Needles

I used to store my needles (the ones in use) along with my pins. First it was on the ubiquitous tomato, and these days on the magnet. The thing with the magnet is that the needle ends up at the very bottom and sometimes its easy to not see it because of all the pins, so what do you do - take out a new needle from the packet :)

Easy solution - the close cousin of the needle book, the needle ribbon/strap/whatchamacallit!

I took a long strip of flannel from my bundle of scraps and sewed the edges closed.  Put a key ring at the end, and labelled it for what it was :) And hung it on one of the empty spool pins on my spool rack.

Not bad for 10 minutes worth of work, eh?!

Shipping out today

Take a zippered purse (see, it helps to have a few of these stocked up!!) and add cute baby clothes

Tie a card to congratulate the proud new parents, add a pink fleece blanket (a 34" fleece from remnants, seamed) and ship it out!

Five years is half a decade!

Yup!! In the blink of an eye!
Five years ago we got all dolled up, my parents put my hand in his and we became Mr and Mrs.

And how pretty is the bouquet that was delivered to my door today!
Thank you darling sister!!

Nom nom!
Happy Anniversary to US!!

One year already!

Its been 365 days, over fifty posts and eleven hundred page views since my first post ever!

When I started, all that I was looking for was a repository for my craft projects. But in the last year, in addition to being a journal of my creative pursuits, my blog has been my way of keeping my family updated with our lives, a place where I've come to express myself and count my blessings.

Happy First Birthday Blog!!

Nothing more to say today, have a good one!! :)

What's in a name...

With due deference to the bard, I beg to differ.

While I agree that a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet, the words Welwitschia or Jabuticaba for some reason do not evoke the same response in me as the word jasmine does. (Go ahead, google 'em, they are plants, I swear!)

I think words and sounds associated with words have energy, have power. And what word would be as personal as your name? As you grow, your name becomes you, and you become your name. I have never come across a Tejas that wasn't super-smart, or a Priya/Priyanka/Supriya that didn't turn heads.

Living in America I have heard many a name mis-pronounced. And I've heard of people changing their names to avoid the butchering that the hard phonetics of English brings with it.

I've heard of a Nishit (निशित) shortening his name to Nish.
And I've heard of a Tushit (तुशित) NOT similarly shortening his name.
Both for obvious reasons :)

I know of a Gunwant (गुणवंत) who became Pat, as if extending a challenge to the west "Let's see you make something out of this!"

I remember telling Jatan that he can spell his name as Satan with a "J", he didn't appreciate that very much and was much more accepting when I offered Japan with a "t" :)

I like that my name is super easy to pronounce. I mean how can you get N-e-e-m-a wrong? :)

(A colleague called me Seema for a week! But that's not mis-pronouncing  ;)) And over the years, I've learnt that my name is as international as they come! The word has meaning in many languages, and in various cultures it can be a boy's name or a girl's name or a last name. Here is what it means in various languages - 

Swahili - Blessing/born in prosperity
Persian - Young / Just / to Bow / Famous
Egyptian - Born to wealthy parents (ahem!)
Hebrew - Blessing or Melody
Tibetan - Sun
Arabic - Blessing

So it has often been a conversation starter.

The only gripe I have is the fact that my name is also the name of the lass that is married to Ayaan Ali. So when you google my (full) name and some wedding pictures show up, remember that is not me! That being said if you want to see my wedding pictures, email me ;)

Coldplay Live!

No words can do justice to the experience, I'll let the pictures do the talking!
One of the two opening acts, Robyn -

Wolfgang was the other band that opened, did not happen to click any pics of them, sorry!
Then there were instructions :)

Every person who entered the arena got handed a xyloband.

Pretty regular wristband till they started blinking - all twenty thousand of them!!

Princess of China

Coldplay recently released the official Princess of China video.

Just like Charlie Brown, I was really looking forward to what they'd do with the song - you know, how they take a song that is totally kickass and make it even better. How they capture the spirit and soul of the song and show it to you in color, sometime even neon ;))!

