Last year, I wrote a blog post called "Anatomy of a school sports day" which was a 22 steps description to how most schools in India treat parents during an even that is more fun for the kids than it is for the family.
It included the obligatory boring as hell Chief Guest speech, the school administration making their reports and listing their achievement for some extra PR. The relay of the flame, the mascot, the balloon launch, the uncomfy plastic chairs, lack of caffeine, semi-coma, "Frooti bombs" and all across chaos.

Needless to say that in all those years of schools I never really liked sports day, it's the equivalent of a lengthy board meeting during which you will only find 5 minutes of interesting content (in this case your child's performance).

Fortunately, the school we are in this year does things much differently, and I kid you not, it makes all the difference for the parents. The kids still get the same sportive fun in the end, but the parents are in a much better mood.
So much so, that I think a lot of schools should take a leaf out of that book:

1)Sticking to a schedule! Our school told us to drop the kid at 8am sharp and immediately proceed to the parent sitting area so that the event could start on time at 8.30.
To my surprise, they stuck to it! The children and officials all made their entrance at 8.20am, and the guest of honour started her speech at 8.30 after a very brief introduction by the principal.

2) Divide the masses to avoid chaos. Not all kids across all standards need to be present at the same time! We all know that parents only come to see the 5 minutes of action their progeny is involved in and don't care a hoot about the rest. This means it is unfair to make parents from standards 1 to 10 all sit at the same time for 5 hours.
Our school understood it perfectly and only standards 1 to 5 were summoned in the morning event which finished by 11am. Parents with older kids were in the afternoon event that started at 5pm, that way nobody fries in the sun or fight for limited seating space. Instead parents only get stuck for 2.5 hours, much more reasonable

3) Caffeine, oh wonderful caffeine! A school that understands that parents essentially live and run on caffeine is a good school. Parents are essentially bigger kids, they can't be kept sitting still on a chair for hours without being distracted.
In our previous school they only gave snacks and drinks to the kids, letting parents go without even a drop of water during their 5 hours long sentence of plastic chairs.
This school of ours played it much smarter: they moved the coffee/tea machine they have in the administration office outside and created a FREE coffee and tea corner for the parents.

4) Make it social. Let's face it, parents only come to cheer their own kids, it amounts to 5-10 minutes of excitement in the whole event. After that, they don't give a damn about anything but are stuck waiting until the end of the sports day to pick up their kids.
If you want hordes of parents that will chase toddlers, attempt to kidnap their kids to go back home and chaos, make sure it stays as boring as can be.
If you are smart, you'll know that parents will be happier and less disruptive if you provide them a place to stretch their legs and an occasion to chit chat.
This was the secondary use of the coffee/tea stalls our school event! Parents who already watched their kids leave their chair, make room for other parents to have a prime photography spot and spend the rest of the sports event drinking tea and coffee and meet other parents.

5) Feed the parents. If you want to score extra brownie points with the lot that pays the school fees and agreed to endure the sporting event for the sake of their kids, why just stop at the free tea and coffee?
Kids usually get packaged snack boxes at these events, why not double the order placed at the local chaat catering place and get some for the parents? Or at the very least offer it for a fee if you are too cheap to give away food to the very people that financially contribute to the school's running.
This year I was happy to get treated to a free mini chaat box and chocolate milk to patient until the National Anthem and subsequent pick up.

6) Save the PR speech for another time. As parents, we absolutely don't care about it. We don't care who the top scorers in the school are, what kind of obscure idiotic achievement the school got in a faraway event in the middle of nowhere, or what special teacher training event has or will take place. We don't care to be reminded about the "holistic approach" to teaching either. In case you haven't noticed, we are seated on those plastic chairs because we ALREADY enrolled our kids in the school, so save all that "ass shmoozing" crap for the annual newsletter (the one we throw in the dustbin as soon as it reaches us) or the bulletin, which we leaf through to see if there is a picture of our kid in it before discarding it.
The sports day is not the time for that kind of stupid speeches. It takes at least an hour of our time for nothing. It's not like we are going to give you extra money for that performance anyway!

Keep the sports day as short and sweet as possible people!

7) Make dispersal a breeze. Our school still failed a bit at that, but because the parents were not rabid with boredom the stampede was still minimal.
I think the best option would be to call each class parents one by one on the field to go pick up their kids. Most schools still choose to take the kids back inside and force the parents to squeeze themselves in a narrow staircase or wait at a narrow gate instead. But compared to all the previous years of agony I'd say the pick up time still went smoothly enough.


All in all, our sports day was an easy one, that ended with minimal frustration for everybody involved. All it took was a wee bit of planning ahead. I know, shocking! Right?

In the past week, two things happened that got me to write this post:

First, I received a book I ordered on Amazon and began reading it right away as my anticipation to read it kept building while I was waiting for it to come. And second, the book reminded me of a blog post I have been thinking of writing for years now. Only this time, I have a way to write it I never had before, good things come to those who wait they say.

