Time to be back

I intentionally was keeping away from the blog. Apologies. My mind was preoccupied with certain things and I was trying to keep myself off from it. Trust me it was hard. Now that I am back I will release the details shortly. Be patient and bear with me… that’s what I can request!! I’ll be back …real soon! Promise!

Friends visit

Monali and Nayan were here this past long weekend and we had loads of fun! It was good seeing her after such a long time. It brought back some nice memories of Pune. When we used to hang out together... and see now, we both are married and settled in our own respective worlds! Isn't this amazing... looking back it feels, how quickly the time flew... phew!

They were here on Friday. They reached around 11:30 p.m. Thanks to Monali for changing the GPS setting :). It's hilarious how she my mistake set the GPS to ignore toll roads and hence took them hourrrrrs to arrive! Keeping that in mind, they surely arrived in time LOL!

They went to Disney theme park on Saturday and on Sunday we all went to Clearwater beach. Geez... the traffic was terrible!! Above all the parking!! I literally had to bribe (ofcourse through my talks) to let us in the parking lot... We started from home around 11 and got there at 3 p.m.! Namrata and Mayur were waiting for us on the beach. They came back to meet us from Sarasota. They had gone to Sarasota to celebrate their marriage anniversary. We spent almost 3-4 hrs in water - playing games, flew kites, had fun in the water! Talking about water- Monali and I almost got drowned in the chulu bhar paani [phrase for drowning in shallow water]

Overall, beach trip was fun !! I guess we all enjoyed. We met Vibha, Shantanu, and Meera on our way back and ate dinner in Tampa. Driving back we stopped over to show Monali and Nayan, Disney Downtown. Reached home around 12:30 a.m.

Next morning I prepared some bhatura's with channas' for the brunch!! Must tell ya all... they were yum yum!! I still can taste it :). After having heavy lunch, Monali and Nayan left for Atlanta and I believe they reached home around 9ish.

Thanks to Monali and Nayan for making our long weekend a special one!!!

Vacation time

Aha... it is time for vacation! I am waiting for I don't know how loooooooong to take time off from work and home...from all those time scheduled activities. And here comes the D Day. Well, not sure if you noticed in my earlier post, but I gave a Washington trip tickets for Cherry Blossom festival to Amit on his birthday. And here it comes! Cherry Blossom festival runs from March 29- April 12, and we will be going in the mid week – April 4 (today) to April 7.

Wish we could participate in all so famous Cherry Blossom parade, but guess not. The tickets for that particular time are so high! Geez! Almost 3 times higher than the normal price. So I decided to plan the trip for mid week, where we can get an opportunity to see some blossoming pink and white flowers around Washington D.C. I’ve heard the Japanese gifted U.S. 3000 cherry blossom flowers some decades ago. Thank you Japenese gentlemen… that’s very nice thought. Ever thought of gifting something to India??? *wink* wink*!

Alright now back to our plan… apart from attending the festival, sightseeing D.C., we have plan to catch up with our friends too. Puneet, Jasmine, Shikha, and Sona… well yeah lot of friends and the quite less time. But thankfully the plan is all sorted out and our friends are quite flexible too… so we’ll hopefully manage it well.

Alright now.. I have to rush back to work. There is a lot of stuff I have to complete at work, before we fly to D.C. today. I’ll post back about the trip after I come back.

Ciao for now…

Sneezing my way through!

It's spring and people usually welcome this new season with flower blossom, nice and natural fragrances, fresh-green look around...however for some it is an unwelcoming season and want to get over with it as quickly as possible.

Reason? Well the problem are allergens, such as airborne pollens and mold spores that burst out the whole season sneezing. Aaaaaeee....chhhhoo!

Yeah, it's me who got stuck this time with the pollen/sinus allergy. And that too BIG time. Since last two weeks I had these mild influences of running nose, but starting this Sunday (day of holi), the situation just got out of hands. Day was full of sneezes, running nose, watery eyes, headache... oh man, that was terrible! On Monday, we had to rush to the Pharmacy to grab a couple of sinus pills, that later on dozed me off for 12 hours straight! After waking up on Tuesday morning I felt a lot relieved, and the symptoms were subtle. Perhaps I think those subtle symptoms will remain till the end of this season. It's the first time this has ever happened to me, so guys I am all new to the allergens and allergy terminology.

