What's New?

New year and a new post! After all my aspirations, trials and tribulations I am here again finally. These past few months have kept me occupied in various things, craft being the chief one of them. More than anything else, I hone my photography skills(however insignificant) on my crafts these days. So dear reader, you can expect most pictures in my posts related to my crafts. Please bear with them.

Now, lets come to the main subject. I mean Coco. As expected from the son of a strict mother, he is turning into a fine gentlemanly boy, who tries to be of use by putting spoons back in the cutlery stand after licking chyawanprash off of them! Thanks to my keen eyesight and 'Vyomkesh Bakshi' like detective spirits, I spot them right away. So, you can come to my home and stay assured of being served with clean cutlery. Almost always. :D 

Oh, by the way, we have moved into a British era bungalow, that comes with a defunct fireplace et al. But, unlike the good old 'foot of the Himalayas' days, I am yet to discover the joys of staying here. The elaborate engagements of social life and personal matters have kept all of us too busy to look around and smell the flowers. Literally!

But, one can always hope, right! 

Read on for picture descriptions. It might be interesting, I promise!

The topmost picture is of two dreamcatchers out of which the white one is hanging one one of my living room walls delicately. The multicolored one is made on order for someone. It might be interesting for you to know that the rings for both of them come from a large embroidery hoop, that couldn't serve its intended purpose. It hung inside my closet for many years, until one fine day another purpose was found for it. Destiny!

 The second image is of few cards that I made for someone on request. They might look ordinary but they are the fruits of a couple of hours of painting, measuring, cutting, gluing, babysitting, snacking and homing in general.

Then there is one corner of my living room which I tidied up hurriedly before clicking a decent enough picture for the blog. 

The last picture is of Pink Pitari's jewelry, that was lying in separate mounds of necklaces and earrings while I was clicking their pictures for promotions. 

I think this is enough for the first post of the year. Hope to be here more often. 

Rainbows And Paper Boats

As we have settled in yet another cantonment with renewed enthusiasm, things are taking their own course in a much satisfying way. Craft is happening, Pink Pitari is going on and Coco is growing up to become smarter and sharper, with a million questions ready in his arsenal. Amid pouring rains, the lazy woman is making her crafting time worthwhile with lemon tea, the teabags for which were carefully packed back in April when we were moving from the tea-town. It proves that I can only plan in advance if it involves tea or craft!

It rained cats and dogs on his supposedly first day of school, and he was home, playing with his toys in the veranda, when I started telling him how we used to make paper boats during rains as children. He laughed at the idea that his mother could ever have been a child. And then it struck me...isn't it better to make a couple of boats for him rather than telling him stories of a time he can hardly imagine. Out came a few sheets from his old notebooks and the boats were sailing in the temporary lake formed outside our house within next five minutes, bobbing up and down, chasing each other.

While the usual bringing up Coco is happening, I always keep pace with my craft projects, and to be true, it is becoming quite a passion for me. Though it is difficult to find good quality craft supplies in the new town, the lazy woman has resorted to online shopping of the materials and is churning out heart stealers on a regular basis. 

To sum it up, life is good wherever you want to make it good, and it is good here too. Another house shifting is coming up soon as we will move to a nice bigger house, and the stories of crafting in the garden will resume soon. Like the old, old times you know!

I Like To Move It, Move It!

Hello from another corner of our incredible country!

Yes, we did it again.. I mean shifting to another station. Though, last time, we moved to a place that is famous for its scenic beauty and cool climate. This time, we are braving the scorching heat in a crowded city of North India. However, like all feisty army wives, I have made my peace with this place and already liking the fact that for the first time in so many years, I will be living in the heart of a bustling town, with markets and malls in close vicinity. You win some, you lose some.

In contemplative moments, I compare my life to a snail who carries her home on her back. The news that I just delivered in a sentence has a deep impact on all our lives. While Coco is enjoying an extended summer break, I have taken a break from my incessant crafting and Coco's father has his own gazillion things to chalk out. In the next few months, we will gradually settle in this new place, find a new school, meet new people and make new goals. But today, as I was going through my photo albums, I found images captured towards the end of our previous tenure and thought of sharing them here.

1. Missing the green views of tea gardens sprawled about us, covering the blue hills like plush quilts.

2. Remembering how the clouds tumbled down the adjoining hills to the lush green grass of the golf course, amid a pleasant drizzle.

3. Wish I could again have a window in my home that showed me the above view, of clouds surfing deep down the valley beneath the hill on which my home was, while I sipped my ultra delicious lemon-black pepper tea. Ahhh! Those were the days..

