Celebrations of Life !!

Sixteen years of love, laughter and togetherness!

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Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

Our wishes to everyone who is celebrating Vinayaka Chavithi tomorrow!!

My computer is still behaving erratically and so occasionally I am using my husband's laptop to post here. I have no privilege of bloghopping until the computer gets fixed and in the meantime, I may have to miss all those wonderful posts from my fellow bloggers . :(

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A Special Poem for every Mother

                                                     For all mothers who visit this place

I know I am late but Happy Mother's Day to all those great mothers out there. Hope you had a great time with your kids and continue to do so.
My little one brought a card she made at school for the occasion. Besides the usual 'I love you' and 'heart's, pasted was a wonderful poem titled 'As I look back' by some unknown author, that I had copied below.

As I look back on my life
I find myself wondering.....
Did I remember to thank you
for all that you have done for me?
for all of the times you were by my side
to help me celebrate my successes
and accept my defeats.

Or for teaching me the value of hard work,
good judgement, courage and honesty?

I wonder if I've ever thanked you for the simple things....
The laughter, smiles and quiet times we've shared?

If I have forgotten to express my gratitude
for any of these things,
I am thanking you now...
and I am hoping that you've known all along,
how very much you are loved and appreciated.

That's so true. We take our mothers so granted that we forget to thank them for all their sacrifices, hard work and of course their magnanimous hearts and unparalleled love and dedication.

My daughter hugged and kissed me millions of times, the previous night and promised me that she will wake me up on Mother's day with a breakfast platter filled with milk, cookies and orange juice. (She chose her favorites.)
And of course, she forgot as I expected. When I reminded her during lunchtime, she told me that she was very busy and didn't have time to prepare breakfast. What was she doing? Watching re runs of Scooby doo marathon on TV from morning till evening saying that it was so coooo...l to watch it, the whole day.
However she made it up with a lovely card and that wonderful poem. :)

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Our beloved Appa and Amma are gone.

         

The last month of a year happens to be dear to me and I look forward to it with (some!!) enthusiasm. I celebrate my birthday that month and also by coincidence, this blog was also born in December. My blog completed three years this past December and I was thinking about posting something special for my virtual baby's third birthday.
However, God had different plans and the year 2009 ended on a tragic note for our family.
My father in law passed away during the first week of December. My grieving mother in law, who could not bear the separation of her companion of 66 years, joined him. We lost the pillars of our family, in less than two weeks.
Every one who knew Amma and Appa adored and respected them. They were my other set of parents, God sent. Probably, I would never come across again such couple in my life. They were kind, generous, unselfish and large hearted who spent most of their life giving to others.
It is still shocking to us and hard to believe that they are gone.
We miss their presence, love & affection, guidance, words of wisdom .......
 :-( 

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Badami Haalu (Badam Milk) & Awards

Almonds are valued for their healthy properties besides their unique, delicate flavor and crunch. Nutritionally, almond is the most dense nut which is rich in vitamin E and mono unsaturated fats. High in protein and low in carbohydrates, these nuts are best even for a low calorie diet. There are several ways to include almonds in one's diet. Of course eating a handful of raw nuts, is the simplest.
Among my personal favorites, here is one nourishing, wholesome drink prepared using almonds and milk called badami haalu (badam milk). This is a popular one in Karnataka.

Nutritious, delicious and refreshing - that's what badam milk is to sum up. A hot drink on a cold winter day or a chilled one on a sultry day - it fits the bill either way.

Ingredients:

Almonds (badami, badam pappu) - 1/4 cup

Milk - 2 & 1/2 cups

Sugar 3 Tbsp

Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp

Saffron strands - 10

Preparation:

There are no hard and fast rules about the quantity of almonds you use to prepare this drink. You can reduce or increase them according to your preference. I have used whole milk. You can add 2% milk or replace half the quantity of milk with evaporated milk for the extra richness.

• Soak the almonds in hot water for 15 - 30 minutes. Then peel the skins of the almonds. (I usually bring water to a rolling boil, add almonds and then turn off the stove. This way, almonds need about 1o minutes of soaking to remove the skins. Also, removing the skins is optional. If you don't want to remove the skins, skip this step).
• While the almonds are soaking, heat the milk, powder the cardamom and soak the saffron in a little hot milk for about 1o minutes.
• Grind the almonds and saffron smooth, adding milk as needed.
• Add this ground paste, sugar and cardamom powder to the milk and stir well, till the sugar is dissolved.
• This can be served hot or chilled.

This one goes to RCI - Karnataka hosted by Asha of Foodie's hope. the original creator of RCI event is LakshmiK of Veggie Cuisine.

*************Now on a special note, Many many thanks to dear friends TBC , Roopa, Bharathy & Kribha who have been generous enough to think I deserve these. Bharathi honored me with both. Ladies, thank you for this wonderful gesture.

"The Power of Schmooze Award is for bloggers who “effortlessly weave their way in and out of the blogosphere, leaving friendly trails and smiles, happily making new friends along the way. They don’t limit their visits to only the rich and successful, but spend some time to say hello to new blogs as well. They are the ones who engage others in meaningful conversations, refusing to let it end at a mere hello - all the while fostering a sense of closeness and friendship.”

These awards go to every blogger I have met in the virtual world, who are unique and special in their own ways.

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Mahasivaratri F(e)asting

I have never seen people wishing 'Happy Mahasivaratri'. So, I am not going to do that. But, I wish that The Lord bless all of you and your families.
People who like to know more about Mahasivaratri, check here and here.
Leaving the religious part apart, the things which are related to shivaratri (for me) are f(e)asting and the jagarane / jagaram part (staying awake all night).

Coming to jagarane part, I don't know whether this custom is celebrated through out India. It is celebrated in Andhra & Karnataka. When we were kids, I always wanted to stay awake at least till morning. The funny part is that I used to feel sleepy earlier than usual on that particular day. Only one time, I could stay awake till 4.30 in the morning and fell asleep in the living room. When my sister was in 7th grade, she invited a bunch of her friends for a "Jagarane Night" at our place. Even though, I was five years older to them, I was welcome in their party. I guess, they primarily invited me to be their watch dog. My mom gave some snacks for us and went to sleep. They ate the snack, played some games and watched a religious movie on TV. Soon everybody were falling asleep. By 1 a.m , every body were knocked out except me. It seems very funny now. I am damn sure this story repeats every year at some one's house in India. Though not for religious purposes or attaining good karma, kids do attempt to stay awake on this night. It's adventurous and challenging to them. They want to show their friends that they can do this. I am just curious to know how many of us have not tried to stay awake at least once on a shivarathri night.
Now fasting / feasting part. My mom is very religious and so does a strict fasting on this day. Whereas my in laws follow another method of fasting which I always joke about. (Hope no one from our family is reading this). They restrain from eating rice this day and eat all delicious breakfast dishes like idli etc and call this fasting. I did not want to fall behind in following family traditions. I am a part of Gandlur family now. Instead of fasting part, I did the feasting part. Today, we had idlis, cornmeal dosas and cornmeal halwa which have been posted here earlier.


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