff at home and it was gorgeous! Most of all the kids loved it.

We had jam tarts, mini veggie burgers, jelly cups in the theme colours of red, yellow and green, pinwheel cheese sandwiches and fresh potato chips from the hot chips guy with yummy tomato salsa dip and yoghurt and cheese dip.

 

For decorations we had red, yellow and green balloons and vehicle cut-outs hanging from the ceiling, car paper plates and paper napkins.

The return gifts were packed in brown stoplight paper bags - I cut red, yellow and green circles to represent traffic lights and stuck them on the plain brown paper bags. I put in tissue paper of the same colours to brighten up the bags.

Sweet treat & giveaway

Inspired by Smita from Little Food Junction I made this card for N's teachers at school.
They loved it and both of us had loads of fun making it :)



BTW, Smita is celebrating Hundred Thousand hits on her blog with a giveaway! 

Check out her amazing creations and try your luck at winning a very artistic prize.

N's 2nd Birthday invitations!

We started N's birthday festivities this year with giving out the invites.
After careful deliberation and re-doing the guest & venue lists multiple times we narrowed it down to a home birthday party and just a few kids & their mommies that N was familiar with. No point antagonizing a 2 year old with too many not-so-familiar-faces. 

We chose "transport" as a theme since N loves anything with wheels these days.
I wanted to make something at home for the invites and this is what I came up with.

A closer look



N loved helping with the whole process - his contribution being applying glue to the window and wheel cutouts.
More coming up on this....

Of holidays and celebrations

I have been away from the blogging world for a while and missed it!! Have a lot of catching up to do. For now lets attribute it to being busy in general, guests over at home and the holiday festivities.
I must have danced on stage after ages - ok, after college (which was ages ago or atleast it feels like that).



A bunch of us ladies from our apartment complex decided to do some dandiya during Navratri. It was fun - to get rid of inhibitions, to let go, to learn a new style of dancing and to socialise!