Worldview Therapy

Hi 

let me introduce to you all a wonderful blog Worldview Therapy from a wonderful friend.  Ingela born Norwegian or should I say half Norwegian and half American - is an Indian in spirit :-) I strongly believe she would have been an Indian in her previous birth. She always has one foot in that part of the world and I think the heart is always there. Interested from Dalai lama to bollywood movies (knows better than me all the gossips doing the rounds ), a total vegan who can cook Dhal Makhani and Paneer sabji as easily as she can bake focaccia bread and chocolate chip cookies :-) , reflective, intelligent and  compassionate person that she is, started her blog Worldview Therapy  and the tagline goes – the best cure for bad feelings …. which says it all. Her latest article on Tidiness is a must read. So visit and follow her at worldviewtherapy.blogspot.com and I am sure you will not be disappointed.  

With Ingela around one can always get freshly made smoothies and Focaccia's :-)

Springing into the “SPRING”

Though the dark and dreary days of winter have not yet vanished fully, it's time to look to the brighter days ahead with each passing day getting longer and warmer. Have a peek into my door to see how I tried to dust off the winter blues :-)

Sekhar got these lovely roses from Kavi and Bala on his being designated as professor last week

 

These Orange and Yellow hues from Anandan's added warmth to the already catching up spring fever

Hope you enjoyed the spring tour of my home. Hadet så lenge.

Earth hour at home Shanthi home

Good morning! I hope all of you had a gr8 weekend. The more the merrier – a Friday shopping spree, a Saturday dinner (needless to say includes cleaning and cooking and more cleaning), a Sunday photo session – to feature the first home on home Shanthi home and a little bit of lazing around – were the highlights of my weekend. How about you all?

What did I shop – I just shopped flowers and flowers and flowers and more and more of them arrived with each guest coming in :-). So I have  a Spring garden inside my house. 

In the middle of the hustle bustle of cooking and arranging things – my son comes in at 20:20 and tells me  - mamma in 10 minutes I am going to switch off all the lights in the house for an hour honoring the Earth hour. With many guests around (some formal ones too) and a dinner to be laid out soon, all my trials pleading him to postpone or cancel went in vain. Teenager he is and as determined as one can be :-).  With support from all present at sharp 20:30 he switched off all the lights . The hour that unfolded was not that scary as I thought and was actually more fun with cosy lighting in every nook and corner and friends helping in the dark.  Here are some pictures from the Earth hour at home Shanthi home :-)

As every coin has 2 sides, you will also find different views for Earth hour. But what it brought back home to us was a little bit more conscious awareness of the environmental issues, a genuine thought and appreciation for all those people in Japan and elsewhere in the world who are without the basic supplies for days at stretch.

 

coming to party treats - I forgot to take the snaps in right time and so here are some left overs :-) just on those I could get my camera on......

Prachi - here are the golgappa shots :-). A great hit. 

 

 Have nice week ahead

Have a fun filled weekend

Just did not realise how the week passed by. I was just in the blog world leaving everything else in my life, and I am not complaining :-).  Well well  the period of infatuation has to end sometime.  So here I am taking off for the weekend on this lighter note  …….

GRANDPARENTS ANSWERING MACHINE

Good morning. . . . At present we are not at home but,  please leave your message after you hear the beep. beeeeeppp ... 

 If you are one of our children, dial 1 and then select the option from 1 to 5 in order of "arrival" so we know who it is.

If you need us to stay with the children, press 2

If you want to borrow the car, press 3

If you want us to wash your clothes and ironing, press 4

If you want the grandchildren to sleep here tonight, press 5

If you want us to pick up the kids at school, press 6

If you want us to prepare a meal for Sunday or to have it delivered to your home, press 7

If you want to come to eat here, press 8

If you need money, dial 9

If you are going to invite us to dinner, or, taking us to the theater start talking we are listening !!!!!!!!!!!"
  

Love you Tatayya!!!!

Yes it is 6th January 1918. Why did I say this was the greatest puzzle I have ever solved – because it is the birth date of my dearest Tatayya( Granddad) – my soul mate and my darling.  I just thought what if one of the pieces in the puzzle was missing. Would it make a difference?  Ofcourse not, it did not make any in the last 9 decades of his life. He always lived a free man and of course a hassle free man :-).

