Brands Or Bargains?

From childhood, good bargains always fascinated me compared to quality or brands. But when I started working I always heard lots of discussion about designer wear, unique shops and products. I was always a silent spectator during these discussions.When I went shopping with friends its the same story.While they discussed with no end about the items, I never got involved.

For the same cost price, I would choose many-good-looking-no brand watches rather than going for a single-branded watch.The same with slippers and dresses...But when it comes to bargained products, they usually do not last long and many a times fail you at the wrong time.(its almost 50% true for me)

Now I am wondering "Should I chose brands rather than bargains ?"

My latest time pass

When Life is routine, I need to do something interesting. Since it is spring time and I see flowers everywhere, Why not bring home fresh flowers every week?



And To top it up, Last week I got a plant, Now I am waiting for it to bloom more flowers

Birthday time again

Here comes the baking time of the year again. Last year I tried to create the cake from scratch. But this time, I did not want to trouble Param again on his birthday with my trials . So I was looking for ideas on internet for a couple of weeks. BettyCrocker's cake recipes seem to be quite popular. So I went for that cake mix and decided to do a 2-layer cake with frosting in between.

And tada this was my cake to my dear husband and he seem to enjoy it

Many more happy returns of the day dear!

What's happening with me

• Last 1 month has been very busy with param's parents at home.So every week, we have been touring around new york and new jersey.
• Got a car for myself and started driving alone...Getting prepared for defensive driving test at my office.
• Ran for 4- mile race twice in 10 days.
• And We have completed 1 year in this home. I have come a long way from not liking this place at first sight to feeling at home in this last 1 year.
  
• And this time, I wished my dearest friend on her birthday, while another dear friend gave birth to baby boy on the same day, so I have one more reason to celebrate the May day.

• Spring has come and I see flowers everywhere, beautiful tulips in Central park...

A pleasant surprise trek

One of memorable incidents during India trip was climbing Tirupati with two important persons in my life- My father and my husband. When I planned to go to tirupati with our families, My father told that he planned to walk up the hills. I did not want him to do that alone and So I told him that I would accompany him and Immediately my husband who doesn't want me to go alone either offered to come And So we started early morning around 6:30 and we know we had to climb 4000 steps to reach up.

So with full enthusiasm we started

Inital1000 steps were a breeze. We climbed it in 30 minutes. So We thought we could do it easily.

Next 1000 steps were the toughest ones. They were very steep and It was like climbing the mountain directly.And these were really hard for all 3 of us, but still Param was encouraging us to walk. We finished it in next 30 minutes.The view from 2000 steps were really beautiful

We thought we would finish next 2000 steps in another 1 hour, but next 1000 steps were wide.So it was like walking few 100 meters per step and It was not how we calculated, we took more than a hour to reach the step 3000.

In the last 1000 steps, we almost took breaks for every 100 steps we climbed. We chatted all our way up thereby managing to do it with much less tiredness.

We were at Tirumala 3.5 hrs after we started from the foot of the hill.
So the whole walk was an unplanned yet memorable.

And Family picture after dharsan

I am back online

Having jasmine flower all days for a month -> Done

Visiting Old friends and get to know what others are doing-> Done

Shopping till I dropped -> Done

Roaming around Pondy bazaar-> Done

Gossiping with my mother about all stories -> Done

Going on a morning walk in marina beach-> Done

Visiting all possible temples -> Done

Pestering Param to get all gifts which he promised me to get -> Done

Watching a movie in one of the finest theaters in Chennai-> Done

Having a cone ice cream on hot summer afternoon -> Done

Travelling in and around Chennai in Auto-> Done

So thats the reason for my sudden absconding for a month, Yes, I have been to India on a vacation

Meanwhile one more April fool's day has crossed .

மொழி

Went to this movie this weekend. The movie exceeded well over my expectations .The dialogs were neat and entertaining.Hats off to the dialog writer!. Songs are also good in the movie. I especially liked the first song and the unique voice of the singer is simply superb. Last but not the least My favorite Jo's performance is beautiful. As this is her last movie, I will miss her performance

One more added to my collection

What's in a name?

This story reminded me of an interesting event in my life..thought I should write it here

When I first heard my husband's name from my father as a prospective bridegroom , I told my father that I don't like the name. I also told him that I cannot even think about creating a nick name out of it.My father promptly discarded my silly comment stating that "பையன் தான் பார்க்க முடியும் பெயரெல்லாம் ஒரு விஷயம் கிடையாது." Now I feel how silly It would have been If I took the name seriously

Have a look at this

Usually I don't like giving Links as Posts, but this one is worth mentioning.
My team lead's cousin and his friend are crossing the Atlantic ocean by rowing.
Every one thinks its both crazy and dangerous to just row across the ocean. They are half way through, They actually started on January 7th

So I thought I would post their website link here as a tribute and let my world know about them :-)
http://www.haute-mer.org/

The Bad Worse and Ugly

Bad
I ran another 4 mile without practice this time and it felt like a punishment...Cursed myself for doing that without practice

Worse
I tried to do pizza and it was a disaster, totally taste less, Ordering pizza is better :-)

Ugly
I have written about my hate towards drawing, but still after seeing a painted tea pot at one of my friend's home I wanted to try it out...So I pestered Param, and bought few colors from Michaels arts and crafts stores and tried my hand..Looks like the handy work of my niece :-)

What a weekend it was!

