Go Green!!!

How many of you like the color green ?? My hands are up already :) 

Green is the color of nature, the color of growth and has come to symbolize prosperity. The color has this magical power of soothing the perceiver mentally and physically. Medical research tell us that Green helps alleviate depression, nervousness and anxiety. And this is why most hospitals use green. It also offers a sense of renewal, self control and harmony. It is also the color of hope. So use as much green as possible in your daily life. You'll eventually see the difference in yourself. You'll be more confident and vibrant.

The color green immediately draws the picture of leaves and trees in our mind.

Here are some interesting flickr finds of GREEN :)

I dont always tell You

I dont always tell You..
How happy I am to have met You in my life

I dont always tell You..
How much joy Your smile brings to me

I dont always tell You..
How Your love brightens every second of my life

I dont always tell You..
I know that You are always there for me

I dont always thank You..
for anything and everything You do for me

I dont always tell You..
How special You are to me

I dont always tell You..
How lucky I am to have You

Happy birthday Sweetheart !!! 

I Love You :)

Combine Studies.. Anybody game ???

Gosh... I miss my college days terribly. Especially the exam season. Haaa.... Gone were those days when we used to run around collecting study materials, taking photo copies of class notes, collecting the professor's notes from the class representative, discussing the test portions standing outside our dept, assembling in the study hall to discuss who will study what unit and after a couple of hours gather back in the same place to discuss and share whatever we learnt in those 2 hours. All this will happen the day before the exam.

Combine studies were fun. Total fun. In spite of all that exam tension, loads of study materials piled up in front of you and just few hours to click away before the exam, the motivation,support and confidence that you get from combine studies keeps you going. At least, it worked for me.

I still remember that day before the exam of one of the management subjects in my 7th semester. I'd been to Divya's place for the so-called "Combine studies". We did everything other than studying. We were listening to music for sometime ("You should relax your mind before you start studying" was our theory you see :) !!! ). By this time, Divya's mom had prepared hot hot chapathis with chicken curry for dinner. Both of us attacked the food the moment we laid sight on it. After the dinner we were having a casual talk and Divs said she had recently watched the movie 'VasoolRaja MBBS' and had like it so much and insisted i should watch it too. So we instantly downloaded the movie and watched it. Divs' mom had also prepared tea for us and had kept them in a thermos flask so that the studying kids could have a sip when they are sleepy. But we finished it while we were watching the movie :) Just when the movie was about to get over, Bee had called to inquire about our progress. She said she was about to finish two units already. Only then did we realize that we were gathered in her place for the sole reason of studying for the exam the next day. Then we quickly designed a study plan. Divs will do the first two units and I'll do the next two and the last one we'll rush up together. And we will teach each other with whatever we've learnt. So this was the plan. It was 1.30 AM by the time we actually started studying. I was in the drawing hall and Divs was studying in her bedroom. After an hour I went to Divs' room to check how she was doing. She was nicely wrapped in two layers of bedsheets and was happily sleeping. I tried waking her up, but in vain. So I left her sleeping and continued my part sincerely. It was a half-an-hour's drive from Divs' place to college. She was driving and i was sitting in her pillion. Before we reached college we successfully discussed the units that we've learnt the previous night. (I can hear you scream WHATTTT ???!!!)

Yes....6 hours of study and 30 mins discussion is all it takes for us to write an exam :) And both of us cleared the paper with decent grades :)

How cool is that !!! :)

The Amateurish attempt !!!

Both myself and my husband are from families who do not eat non-veg. They are very particular about us being strict vegetarians. But my dad is an exception to it and he is okay with his kids having non-veg in spite of my mom discouraging it. I started having non-veg after joining college. I still remember that Wednesday night when I was sitting in my hostel Mess for dinner. It was Chapathi and dhall in the menu and chicken will be served additionally for Non-veg students. I was so bored of eating that same old bland dhall and was instantly attracted to that spicy-looking chicken gravy that was in my friend's plate. So I tasted it that night and yes, you guess it right. From then on I became a fanatic chicken lover. And so is my husband. He loves chicken too.

