It was my daughter's birthday on 21st Sept but as always it coincided with her exams, and this time it was with her maths exam. But few years back we decided that we wont crib about this anymore and would celebrate it on 2nd Oct (Gandhi Jayanti). It is a holiday and exams are always over by then. So its been working quite well since then. We invite her friends over and it is fun to see them enjoying and relaxing after the torturous exams.

She turned 14 and as always it was difficult deciding a gift for her. Last birthday we gifted her a watch and the year before we went a little overborad and got her an ipad. We are not one of those parents who pamper their children with expensive gifts, and so the guilt made us remind her every other day that she should not take things for granted and that we wanted a tab at home and her birthday was just an excuse.

My daughter is very fond of reading and I am very proud to say that i am the reason she got interested in books. She had been recently complaining that she is done reading all books a teenager could have read. It has happened so often that we went to a bookstore and spent hours there but came back without buying any books. So I decided to do a little bit of net searching. I came out with a list of must read books for teenagers. Out of the 10 in my list she confirmed that she had already read 8 of them. So I decided to gift those for her birthday. I tried all the stores - Landmark, Crossword..but could'nt find. I checked Amazon, voila the books were there. I decided moving forward i would do book shopping online.

My husband and I decided to gift her an MP3 player. We were again cautious and decided NOT to buy any branded expensive stuff. When we couldnt find any non branded MP3 players, we almost decided to go for iPod Nano (which was a whopping Rs13000) we had a little discussion that even if we buy, we would tell my daughter that is was only Rs 3000 (didn't want her to think that birthday gifts are a big deal and price was not even a factor). But sanely we dropped the idea of an iPod, went to a small gizmo showroom and bought an MP3 worth Rs 2500.

I also got her a nice simple dress which I knew she would like it.

On the night before her birthday she told me she wanted to were color dress to school...ohhh. With all the restrictions they have in school on the type of dress they can wear to school, it was almost a nightmare. I took out one of my dress and altered it and I must say she was looking gorgeous.

Here are some pics of her birthday. Her birthday with friends is yet to be celebrated. Will have a post on that too.

 

Ganesha at our home

This Ganesha Chatuthi loved every moment of the day. First came the beautiful toran DIY from my friend Rashmi the previous night. After my call got over at 11:30 pm , I had the patience to bead it and it looked really great. I also planned the menu, got all the recipes printed, did the shopping required and was all set for the day. I cooked for five long hours the next day with my hubbs helping me out here and there.

Menu:

Sambar
Potato curry
Rasam
Sundal
Modak
Medu Vada
Payasam

Ohhh everything tasted so awesome.

This Ganesha, we decided we would go eco freindly (even though i am always tempted to buy colorful ones). Ours was an only clay Ganesha. Here is how he looked and the 7 course menu served to him. Hubbs was brimming all through, I am sure it cant be missed in the pic too

A PLANNER in my Life:

Well yes, I have one now. Didn't think it was necessary, I was actually influenced by Lois Houston ,my colleague at office - the one super organized person I dreaded I would become like, one day. But working with her for more than 5 years I realized that given the 24 hrs you have in a day and work piling up from all directions (office, home, teenage daughter's studies, super busy hubbs) a little bit of planning is necessary to stay on top of things

It started on a good note --
*Baked a cake for W and it made her super happy - a thing I have pushed around for weeks, telling myself I didn't have the time for it.
*Cooked butter chicken - W n I enjoyed it thoroughly
*Cooked a veg curry for Monday morning breakfast, which will make my Monday morning a little easy - hope to continue doing this every Sunday night - another thing I planned on doing for several weeks now
*Not only cooking, but completed some office work which I was dreading to touch
* Called my dad and grandmom... very happy about that
* Managed to do a bit of gardening also

Thus A VERY FRUITFUL WEEKEND... Thanks to LOIS
 Here is how my PLANNER looked like

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My husband added a zingg to my life today.

My daily towel was looking old, but it didnt really matter to me. This was actually my daughter's towel which I was using as I bought her a new pink one. My hubbs went for grocery shopping and came across this purple towel in the grocery store (Reliance Mart). He remembered my old towel at home and thought that it had to be replaced. And in came the new towel.

In the evening he insisted I go to the bathroom to check the new light he had put. I was so busy with the evening calls (office conference calls) and laying the dinner that i just ignored him. The next day morning after my walk I rushed (u know how mornings are) into the bathroom to take my shower. That's when I noticed a purple towel neatly hanging there. Ohhh I cant explain the feeling. I just stopped there for 2 mins and thanked God for giving me these beautiful moments in life which makes life worth living. These little things make you feel special and loved. I came out and hugged my husband, and he didnt ask me why I was hugging him, as he was waiting for this moment since the previous evening. Then I remembered I saw my old towel hanging in some odd place the previous night and I blamed my forgetful mind for for leaving things around. These were all doings of my sweet , cute hubbs :)

The real intention of starting this blog is to be HAPPY....happy by doing something out of the ordinary. You know what I mean/ It happens so often in life that we get carried away by our day to day things....that we stop doing things which make us happy. The mundane ...get up in the morning, make breakfast, rush kids to school, rush to office, deadlines, emails, meetings, meetings and meetings, children's homework, dinner ,etc leave us so tied up that we slowly begin to believe that we do not have time for anything else. Though surrounded by my loved ones, since the last few months I can sense in myself the feeling of incompleteness...a want to do something other than the ordinary. In that attempt, from the last one week I have been trying to do something out of the ordinary...Adding a little ZINGGG to life. Was it difficult to fit in my schedule?...Absolutely not. Did it make me happy?....YES!!  So *I don't have the time* was truely a myth.

I write this on a relaxed Sunday morning...so the peace in my mind at this moment is probably reflecting in my words. It is not easy to not remember those crazy evenings with back to back meetings, but still I promise to myself I shall be HAPPY, I will go to bed each night with a smile on my face.

So today's special....BURRITOS

Ingredients -

Sause-
4 Tomatoes
4 tbsp Corriander
 1 Fire ball chilly (I purchased a can during my trip to Bhutan. These chillies are simply awesome. I small chilli
Olive Oil 3 tbsp

Burritos (bought from Big Bazar)

For the Filling- 
Green, Yellow and Red Pepper cut into small sqaures
Spring Onion
Corriander
Cottage cheese
Cheese (ordinary Britannia slices)
Boiled Rajma 4 tbsp
Boiled Rice 3 tbsp

To make the sause -
In a pan add the oil. Add tomataes, corriander, fire ball chilli, saute it for few mins. Add it to the blender and make a smooth paste.


To make the filling-
In a pan add the sause. Add the ingredients of the filling and cook it for sometime.

Add it to the tortilla, wrap it...Burrito is Ready.