nice kind of busy

its been a while i know....but while i did have a few posts in drafts, none made it here cos of various reasons.....been busy with mundaneness....some days really drove me insane...and i came here to rant....and then the mood got better and the post remained in drafts....in a way i am glad....i'd like to look back here on better times....and i hate it when mundaneness gets the better of me....

amma's gone back and she is terribly missed...contributed to considerable crabbiness on my part...today k's family arrived....and will be here a couple of weeks....its so different to have a house full of family....but a nice kind of different.....and the last week has been spent getting things ready for their arrival.....so that's the kind of busy i have been....


will come back here when there is something significant enough to post.... smiles...

Wedding pictures do’s and definitely don’ts

I am a photo freak.... (Would have sounded better both spelt with f no??) I can stay online for days going through albums of random people.....I once bookmarked this photo journal of a couple who just had a baby and journaled her growth........I'd go there believing she was growing up in front of my eyes........ She did..... I am fascinated by other people's lives....I get their contact details and send them emails......that they seldom reply is another thing all together..........a bit of a stalker and voyeur rolled into one....but aren't we all voyeurs?? If not how can you explain the success of "bigg boss"

anyways....while indulging in one of my fave pastimes, I came across a lot of wedding pictures of random people...some known....mostly unknown....and while I have a lot to say about the run up to the wedding and the aftermath...for the purpose of sanity, I will limit myself to what I began to say..... Wedding pictures.....I see some that make people look more hideous than they can imagine….most brides I know wanted to get married again and just pose for another set of pics because they thought they looked awful…..the others just cried buckets!!

Why is it that we freeze with a face that looks half way between hell and the electric chair when we are being photographed?? Relax…smile….it shows…. Why do we look like we'd rather have a brown paper bag on our heads when we just spent a good three hours "dressing up" not to mention a whole lifetime planning this damn thing??

Disclaimer: the following is applicable only to compulsively obsessive women / brides to be….men I don't believe you are reading this!! And you will anyways be ignored!! Please take all of this in the right spirit….

firstly....remember...and repeat, many times during the week before the wedding and especially when you actually are posing for the pictures....that you are going to be looking at them for the rest of your life, your kids (if any) will do so too....so any tiredness, disgust, anger, pain (honey that heavy sari / lehenga and those killer heels weren't made for comfort) you feel, must be camouflaged and fake "jubilant / happy" smiles must be upon our mugs…..practice does help….there are some pics I have of my wedding, where I was actually bending k's little finger the other way to get him to smile while I am gritting my teeth….it looks wonderfully natural….we look totally in love unlike the way we were feeling at the time it was clicked…and I have it framed and sitting in my drawing room….so yes….wasn't I saying practice helps

secondly, don't rely on the parlour lady to get you looking like a million bucks……starve at least a month ahead if you really want to lose even a couple of kilos. Nothing else will work. Cut carbs and have milk / buttermilk without sugar instead of dinner…and yes honey order a truck load of orange juice for the rest of the day.

Make sure you choose the right foundation so that you can cover up dark circles and blotchy skin you are sure to get with the stress of getting married…..again, planning ahead is a must….you might have to spend days and fight off persistently pesky cosmetics sales girls who insist what they just showed you is your right colour and tone match….do not believe them….take your own mirror, apply to the base of your jaw, blend, walk outside the shop, put the mirror up to your face (come on now….this isn't time to be shy) check and then buy…do not reply on the foundation that the beautician brings along…she may be planning to use it on the next fifty brides regardless of their colouring…..

Try out the hairstyle and the saree at least a week ahead of d day…..you won't have the nerves to improvise when you have 25 relatives banging on the door to use the mirror when you are getting ready. Get the clothes ironed and put on hangers a day before the wedding. Do not think you can get a perfect drape by taking the garments out of their boxes when you are ready to don them. This includes underskirts and blouses and whatever else you are wearing (barring the underwear of course)

Wear your heels before wearing the saree or the lehenga…..don't want it to look like an afterthought

Pack all the stuff you will need to take to the venue yourself or if you are getting dressed at the parlour…. No one else will know at the last minute if there are safety pins in the bag…..again planning ahead helps….and make a list

Brave the lights baby…they will be hot, and you might feel faint from the fatigue…but bright, blinding lights are what will make you look radiant when the pictures are developed

Even if you hate the persons standing with you for the "group photo" and they didn't bring you a gift, please smile….it will show in the pictures

Fight that nervousness….and no one thinks you are fat…..if you are worried or stressed it is going to show on the pictures

Get a trusted cousin / girlfriend to be by your side (but not in every frame) at all times…she will also help touch up your lipstick, tuck in your hair and dust of saffron rice, petals of flowers and other debris that may have collected on your hair or other body parts

While this reads like a manual from a wedding site, please remember all this is true…..whatever your state of mind when the flash went off will be exactly how you look when the pictures come back in the album……no miracle can take place if you were swearing and spewing venom all the while at the photographer…….

