Day 19 - My home tour on Magical Homes!!

My ex-apartment in Bangalore was featured on Magical Homes yesterday. The site also has a lot of tips and ideas on all aspects of a home. Makes for an interesting read. Hop over to check it out :) And let me know what you think, by leaving comments there. 
This is the 2nd home tour for my rented apartment and Dipika the editor has put together the post so well. Thanks Dipika!! 
We spent 2 years there and it was a wonderful stay. I miss my home, my neighbours, my friends from that place and hope to go back there soon.

A cozy corner in my balcony. Books and a cup of tea made it awesome! 

The 1st home tour for that apartment is here on The Key Bunch. 

With that done, my task list looks much better now - 
- Send pics for home tour - Done
- Write article for my first freelance assignment - Done
- Send pics and info for a lifestyle site coming up in Feb 2013 - Done
- Gifts for N's teachers at kindy - Done
- Holiday and Christmas shopping - Done
- Bulk of the packing for N and me - Done
- Donate N's clothes, the ones he has grown out of, to The Salvation Army - TBD 
- Last few rounds of laundry and ironing - TBD
- Clear and clean the fridge - TBD

This month has been crazy! I thought it would be the slowest month of the year, relaxed, easy breezy. But instead it has turned out to be the craziest of them all. Started with the blogging marathon and I took it up as a challenge and a way to meet new bloggers. Then came the tug-of-war of going to India vs staying here. That was is mental torture. And all of a sudden I had these 2 requests for pictures and an article to be written! Plus all the stuff for the holiday - shopping, packing. Phew! I am so looking forward to the holiday. 

What are you planning to do on New Years? Where will you be? At home with loved ones? With extended family? Out of town? Partying somewhere? Watching TV? 

This post is part of the Marathon Blogging December 2012. 

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Would you like some tea?

Like Patty in her Weekend Wrap up, I had some tea on one fine Saturday morning. I usually don't have tea or coffee on a daily basis. Neither does S. Tea is made in our house only when guests, who drink tea, come over or it is a rainy or very cold day. This Saturday was a nice, pleasant and calm day (N wasn't up yet). I decided to do something to make myself feel special and here is how I spent my Saturday morning -

With a warm cuppa of tea and some good books! 

I love the print on the tea cups and the tea pot.

The chairs are my latest acquisition, courtesy my parents. They had these lovely Assam cane beauties and they gladly passed them on to me :)

The seating pair is comfortable and durable at the same time.

The rug was also sent by mom. It is a traditional hand woven rug from Punjab, more like a durrie than a rug I would say.

Linking this to Patty's Weekend Wrap Up. Hope That you guys had an awesome weekend and wil have an even better week ahead!!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Yay! I won a book!

Kiran over at thirtysixandcounting has a contest and a book to giveaway!! Check it out here.
She is giving away the book "Chanakya's Chant" by Ashwin Sanghi. Its his 2nd book after The Rozabal Line. Read the review on her blog.
All you have to do is send in your favourite Chanakya quotes and the ones that she likes will win a copy of the book. So hurry guys, there is only a total of 10 copies to be given away!

I have already won my copy. Yay!!

Here are my top 2 Chanakya quotes -
1) “There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.” – One might say no this ain’t true for all my friends but look at it this way – we like being with our best/good friends 'coz they make us happy and feel good about ourselves! The feel-good factor is a self interest too.
2) "Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions – Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.” – I for one, need to practise this before I put my hands into anything new.

I am excited and eagerly awaiting my copy :)
Thanks Kiran!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

N's favourite books

N loves reading! He loves to be read to and now flipping books on his own too. There are some books that he knows by heart now and can tell the story in his own words.

One of his latest favourites is The Rooster and the Sun by Meren Imchen.

via

It is a Tulika Publishers book. The story is based on a folktale of the Ao tribe in Nagaland in northeastern India. It is a bilingual book and is available in a couple of language combinations. N has the English-Hindi combo and he loves to read the story in both the languages. The illustrations are simple yet expressive. The story in short as mentioned on the back cover of the book -

"A farmer is working in the field. It is a very hot day and the farmer quickly gets tired. He shouts at the sun. The sun feels hurt and goes away. It does not return and there is darkness all around. Finally, it takes a rooster's trick to bring the sun back into the sky."

His other current favourite is Rosie's Hat by Julia Donaldson and Anna Currey.

via

It is a Macmillan Children's Books publication. Its a very sweet and rhyming story of how a little girl Rosie loses her hat when a gust of wind blows, the adventures that follow and the climax of whether Rosie gets her hat back or not! There are not too many words and the pictures are pretty. N loves hearing the rhyming words and then speaking them out.