The book in question has been featured on my Instagram feeds with this picture:

The Little Book of Hygge explains Danish way of life and how "Hygge" (pronounced Hoo-ga) is what contributes to the Danes being the happiest people in the world. I'm still in the middle of reading it at the moment, and it's already a book I highly recommend to anybody looking at taking pleasure in simple things in life.

What got me thinking and blogging though is this paragraph:

"The closest you will ever come to seeing vampires burnt by daylight is by inviting a group of Danes for a hygge dinner and then placing them under a 5,000K fluorescent light tube. At first, they will squint, trying to examine the torture device you have placed in the ceiling. Then, as dinner begins, observe how they will move uncomfortably around in their chairs, compulsively scratching and trying to suppress twitches." ~ Meik Wiking, The Little Book of Hygge. 

I wont be lying, this chapter stroke a very personal chord with me. I'm not Danish, but light has always been a VERY VERY important thing for me. From an early age I hated bright ceiling lights, and hated rooms lit with only one light.
I've always been in favour of multiple, soft light sources spread around a room at floor and eye level. Given the choice I'll go for floor lamps and table lamps over anything put on the ceiling.

This was a massive shock when I first arrived in India : Tube lights everywhere!

I hate them, hate their light and they stress me out. It also messes with my sleep cycles. And the scientific community seem to agree with me there. Too much light, or light that too closely mimic sunlight disrupt your circadian cycles and throw your melatonin production completely out of whack. This in turn messes your sleep cycles, and how your entire body works and regenerate. This means that along with the blue light emitted by screens (phone, TV, computer and tablet) bright white fluorescent lights and white LED lights should be nixed in your home at night, for your health's sake!

Insomnia is no joke people, I've been a life long sufferer, and the time I had no control over my night light source in the first few years in India were the absolute worst. I am persuaded it contributed to my metabolism problem and insulin resistance issue.



It's only when we moved into that lovely rooftop terrace flat we still remember fondly today that I FINALLY had one option to not be constantly exposed to these bloody tube lights: The lightbulb above our entry door.
I was still subjected to the harsh and rather horrendous white light in the other room, but at least I had the option to open my main door and sit in my living room with a few candles without being subjected to it while watching TV.

Over the years we added more "Cyn friendly" lights in our home : the bedside table lamps, a reading lamp in the study and a table lamp in the living room.

I can't even begin to tell you the amount of difference it made in my life! The stress level went down, falling asleep became easier and my evening were finally that transition between day light and that sweet state of sleepiness that makes you want to cozy up and close your eyes, happy and satisfied.


My advice when you think or plan the lights in your home is to think about the main, and then secondary use the room will have and then plan from there.

A bedroom for example should never have a bright light, because a bedroom should be the place you go to at the end of your day to relax. Bedside table lamps are more than enough lighting for that room. Trust me on that, in ours more often than not we only use one of the two we have because the only thing we do beside sleeping is reading books.

In the living room, it pays to have more than one source of light, and at least one option for a ceiling light. We rarely use the ceiling one in ours, but when we have guests over, it comes in handy at dinner time. Ideally I would love a pendant light right above the dinning area, but that is sadly not possible in our flat. Our everyday living room lighting arrangement is a 3 source lights. One table light near the TV, one table light between the TV and dinning table and fairy lights at the dinning table:


Note the tube light in the picture above, we NEVER used it, the living room has a central 3 light bulb light that is far more flattering.

In the kitchen, it pays to have two lights setting : a ceiling bright light for when you are cooking, and a lighter "night light" for when you come in an out of said kitchen and do light work. Our current kitchen has a tube light on the ceiling and a small side light under the cabinets close the stove. This is the only room in which I will tolerate a tube light, at the default of liking it (there is nothing likeable about tube lights).

In a study, you again want multiple source lights you can modulate at will. One of those light should ALWAYS be a reading lamp on your desk, no ifs, no buts. You want the light to shed light on your workspace without casting shadows the way a ceiling lights would, and you want your eyes to not be in direct contact with the bulb of that lamp either.
The other light sources should be a floor level lamp to lend a softer glow to the space when you turn away from the desk, and a brighter ceiling light to turn on when the room is going to be the scene to some heavier work, like sorting out all your bills and important papers (we do that about twice a year).

Kids room should ALWAYS have soft lighting, like the living room. They are likely to use those lights just before bedtime and their circadian cycles are even more fragile than those of adults. Children release the growth hormone necessary to their overall development while they are asleep, so you do not want to mess with their sleep. Sleep is super important for growing kids, and it has even been found that kids with higher IQ where also the ones who have the most hours of undisturbed sleep at night.