So one day he bought chicken tenders and asked me to cook it for him. But i have never ever tried cooking non-veg at all. So this would be my first time and so i thought of making Chicken Kurma in a way my mom taught me to make Mushroom Kurma. I just replaced mushrooms by the chicken. Fortunately it turned out to be pretty good for a first timer !! :)

Then the next week, when i totally had nothing to do, i was googling out for some chicken recipes. And I found this - http://solaiachiskitchen.blogspot.com/

This is a blog page where Mrs.Solai Chidambaram has put up some amazing recipes in a very simple and easy to follow manner. This page not only has chettinad style non-veg recipes, but also has lotsa recipes for the veggies. I had already tried two of her recipes (Chettinad chicken and Vegetable Pulav) in two days and they were a hit !! :) So i couldn't simply resist adding this link to the 'Pages I visit'.

So if you guys want to cook some authentic chettinad food, please do visit this page and you are sure to get the original recipes from Solai Aachi !! :)

New Look !!!

I was totally jobless today and so I thought i'll pay a visit to my blogs. The moment I opened my page it clicked that its time to give it a new look. I wanted it to have a nice, crisp, fresh, cheerful look.

I wanted it to be the cutest blog on the whole blogosphere. So as always i ended up googling for "blog backgrounds". Guess what !!! There really was a site called TheCutestBlogOnTheBlock and it was the first one to be listed in the search.

I was like.. Omigosh...I thought it sounded cool and quickly opened that page. And there it was. Hundreds of page backgrounds for blog-spots. Then I started checking them one by one and finally found this sweet and nice and cute and lovely and pretty background for my page :)

So now, isn't it really the cutest blog on the block ??? !! :)

The first weekend of 2010 !!!

We were invited for a new year eve's party by one of our family friends back in India. They reside here in Monmouth, NJ. So we thought we'll pay them a visit and celebrate th new year's eve with them.

They had invited all of their friends and families. And to my surprise all of them were Tamilians :) It was so good to see such a huge Tamil crowd after almost a month. It was more like a potluck dinner and get-together. There were no young couples. All of them were big mommies n daddies in their forties... so i had no other choice but to hang around with the ladies.... ladies are ladies....they kept talkin about the jewels they were wearing, about the dance classes they put their daughters in, about how bad the winter is this time compared to the previous year, discussed some food recipes, this that blah blah.... I, like a nice chamathu girl, just sat with them, smiling and nodding whenever needed :) Then there were the gentlemen on the other side drinking n dancing n having fun... the kids were on their own world playing pool and wii games. After a while the dancing session began and all the ladies joined their men to dance and they made us also dance for a while... I guess the last time I remember dancing was on my college hostel day :) Then we had food followed by a photo session, like it happens in every other party.

By the time it became 11 55 PM all of us gathered in the TV hall to see the NYC ball drop live... They passed champagne and cola (for those who don't drink which also includes me :) ). It became 11 59. The countdown began. Everyone of us started shouting 9..8..7..6... and wwhooosshhhh.. the TV went off... someone had set a reminder to record that event live :) :) There was big sigh from the crowd. But anyways .. then we wished each other with a toast ... and there were hugs and hand shakes everywhere. It was different new year's eve for me :)

We stayed their for the night and the next day we left to my friend Nivi's place. It is always so good to meet up with one of your bestest friends after a really long time. It gives you that nice warm feeling and obviously takes you back to the good old days. We spent the rest of the weekend with her. We were roaming in the streets of new york in the midnight, went to the Empire state Building and had a bad view of the city. Yes, the view was bad as it started snowing heavily. Lesson of the day - Don't step out without checking the weather. When we were in the ESB, I was reminded of my visit to the Eiffel. ESB was nothing compared to the Eiffel. That was definitely the best :)

The next day we went ice skating :) It was the first time all of us were trying ice skating. Awwwww.....That was so so cool...I fell down the moment i stepped into the ice rink.. So did Nivi...so i was happy that i dint fall alone :) We were trying to move for the first 20 mins holding the rails... but then slowly we tried without it... and it wasn't tht bad... we were able to move on our own... Nivi or my hubby would fall down and i'll laugh at them and loose my balance and i'll be down next :) It was so much fun that night.

Straight after that we went to watch 'Three idiots' that night. We managed to find seats and were sitting there munching pop corn, waiting for the movie to start. A tall figure waved at me from a row in front of me. I looked up to see who it was. And I was like, I know this guy. And then after a fraction of a second, I jumped up my seat in surprie. It was Suchi, a good friend of mine from college. Was so good to see him there after a long time. Wait. Am not done yet. So after talking to Suchi for a coupla minutes after the movie, we all moved towards the exit, only to encounter another surprise. But this time in a smaller package. It was Prasanna Balaji. He too was my classmate in College. He was more surprised than I was :) Spoke to him for a coupla mins too and headed straight to home. Can a day be any better ?? !!! :)

It was altogether a happy new year's eve and weekend for me !!! :) :)

Was a happy good 2009 !!!

