Mixed Bag :)

My daughter's admissions and then moving away from home :( kept me busy all along.  One point agenda.  Rest was all on the back burner.  Life coming back to normal with a void.   Missing her so often.  Then I tell myself.  Life has to move on.  Change is constant.  And this was bound to happen.  I too had left home at 18 and moved to the hostel.  But its only now that I realised that my going to the hostel and her moving out is so so different.  It isn't as easy as I thought it was !!!!! 

So its festival time every time she comes home.  She is just 3 1/2 hours away.....a train journey! We made yummy fried rice.

I love love lighting candles and placing lil flowers on my centre table.  It gives me so much of happiness every time I pass by...  brings a smile

Thats my lil' Vandita ready for a Bharatnatyam performance....sans the makeup.  That changes so much.

With makeup.   

A mixed bag indeed....Hope to meet you often :)  Have a wonderful Sunday !!!

Baking fun

I accidentally got to know of a baking class through a dear friend way back in Dec `13.  And jumped at this opportunity.  My girls love cakes.  That was the inspiration plus the zest to learn a new thing.  Just a two day class of 3 hours each.  We learnt to make 6 varieties.  Thanks to Shubhada Gadkari.  She is meticulous and particular.  No wonder her passion for baking could be easily seen in the class.

Since then, every b'day in the family gave me an opportunity to try.  Base cakes I've been baking regularly.  But those special ones were reserved for b'days.  This was the latest.  Chocolate truffle. Completely baked and decorated by my daughter Upasana under my supervision :)  I have graduated :)

My daughters chose what they wanted for their b'day.  So Jan and Feb was Chocolate truffle and black forest.

Here's the black forest . (Pls don't mind the quality of pics.  These two were from a cell

Then March saw fresh fruit cake. This was the best that I liked.  Sob sob I DON"T LIKE CHOCOLATE CAKES but I bake them for my girlies.

Here I could use strawberries, pineapple, black grapes and kiwi.

I also tried my hand at pineapple upside down

And ofcourse walnut cake and cup cakes

With the mango season on, I tried fresh fruit with mango layers

BaKiNg hAs beEn FUN :)

Rangoli & Candle making fun

Happy Diwali

&

Happy New Year

Its time of the year again to have fun

making Rangolis, lighting diyas and candles 

and eating goodies.  Not to forget the cleaning and decorating homes

My daughter suggested that we create a different Rangoli this year.

And we created these twin birds

It took us good 3 hours

 A collective effort of  my daughters and me.  Initially, I was doing it with my elder daughter Upasana.  My younger daughter Vandita was just assisting us with colours.  We underestimate our children.  We were apprehensive to allow her also to fill colours.  But we gave in.  And she did all the flowers and leaves.

I also made these diyas and my daughters helped me in painting.  All out of waste.  Had earthen diyas which had been used over the year, black with soot.  Washed them and painted with fabric paints.  I then melted wax that I had stored out of melted candles. Each colour separately and poured into the diyas.  Placed a tooth pick for the wick to stand erect in the wax.

And Ta...dahh..

The balcony's peppered with twinkling lights and the `Kandeel'

It has been a pleasure to making Rangolis over the years.  You can see them here  and here .

Happy Diwali to all

@#@##! Merry Christmas ###@!**

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR

It used to be fun decorating the Yule tree in office with my colleagues while I was working..  Here's one that we decorated.  Brought back fond memories.

Had lots of excitement and fun in making this Snowflake with my little one.

And an orange clove Pomander

These two are learnings from Tina and Dr Sonia. The hows' can be found here and here

Have loads of fun this Christmas and may 2013 usher in happiness and  good health.
May peace be with you
Cheers

Twin creations this Diwali

WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY DEEPAVALI

AND

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR

A festival of light, Deepavali, is a New Year too to a large number of people in India.  The biggest festival too amongst the umpteen number of festivals that we celebrate.  I love making Rangolis.  In fact, my profile picture too is a Rangoli that I created a 3 years ago.  Here's what I created this Diwali.

Its made with coloured powder, quite coarse... like sand and this Rangoli style is called Sanskar Bharati rangolis.  Here's what I made over the years during diwali. Have a look.  Let me know if you like them :)

This is what adorns our doorstep today.  I am so excited to show it to you :)

We are having happy times.  Rare occasions where the family get togethers happen.  My brother-in- law and family have come down too.  Kids are having a ball of a time. What with eating sweets and bursting crackers. Nidhi, my sis-in law kept me company last night while making this Rangoli.  Thanks for her patience :).... it took me two hours! 

How can I miss out on my hanging lamp shade, commonly called a  Kandeel.  I blogged about it here. I made a kandeel for the first time.  And am not able to hide my child like happiness, excitement and satisfaction..... It adorns our balcony.  Diwali being a festival of light, there's glitter all over, diyas... candles .......sparkling lights

Ah!  this kandeel took good four days to complete.  I did it at leisure.  Laborious though it was fun making it.  Glimpse of the steps involved

And finally

It inspired my 10 year old Vandita to create a Rangoli too.... :) Her first attempt.

I had planned to put up these Twin Creations today.  Happy, I did'nt put it off for tomorrow.  Its 1.27 am now...am happy over my accomplishment :)

Peacock meaows and plumage

Hi.... Very happy to share here a few pics of peacock plumage that we witnessed while at the Palace the other day.  We had some guests visiting us and we went to the Fatehsinh museum in the Laxmi Vilas Palace precincts.  What welcomed us were the meaows of peacocks.  So loud and near.  And there were quite a few of them, pecking away in the gardens.  One of them was atop the gallery of the museum.

Pictures in the sequence below, unfolded before us and lasted less than a minute.

And now for some joyful moments, my daughter had at the lawns there :)

What a nice and joyful evening......

The Zoo

Absolutely no headway since my post on `why do we put off things for tomorrow' .  I admit.  Is that a habit?  I wonder!  So after  the vacation and the Dubbare visit and The Golden Temple visit at Bylakuppe, we went to the Mysore Zoo.  Spread over a large area (more than 3 kilometres walk!) and over a century old, this Zoo is  definetely a delight.  We spent over four hours at the Zoo and enjoyed every bit of it.

Giraffe was the first attraction.  They were standing tall and still.  My daughter refused to believe that it was real until it starting rolling its tongue.

Isn't this rare?

 

The stork

The Macaws

The rainbow macaws

Look who's lazing out in the shade after lunch

The black necked swan

Scarlet Ibis

The baby on its swing

Can you spot the bear?

My! the Rhino was huge. Spraying clouds of dust with each breath

My kiddos loved the zebras

 Lazing after lunch

Star turtles.  Pic not very clear because of the glass enclosure

The Monitor lizard. Reminds me of a day in my childhood when a monitor lizard ventured into our backyard and Dasu our ferocious dog, fought relentlessly for two hours with it and killed it.  He was panting for so long after that.  We gave him lots of water and patted him for his act.  I can vividly remember his eyes as we patted him.  
History also takes us back to 1670 battle between Tanaji, Shivaji's closest friend who fought and recaptured Kondana fort, now named Sinhgad using monitor lizards to scale the forts Monitor lizards hold on to anything very very tightly.. Tanaji however died in the battle. Shivaji quipped later ` Gad ala pan sinh gela' meaning, fort was captured but the lion was lost.

Creepy creatures ahead!  The python

Anaconda... eeks he had very cruel eyes.  Scary!

We were amongst the first visitors to the zoo that day.  We had gone in early. It was quite sunny and hot Tired though at the end cause we walked more than 3 kilometres 

The girls however, enjoyed every bit of it.