All this brings us to those pesky light bulbs now! You know that the good old fashioned incandescent light bulbs of yore have been pronounced bad for the environment and your electricity bill.
In went the CFL bulbs and more recently LED bulbs. The problem? They are more commonly available in that dreaded white light, at least in India this is what most supermarkets and kirana stores will stock up. They do exist in a warm yellow light though, and if you take your time to go to a hardware shop or electrical supplies shop, they will have them, they often go by the name of "warm white".
Every one of my bulbs are either CFL or LED in yellow light. This is the first thing I change in every flat we move into:

I remove the white bulbs the flat came with, and put in the yellow ones I brought with me. When we move out, I switch all those bulbs again.


If you were not entirely convinced about the effect of bright lights on your health and why they should be banned from your home in the evenings here are two articles worth reading:

Too Much Light: Ruining not just your sleep but your health too.

Q&A: Why is blue light before bedtime bad for sleep?


Beside, soft warm lights add to the whole Hygge-factor, and since Danes are the happiest people in the world and have such a strong connection to Hygge and turned it into a way of life, we would be silly not to give it a try.
I myself am realising as I read this book that I have been "hygge-ing" all my life without knowing it. 

The other day my friend and fellow blogger Bibi wrote about the painting work going on in her house in Nepal. In it, she mentione me and the name I came up for it: "The color that doesn't go with anything". I'd say she describe it equally well if not even better : Puke pink.

Once upon a short time, we lived in a flat in Bangalore that was entirely done in this horrendous shade of crazy pink. The only reason we went for that flat back then is that it was big, and the location was awesome (and within our budget). It was the flat we moved in after our 7 months stint in Navi Mumbai. It was short lived, 6 months later we were back in Mumbai, and I really can't say I'll ever miss that flat.
That horrible pink still has the talent to raise my heart rate and make me feel like I'm being suffocated. It's like having a paint PTSD people!

And this is what the pink in question looks like:

This is a colour I am still struggling to describe, without having to resort to food poisoning metaphors. It's a weird in-between salmon pink, dried pink roses, and yup! How your toilet looks after a tomato gravy food dish made it's way back out.

See! I really can't just be polite to that crazy pink. In fact describing it as "The color that doesn't go with anything" is probably the most polite and diplomatic way to say it's a shade that should not ever been seen on any walls unless you plan to lock up your worst enemy in within said walls.

As you can see above, the artificial pink flowers in the vase are still a better hue to have on your wall than this garbage of a shade.
The craziest part? It's actually a shade of wall you tend to find often in rental properties, along with an equally disturbing pastel mint green or a pastel blue, both of witch for some reason make me think of never since the 50's made over medical institution, I'll let you pick between a hospital or a mental institution, you know the kind you find in horror movies or on ghost hunting shows.
In my years of experience flat hunting and relocating in India I've seen my share of horrors. That pink is among those horror stories, and we lived it, all 6 months of it!

If the picture above is not giving you the full effect and you find yourself thinking "Hey it can't be THAT bad, I managed to find a couple of pictures I took back in the days, had to lift them off my Facebook profile, as the originals died with my previous laptop and I never felt insane enough to back them up anywhere.

This is a shade that could somewhat look semi-decent as an accent colour (if you are into predigested and spat shades of salmon). But our flat was a rather big 3BHK (3 bedrooms, hall and kitchen) and it was ENTIRELY done in that shade. Every single rooms including the master bath! And to add to the injury, it was paired with those horrendous old school mismatched marble tiles. Tiles that will forever give me "flooring PTSD" as I am currently dealing with a round 2 of said tiles in our current flat in Mumbai.
Not that it matters really because, this shade of puke pink truly goes on with nothing, so ugly marble, wooden floor, fine stone floor, it really makes no difference.

This shade of pink managed to make that flat look much smaller and darker than it was in reality. I know how these flats could look with more flattering paint on the walls as all of my neighbours had regular hues of white. I was the only one stuck in puked salmon purgatory people!

This was our bedroom, never mind the odd combo of pink bedsheet set and blue quilt. It's not the classiest combo in the world. The pink walls just make it worse, and no I haven't photoshopped any of these pictures, I am delivering you the horror "as is".
You can spot the living room and dinning area in the distance and the creepy glow the paint job give to the flat. This picture was taken in the afternoon when the light came in through the bedroom windows.
At night the flat was at its creepiest as no lighting fixture could make the place even remotely comforting. I tried everything, every bulbs, every combination of ceiling lights and floor lights. Nothing worked with that pink. To be fair, even sunlight failed at making it cozy anyway.

Belive it or not, this kitchen picture above, first featured on my "Expat Guide to the Indian kitchen" gets stolen and used on other websites way too regularly, including on the website of Apartment building developers. I've served more DMCA notice on that picture than any other on the blog. And for the life of my I wonder what makes it so appealing!