I came across this interesting post on msn, which makes me wonder what could be the cause? Perhaps too much clean environment eh?

Holi Hai!

It is Holi time!! Yay!



We'll be celebrating the festival of colors with gulal, friends and food at a park tomorrow. Here are the details of the event.

Where I have been hiding?

Not in my closet at least! haha.

Well lot of stuff as usual kept us both occupied and busy. I know I know, I am not running for a country or in charge of some finance department, but to be honest- doing work, balancing it off with home, traveling, meeting friends, celebrating birthdays...does take a lot of your time and that is no less than running for President eh? Then talking about blog, you need to be in a mood, an inclination to divulge your inner thought and mind.. come on! it ain't no joke!

But don't you worry my dearest Tweety Blog- I won't make you feel left out. Here is what was going on at my side of town. hmmm where shall i start from... well lets start from the last week...

Last week (March 1st week)- or say last weekend, we went down to Daytona Beach to see Bike Week. Well the weather was bit chilly and we tried to take out some time off to see those gorgeous 3 B's... aka...bike, bikers (haha) and beach! Another reason for us to visit Daytona was to meet up with Pooja, who just came back from her 4/5 month long India trip. And hence we had a group get together, where we met with Namrata & Mayur and Manish, Ayesha & Pooja. While we were in town, we also drove down to see Manish's newly built home. Wow... that was one BIG house, running on a 4 acre land. Though the occupied area is like 25% (1 acre approx), but I still am wondering how are they going to live in such a huge house. It would scare me off if it would have been me! Sachi! And hats off to Manish who put his mind, soul and time in building his own home with his own hands! Can you believe it!! It's amazing and one nice achievement Manish!

And week before... that...

Now that is quite important week, cause it was my Birthday.... Yay!! I got soooo many wishes from around that world,that made me realize that I am still important and loved by so many people. And above all, I received WII
from Amit. Hurray! Thank you Amit.. that was one sweet gift... :), that will be played almost everyday! And also, Mama and Papa sent me such a nice Indian outfit that is so adorable. I wore it when we went to Atlanta the same week.

Now talking about Atlanta trip... well that was one long journey. Moto behind going to Atlanta was to meet up my friends Preeti and Monali. Preeti was celebrating her son, Daksh's first birthday and Monali recently got married to Nayan and moved from India like a month back. So it was the apt moment and we decided to plan this trip, which absolutely delightful. Well delightful cause I got to meet up with my friends after yyyyyyyyyyyyears! Its so nice to catch up after long. But since it was just a weekend affair (i.e. short duration trip), we hardly got time to chitchat like old times.... still something is better than nothing will help us sum up this trip on a better note :).

And the most important factor I wasn't regular on blog was that I was missing everyone back home... :( Well, coz - my brother, Varun (my brother) and Shalini bhabhi are in India for a month. And I will miss seeing Tanisha (their daughter and my neice). And then my Mamaji's daughte, Doll didi got married recently. I so wanted to be a part of her weddding but thats how distances bring in the constraint.. no!

hmmmm... for now i don't remember any other important events that might have happened in like last two months. And if I do remember something, I will surely come back and scribble it here.

Lohri!

Lohri

Lohri is a Punjabi (Indian) festival where people around the neighborhood including family and friends, would gather and enjoy the festivity around the bonfire. It is celebrated every January 13 and is filled with lots of food, music and love. It is also considered as a break even day for the winter season to start declining from this day onwards. Last year we had invited a group of friends over to our house to celebrate this festivity. And this year around, we thought of doing it in the temple.

On our way to the temple we were bumped from the back (of the car) by another vehicle over a red light crossing. We got so nervous as it is a brand new car and we can't afford to see a scratch on her! Well, we can't imagine how possessive we have become! Coincidently the driver of the other car was another desi, who slept on the red light. Thankfully our car survived with just little bit bruises, which did hurt us anyway.