4. Also close to my heart are the many intermittent 3 day breaks during the year gone by when we explored South India. The picture above was taken at Dhanushkodi where Coco enjoyed playing in the sand and splashing in sea-water to his heart's content. Fun fact about this pic: He is standing at the land's end with his face towards Sri-Lanka. 

   

5. There is almost no chance that I can witness the sun setting beyond the hills of Ooty from my home again.

6. Holed up in a guest house during long summer days, while all my craft supplies are packed away in trunks along with the rest of my household things, all I dream of these days is how I will dance with joy when I will access them again. I can also be found watching entire seasons of  old comedy series (repeating for 10th time probably), sleeping for hours and lost in crafty dreams. 

7. A lot of those crafty daydreams include the plans of how I will make a neat and cozy space for my crafts in my new home. However these plans are highly dependent on what kind of house do we get and when. Above is a shot of the tiny corner where I sat and made some of my jewellery. Cute, isn't it?

8. One of the best things that we as a family experienced and loved here is the Nilgiri Mountain Railway aka the toy train that courses through the hills amid sprawling green tea gardens. The trips were planned to please Coco, though, it must be clear that we enjoyed it with equal joy, our hearts springing with each new wonderful view as we watched left and right.

9. While the entire tenure was about scenic beauty, picnics, outdoor barbecues and hikes, this particular bike ride-cum-hike to Pristine Valley near Ooty was a memorable one. It was fun, beautiful, adventurous, dangerous and tiresome, all at the same time, with Coco's father throwing his phone in the water for the umpteenth time, an incident that will be the told and retold for years henceforth, each time increasing in comical value.

10. Memories of blue hills can never be complete without missing each of my friends that I made here, and I made friends by dozens. A very small number considering the fact that the hills housed almost 400 of us. Here, some of them are seen pondering over deep questions that I threw at them. Don't go by this picture, each one of them is quite a fireball by herself. This morning of potluck breakfast and a mean game of Housie is etched in each of our memories. High five girls!

Obviously I am missing all this and much more, I am also looking forward to the days, months and years we are about to spend in this happening new place. A move is something that I am always okay with because this is one of the many things that I love about being an army wife. It keeps me engaged and interested, with ever changing scenes and scenarios. After all, change is the only constant in life, ain't it?!  

Love, Shove And Blue Hills

Loving It: 

1. Tea: This incredible place has so much to offer to tea lovers like me. The fact that I have a tea lover neighbor increases the charm manifolds. I had swore off green tea, even for health reasons. She introduced me to her super tasty green tea infused with black pepper, ginger, lemon juice, sweetened with jaggery and now I am addicted to it. Then she went off to the local market and bought these ultra delicious flavored black tea bags and kindly gave me samples from each flavor. Now I am crazily in love with these and have declared Peach flavor tea the love of my life. I gifted one pack to my sister who confirmed that they tasted amazing.  

                            

But since the pack has four different flavors, I am saving trying to save the peach tea bags, having them very occasionally, because, hey, that's what you do with the things you love most. You keep them. But there are days like today when it is just me and my peach tea. So Peach tea it is! Cheers!

2. This Weather, This Place:  The weather here is amazing and while the rest of India was burning under the scorching sun during June and July, we were curling up under cozy quilts and sipping the above mentioned beverage, clad in sweatshirts and woollen socks. The incredibly picturesque blue hills and the green carpet like tea gardens spread about us create a magical scenery together. Though I am busy in other activities so much that I rarely find time for a walk these days, the knowledge is enough that I can take a walk in bright green tea gardens under swirling steamy clouds whenever I wish.  

Shoving It:

1. This Weather, This Place (Again!): While the list of lovely things about this place can still go on, the only thing that is enough to spoil all the love is the prevalence to common cold and cough in this environment. Cold, gloomy and damp atmosphere and sunlight playing peek-a-boo are the usual weather details here which make people, especially children susceptible to viral infections and once the illness starts, it spreads like a wave in the entire neighborhood. A couple of weeks ago, almost every human being in sight, man or woman, adult or child was coughing and sneezing, harbouring germs and passing on the legacy to others who were not sick. All this becomes overwhelming and unbearable after a point and one wants to run away to a sunny and cheerful place. And if you are someone who reads this blog regularly, you would know the exact location I am talking about. Oh, how I miss those sunny days that I spent nestled in my bean bag!