This kitchen was a nightmare, not only was the non-tiled part of the wall done in that ugly pink, they found a way to make the kitchen cabinets pretty much match it. The laminate was a shade of salmon-ish beige for crying out loud! The only light came through that window and the opened "utility balcony" door, which if kept shut would plunge the kitchen in semi-salmonish tinted darkness.

I wanted to try uploading pictures of Ishita's room, and the 3rd room, but I could not get them in a decent size. But let's face it, it was the same wall paint hell.
Ishita's pink curtains looked like the only thing that popped in that room, and in a non flattering way. The study was a hot mess anyway as we never had the time to turn it into liveable place in our short stay.

This flat was a prime example why dispersion paint (aka white wash in India) should never by tinted in any other pastel hue than just soft yellow.
If you ask me, no rental property should ever be painted with dispersion, even the white type to begin with as it is the type of paint that will show dirt the fastest and cannot be wiped clean unlike vinyl paints. But that is just my opinion (fairly professional at that).

I also think that wall colours should be kept neutral in rental properties, it makes it easier to rent it out, and won't drive your tenants to the brink of sanity. It's easier to dress up a boring white wall than it is hiding a puke pink, pastel mint or sky blue monstrosity.

If you are the proud owner of your own walls, well do what you want, I am yet to see anybody making the conscious and voluntary choice to live with that particular shade of pink though.

I'm a tea lover, no secret here, it's even in my blog bio and at the end of every blog posts. I live on the stuff, and as soon as the temperature dips I pretty much soak in it, be it actual tea, or fruit infusions (which have no tea leaves in it).
Last year I wrote a blog post about my love of tea and how I have favourites for all seasons and occasions.

Nothing will ever change there, I am the type that will try new flavours and brews all the time. And if I had the space in my kitchen there would be a big "tea bar" with a lot many brews than I currently have all prettily displayed in matching tins with cute labels and all. That's how serious I am about tea people. And to answer the question that is sure to pop again : I do not like milky masala chai. Call me names and grab your pitch forks if you must, it won't change that fact. I have tried it in many places across India, I will drink it if there is really nothing else, but I can't say I love it, or even like it. It's probably because I am not a fan of milk diluted in hot water, and that is why I am not a huge fan of coffee either if you must know.

Nope, I like my tea "black", without milk, and without sugar, and I put black in bracket because my love of tea is not limited to that one type, I love green, white and fruity brew equally.

So this year I decided to focus my January shopping guide on all the teas I think you should keep in your pantry. All are tea-bags, because hey, that's convenient, but no I am not against loose leaf tea at all. Again if I had the space there would be a lot of that in my picture perfect matching tins display that my tea bar would be.
This post is an Amazon affiliate post, all the links below are affiliate links. This means that if you buy anything I get paid, at no extra cost to you might I add.


Dilmah Peach Flavoured Tea This is the one tea I MUST start my day with. No matter the season you can bet the first thing I'll grab in my tea cabinet will be this one.
I love it so much I had to include it in this list despite the fact it frequently goes out of stock on Amazon (and is as I type these words).
It's Ceylon tea that has a nice yet not overpowering peach flavour added to it. I have drank a lot of fruit flavoured black teas over the years, this one is one of the best I've ever tried.
My local supermarket stocks it, and I make sure I pick it up as soon as half the opened pack has been consumed. It tend to go out of stock there too, and my definition of "Worst morning" is not having that tea in my cup, and yes it has happened once.

Tea-A-Me Kashmiri Kahwa Before I continue rambling about that tea, let me state that there hasn't been a single Kashmiri Kahwa I haven't loved. This one is a mild brew, it contains only green tea, cinnamon and cardamom. It's light and aromatic enough to drink even on a hot Mumbai Summer day, and not surprisingly it is what I consider my "Summer Kashmiri Kahwa tea". Tea-A-Me is a brand I usually prefer for its fruit infusion though, and there will be some of these below.

Goodwyn's Kashmiri Kahwa This one is my Winter Kashmiri Kahwa, it packs a lot more punch and flavour than the previous brand. Not surprising considering that apart from its green tea base it contains saffron, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, rose petals and even almonds. Needless to say it has a very warm and full bodied aroma. Try it on a day you feel a bit under the weather, I guarantee that your spirit will be lifted almost instantly.
Goodwyn is an Indian brand I strongly recommend when it comes to tea, if you never tried them, I suggest you start with their "Assorted Collection" it contains 20 tea bags across 10 flavours, you won't be disappointed by them. Plus the assorted pack comes in a pretty tin.

Typhoo Coconut green tea This one is one of my "Summer tea" and the only actual tea (as opposed to fruit infusion) from the Typhoo brand I really like along with their lemon grass variety. It's fresh, it has flavour and isn't too bitter even if you forgot to take out the tea bag out after 2 minutes (green teas need to generally brew a shorter amount of time).

