Scavenger Hunt - My new photography hobby!

This is the first time I am participating in a photography related event. Time to experiment with my dSLR! I am still a newbie in photography and hope it becomes one of my passions similar to cooking!

In case you are wondering what Scavenger Hunt is - It is a photography related event, where each week five topics are chosen and you get to post a photo on each topic on Sunday or Tuesday the latest. Once you post your photos, you need to link back here.

This week's choices were..

1. In my home
2. It's beginning to look a lot like..
3. Sweet Treat
4. Time
5. Everyday

Here are my clicks!

In my home

This is a decorative piece which we picked up somewhere near Jaipur during our North India trip. It now adorns our living room!

It's beginning to look a lot like..

This picture was taken during our thanksgiving trip to San Antonio. This was a decoration at our hotel lobby. It sure is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Sweet Treat

This was a sweet cute gift from my friend Anu which I received during our LA foodies meet! They are actually minty dark chocolate bars..

Time

Our wall clock from IKEA which adorns our living room above the fireplace.

Everyday

This was what I immediately thought when I read the topic "Everyday". I brush twice a day and this is a picture of my toothbrush and toothpaste :P

Looking forward to participate in many more photography events!

Dusting away my abandoned blog!

I know! I have abandoned this place not just for a while, but for almost eight months! Sigh! Time flies so fast! Past few months several interesting things have happened in my life. We had a great relaxing vacation in India this time.. Travelling places, visiting friends and family and some amazing home-cooked mom's food.. Now am having a serious writing and cooking block. Haven't started cooking all three meals, have been surviving on frozen meals and quick cooking meals for a while. Time to wrap up all those and get into serious cooking and baking so that we eat fresh, wholesome meals.

Time to show my new friend these days! My new camera which my dear hubby got for me! Here is a picture!

 

Hoping to update a few of my clicks regularly!

Am not even sure if anyone is reading my ramblings here! If you do, whoever it is please drop in to say a Hi!

"I AM NOT GIVING UP NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I START OVER"

I had abandoned this space for a while and wanted to post something today!
Several things going on.. Moved to a new place and trying to settle in the new place.. Working on assignments and projects and exams.. Arranging things in place in our new home..
Amidst all this, i never wanted to give up on the C25K program I had started a while ago. I started my Week1 Day1 again this morning and ran up the hill near our house. It was fun exploring places during the run! Will update some pics of the hill later.
I had hardly been cooking for the past two weeks after clearing out my fridge and yet to start filling my pantry again! The best part is I have a trader joes close by and I walk everyday up to the store to buy something :)
Another update: I am trying to stay away from Facebook, Farmville, Cafe World n Orkut for the past couple of weeks and have been successful! I find a lot of free time in my hands now and realize how much time I have wasted in all these social networking sites and games. Let me see how long I can refrain !

On another note: Have you heard of lotions and soaps made with flax seed, quinoa and whole wheat! Check this out!!

Random Ramblings

I just remembered that I had not updated this space last week! Had a lot of deadlines in college and with a midterm coming along next week, I was quite busy with my studies. However I am keeping up my goal of not staying up long at nights. I skipped my workout a couple of times last week because of the heavy rains. It is just amazing to stay in the couch with a hot cup of chai and some hot samosas!

We were hunting for houses last week and have narrowed on a few of them! Looking forward to moving to a new house soon!

In order to keep up and working out, I decided that I need to take small steps in order to stay with my plan. I landed upon this Couch to 5K plan and it sounded apt for me.

I will be starting day 1 today.. "Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes."

Let's see how good this goes on!

As with my eats, I am not eating as healthy as I wanted to. I just wanted to update my eats here regularly so that I stick to the plan.

On another note, my cousin got married last week and I really missed out all the fun :(

Looking forward to an India trip soon!!

Today's Eats

I am trying not to skip breakfast and also trying to keep them wholesome and nutritious. This waht I had for breakfast today. Scrambled an egg with some cheese. Had it with half an avocado, bread n butter!


It has been raining cats and dogs here in LA for the past one week. I had to skip my trip to the gym for 3 days. I somehow managed to attend a hatha yoga class today. It was really good!
I knew i would come back hungry. So I had planned to have some roasted beet and tomato soup which I had frozen last week. I thawed it last night in the refrigerator last night. I stirred in some wheatberries and also sprinkled some parmesan on top!

It was really comforting and perfect for the rainy day!
Am glad it is already the weekend. Have a list of things to do before DH(Dear Husband) comes home in the evening! Need to declutter the house and do the dishes!

Planning to make this or this for dinner!

Have a great weekend everyone!

20 resolutions for the year 2010

I wanted to pen down my new year resolutions long back. But guess it is better late than never!

By penning down I would atleast try more to stick with my resolutions. I have succeeded in keeping up a few and failed in a few cases and it has been only the 18th of January yet!

1. Wake up at 7 a.m atleast on weekdays :(
2. Eat something green everyday. This will include my daily intake of veggies.
3. Have soup nights atleast once a week. :)
4. Eat fresh salads more often. :)
5. Incorporate more whole grains. So you can expect to see more of salads, soups and whole grains in my blog.
6. Work out atleast 4 days a week. This can be a combination of cardio, yoga and other classes offered at the local gym. This way I atleast get to use my gym membership.
7. Do strength training atleast two days a week. :)
8. Doing so am planning to lose atleast 10-15 pounds this year. Sigh!
9. Eat out only once a week. :)
10. Try to keep the eat-out as healthy as possible. :(
11. Try to keep the house organized as much as possible. I score low in this case. Hopefully I should stick to this resolution. :(
12. Finish my assignments and study during the day and hit the bed early. I am a night person and I stay awake for long when I have my assignments due. Planning to wrap up atleast by 11pm.
13. Limit my time spent on the computer by spending less time on Facebook, FarmVille, Cafe world and other social networking sites. :( :(
14.Maintain and update my spending plan and budget by the end of the week. Am planning to keep track of all the expenses.
15. Write out my weekly menu plan for lunch and dinner. This way I get to know exactly what I need to buy during my grocery shopping. This will help me prevent wasting food. :)
16. Try a pantry and refrigerator cleanup atleast once in two months. I will skip grocery shopping that week except for milk and eggs. This way I will not forget all the freezer meals and leftovers sitting behind in my refrigerator. Doing this currently!
17. Improve my photography skills.
18. Take Wilton's Cake decorating class this year ! have planning to do this for long!
19. Update this blog regularly and post atleast thrice a week on DilSe.
20. Drink more water!

Most of my resolutions revolve around food! Keeping my fingers crossed! Let me see how much I stick to these resolutions.

Good Luck to me!

My humble basil plant

This is my humble basil plant in my small garden which also has other plants like green chillies, tomatoes, mint, fenugreek, roses and chrysanthemums!

On another note my other blog Dil Se.. turns two today!

இனிய பொங்கல் நல் வாழ்த்துக்கள்!

My Pongal Wishes to all my readers!

Enga veetu pongal!


I wanted to start this blog on New Year, but finally was able to bring it up on this special day being Tamil New Year and Pongal.

This is not a food blog! Hope this place would be a place to share my day to day memories!

To check out my food blog hop on here!