To add to the gloom, sometimes the wind starts howling unpredictably. It goes on for many days at end and the noise makes one go crazy. It is louder than an ocean and gives us sleepless nights. On the second (also the topmost) floor of a building which stands high on a hill, this howling and growling wind is even more noisier and makes me feel like a caged bird. I would not have mentioned this noisy wind if it would have stopped only at that. Take a look at the following picture.

The broken tree as seen above was standing in front of a window which also provided me an awesome view of the town spread on the hill in front of our neighborhood. One windy morning I woke up and thought something was missing in the entire view from the window. After a few moments I realized that the green foliage that framed the scene was missing and my jaw dropped as I peeped outside. The tree had broken into half vertically and then had fallen on the road, incidentally on our car boot, scarring it minorly. My sweet tree which was also home to many birds was gone, and my car was dented, all because of this unsettling and utterly noisy wind. 

When my maid told me that the weather was going to stay like this for a couple of months, I was heartbroken, Thankfully, it got over after a week or so and it is not windy anymore apart from an occasional cool breeze. At least we are sleeping comfortably. Phew!

The blue hills have been a mixed experience till now. It is taking a lot of effort to like this place, quite different from Himalayas, which are effortlessly adorable and feel like home. I cannot say it enough that I miss those Himalayan days!

Century Post: Reminiscing Through Pictures!

What happens when someone scores a century? The highlights of their innings are shown. So as the lazy woman is finally scoring a century of blog posts, highlights of her blog-life are a must. For this express purpose, I tried to collect a few favorite images published on this blog. These images have meant a lot to me, because to me, these are frozen chunks of time gone by. These are moments that meant a lot to me for many reasons or even without a reason. These images open floodgates of memories and nostalgia. (Links of relevant posts at the end of descriptions.)

 

 I have tried for long to use the first image as my blog banner(mission not accomplished due to technical challenges). It is a wall art done by some art students based on the above picture of me and Coco. We were hosting a ladies club meet, and as everyone was getting their picture clicked with this rainbow umbrella at the end, Coco came running, having found me after hours of separation. He would not leave me for getting a solo picture clicked. So, we got this picture together. Little did I know that it will be such an iconic picture to inspire artists.

 The image above is the first image on the first blog post. Those were the days when I used to spend all my time with Coco, quietly in my room, clicking a lot of pictures. The image reminds me of those early days of motherhood. It does not make me very happy though. Too many reasons! Link

 

 Looking at sweet pudgy hands and feet of a sleeping baby can make any mother happy. It was a matter of special joy for me to see my prematurely born underweight son fully recovered and turned into a chubby little cutie within three months of being born.

Tiny feet and little legs! Coco had just learnt walking, and would wobble away, wearing shorts that were too long for him. I could capture this precious shot after a lot of missed opportunities and blurry images.  Link

 We all were on a trip to Pathankot, and one evening, the guys decided to take a walk. I tagged along, hopping and skipping, plucking leaves and flowers, listening to birds, feeling the breeze in my hair, when I spotted a  cloro...dendro..er..rhodo..um...chlamy...WTH.. a Dandelion...! Clicked it instantly, before its strands could separate and fly away. Link

 We had just started setting up a new home. It was a first for Coco. He might have thought of helping us by categorizing things like above. A new insight in home decor.

What happens when little people meet other little creatures? This beautiful image, clicked in Rock Garden, Chandigarh. 

This bell was bought from Bikaner, though it is a product of Moradabad clearly. It was beautiful and I literally loved it. Sadly, it was stolen when we were not at home. This image reminds me of the lovely Bikaner trip, the first Diwali that we three celebrated together, of the joyous festivities and beginning of sweet pink cold weather in Doon valley. I have been trying to find a similar bell, but all my efforts have not yielded any fruit. Soon, I hope! Link

In the picture above, Coco is sitting on top of and amid his birthday gifts, on his second birthday. It was a busy day for me, but I still managed to click this cute picture. It was quite unlike his first birthday, which was an utter chaos, with barely a memorable picture of the day. Link

 I was merely splashing colours, trying to get a feel of free hand painting. The resulting image became the background image of 'Bringing Up Coco's' Facebook page. Why do I love this image? Look at those colors and ask again! Link

 The joy that I experienced when I came back home after a week long trip is still with me, in the form of this image. Those days were really incredible. Link

 One look at this image, and the lovely spring scents come back to  me. A picture is more than a visual sometimes. Link

The picture above was taken on a visit to my parents, last year. The visit was quite a memorable one for many reasons, especially bad reasons. During this visit, the Nepal earthquake came, which shook us all up pretty badly. Though we were safe, it had a deep impact on our minds. Even at the slightest shaking of furniture I am sitting on reminds me of the day I ran three flights of stairs barefoot with Coco clutched in my arms.  Link

A paper boat is always loaded with memories. This image is a reminder of the friends who brought me a gift wrapped in this beautiful paper, the beautiful rainy day and the thrill of making paper boats for Coco. On top of everything, it reminds me of the story that I wrote about monsoon, the reason why I made this paper boat and clicked a picture. Link

A lovely sunny day in Himalayan winters, a long walk in Landour, Mussoorie with friends and a refreshing brew of ginger, honey and lemon, with a satisfying snack, this picture says it all.   