But just like Charlie Brown, this video let me down. A little bit. Oh the loss!!

I like it when the video has all four of them - like, say, Paradise, Trouble, Viva la Vida, Clocks, too many to list.

But I also love videos like The Scientist and Yellow where the only thing in the frame is the genuine, quintessential Chris - with all his eccentricities and emotion pouring out of his eyes. (Not to mention that gap between his front teeth  :))

The last thing they need is Rihanna with sixteen hands!! Oh the loss!!

But.
This Saturday.
The foursome is playing at the American Airlines Center, and guess who is going :)))

I've had the tickets ever since the tour was announced, but did not want to get prematurely excited and jinx it.  The sister is travelling for work this week, but will be back just in time for the concert.

Yay Coldplay!!!

Breaking the radio silence :)

The last four weeks have been a blur! Work has been busy - I have been working late almost everyday - its like I go home to sleep!!! We're hoping to shelf this report next week so may be I will take a day or two off then.

In the mean time, J & I completed four years of being Mr & Mrs :)

We managed to squeeze in a great anniversary get away over the long weekend! Its been four fun years. Four years!! Time flies, and how!

Another good news is that the sister's acceptances started coming in, not long before we're going to be packing her off. Good luck my doll, hope all good things come your way. You are simply the awesomest of all :)

Haven't had any crafting time. Like I said, I've been spending so much time in the office!! Three weeks of continuous eight o' clock days have started to take their toll, I am ready for a breather now :)   I have a couple of things in mind - got to make a cover for my sister's digital keyboard (she is good, I love listening to her play 'nothing else matters'), and then probably a lunch bag for me.

Today was nice. Worked out in the morning, groceries in the cold rain, awesome sandwiches for dinner and then watched State of play. Good movie overall (though IMHO the poster boy should have remained such, and not gone bad).

Looking forward to an equally easy Sunday!

Just listen, willya!

Communication is like gravity. It's all around you but you may not consciously notice it.
A nod to the person sitting across from you on the train; the smirk at the lady at the gym trying to lift weights that she shouldn't be lifting; a smile at the person in the elevator; a wave to the colleague at the other end of the hallway or a frown directed towards the person who is talking too loudly at the supermarket - are all ways of communicating.

I remember reading in one of our communication engineering books, that the process of communication requires a sender, a message and a recipient. Initiated when the sender transmits the message, the process is considered complete when the message has been received and understood as intended. From an engineering point of view this is implementable - checksums, handshake signals and what not.

But when it comes to people, this simple concept breaks down way too often. That is because unlike machines and computers, people come with variables like moods, cultural diversity, varying sense of humor, a sense of self-importance and, believe it or not, a varying understanding of communication itself.

We have absolutely no trouble playing the role of the sender and composing a message. It is the role of the recipient that is challenging for most. To be a good recipient/listener, one needs to dedicate the largest slice (I am not saying ALL of it) of one's attention to the message - words, body language, tone, etc. Only then one can understand the message as it was intended.

The most common hindrance to effective listening that I have come across is when the recipients think they are "listening" while in fact,  they are just waiting for their turn to talk. As soon as they've heard the first bit of the message, the largest slice of their attention gets busy formulating a response to what small part they've heard. They listen to the first bit, and then try to guess what the person was trying to say.

So everytime you hear somebody say "You heard what you wanted to hear!", this is what has happened. Somebody has trimmed/stretched/modified the message to fit their own thinking/reasoning capacity, ability and perception.

I bet you are nodding your head as you read this, because we all have at one time or another encountered such listeners. But, and here comes the kicker - we have been such listeners at times too! When we do not listen, we not only offend the sender of the message, but also jeopardize the chances of our own subsequent messages getting across.

So the next time you are talking to somebody, or responding to an email, don't just wait for your turn to talk. Let's Listen to what that person is saying.