But his all time favourites are -
The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Goodnight Moon.

                                                

                   via                                                                                                                       via

These 2 books have been with him since he was a baby. He's read them almost every day and as a result they soon looked worn out. Eventually N and some of his very passionate friends managed to tear them up over a fight of who gets to read the book (I know I should've been around, was just out for 2 minutes to get the pop corn for the kids!). So I had been looking for these 2 books in India since a long time.

I finally managed to get The Very Hungry Caterpillar at Crossword. Yay!! :)

Have any of you seen Goodnight Moon in any of the Bangalore bookstores or you know of any online websites that could deliver these to Bangalore? Lemme know!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Giveaway at P&P and sales all around

Hello folks!
Happy Friday - seriously I LOVE Fridays!! :) They make me happy and excited.
So here's to make you feel better too - Gagan at Of peacocks and paisleys is hosting a giveaway. CSN stores will give away a $45 gift card, which can be used anywhere on their site, in any of their 200+ stores. The giveaway is open to U.S./Canadian residents. Residents of other continents may still enter for a loved one in the U.S./Canada.
This giveaway is only open a week so hurry up now and hop on to her blog.

And for folks in India - Crossword bookstores start their Clearance sale today. They will have up to 80% off so lets go book shopping.

Have a great weekend!!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

N's bookshelf on papertigers blog

I had recently blogged about the "Around the world in 100 bookshelves" project at the papertigers blog.
N's bookshelf is featured on the papertigers blog - click here to see it!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Book fest, Ice gola, candy and guavas

So we finally managed to go to the famous Bangalore Book Fest - even though it was on the last day. Got some great deals and N was richer by a few books. So was I :)
What made me even more happy was that N went along and was such a darling. S wanted some time to himself which I agreed to after some initial reluctance. The reluctance majorly being due to the thought of N tagging around a 300 stall crowded book fest.
But N listened to me, agreed to sit in the stroller throughout and even held my hand when walking outside. I think the huge crowd played its role too in scaring N into being nice.
The good behaviour deserved a reward. So mom and son gorged on orange flavoured ice gola - yes all you "what-kind-of-water-did-the-gola-wala-use" ppl the ice/water looked pretty ok and we haven't fallen sick... yet. We also had candy. N loved seeing how the candy was made.
And some fresh ripe guavas from the rehri-wala were just the perfect thing on a slightly cold Bangalore evening.
It was a perfect day and book shopping is always fun! After all one can never have too many books.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

N's bookshelf

Have you heard about the "Around the World in 100 bookshelves" project at the Papertigers blog? If not take a look at the link above. It is a great way to join the world through books!

This is N's section on our book shelf below - considering he is 2 years old we think this is a good beginning :) 
N loves books - thanks to a book lover mom. She is always on the look out for more books coz she gets bored of reading them over and over again.  
The dad doesn't touch books or reading material except the daily newspaper. But he does read out to N and makes up bedtime stories for him :)

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Book Review: No No Yes Yes

No No Yes Yes is a board book with those thick cardboard like pages that the little ones cannot tear. That is a very important criteria for me - since N is a very active toddler who out of curiosity grabs the pages of a book a little forcefully at times. He is getting better with time :)

The book has a few daily activities sorted into what is OK to do (Yes Yes) and what is not (No No). A little baby in his diaper shows all the actions. N is able to relate to the baby so its even more fun! 

Everyday things like eating food, colouring with crayons, playing with other kids, reading books, playing with animals, bath time, going poo poo and going out with mommy daddy are represented in the book. On the left side is shown how not to do it (say, no crayons on the wall) and on the right side is the correct way (crayons on the paper). Some of the illustrations are funny yet effective.

You might find some of the activities not relevant to your lifestyle - say, you don't have cats or dogs at home; you can skip those pages and read them later when the kids are more aware.

For toddlers (ages 1 to 2) one or two big pictures and a few words are ideal as beginner books. No No Yes Yes fits this criteria perfectly. The pictures are big and clear. The book was hand-lettered by the author. Even S who isn't a book reader (at all!) loves reading this one out to N.

I have 3 other books from the same author - Quiet Loud, Big Little, Yummy Yucky which follow a similar pattern as No No Yes Yes. N enjoys reading all of them - he can read them a million times!

Name of the book: No No Yes Yes
Author: Leslie Patricelli
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Recommended for ages: 1 to 3

reade more... Résuméabuiyad