Goodwyn's Jasmine green tea Another big win for Goodwyn, this tea has an amazing flowery note and none of the bitterness you find with a lot of green teas. I was not joking when I said I highly recommend the brand.

Golden Tips Earl Grey If you'd rather stick to classic brews, this one is the one to go for. I have tried a lot of Earl Greys over the year, it's my to go to flavour to start the day when I am travelling. This particular one is a full leaf tea in pyramid shaped tea-bags, so it has a super awesome flavour.


This rounds up my pick of actual teas, I mean the ones that contain real tea. Now let's dive in my picks for fruit infusions and herbal teas shall we?

Tea-A-Me Cranberry Apple The Swiss, or rather Central European way of ending your day is to drink a cup of caffeine free infusion before bedtime, and it is such a big thing that most supermarkets will stock up as many variant of fruit infusions and herbal brew as they stock tea.
This Te-A-Me variant is among my favourite bedtime flavours, it has a nice rich fruity flavour, and like most fruit infusions also contains Hibiscus flower, which has been proven to lower BP and relax you. The other variant I love from the same brand is the Apple Cinnamon variant. Both are great as herbal iced tea as well.

Typhoo's Black Currant Bracer This one was one of the first one I found readily available in India, it has a rich berry flavour that is great on a Winter evening.

Organic India's Tulsi Mulethi Organic India is a brand that is famous for all their different variant of Tulsi teas and Tulsi herbal tea. My particular favourite from the brand is this one though, mulethi is the Hindi word for liquorice root and this herbal tea has a nice liquorice flavour that perfectly balances the tulsi in it.
It's my pick for beating anxiety and stress, liquorice has after all soothing properties. DH is a fan of another tea from the brand : Tulsi Ginger which we have in loose leaf in a tin at home, but does exist in tea bags as well.



So, how do you like your tea? Are you adventurous with flavours when it comes to what's in your cup?

Hi all! Did you spend a nice and relaxing weekend that energised you for the week ahead? I sure have!
This Sunday we woke up early and headed to our favourite beach in Mumbai : Aksa beach. We reached at around 8.30, all ready to enjoy the fresh Mumbai Winter air. What made it really great though was that we were on the beach during the last bit of the magic hour.

And, NO! I do not mean to say that the beach comes alive with elves, goblins and fairies at a specific time of the day. It also doesn't mean your every wishes will be granted if you dip your feet in the water while chanting a mysterious incantation.
The magic hour is a photography term that refers to that short period of time after Sunrise or before sunset when the light is softer and warmer than the rest of the day.
The evening magic hour is usually a more orange hue while the morning one gives a nice golden light. If you want to know more, the ladies at "A beautiful mess" explained it pretty well.

I could not resist taking a lot of pictures and many of them are already printed and pasted in our year book.
Aksa beach during the Golden hour is a bright warm yellow, thanks to the light coloured sand the beach has.
All the pictures below have been taken with my HTC phone and minimally  edited with the "A color story" app which is my "to go" app to edit most of my Instagram pictures (by the way, if you aren't already following me there, click on the follow me icon on this blog).
I used the "Everyday" filter at top strength to boost the brightness naturally and then added a tiny hint of the "Magic Hour" filter, just to give the already quite golden hue of the pictures an extra glow. And I mean a tiny bit of that filter.


I posted another variant of that picture on Instagram yesterday, as I spent my time on the beach picking up seashells with many a craft project in mind for them. This seashell is particularly photo-worthy because it has that funky, geometric pattern on it.

While I was picking up seashells and being the official "family photographer", DH and Ishita raced on the beach.
Aksa beach is extra special in the sense that when it is low tide, there is a LOT of beach. The sea retreats pretty far, it makes anybody standing on it look tiny and rather insignificant. It's also a long beach front, so it rarely looks crowded, even with a lot of people on it, unlike Juhu beach.

It took them a while to cross the distance of that sandy patch and stop being dots on my pictures. Then, they ran the other way...

Same beach, same sun, different angle. They were bold enough to dip their feet in the water. DH did comment it was cold though...well...duh! Even though the "cold wave" left Mumbai this weekend, it's still Winter time and it is still pleasantly cool in the mornings.

Reason why I left my shoes on and kept my feet dry. I just barely recovered from a big cold, no point in getting myself sick again.

Each time we made it to that beach, I can't resist taking a snap of the sea horizon. Mostly because, as I said, this beach is giganourmous and make you look and feel really small.
In the Winter you also can't really see where the sea ends and the sky begins as clearly, thanks to the smog/fog. It makes for even more dramatic pictures, especially if you use a 7 years old armed with a toy spade to fight the ocean's might as a model.
The sea was actually super quiet that day, It was at its lowest tide-wise and just starting to come back up. The waves were few and very small, it almost felt like we were by a lake rather than the Arabian sea.

