wandering mind

Browsing around my pictures folder on my computer found these: January: February:somewhere in DC March: Meghana's birthday April: Blossoms on my peach tree May: Dia with her cheerleading trophy June: Meghana graduating 5th grade July: Neeraj getting attacked with his birthday cake August: Ocean City September: Found surprise flowers in a corner of my garden where I didn't plant anything. October: Dad's birthday November: I voted December: Meghana on violin and Diya on viola : Holiday Rock Orchestra Goodbye 2008. Welcome 2009.

I am a cheerful-happy-glass-half-full person - or so I tell myself. "It is not what happens to you, it is your reaction to what happened which matters" I know all that - as a matter of fact I often preach that. Let me recount what happened today. I left work around 2:30 - I had one last gift to buy. I went to a shopping plaza where just getting into the parking lot took forever. I started to get irritated. Why am I doing this? Why did we start celebrating Christmas? I am a Hindu for crying out loud - I don't need to be part of this madness that Christmas has become. If I was going to adopt Christmas, why couldn't I adopt the non-commercial aspect of it? Well, I make it into the store after finding the last ever parking spot way at the end. I roam around and it is a madhouse in there as well. Apparently there are many others who have a few last thing left to do. After wandering around for a while, I finally find a perfect thing. I am happy. The line at the cash registe...

Sometimes a story takes you by the hand, makes you sit down with it and surrounds you with its warmth and wonder. It feels like a warm quilt that you don't want to get out of on a cold winter morning. That is how I feel reading A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Has anyone else read this book? I am only at the beginning of it, but I love it already.

I saw your fury turn red from yellow You stared me down unflinching from your high perch I stopped dead in my tracks I lowered my eyes and waited uneasy in this forced stillness waited for an eternity for the red anger to subside and then the light turned green I sped away on my merry way :)

I was sitting in my study and my dogs were running around in the room next door. I was trying to capture them running on my camera - it somehow ended up looking like a ghost :)

My daughter just taught me a new word : kirigami. Apparently, when you are folding paper to create a form it is origami, but when you make cuts on paper, it is kirigami. Here is thanksgiving based kirigami on our kitchen door.

What happens when you let your kid decide how much bubble bath soap to pour in the bath? a squeaky clean kid :)

I have a few gray strands peeking through the brown. I color them brown - but I am often lazy about keeping up with it. It is funny how during conversations, some people try to sneak a peak at my gray. I would be saying something and in mid sentence they will break the eye contact and shoot a quick glance at the gray and go back to the eye contact - which is ok. What is really weird is that they keep shooting quick glances. I often feel like saying -yup - that persistent gray is still there :) Has anyone else noticed this behavior in other people?

you say what is the point there is total darkness out there I say I carry a ray of light with me I cannot vanish the darkness I am just a little lamp a small circle of light around me spreading happiness warmth in my vicinity you say I am naive and gullible I live in this bubble of utopia far from reality I am not deluded though this existence is hard there are strong winds of uncertainty if you see me struggling shield me from the wind until the flickering stops and I am myself again

...... these are a few of my favorites things....... I couldn't believe my luck when I won these earrings on Mary's blog. Can you imagine my excitement when I found a package bearing my name this evening?? These are the earrings that I won another pair that I bought from her Etsy Shop: extra bonus that she sent to mark the beginning of our friendship Mary, these cards are so precious that I would have trouble parting with them :) If anyone is looking for some great gifts for the holiday season, please check her out at Design By MC - I know that I will visiting her a lot for my holiday shopping. Thank you ever so much Mary!!!!

I don't remember ever being happier about an election outcome - ever!!! I remember being happy when Bill Clinton won. I remember being sad when Gore and Kerry lost. But last night... I was in my bed around 11, refreshing cnn.com to check on the electoral vote counts. It was 11:03 on my laptop when I saw cnn projection for Obama. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to watch it on TV. I jumped up and down - we won, we won. My daughter was jumping up and down as well - both of my dogs started barking. My husband (who otherwise does not show emotion easily) had a broad grin on his face. I watched McCain speak and I thought of all the the time I had heard him speak, this was the best delivery he had. And then I watched the President Elect Obama walk on the stage with his family, and I had tears in my eyes. I have never in my life cared for election outcome so much. This morning as I was driving to work, the whole world seemed happier - the trees were grinning, the clouds were smilin...

There is a lot of stuff being said in the blogosphere - I just want to say that

Nothing but the best artist in town for my pumpkins :) The finished art work. Finished artwork lit up a closeup The second pumpkin with a graveyard scene Happy Halloween!!!!!

My daughter's elementary school had sock hop last Friday - pizza, candy, and a DJ singing and playing cool kid songs . I had the pleasure of accompanying a gorgeous purple witch. Off we go The purple witch was holding two coats that she brought in for donation (which was the entrance fee to the dance). The wind tossed the witch's hat and she cackled as she ran.... DJ failed at several attempts to get the purple witch to join - they played macarena, they played soldier boy, they played cha-cha slide, but the witch just stood aside. Finally they played the cotton-eyed Joe and the purple witch joined in Great fun was had by all.

