L for Leisure

Not having to meet any one
Not having to worry about work
Not having to worry about house work
Not having to worry about tomorrow

Plenty of time
Cool Breeze
Enthusiasm
Topics to discuss
A couple of books
A camera to click
People to observe
Good coffee to drink
Pastas to devour
Mountains to see
No worries


That is my idea of leisure and I need that break.

May be a in a month or two.

Leisure.

K for Kismat

Kismat or destiny. I have started believing in it.

2014: It was my 'shagun', and a very personal affair between too families. There was no celebration or stress about anything. But.....

We forgot to click our photo as a couple in the event.

...We still laugh about it. How can we all forget to click to-be-married couple's photo.

2017: My sister-in-law got engaged today. A day before, we again remembered our mistake and decided that this time we should at least pose together to get a nice photo. Our home function after all!

Well, we again forgot to click a photo together.


Kismat.

Chalo, this time the newest couple in the family got clicked :)
Mr.ISB, some improvement after all!

J for Jodi

While coming back late at night, we all were inside the lift to reach home.

*Seeing me, tapping my feet on the floor*

Every one got confused and dad jokingly said, "Oh my god, Bubblegum is laat maroing Mr.ISB!" 

Sister-in-law: Dad, chill. She is trying to disrupt my thought process while I was staring at the floor!                          Nobody can beat our understanding. 

Every one else just smiled. As I nodded in affirmation!

***

My SIL was lost in thoughts looking nervous like any other girl, while her engagement was getting fixed an hour back.

Yes, she is getting engaged!!!!

...and I did not want her to get stressed. Breaking her chain of thought was necessary.

I'm not sure what my life would have been without her. The chemistry we share is 'Oh so precious' for me.  We are inseparable. We eat together, talk together, laugh together, cook together (And take an age to get food ready, because we have something to discuss always!), attend functions together.

As much happy and excited I'm for her, there is a strong sense of sadness deep inside me. The fear of being at home alone, without her is scary but...

As she rightly says,

We are each others' sister from another mother, we would manage anyway!

:)


Time to celebrate!!

I for Impressions

I had collected a few wine bottles from my Dad-In-Law's friends to do 'something' about them and convert them into classy decor items but as time flew, my inertia just got stronger and they kept on making my window sill garden a bit more interesting without much ado.

Till I grabbed Primer from the shop from the market from where I pass every single day, I did not even developed the idea of what I was suppose to do with a couple of acrylic colors and an empty wine bottle. When finally the Primer arrived- I stretched my day to give a decently thick coat of primer on the bottle and waited till it got cured for 48 hours. 

After curing I coated the bottle with bright orange color without any thinking, just to witness how the paint behaves with the glass covered with Primer. The second coat happened on the third day and then today morning, I took the boring looking orange bottle and decided it to make it a bit happening.

I took the ear bud from the jar and dumped the edge into cute yellow color. Impressions in the shape of flowers I could make, made it fresh and human. (Read: Imperfect) Because, hey I could not hold the bud steadily but who cares. 

This is how it turned up.

What do you guys think about it?

H for Home plans

- To have a few more plants in my window sill to call it a window garden. A couple of them with hangers and a couple of them in bright colors.

- To paint wine bottles I have kept since ages, just in the hope to get started some day

- To paint a couple of small canvases for our drawing room. The idea is generated by the creative mind of my mother-in-law and now I need to deliver orders of small canvas paintings to both mothers. Phew. Only if they understand, my laziness is making me procrastinate like never before.

- To grow one Tulsi plant in the drawing room if fellow homies are comfortable.

- To get a magnetic board for the huge magnetic souvenir collection we have collectively created

- To get some fake flowers for the classiest ever wooden flower vase my MIL has picked up

-  To get a full size mirror in place of the bulky dressing table we have in our room. Compromising on storage space, for the sake of minimalism we both love


Not many but hectic schedule makes it impossible to even finish one! I wish in a month or two I can work on atleast one or two of them.

:) 

G for Grounded

So, Mr.ISB is back from his bi-monthly business pilgrimage to Copenhagen.

And so when he said he had hogged on to Pav Bhaji on the airport before hiring a cab for home, I was not surprised. It is a part of his 'pilgrimage' and he won't miss it. In fact, if I had bet on some money on it, today I would have earned out of gambling with my mother-in-law who kept on worrying about his early morning breakfast- before he hits the bed to sooth his jet-lagged-mind.

He has a very very peculiar way of sorting this 'Arrival' day. Which starts from devouring Indian food on the airport and ends in the evening after a long period of sleep. In between, as soon as he is done with unpacking stuff he has bought for all of us and flinging his clothes in all the directions (and yelling at me for collecting them for a wash- because he wants to do his stuff on his own - may be after a month?) he would glue his butt (and body) to the sofa/bed and won't budge till evening with a small break for lunch if mom insists.

Though we let him do this without any comments when he returns from his trips - he always gets verbal diarrhea from me, my MIL and my SIL on the other days regarding his habit of sticking to one place for the longest period possible.  (Not that he cares one bit) Before sitting he would have a bottle of water, those n numbers of cables/chargers he would need if he is working/watching movies on ipad, books, mobile phone, a jar of something edible around him. Hence he becomes a part of his self-sustainable ecology. Which used to be an irritant for me all the time.

After almost years of staying together, I have stopped getting bothered by it. I have discovered my own mechanism of being too busy to care about it - named, talking to MIL & SIL laughing over this habit and organizing the mess till it is upto my-OCD-satifying-level.

I anyway can not complain about his this habit now, because I wanted that one quality desperately in my life partner.

The virtue of being  Grounded.

Just that Mr.ISB took it too literally and seriously. 

F for Food Favourites

There are two types of foodies in the world.

1. Who are amazing risk takers and can taste any weird dish without even thinking for a micro second
2. Who are not at all a risk taker and floats in the same boat while they enjoy the ride

I am the second type of a foodie but do change my food preferences once in a while. Like once or twice in a decade. So you can safely call me the foodie who does not want to try new food!

I generally like to dwell into these four dishes and devour as if there is no other day left in my life.

Yogurt: No, Curd I have almost every day but if you are talking about some luxurious food favourties - it has to be Strawberry Yogurt. My Europe trip or a visit to the nearby Amul Parlour can not happen without gulping a pack, ever.

Dark Chocolates: Over a period of time my tolerance for over sweetness has decreased drastically and to be frank it has gone to zero. Apart from a couple of Indian sweets and fruits , I hate anything sweet which includes tea and coffee. So naturally my taste for dark chocolate has developed to the extent that I can comfortably swallow and enjoy 80% dark chocolates as well. The best part about dark chocolate? - You can not binge on it.

Pasta: To dismay of both mothers, I love Pasta. (And come one Pasta are made up of Semolina and not Maida, generally) Be it creamier pasta with a lot of gravy and no vegetables (No, I need my veggies but chalata hai) or truly Italian pasta with a lot of veggies, a little bit of gravy. I do not really need it to be cheesy like we get in India but I do not complain either. Pasta is my comfort food. Anytime.

Thai food: There is a sense of unique satisfaction I feel, when I devour Thai Food. Perfect mixture of coconut milk, veggies and rice. A good portion of Vitamins, Antioxidants , Carb and of course Fat in coconut which reduced GI. I am yet to find an authentic Thai restaurant in Mumbai but yummy is the world for Thai Food I had in Singapore.

What kind of a foodie you are?!!?