And last but not least, I treat you to one of my rare selfies. This picture, unlike the others have NOT been edited at all. What you see is what my phone captured, without filters. I was tempted to at least remove the last trace of that cold sore that plagued me all of last week with photoshop, but decided against it, it feels more authentic looking. It also went in the year book that way as a reminder I dealt with a cold from day 1 of 2017. It also shows how much weight I lost since last August, though to really notice that you either need to know me in person, or have access to a lot of my old pictures (and there aren't that many around...)

The idea of creating a photo year book is one I've been toying with for a few years now. I just could not really figure out HOW I wanted to do it.
There was the option of building one of these photo album you can build online and have shipped to you. The drawback being that you need to wait the end of the year to build it, and forget details and stories as you do.
There also was the option to make it at home, preferably as we went to not forget any candid moments and emotion. But there was the printing pictures dilemma: at home or professional, online professional or photography shop?

Then, I figured out the solution that works best for me : Print the pictures myself and paste them in a sketch book. This was around the time I felt empowered with our "Summer of 2016 Journal project" that I came to this epiphany. Back then though I still had to figure out the picture printing bit.

I've been printing my phone pictures for a while now. I even just republished an old blog post about your printing options, that you must check out.

My dilemma was with what I was confortable with for that year book project. I knew I wanted quality pictures that stood the test of time. And I knew printing them on my HP printer was not going to cut it, the quality is basic, and the colours tend to fade quickly when exposed to air.
I also knew beyond the shadow of a doubt I would never go for Zoomin ever again for online printing service. They screwed one of my orders so badly in the past and sucked even more at customer assistance to resolve the issue that I couldn't just deal with them for that project.
Finally I wasn't sure how dedicated I would be to my project having to run to the local photography shop to print a handful of pictures at a time.

Decisions, decisions...

As you can see I had nothing but options, I just had to pick one I could live with. Then my birthday came, and I had the perfect gift idea : The Canon Selphy. I won't go into much details here, I wrote a great in length review of it already. Let's put it simply :

Best purchase/gift EVER!

I first published this blog post in 2015 and decided to republish it in view of what is to come on the blog in a few days. Since I was already at it, I added a bit more to it. When I wrote it back in the day I was still the owner of just a regular, very utilitarian HP printer with all the drawbacks it has when it comes to printing pictures (hint, they dont stand the test of time). 

Believe it or not, this wonderfully boho/ethnic necklace started it's life as an ornate silver key ring. or rather a saree clip key chain.
I got it as a gift from my MIL for Dhanteras when we headed to Lucknow to celebrate Diwali in 2014. Dhanteras is the first day of the 5 days celebration that is Diwali in India (no it is not just one day, and no it is not all about diyas and fire crakers).
On Dhanteras it is custom to buy and gift something made of metal to bring prosperity home. Most people buy and gift silver coins, or gold for those with a bigger budget. It is also common to replace all the old pots and pans and buy new one on that day.

After years of recieving coins on Dhanteras, my MIL decided to do something different that day and gifted all of us DILs a "saree key ring" made of silver.

Those particular key rings are meant to be worn clipped to the saree, at the waist and double as an ornament. When we recieved it, one of my SIL and I both realised immediately that they would make for a great necklace. Those saree clips, as pretty as they are, belong to era of housewives wearing sarees daily and needing to keep the household keys handy. The more utilitarian versions of this key ring are rather plain. The silver version above is probably more of a special occasion wear thing.

Since neither me, nor my SILs really wear saree that often (for me that borders on almost never) and when we actually do wear one it is to go to a fancy wedding or party where displaying our household keys would make little sense, it made sense to convert this beautiful silver piece into something I would actually wear.

I took my time to put that plan into reality, and I finally did so last December. First I wanted to find the right beads to do so, and I had a vision of a necklace made with chunky glass beads.
I found a store that sold exactly what I needed in May 2016, but by then I was still not sure if I wanted to go with my signature blue, or go for more earthen tones, or greens, or reds...or....you get the idea! I had to pick a color.
I then realised that I would have way more of a chance to wear it if I stuck to blue tones, as my wardrobe is packed with the hue.
When I finally got the the colour part figured out, and the time to go shopping, the shop had closed down for renovation.
For the record, said shop is Itsy Bitsy in Phoenix Market City Kurla, in Mumbai. And yes I KNOW, oh dear god I KNOW that they do have an online store, but hear me out before lecturing me about it.

The brick and mortar shop in the mall has something that the online store doesn't have: a "Bead Bar". Basically you just pick whatever beads you want, in whatever quantity you want and in whatever combination of colour you want and you pay per weight. The price is very reasonable at about 50 paisa per gram. They sell some of those beads in pre-packed little pouch of one type each at a much more inflated price, both in the store and online.
So yeah, I needed the store to re-open to stock up on those beads, hence the delay.