 Just my favorite, for no specific reasons. 

The image of this setup and its accompanying blog post got me a winner's seat in a blogging contest, with some good shopping vouchers up for grabs. As much as I enjoyed the shopping, I loved this whole setup even more. Because at the end of it, I got to sip this lip smacking lemon tea. Mmmm!  Link

Images from parents' home are always full of stories and nostalgia. My mom had bought these dolls for us sisters from Banaras after a lot of pleading, when I was a kid. The little pot was probably a gift my sister got from her friends in school. My mother keeps these and all our stuff safely and lovingly. When I went home with Coco, needless to say he was very attracted towards these, and soon the dolls started losing their limbs. I salvaged what I could and clicked a few pictures before the naughty boy would totally destroy my precious toys.  

 Before I threw away the empty cocoa powder container, I spotted COCO written on it and immediately took a picture, profoundly proud of my artistic eye. 

 

These colored feet have a long story. Traditionally, in Eastern UP and Bihar, married women colour their feet with 'Alta' on any auspicious occasion or while travelling etc. Coco and I had to catch a train that evening, when my mother called her domestic help to colour my feet. Coco was very interested in this activity and I allowed him to get his feet dyed too. Irony is that we missed our train that day. We traveled two days later in a sleeper coach, through a hot May night. I swatted mosquitoes all night, standing near the middle berth that Coco slept on while he turned and twisted and cried intermittently, only half asleep. All the red dye could not make our journey happy. But looking back from here, all this looks like an adventure, especially with these red feet.

During school and college, I used to read a lot. My mother has kept all the books that I bought during that time. On my last trip home, I re-read a short story collection by Munshi Premchand. This particular part from the story 'Eidgaah' had me in tears. It is written beautifully. I aspire to write stories like this one day. The shot was worth saving.

There was a phase when Coco used to pretend cooking. He liked it so much, he did it all day long. While I fed him khichdi hidden under soupy instant noodles, he prepared all kinds of exotic dinners for me, even ice creams and cold drinks. He served me beverages in saucers and his cakes were made up of building blocks. But boy, did they taste amazing! Or at least I pretended so. Link

Those initial day of his playschool were quite a job for me. He stayed for only an hour in the school and while I waited outside in my car, I used to bring a snack and something to do. The doodling paid off, as I used them in making ladies meet invites. Link

Why would I not show off my embroidering skills, when all I was required to do was use a permanent marker for Coco's lunch box napkins? Sometimes, I am a pain in my own neck! Anyway, loved doing this.   

When we are talking about the best images of this blog, this one has to come up. I would not write a lot because I already did quite a marathon series of posts about these. I just love looking at these pictures, wondering when will I have so much time again! Link

Cars, cars and more cars. Coco is in love with cars. The above picture is from an evening in Mussoorie. Lovely time! Link

 On this particular day of his school, Coco was dressed as Hanumanji, in a red dhoti made with my dupatta, though he was also wearing a red shirt and an orange sweatshirt owing to the cold weather. His dad made him a 'gada' fashioned with a ball and a stick and a newspaper tail. After dressing him fully in this costume, I laughed for a whole minute. When I went to pick him up later, the dhoti had come off and the tail had withered, hanging from his waist. 

 My beloved rosebush. I am so in love with these flowers, it seems crazy sometimes. I had no other plants to transport but I made grafts of these rosebushes and happily hauled them to Nilgiris. The plants are doing well. I intend to keep them forever. Link

 After I copied this from internet and it came out pretty okay, I assured myself that I could draw and paint if it came to it. Even small successes count, don't they? Link

 My first ever published story. Is it the beginning of a journey or the end? In fact, I cannot decide, nor do I know. But it felt good definitely! Who knows what comes next?

 An image that signifies the bond that we share, Coco and I. What's not to love?

The last picture ever that was taken in my lawn in the previous station, after the truck was loaded. I was tired and sad, but also excited and happy. Moving is such a part and parcel of army life, that it makes us feel all these emotions at the same time, and we love it!