I got up this morning and somehow got into this baking spree. First I cut up an acorn squash in half and scooped it out Then I brushed it with butter and maple syrup and baked it for about an hour. I washed the seeds and put them to bake as well. I cut up some sweet potatoes and tossed them with olive oil and salt. I tossed some sweet peppers and poblano peppers with olive oil and lemon pepper salt. Here are the finished culinary delights: Roasted seeds: Sweet potato fries The acorn squash - all roasted and sweet and some baked tofu leftover peppers phew - that is a whole lot of baking !!

My daughter has a book club as part of her GT group activities in her sixth grade. They are reading many interesting books. A couple of week ago she loaned me her copy of "Wednesday Wars" by Gary Schmidt. I put it on my night stand along with other books that she had recently given me to read (A wrinkle in time, Tales of Despereux, etc.) I always have a stack of my - more interesting, grown up - books to read through and can't ever seem to find time to fit in one of these kid literature. Well, I am so glad that I did. It is set in time when country is at war (Vietnam) and everyone is sick of that war and they looking for someone young with lot of new energy (Kennedy) to bring change to the country - ring a bell anyone? I would highly recommend this book. Here are some samples from the book: "Mr. [Principal] Guareschi's long ambition had been to become dictator of a small country. Danny Hupfer said that he had been waiting for the CIA to get rid of Fidel Castro a...

Here is another fun tag from aalochane . ~ The tag copy ~Two questions in each category answer them and then tag your friends from the blog-o-sphere. (Simple enough right) Leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged and you are all set. Yesterday - Your oldest memory - What were you doing 10 years ago? Today -Your first thought today morning - If you built a time capsule today what would it contain? Tomorrow - This year ….What do you see yourself doing 14 years from now? ~ End Tag details ~ Oldest Memory - It is not a whole memory - just flashes of vision when I was probably three. I can sort of describe the house, but that is about it. 10 years ago: I had a toddler and was expecting my second one and was finishing my Masters in Computer Science - and working on a NASA project part time - life was very chaotic. First thought today: the to do list of my current project at work - I know very pathetic :( Time capsule: It would contain my kids childhood that I ca...

I was just reading the latest post on Plum tree which pointed me to one of her older story and I loved it so much that I had to share it here. It sums up so nicely what has gone wrong - we just eat way more than is good for us. We are surrounded by food all the time - boat loads of it - and it is killing us. The story also reminded me of how relationship to food and eating has changed for me since moving to US. As a kid, most of the houses I lived in were not kitchen-centric. Kitchen was a small room in a corner of a house, delineated with doors to close it in between the meals. All the cabinets were sparsely furnished . We went in there to cook breakfast, lunches and dinner (ok, we had someone cook those meals for us - but that is besides the point :)) - Once a meal was over ,kitchen was closed and that was that. Fast forward 20 years - and I find myself living in this house where the kitchen is probably the size of one of my childhood homes. Kitchen with its gigantic refrigerator a...

I have been tagged by transient lives - here it goes: Clothes Shop: I love the stuff in Antropologie but can't always afford everything there - you can find me often in the back at their clearance rack :) Furniture Shop: I love ikea stuff. I don't particularly like furniture shopping - hence our formal dining area (4 years after moving into this house) is still empty. Sweet: raspberry cheesecake, dark chocolate , sandesh (bengali), kalakand (indian) City: I had to think about this one - I am not sure. I it is easy to fall in love with a city when you are visiting it, but living there might be different all together. I really like Washington DC - the area around the mall. Drink: Can't live without ginger chai - a cup of chai in the morning and a glass of merlot with dinner :) Music: Indian bollywood, some gazals, and a variety of bands from the 80s TV Series: I sort of stopped watching TV when my kids were born. Before that I used to watch Seinfeld and Freinds a lot. Lately...

Very, very slow , but I finished it - yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I wrote all about it here -

.... ironing your pants on a cold morning and putting them on while they are still warm. Ahhhhh............. pure bliss.......

I am reading a book by Susan Vreeland called Luncheon of the Boating Party . It is a fiction interlaced with facts about how Renoir's famous painting came to be. As I read more and more of the book, the desire to visit the painting got stronger and stronger. I found out that the painting is in a museum at Washington DC - just couldn't believe my luck. It resides at a private collection called The Phillips Collection. I had never even heard of it. It is in Dupont Circle neighborhood of DC, where my brother used to live before he moved to Australia. Last Tuesday the schools were closed to observe Rosh Hashannah. Monday night I came home overly stressed from work. So, I decided to take the next day off and asked my brother if he would like to go to the art museum. So, the four of us - me, my brother and my two daughters - went to The Phillips Collection. What a great find it turned out to be. I found my painting on the second floor and cannot begin to explain how I felt to be in t...