It has been more than a month since I found anything interesting to blog. Life was busy and usual until this weekend. All the fun started on Thursday when my husband’s friends visited us. It is one of the best weekends I have had here in USA in the last 1 1/2 years !

I prepared home food for the guests - dosa, potato curry & rasam, adai, idli/thakkali kichadi, bread/omlet and even my husband prepared chicken one day for his friends. In effect, I tried to play host like my mom (but I realised I am light years behind her when it comes to playing host). Hope everyone enjoyed my cooking.

All of us had tons of good time played cards with set of 9 people, eating out, chinese chequers and just plain talking about anything that is nothing :-)

We played the card game "Bluff"and whenever my husband played for some body else, they happen to lose in the game :-p Then we started playing Chinese checkers it was an engaging game. With everyone playing both offensive and defensive/block strategies and all the small talk while the game was on really got everyone excited.

On the whole, a memorable weekend and good to meet a bunch of new & nice folks. Would love to do this again.

Isn't it beautiful?

Brooklyn bridge, NewYork.
Photo by Param using Canon Powershot A80.

வெட்டி செய்தி

போன வாரம் நான் officeku late.நொந்துகிட்டே உள்ளே நுழைஞ்சேன்.உள்ளே நுழைஞ்சக்கபறம் தான் எதையோ விட்டுட்டு வந்துட்டேனு தெரிஞ்சுது.. என்னோட Laptop தான்..அப்பறம் என்ன என்னோட Hero sir அன்னைக்குப்பார்த்து working from home, so உடனே நம்ம heroine (அட அது நான் தான்) call பண்ணவுடன் கொடுத்துட்டு போனார். ..வாழ்க்கையில் இதுலாம் சகஜமப்பா!!!

Oo la la I finished it

I finished the 5 mile (8 Km) holiday run at Central Park, NY in 1 hr and 14 minutes. The entire event was a great experience from me. Me and Param woke up at 5:30 AM on Saturday morning with the help of 3 alarms :-) We caught the 6:55 AM bus to NY City. I was looking for all excuses I can use if I could not complete the 5 Mile run :)

We reached the NYRR.org office at 8 AM and collected our bib (number), participant tshirt, and timing chip and waited for Myriam & her parents (55, 60 yr old) to join us. It was 45 deg F and quite windy making it a chilly winter morning @ central park (race venue). But it was a fantastic morning with bright sun. Soon everybody joined us as we walked towards the race start after attaching the timing chip to our shoes.

I was surprised to see the 6000 odd people ready to run near the start line ranging from 6- 70 year olds. The race started at 9:35 AM and we started running. Myriam (my team lead) and Param were running alongside me. The first mile was cheerful with thousands of people running along with you. I even saw a couple running with the husband pushing their baby stroller with large wheels (i will call that a jogging baby-strolley).

All of them inspired me to keep going. I am not a runner before this run, so completing 5 miles by itself is a big task for me. My team lead & Param encouraged me throughout the race to keep going. After completing mile 1 in 20 min, I was desperately looking for mile 2 which came at 33 min as there was lesser crowd running alongside. Then we reached mile 3 in 45 min and I was desperately gasping for more air. The pain on my rib cage (probably my lungs sending me signals to catch more air) kept increasing right after mile 1 and was near its peak at mile 3. I couldn't go further and decided to walk for 30 seconds after reaching mile 3. Mile 3 came after an upgrade (slope) and I was glad I reached mile 3. After my 30 sec speed walk, I again started running towards mile 4 and I reached there at 60 min. Now both my legs and ribcage were complaining. Param & Myriam were still running besides me and told me that we were almost there. I kept going towards mile 5 asking them every 2min whether we were there at the finish line :-) But the feeling after completing the race is nothing short of delightful :-) It is interesting to note that around 5000 people finished the race. Here is how I did in the run. I now know I can do better and still a long way to go before I can run a marathon ;-)

After completing the run, we started looking for Myriam's parents who we thought might have aborted the run halfway. But I was stunned to see them walking towards the finish line at 1:40 min. Myriam ran towards them and joined them to again head back towards the finish line. She must have been really proud and happy to see her parents finishing the 5 mile.

Overall its a great experience. Me & Param headed towards home and our legs were really sore. We took rest the whole of saturday and here we are on Sunday wondering whether we should go for a jog in the park. I for one sure wish to keep going.

And now I can proudly tell my kids (in future) that I once ran 5 mile in Central Park.