Once I had my beads, and the time to devote to this project I got to work. The first step was to remove the silver clip, and the key ring from the ornate silver pendant. That was quite easy to do as the silver was pretty soft and the loop of the clip holding everything together came open buy just twisting a pair of scissors in the opening.

I decided to string the beads in a symmetrical pattern. This means that the sequence of beads before the pendant went in is the same as the sequence after the pendant was stringed. Since the beads don't all have the exact same size, it still makes for a funky, homemade look.
To insert the pendant, I tied it to a loop of silvery metal first, as you can probably notice on the picture above.

This type of necklace is what I wear all the time I am not wearing sweat pants or sports wear, which means pretty much every time I am going outside for a meet up, events or fun outing. I don't like gold jewellery, or precious stones or any of that stuff. I've always been the chunky, boho necklace type of gal and once upon a time on the blog, I half joked that I was any husband's dream when it comes to jewellery : I hate the costly stuff. Or rather, I could not care less about it. 

You may have noticed I suddenly went quiet after December 23rd and the few posts between then and  January 2nd were all scheduled in advance.
It's not the first time I'm slowing down during the end of the year festive period. I usually give focus to family, friend and just plain old relaxing after a busy year.

2016 was no different in many aspects, but also very special, as far as Christmas was concerned at least.
The whole year was a crazy ride of having escaped death or at the least, severe injuries last February. It was followed with the longest Summer break we ever had, thanks to a change of school (nearly 4 months of break, it's no picnic).
There have been the usual high and lows, a few successes and achievement, and a health revelation that forced me to seek help and loose that weight (I'm still going strong).
The festive season then claimed us, and it was a whirlwind of public holidays, parties, gathering, festivals that kept us on our toes, and for some reasons, most of Ishita's friends are born during said festive season, to make it more interesting and busier than it already is.

Christmas this year was quite special though.

My brother in law surprised us by coming to visit us from Lucknow along with his wife and son. This is the first time ever they came to celebrate Christmas with us in 10 years of DH and I being married.
Until the 23rd they had no idea if they would get berths on the train, so we only really could plan at the last minute.
The came in the evening of the 24th and I spent the morning and the afternoon of that day doing some last minute Christmas shopping for my nephew. We also realised we had no guest pillows left and had to brave the mall crowd to get some as well. I then quickly made a batch of Milano cookie dough. With the idea that the kids could get baking on Christmas day.

We ended up opening presents on the Christmas morning, then played outside for a while, napped, and went out for dinner as it was way simpler to do with 6 people, two vegetarians who prefer Indian food and a tiny kitchen that was already overloaded with dirty dishes from lunch.
It turned out to have been an excellent idea. We headed to one of these "Barbecue" type restaurants where they bring grilled food to a grill on your table. That way everybody got to eat what they wanted with no wastage of food.

On the 26th, we tackled some grocery shopping and errands, then I got Ishita, her cousin and our neighbour busy in the kitchen in the afternoon.
I manned the oven while they got busy cutting shapes in my cookie dough. It's at this moment I thought : "Darn we need a bigger kitchen". 3 kids attempting to cut cookies together on the only 70 centimeters of usable kitchen counter space in our kitchen is quite a challenge.
They spent the rest of the evening playing hide and seek in the flat while I tackled the cleaning and dinner prepping with SIL.

It was followed by a day of shopping at the mall which gave us the occasion to soak in the Christmas decorations and that super cute penguin Christmas tree in the first picture. SIL, Ishita and I were in shopping bliss, my 10 years old nephew? Not so much, it is clear that shopping enjoyment is in the genetic markup that makes a girl/woman. Boys usually loathe the experience from an early age, a fact that my nephew confirmed, along with the testimony of my other SIL and many of my friends who are moms of boys.
But hey, it was the beginning of the sales period! You can't miss that! Especially when for the first time in ages finding clothes that fit is no longer a big ordeal for me.

Before you know it, and a few creative projets, way too much food and a trip to South Mumbai it was time for BIL and family to head back to Lucknow. They left in the afternoon of the 31st and DH, Ishita and I went to see the New Years Lights in Hiranandani Gradens in Powai in the evening, and went back home before the crowd and traffic got too bad.
If you are ever in Mumbai between Christmas and New Year you MUST go see those lights, they usually light them for Christmas but this year they ran a bit late. They pretty much light the enire neighbourhood, hang fairly lights from every tree in the public park (Heritage Garden) and it is probably one of the best free holiday activity you can do in the suburbs.

I took a few pics to mark the occasion:
Those fairy lights globes are found all over the area, mostly hanging from strings above the streets, but a few adorn the ground near Rodas Hotel and Galleria.

Around the hotel and galleria they made a canopy of lights above the street instead of hanging globes. This picture above is taken at the Galleria fountain with what was, once upon a time called the "Bayer house" in the background. It is now called the Scorpio house. This building and area have been featured in a couple of Bollywood movies and commercials over the years.