Fairness

I pre-ordered my copy of Mylo Xyloto on Amazon a month in advance and did a little dance when the yellow envelope arrived. I've been listening to the foursome full time since then and I just can NOT get enough!

I love love love to turn up the volume in my car and listen to Chris Martin sing. It reminds me of Skeeter saying "If chocolate was a sound, it would've been Constantine's voice singing. If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate." (from The Help).
Teens standing in the front row of a Michael Jackson concert, screaming and crying, now make sense! Not that I scream or cry, but I understand how something can evoke strong emotion like that.

Humming Charlie Brown one day, I felt it's not fair that God put SO much talent into one person, while there continue to be so so many tone deaf people around, yours truly included.
Just not fair.
But immediately after, I found myself rectifying that thought.

I realized that uniform mediocrity isn't what God has in mind, he knows that the world needs a few fountainheads of creativity. The 1% that create something and give the rest of the 99% something to look forward to, something to hold on to.

By extension the same applies to spirituality/morality/strength and similar invisible attributes too. There are 'givers' and there are 'takers' of those. Each needs something, and in turn, has something to give. And as human beings, we are all obligated to continue growing so that we have more to 'give' than we need to 'take'.

I do not know what I ever did to deserve them, or if I can ever give them anything in return, but I am extremely thankful for my family - they are my support system, they are always there, they give me strength and keep me going! Thank you for everything guys, I love you very much!

So much for my 'not fair' rant!
Just one of those facts that has always been around, but it takes a special moment (or a special song in my case) for one to be able to see it. Like those zen masters say - When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears!

There is always a first time. For everything.

My mom is very fond of plants. All kinds. And she is good with them too. She instinctively knows what to do to heal a plant that is sick. But for the longest time she did not have a garden of her own. We lived in a third floor apartment, so a garden was pretty much out of question. Mum had her two money-plants and she tended to them. We also used to  water them once a day and shade them from the scorcher in summers.
Then around 2006 we moved to a bigger house and my mom got the 'garden' she wanted. The whole outside was tiled when we bought the house, and not wanting to break up a good thing, we passed on the idea of having a lawn. Most plants were potted. BIG pots!
So now there are a zillion potted plants and mum absolutely loves sitting out on the swing among her beloved green babies. And I guess they all love her too!

Not so long ago, I also felt like getting some plants for my apartment. Just one of those mom things that daughters like to do :)
So one fine Sunday, shopping for some living room furniture, I purchased a parlor palm from Ikea, and felt OhSoBrave doing it!

My first plant.
Ever.
It was beautiful, green and grew really well for a couple of months.
I doted on it.
So much so that I over watered and killed it! :(

Not an encouraging first step at all.
Pardon my french, but where the hell was that beginner's luck y'all talk so much about?!

In time I got over it and got a second plant - a small money-plant (or 'pothos' as they call it here) this time.
I was very judicious with the love I showed to this one.
But! During a regular watering rendezvous, I saw that it had the tiny white creepy-crawlies.

I went to the Home Depot and consulted the nursery person. He gave me a spray-spray which promised to get rid of the bugs and feed my plant. I put my plant out in the patio, and sprayed as indicated. Not wanting the insecticide/pesticide fumes in my house, I thought I'd leave the plant out overnight.

And you know what happened?
The temperature dropped forty degrees overnight. My poor plant wilted and all the leaves went black.

With stinging eyes I brought it in the next morning and set it on the counter. I had to get to work so I left it at that. When I got home in the evening, all but one tiny leaf - the youngest, was dead.

I was officially in mourning. Miss Brown thumb. A really sullen Miss Brown Thumb.

But I did not give up on the tiny one.
And the tiny one did not give up on me.
Today, two years later, that one leaf has grown into this.

I guess it does not grow as fast as my other pothos plant - you know, the one I did not almost kill. But hey, I am not complaining :)

Today I have over a dozen plants in my house, all thriving.

I guess you make mistakes and you learn as you go.
And unless you are skydiving, there'll always be a next time.