How to run a marathon in 4 weeks?!

Well thats what I am trying to find.

Just at the blink of an eye , I decided to run one of those marathon (originally 4 miles) races in NY city (organized by NYRR.org). I know it is a big hurdle for me to cross...My husband seeing my enthu told he also wanted to do it..

To start with, we ran to a park which was 1 mile from our home..I could not even run few blocks from my house...That was the day I realized that I am not really very fit compared to the thousands of those who will run this marathon. . I decided to work on it.

On the week following my first outing, I started jogging slowly and I took 4 breaks during my run of 2 miles. My husband was doing those miles without much effort compared to me.
But the good news is now I can run 2 miles..

So what? I thought I would run 2 miles and walk the other 2miles of the race :-)

This week an email came from the NYRR announcing that they changed the race distance to 5 miles ! Oh my god, I donno how I am going to do that.

My husband came up with a chart. Increase 0.25 miles to the distance I run everyday till 1st dec. Either I walk or run, I need to do it.

So thats a commitment I am making to myself. Hope I can do it.

Guessed it almost right

I have the “Mouna raagam” theme song as my ring tone..One of my colleagues told me that he liked the tune a lot and he asked me if it is from 80's, autumn season and is it about a melodramatic scene in a movie. The interesting part is he is a a French nationale who hasn't seen mouna raagam.

Under the Tuscan Sun

I recently watched this movie.A very nice but very slow movie. No big heroes, No catchy story line, but very nice performance of all artists in the film.The heroine after a bitter divorce would go on a tour of Italy, gets fascinated by a house in Italy, buys it and renovates it and her life also gets better. A simple story well enacted. The picturesque town in Italy was shown beautifully.

After seeing the movie and also after hearing the stories from my lead about France,I would love to see these countries soon.

From Shanthi

Hello ppl,
This is Shanthi @ Loga's blog... For people who donno me - I am Loga's friend. We were working together when she was in India. I have come for a vacation to US. And right now I am in Loga's place.

I had some sort of thoughts in my mind like - how is it going to be in her place. I don't know Param much and it is not easy for me to get along with guys easily. Also i don't feel comfortable staying with these couples.

But right from day one things have been different. Param came to pick me up as Loga didn't get a ride from her office. Wasn't i disappointed that Loga didn't come to airport ? But I decided that I should talk well to Param.We had a good chat and i should admit that I just hate the ppl at his office - they expect the onsite co-ordinator to be available in all throughout the day in all the time zones ?

I didn't eat well when I was in Ohio in the previous week. When we reached home there was kind of a surprise.... Loga was making Veggie puffs ! Then there was this veggie paratha and then Panneer butter (or cream ; ) ) masala (?). Hey it was awesome (still in ohio shanthi?).
I generally avoid heavy dinners (naangallaam paal choru chakarai pottu saapdra kudumbam u see :D )

We talked non-stop (naan thoonga poganumnu sonnaenaa paathukongalaen - naandhaan paesa
yaaraavadhu kidaichaa aruthu thalliruvaeney!!) We talked so much !! (not much gossip u see). But was amazed hearing her ask abt some not so important ppl (enakku appodhaan appadiellaam sila paer officela irukkaanganney thonuchu!)

The next days plan was for New York. The dressing up for the fashion city (nagallaam pant pottu palakkam illaadhavanga u see!), bus travel, ilangai dosai (ofcourse - the dosi podravar and her meesai - when all the guys i know took of their mush - this man was straight saying (without words) that we are from asian country u see), the caricatures etc etc...

I will not forget the taxis in New york.

Loga don't worry that we missed Statue of Liberty and twin towers (seri seri sollamaley irundhurukkalaamla naan unakku nyabagam paduthuradhukku badhilaa ?).We are going for sure to both the places and a real New york sky ride (in a chopper) and the famous lion king show (enga managerkku puriyanum that shanthi deserves to earn in dollars and spend in dollarsnu!)

I did get a lot of comfortness and talked out my heart and really felt at home !!!

The cooking I did for her (and the cooking i missed to do for her), the TV shows i saw (and the DVDs i missed to see), the juices i drank (and the water i avoided drinking and drank atlast and abt to get cold!)... hey theres lot more to stay. Let me stop here.

Illai illai one last thing - Ennoda samayal eppadinnu comment adi Loga....
And i am so happy that u guys are really doing gr8 here : )))))))))))))))))))

Love,
Shanthi.

After a break

After a 2 months break, I am back.
I did not mean to take a break for this long, but something or the other was coming up and I did not have interest to write it ...
How did the last 2 months go...Not so good, Not so bad...Celebrated my first year anniversary, Played soft ball for the first time ,Lost 5 Kgs, My friend came to visit me,Diwali went on fine,tried to do Mysore bagu and thanks to this recipe at right time, I did Ribbon pakoda ..
But now, I am planning to write regularly and Here i come ...
Ciao