Being almost an hour late cause of the incident, our excitement was a little dull, however it was fun to meet friends and aunties. Almost everyone was adorning their best clothes yesterday and was sparkling like a shine! And, guess what other excitement we had in store? We (Amit and myself) were chosen as the best dressed couple of the evening! Unbelievable for us, but true. Another incident that goes in our books :). This was the first time ever, for both of us to be given such a special treatment in such a large group of people.

It was definitely an evening to remember.

2007 Snippets

I've been wanting to write this post for long... but... you know how busy I am :P.

Anyways, here is a brief snippet of the year 2007:

January- we conducted a Lohri party
February- Mummyji Papaji came back from California
- We conducted Mata ki chaukki
- We celebrated my birthday at Disney Downtown!
March- We celebrated Holi with big bang!
- We celebrated Amit's birthday!
April- Nothing New happened...
May- We went to New York.. met Akhil, Gogi Bhayia and Ashish's family
June- - Nothing New happened...
July- Amar bhayia and family came to visit us; we celebrated 4th of July ; we celebrated our anniversary (car broke down); went to Chicago!
August- - Nothing New happened...
September- - Nothing New happened...
October- Car crash and got totaled. Celebrated Karvachauth
November- Vacation in India... Yay!!!!
December- came back from India, Bought our new car; Rakhi didi came to visit us

Happy New Year!

Yeah! We have now entered the year 2008! I hope this year brings loads of happiness, health prosperity to everyone!

Tanisha's first birthday

Happy Birthday our little darling, Tanisha. Though we haven't met as of today but soon, your bua & fufu will meet you. We've heard you are cheerful and smiling and on this special day we wish that your life is full of happiness, health and prosperity. Wish you good luck our sweetheart! I am dying to meet you.

Five years from now...

The world as we know it is in for some dramatic and devastating changes. Explore the possibilities, see what other believe. Some say the Calendar is going to end on this date.. that is on Dec 21, 2012.

Well how I found out? Simple, I've read it in my school books about how the day is relatively small on Dec 21. And just to make sure if Dec 21 is the day, I went online and saw what? Not information of the day being small but this day after five years the world is going to end. Curious? Read for yourself!.


They are correlating with science at times and sometimes with the Mayan Prophecy!

Our dream car!

Finally the zoom zoom zoom is here! Yay, we got our new car home delivered this Monday afternoon. It's classy, it's gorgeous, it's sharp, and it's Black in color. The model we have got is Mazda CX 9. Motor Trend announced this car as the 2008 Sport/Utility of the Year. Some call it SUV [Sports Utility Vehicle] and some CUV [Cross over Vehicle].

Getting a new car can be one hellva job! Seriously, it’s been almost 2 months and over since we started the car hunting exercise. And we know how much energy we have drained into short listing cars, going through consumer reports, going to various dealers, trying to find out if the specific model matches the specs we are looking at. Hats off to Amit for working on this day and night, sending faxes to the dealers, calling them and doing the research, just to find out the dream car of ours!

In the end, all I can say is that it was worth it :).



Now that it's here, we took her (I guess I would call her she :)), on road first time yesterday. And her first visit was to the temple. We offered our prayers and seeked blessing for the new vehicle. I will post pictures soon of the ceremony. Amit is quite cautious while driving this new car as its bigger, heavy and new! And we both are too nervous and vigilant to make our car have a single dust particle. Wow! can you imagine how possessive we can be for our new vehicle!

We are now hoping to take this beauty for a long drive and for that we have to plan a long trip soon. I am hoping to accumulate some of my vacation time to zoom zoom zoom on our dream car soon!

Helping Hands for Indians..

If you have a function/party at your home/office and if there is excess food available at the end, please don't hesitate to call 1098 (only in India) - child helpline. They will come and collect the food. Please circulate this message which can help feed many children.

"Helping hands are better than Praying Lips"

Special Thanks to Ankush for spreading the news!

