Transitions

The MIL has been in India as of the last week. Time moves so fast. It has been a full week since we saw her off at the airport.

This time the kids were all grown up about saying their goodbyes and promised to behave in her absence. They are holding at around 75% of the promise and going down rapidly!

The adults have transitioned as well to the new routines. I have been left without a Yoga partner and have missed the MIL giving me the usual sermon about either not waking up early enough or pushing myself too hard in the room. The new Yoga studio is motivation in itself and have been going regularly just to keep up my promise to the MIL!

San is back in the kitchen working hard to impress the kids the last few days..

On Monday she made Okra curry with Okra that was not ripe enough. Not her fault because that was all the Indian store had, but the little one was brutal.

She could become a judge on the Iron chef program or "Chopped" where she gets to deliver the bad news. The comments and critique were even too hard for me to handle! San put on a brave face and came up with a Tindora Curry the next evening.

The little one said "Before you put it on my plate, I want a taste. I cannot trust your cooking!"

This is what happens when we have grandma letting her sit on the kitchen counter top, encouraging her to taste things as they are being made. On the bright side she did have a taste and say "It is delicious!" and that made San's day! Seriously, with critics like this at home, things are getting a little out of hand.

Today, I made sweet Pongal to celebrate Pongal. She did not have a problem with the taste of the pongal but with the smell of my hand as I took it to her mouth. "I don't like that strong temple like smell in the Pongal!". She was right!

Actually the smell was from the "pachai kalpooram" (edible camphor) that was crushed with my fingers to season the Pongal. The smell was in my hand not the Pongal. We should use the little one at airports instead of sniffing dogs and we will probably make a fortune if we got a cut on what we find!

We are now down to a new but interesting routine.

Wishing each and everyone of you a happy Pongal!!!

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Karthigai Lights and Christmas Deepam

In our house we have a tradition. On the day of Kaarthigai Deepam (the day we light oil lamps and pray to lord Kaarthikeya and eat Pori Urundai's), we also put on the Christmas lights. The Kaarthigai day in the US also coincides with my star birthday in India as they are around 12 hours ahead and overall turns out to be a great experience.

In summary, I get to eat pori urundai's every year for my Birthday!

The oil lamps come back in the next two days but the Christmas lights stay on till the New years!

This year daddy Narayanan aka limpy Narayanan was given an ultimatum by the kids. Either get on the ladder and put on the lights with help from mommy and the kids or go hire someone to put on the lights, NOW!

With a lot of help from the three of them, the lights were up after an hour..

We also celebrated with the kids lighting lamps (or switching on battery operated lamps that look like real lamps)and placing them inside and outside the house!

Good eats..

Notice daddy's slight paunch. 15 days of eating, limping and no calorie burning and trying on pants a tad smaller on the waist can do that!

A full moon night as always for Kaarthigai and this year it coincided with an eclipse in many parts of the world. The moon as seen at 400mm and ..

and back lighting our house..

We had one busy day. Children's party in the morning. Lighting up the house in the evening!




This special day was made possible thanks to isolation from the internet. We are now planning to cut the internet cable on festival days as a policy!

Hope those of you who celebrate Kaarthigai, had a great day yesterday!


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Festive season

This weekend is a festive one in the house. First Varalakshmi Nombu/pooja was celebrated by the girls and ladies in the house Friday evening. The house was standing room only and the food (all taken care of by MIL and San) was yummy!

The girls dressed up in their last set of new clothes and posed for me as usual.

Today was Aavaniavittam aka thread ceremony, which comes with some more yummy food for me. Considering this is the one festival for the men in the house (man in our case) the ladies were kind enough to cook new goodies today!

Yoga was bunked because of all the over eating and that was a double whammy. Tomorrow will be a day of yoga and meditation. There is a 1008 Gayathri mantras to be done and some hot yoga to go with it...

Another year has rolled by and we enter the festive season !




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Wishing you all a Happy Pongal

Work has been so crazy that by Friday evening we just want to come and crash and recharge our batteries. Yet to figure out how 2010 suddenly started off in this mode.

Friday evening came and it was time to make Pongal. This year there was no prayer, no dressing up.. just daddy making Sweet Pongal in his office clothes!

Yes. It was an odd sight to see daddy in formal clothes in front of the stove. To compensate for all the stress, just threw in an extra cup of ghee into the mix and the results were more than satisfactory!

Wanted to videoblog the making of Pongal but that has to wait for another day. Today we went to the Livermore temple, saw Aandal Kalyanam and were served a wedding feast at the temple. There was standing room only in that temple and the little one thought she had been transported to Mylapore for a few minutes. She was even heard whispering that she wanted to be back in the USA..

One would think that with this kind of stuff at home, the kids would be happy to eat Pongal for a late snack? .. the answer is ...

NO!

They wanted Mac and Cheese from the local Target store for dinner.

Well we just think the family has celebrated Makara sankaraanthi and Macand cheesearaanthi in the same day!


Happy Pongal again to all of you.

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Pongalooooooooo.....

Like Kavi says "Two minutes on the lips and a lifetime on the hips !"

My waist size probably increased an inch today.

Happy Pongal everyone!




Previous Pongalogues here, here, here, and here..




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