Hooked to Life and Loving It. Because Life is Good.

I am truly hooked to life! So much happened last week that my head is spinning. Let me share some fragments with you.

Life is good

April is just around the corner and that means the April AtoZ Challenge, for which sign ups opened. Yes, I signed up. You can, too. Sign up here.  If you are already signed up, buddy up with us at our A to Z 2014 Facebook group. More info here about what happens at the AtoZChallenge.

I got so excited I decided to participate via two blogs this time. This one and Your Medical Guide, my health blog. Oh, last year was such fun. I was traveling for most of April and ended up writing most of my posts at midnight and scheduling them before I slept. It is an experience I thoroughly enjoyed, thanks to my friend who made sure I didn’t slip up.

I remember how we viewed everything as a prospective post for the AtoZ Challenge. This year I intend to be more organized and have already started planning for it. My excel sheet is brimming with ideas. I know the folks at the AtoZ blog recommend a theme – and of course they are right, but I prefer to go with a mixed bag as usual. While I’ll stick to the rules, I promise you variety, as usual. And also, this year, I am on co-host Damyanti’s team. Yay!

My earliest memory

A couple of Sundays back I had the ‘flu. To amuse myself, I asked my Facebook group members to cheer me up with their favorite photos of themselves.

And the conversation turned into a fun day. So much fun that we turned it into a prompt and wrote a post about it on our blogs. We asked who was interested. Turned out everyone was – and we decided a date – Feb 1. Twenty women came together to share their earliest memory on their blogs on the same day. Shilpa Garg, the super-organized one, made a list – taking into account our geographical locations so that we could schedule our posts at least half an hour apart. The first post went live at 3:00 am IST and the last post was published at 1:30 pm IST .

To me, it was a shining example of cooperation, commitment and support. I was overwhelmed with the loving! My own post is at Coffee With Mi.

28 days of connection: Joy Holland

I am honored to be a contributor to my dear friend Joy of Facets of Joy’s 28 Days of Connection: A Celebration of Love, a complimentary series. Register anytime during the month of February and receive one message of love daily via email at 3a (PDT) from February 1- February 28th. Here is the link to register.

Something fun!

Two days back, Vaisakh Venugopal (my friend who burned the midnight oil with me on the even of the Write Tribe Anthology book launch) buzzed me and said he was up to no good. bored. He said,”I was getting bored.. so did something.. without your permission.. hope u wont mind.” So I asked “eh?” and he cheekily replied, “you’ll see.. just don’t cuss me”. Wondering what he did? Here:

Does it look like anyone you know? This is a digital painting by Vaisakh. What do you think?  Pretty good? What?

Moving along…

I saw a couple of sad sights last week. On Monday morning, as I stepped out of my building, I was shocked to see two trees being felled. These trees had to be removed as the compound wall had to be built. Even if it had to be done, It was saddening.

And in another place, I saw this.

Although there was a policeman and the area was cordoned off to keep the public away, I was a little scared to see them sawing away at the base of the tree, and to see the tree perched on the ever-reducing trunk like that. The next day, of course, there was nothing there.

I definitely needed some visual relief and I looked up at the sky. Cool sight.

Know what I love about these pictures? When I see them, I think of afternoon sunshine, the sound of children’s conversations and chatter,both guaranteed to give me a warm warm feeling. And I know that soon, my little scoop of joy will run up to me for an hug.

And because they chopped off those trees in our building compound, I was suddenly surprised to find we could see everything across the road as we walked on our terrace. All we could see earlier when we looked down was a carpet of beautiful green branches. Sigh. (Julie Langdon Barrett – I am looking at you! A Clear Sign, I believe!) The brightly lit place is the bakery.

I’ve been feeling sleepy a lot – and I’ve been cooking a lot to counter the lethargy. You know what they say about creating. Also, I have a teenager who’s fond of variety in his food and so, it was pretty much fun. Here is something we really love at our place – bhel puri – a savoury Indian snack made out of puffed rice, crisp puris, roasted peanuts, potatoes, tomatoes, onion, dates chutney and a tangy tamarind sauce that are sweet, spicy and tangy at once…and garnished with coriander and lemon juice. During the mango season, we chop up raw mango and add. Drool!

Ready to serve Bhel Puri. Just realized it rhymes with my name.

And…

Served and ready to indulge

And that’s how I enjoyed my week! Life is good!

Ah, just one more thing!

My friend, Dr.Chandra Senan published a new book titled “Oxygen”  – the story of a primal fluid of vital importance to all life forms on the planet and our intimate relationship with this extraordinary gas.

What were you up to?

Linking up with the lovely UnknownMami for Sundays in my City  – where I get to travel the world from my keyboard!

♥