India's car market

Check this out. I was browsing through one of the online Florida newspapers and I came across a video link which analyzes India car market.

It's quite interesting. Watch the video by clicking here.

Me is Back!

Yay! I am back, not only to blogging but also back from vacation. I was in India this November and reached back Dec 1, 2007. Last two months went like crazy!

October - was an eventful month with activities followed by one after another. Mostly it was not a good month. And thats why I was not too active to the blogging space. Amit met with an accident starting of October (touch wood he wasn't hurt), our car got totaled and then we were hunting for a new car (and still are...)and one of our immediate neighbors expired.

Well I don't want to think about the events in October cause that makes me sad and bring back some sad memories.

But yes, soon after all those uneventful happenings, we went to India. We were planning since long and finally achieved our dream. I will write more in detail about what all I did. I must admit, I am loaded with plenty of stories and i will definitely write back soon!!!

Adios Summer

Urgh. Having a cold just makes everything else harder. Yeah, this past weekend was busy with fever, cold and body aches. Well, as you can determine that these are very well signs of flu. I had to give a farewell to the summer, and I guess my body immunity planned this as a way to give the summer an adios and welcome the winter. As my body is still busy fighting the infection, I decided to take a day off and get some rest.

Not used to sitting back idle at home, I browsed couple of website, and wallah, what did I find....Dig it dig it fellas'..

Being a Piscesan, it comes natural that I am attached to the the fish genere'. Yeah, I got a new widget for my blog template and named it "Feed my fishes". Watch how they eagerly swim toward your mouse hoping that you’ll drop a few flakes of food for them.

Time to play!!! yeah.

Ganesha Chaturthi and Visarjan

Last week, Amit and I, went to the temple as usual on Tuesday evening. We did our normal prayers without realizing that the same day was the day of Ganesha Visarjan. Although the Marathi community had already celebrated Ganesha Visarjan two days back, i.e. on Sunday, but still couple of UCF (University of Central Florida) students had brought their own stapit Ganesha idol to perform the visarjan ceremony. I consider ourselves lucky that we got an opportunity to participate in this great ritual.

Back in Pune (India), I realized the importance of Ganesha Chaturthi and how significantly it is celebrated in parts of Maharashtra. I was astonished to see how Ganesh ji is carved by creative sculptures & try their hands to make them come to life. It's one festival I was unaware of its popularity until I went to Pune and felt the festivity myself. It's amazing and hard to express in words...

Ganesha, is know for generating work, adding meaning to people's life and giving them hope for future. People during the Ganesha Chaturthi pray the lord for hope to return soon next year. 'Ganpati Bappa Moriya Pudhchya Varshi Lavkarya'

Help Suresh

I received an email from H4 forums, stating a story about Two of the Indian student had accident one passed away, one Suresh Penchala, 24 is in trauma ICU. It is sad as it is but it is more disheartening to know that Suresh doesn't have the insurance and the US medical system is not opening its arms to help...

Help Suresh!

Weekend is over

Why does the weekend goes by super fast? This weekend flew by fast and slow. When I wanted to spend more time resting, it was already time to wake up and rush to work. What did I do this weekend? Now couple of things...

- Shopping. We went to Kissimmee, which is about an hr drive to hunt for some good gifts for our India visit. In turn, I bought a bunch of stuff for myself!! Yeah, thats how we gurls are, aren't we??
- We went to Mustafa's birthday. He turned 31 this year. Amazing how time flies. When I came here to US, he was among the first few friends of Amit that I met and Motiwala's son was just born. And now, their son, Armaan is 2 years, all up and running around and asking us to chase him. Gosh, seems i have been here since ages!

Well, there is nothing more fruitful that we did this past weekend. Next weekend might just be a bit more happening, as a Mata ki Chauki invitation is lined up and I am looking forward to it.

Ciao for now :)

Happy birthday

Comm'n now, my birthday doesn't fall in September. All I have come across this mechanical video shot on You tube which I would love to share...Its kinda cute :)