Lastly………relax……smile…and believe you are beautiful…..worked for most of us!! And hey…after people have stuffed their faces with the wedding spread….no one will fret over the trivialities only you noticed!! So don't screw up your big day / night by fretting about all of this!!

role reversal??

amma's left me!! gone back to bangalore....by the time i could say jack robinson and hyperventilate, she landed back in the arms of the adoring granddaughter she so sorely missed....that is one point i can never score!! yeah there were times when i contemplated putting fevikwik in her lip balm....but i reckon i will be walking down that road someday...so i resisted!!

we cooked together, lunches weren't solitary gulping of food events, but actual set the table and sit down to a meal type of things (my weighing scale shows me how much i have "gained" from this exercise), talked and talked some more, shopped, laughed and more importantly drove each other round the bend and back!! i got more driving practice than i ever thought i would...even gaining infamy of "never being at home" from jealous relatives!!

i try and do as many things that i can with her, because i know time is at a premium, that soon she will be packing her bags to zoom off!!.....and with this visit of hers being the shortest, i had too many things to get done....

anyways....when her return tickets were booked, i realised there were many things that didnt happen....i made a list and tried to cook up a storm at every meal....sometimes celebrating success.....and lapping up the praise....sometimes eating leftovers for the next two meals....only a mother can make you feel like queen victoria and cleopatra rolled into one!! my mother is no less or more...she's appreciative and encouraging of all that i do...celebrates successes and comforts at failures.....and is a very willing guinea pig for all my experiments!!

i wanted to send her with stuff that would remind her of me with every bite....so cheese crackers, brownies, cookies, chocolates....all were whipped up to be packed into her cases.....and the greatest compliment a mother can give...she told me all teary eyed and all (oh we are all quite a melodramatic family!!) that "usually daughters are sent from the mother's house with goodies...and look at me" ............. take a bow ma!! i enjoyed this role reversal....love you too!! happy mother's day

back in control eh??

last evening, i decided to give myself a kick in the behind for slipping and almost screwing up the hard work of the last few months....mother's do have a way of making you feel anorexic....and mine wants to feed and fatten me like i was some sacrificial lamb....no more of that....lets see how i can hold up!! am excited though.....

freaky fridays

thank god its over...if the roller coaster had lasted a little more...i'd have really jumped off the edge of sanity that i am forever threatening to......last evening...after we called it a day, i went and picked k up from work...he's kind of getting slowly used to a vagabond wife with a driver's license and a car!! by the time he wound up work and we got back home, i was ready to fall in a pile...albeit a neat one...we packed what was required for his two night trip and barely managed to get a few hours sleep, when it was time for k to get ready to catch the cab to take him to the airport so he could catch his flight....i think i managed a few hours sleep after that.....the next few hours after waking passed more like a daze post a hangover...till i ambled towards the laptop and turned it on....i remember having seen the advertisement announcing a sale in a shop i visited two days ago....i went there looking for razais....and found them a little (all right....a lot) overpriced...so still in my daze, i called the shop....lo and behold, the covetted comforters were on 50% off!! jumping into a fresh set of clothes, i drove out like a bat out of hell.....made the purchases of two fabulous conforters, and then one more for good gluttonous for more measure...and drove out...all in a flash of less than 10 minutes (driving time not included)......

why do we eat much more than what we usually need to?? because your brain covets more than your digestive tract....and since the brain is the control station of the body, the digestive system usually succumbs and swallows up some more....some thing happened on the drive back.....i wasnt happy that the shopping didnt take much time...and i craved to be able to look around some more....so telling myself that the few purchases of vinegar, detergent and wafers that i had to buy were something between life and death, i drove myself into possibly the best supermarket in hyderabad....now that it is swanky, it looks even better, but the range of stuff they have is mind boggling....having whet my appetite on a few earlier trips, i was all alone amongst aisles and aisles of produce....i can go berserk in a kirana shop...so you can imagine what this was for me.....i emerged a good hour and a half later...laden with more than i could carry....starry and glossy eyed.....and hungry for more...the only horror was how in heaven's name was i going to find place for all that i hoarded in my little pantry (ok glorified cupboard) .....i was famished by the time i got home....despite the best resolutions, i had a hearty lunch (do i get forgiven since i didnt eat breakfast?) and proceeded to display my wares and crowing about the bargains i bagged.....the poor mother of mine who was at the receiving end of all this, was droopy eyed and begging me to shudd uppp....ofcourse polite upbringing and motherly sentiments hardly allowed her anything other than some appreciative noises and smiles.....

i tried resting...i really did....an sms from my namesake woke me up...then a bout of quick consultation with the dear doctor...and i was again sleep deprived.....i spent the rest of the evening, paying for my sins by actually rearranging and cleaning out my kitchen...the one thing i like best after shopping is pushing my kitchen possessions around....tired and happy....i refused food for dinner....and wandered on and away from the epicenter.....

freaky friday it was...i spent a tonne of hard earned cash......and whats worse is that i feel so good in the bargain!! before leaving on his biz trip this morning, k asked if i had enough cash on hand...i replied i had too much.....and i think i organised its remedy also by the end of the sentence....i think i will impose a no more shopping till you clean out the pantry on myself....wish me luck...