The star of the light display is Heritage Garden, it is a big public park that is nice and pleasant year round. For New Year though, it is adorned with lights, every trees, and bushes are completely draped in fairy lights, the result is pretty stunning, and it comes as no surprise that the place gets really crowded on the 31st.

A lot of people come to Hiranandani Gardens for the lights, and all eateries and street food stalls are doing a brisk business on that day. DH and I left around 8.30pm before the roads became clogged with traffic.
We continued celebrating at home with take out food and a bottle of wine in our sweat pants. We've never been the New Year party type to begin with and even less so after Ishita was born. We enjoy the confort of our home.

Happy New Year to all of you!

I decided to give this whole bullet journaling thing a try this year, mostly because I had a massive crush on that cute notebook in my neighbourhood stationery shop and didn't want to go for yet another boring looking executive planner (I just about had enough of those way too safe leafy designs  in shade of green and beige).
Plus, after working with an "hybrid system" in my 2016 planner, I felt a bit limited still. I realised that the only way I could get a planning system that worked for me was if I built my own. The worse that can happen is that it doesn't work out and i make a switch back to a regular planner, so yeah, I pretty much have nothing to loose.

I went with a regular soft cover bound notebook from the Indian brand "Look what happened", as I said, because it really looked cute in my stationery shop (I get notebooks crushes often). This particular cutie can be bought on Amazon as well, be sure to check their other designs as well, they are all drool worthy (if you are a notebook addict).

Now I KNOW that the bullet journal lot seems to swear by Moleskine or Leuchtturm notebooks. If you live in Europe and US they are still affordable EVEN if they already fall in the higher end prices. In India it is downright RIDICULOUS. Moleskine notebooks prices start at around 800 rupees for a small size notebook and Leuchtturm ones fall in the 2700 -3500 rupees depending on the type of paper and the colour of the cover.
Sorry but no thanks! There is really not much to justify that kind of prices when there are plenty of very affordable and good quality options in the domestic market be it soft cover or hard cover.
The only problem with Indian brands is that they haven't yet caught on the whole "dotted" paper trend which comes in between ruled paper and squared paper. This could be the only thing that could motivate one for going for these high priced import if they are into a lot of sketching in their journal.

I myself keep a creative journal on the side, so having a dotted, or even blank paper planner made no sense. The one I use has thick quality paper and is ruled.


The first section of my planner is the : Year at glance section.

I made it fit on 4 pages (3 months per page) and wrote the month on a little strip of washi tape to add some colour.
This section will contain all the things that have been planned long in advance (long before we reached the month in question). I'll use this section to fill my Month at a glance page each time I create one (more on that later).


Right after the "Year at glance" section I created a "Blog Monthly stats" page.

This is what I felt very limited about in my 2016 planner, I had to write them in a corner of my "1st of the months page" and each time I wanted to compare a month to another I found myself leaving through the entire planner. Having them all on one page (front and back) makes much more sense. I lift these stats of my Google Analytics every month.


Another page that I really needed in my old planner was a "Goal page". Something I think all modern planners should have instead of that ridiculous bunch of pages telling you about all the ISD phone codes, measure conversion formulas and clothing sizes around the world or even the BMI chart. We have Google for all of this people!

Now that my rant is over, back to the goal page, it will contain all my monthly goals as I go. I used to write them on the 1st of the month page as well, and then forget about them because going back to that page really became annoying as the month progressed. Here I will again have it all at one glance, I hope this will hold me a bit more accountable to them.

Then comes the "Month at glance" page. This one is one I will create every last evening of the month for the next month.
This is the place where all those plans made for the month in the current month will go. On the 30th or 31st of each month I'll take time to make my new monthly spread and add all the events from the "Year at glance" section along with the ones that are more immediate.

On that monthly spread, I wrote a very simple little calendar on top, and then allocated 3 lines per day  below.
I even added a little box for the already planned "next month" events.

Last but not least, I wrote a little list of possible blog topics for the month (on the left) and started my daily planner.
As you can see it contains my to-do list and events listed in the "Month at glance". To make it easier for me to spot the blog posts planned for the day I wrote them in green. I added a column on the left to keep track of my cash expenses (I was already doing it in 2016).

Now for the big impressive bit you have no idea about : I am typing these words on November 25th 2016! All the pictures above have been taken in November and the spread and design was done in October (that's the Swiss genes at work).
As you can see, this very blog post is scheduled for January 2nd and yes it went live on that date. The instant I hit "Publish" to schedule it, I added a line in my planner saying "Going live @ 9am" Which is usually the time I publish scheduled post because by then I have enough tea in the system to do the promoting bit just right.

As we progress into 2017 I probably will have little updates on how I handle my Bullet Journal system.
In the meantime, if this is too advanced planning for you, why not download my 2017 Calendar printable? Or even just the January page which I published yesterday? 

Happy New Year!

So, January, here we come!