It’s good to be back on the blogosphere :) After a real big hiatus, I should say. Almost after 6 months. I am back now and good to start all over again !!! There’s so much I wanted to write about which I eventually dint do. So here’s a sum up of all that happened in 2009, all that I would like to recollect, rewind, look back and cherish.

My year started in the blogosphere. Yes, I launched this blog page in Jan 2009, with a hope of posting as many blogs as possible. But I din do justice to my page, which am hoping to balance out this year with more blogs and updates :) U can always hope for better things u know, never gonna cost much :)

I was conferred with the ACE award (this was in the month of Feb) at my workplace which is supposed to be an excellence award, to recognize and reward outstanding contribution to the project every quarter. But reward and recognition was never a term known to my project management, as far as I know. It was usually done like a roll call and this month seemed to be my turn and there it was all mine. There were so many times I remember contributing some quality work to the project earlier but the awards for those quarters were given to someone else who were sitting atop the list for many years without the ACE, so it had to be theirs according to the law !!! Some things never change and can’t be changed and so was this reward system. Anyways so that’s an important event of the year ladies and gentlemen. The ACEd month of the year !!!!

The one thing that I always loved about my work place was that it was really close to my house. I want you guys to get a picture of how close it was. My apartment was right behind my office building. No kidding here. The only thing that was separating my apartment from my office was that huge compound wall. They were adjacent buildings. There were so many times when I had waved Hi to my mom (who will be in the kitchen) from my office parking lot. I used to have my morning coffee at my balcony waving at Raji and Soundariya (the early birds of our team) seeing them park their bikes :) It was jus a minute’s walk from home to office. What more do you want in life. While I was enjoying this luxury, I got the saddest news in the last 3 yrs. My office was shifted from the busy GN chetty road to the deserted SEZ in Siruseri. There was no more walking to office, there was no more afternoon naps at home when there is literally no work, there was no more sneaking out of office for a just-like-that shopping in pondy bazaar, there was no more going back to home to get the Swipe card/Mobile/Wallet that I had forgotten to take, most of all, there was no more going home for that nice hot mommy’s lunch !!! My team mates were so very happy, not because the office is being shifted to some far off-out the city location but because I had to TRAVEL(Give the word a little more stress) to office like all of them!!! I was blessed with such lovely team mates, after all :)

Waking up at 6 o clock in the morning to catch the office bus at 7 became an adventure sport to me. But thank god for giving me two responsible friends Alex and Govind. They were always there to hold the bus for me whenever I was late. And it’s a record that I hadn’t missed my bus even once. Things became really hectic and monotonous. I hadn’t had a proper vacation in years then. Suddenly the idea of taking the family to an overseas holiday trip struck my dad. He always wanted to take his girls on a foreign trip before he handed them over to someone :) And so we were headed for a week’s trip to Singapore and Malaysia. Ahhhh... It was such a welcome break from work. Lovely trip it was Which added another memorable page to the book of my memories.

2009 seemed to be the year of the knots. Yes I am talking about the nupital wedding knot. Many of my friends got engaged or married in 2009. So it sorta increased my parents’ blood pressure too. My horoscope took trips through so many astrologers and so-called Nice boys’ families. Fortunately or unfortunately Mr Guru was favoring me then it seems and so my dad was so ambitious in getting me married by 2009. He was a focused man, I know. I was a lucky girl, you know!!! So yes, I got married to this lovely person called Raj in November 2009. To more about how it all started and how we got connected to each other please visit http://www.mywedding.com/sukanyaandbakiaraj/ :)

After my wedding I had to relocate to the US of A, where my husband works. So I had to quit my dear first job. My workplace was like my second home. I have had so many memorable moments there. Late night slogging, Coffee break gossips, Friday lunch outs, first onsite trip, pointless team meetings, even pointless appraisal meetings, what-are-they-talking-about CEO open houses, the intra-DC Anthakshari/Rangoli competitions, the inter-corporate throwball matches, the Chennai Marathon run, the 2 month German training and the list is endless. I had made some real friends for life. It was naturally tough and difficult to leave all of them but I was even more excited to step into the next phase of my life. So there I was, giving a pause to my career and moving ahead to step into my wedded life.

More posts on my new life coming soon... :)
Overall, it was a lovely year for me !!! Was a happy good 2009 !!! :) :)