My days spent with my grandparents in their village, during school vacation are the best memories I have of my childhood. Coming from an agriculture based family – I had all the fun running around the farms, climbing the trees, harvesting the feed, washing the cows, pulling water from the wells, riding the bullock carts –Oh I just could do whatever I wanted and was treated like a princess in the village they lived in. Celebrated all festivals in their full glory making the rangolis – one bigger than the other, dancing around them, everyday was a Diwali - helping  clean the lanterns and lighting them in and around the house ( They did not have electricity in the villages in those days). Always gobbling up the yumm yumm fresh butter that my grandma used to store to make ghee, lip smacking smoked food cooked in the earthen ware pots..... oh the memories are too many and I am sad that my children could not experience the same. 

Viswanatham as he is called, he is just 93 yrs old, weak and fragile in his body but as good in his memory as any of us. He told me in Dec  - I am a bit weak , else I would have come and visited you in Norway. Isn't that sweet? It is amazing a man from a small village in India , who had no education whatsoever, learn't some numbers and alphabets to maintain his family expenditure,  helped my grandmother in her household works, who was sort of “treasurer” to the entire village where people trusted him with their gold, cash and documents to be tucked away in his big Iron safe which only he can operate :-). He follows cricket like any of us do and knows by name all the cricketers world wide.  He looked at my son in the last visit in July and said that his hair style looked like Ricky Ponting – The Australian cricket captain :-).  He greets every  visitor to the house and enquires about their kith and kin  remembering all in 5 generations leaving everyone in awe.   I am his favorite grandchild and he is my dearest dearest granddad and that inner connection we share is divine. 

A puzzle to solve - Tick Tock Tick Tock goes the .......

This was the greatest puzzle I ever solved. Can you try and put the pieces together 

1)      if the uncle said you were 1 year old when jallianwala bagh massacare occured

2)     If the mom said you were born 8 to 10 days before Pongal/Sankranti festival

3)     If the grandfather said  you were born on a Sunday. 

Solve the date of  birth. We will discuss this in my tomorrow’s post :-).

In today’s world where accurate time is so readily available and even every modern appliance seems to have its own built in clock, imagine to be in times where there was no standard time being announced every hour. Sun and shadow was their only time sense.  lucky were those who might not have understood the words "rush", "stress" and “lack of time”.  

This marvel at the Jantar Mantar in India gives time to the precision of milli seconds based on the sun’s shadow.

Coming to the times of  the historical and grand church clocks, they were not just simply over sized house clocks adding grace to the building but also served as a link to the community’s past and were the time keepers where the  watches and house clocks could be set and appointments met.  
 

The Prague Astronomical Clock mounted on the old town hall which in the Old Town Square is a master piece

 

It had taken the artists and brilliant minds behind these clocks several years or even decades to create these timeless wonders. These clocks work through the complex mechanisms that move the hands exposed to wind, rain and snow and the wires that pull heavy hammers to strike and chime bells. 

The mechanism behind the Salisbury cathedral clock  – the oldest working clock and the sound from its chimes

via

 

From the lady who never ceases to amaze us be it with her art work, her DIY’s, her home or her photographs.  

This one made by Kamini from recycled materials like tawa, spoons, Gramphone record plates and so on..... Kamini go ahead and elaborate.

Yes you guessed it right – Clocks have made a big comeback and that too big big clocks. 

I have a large empty wall in my home and I decided to hang a large decorative wall clock in that space. As a first trial I tried to get one for myself by entering this giveaway from Anu at my dream canvas but no I was not lucky :-(.   I am still looking for clocks :-) 
  

and may be one of these I saw in the Crafts Mela will land on my wall. 

Tick Tock Tick Tock goes the clock and I have to now run for something equally exciting – water aerobics :-).  Stay tuned and we will talk about the date of the birth tomorrow.

A thought for our feathered friends

Minus 24 degrees C is what caught my eye when I started my car at 12.30 AM, returning home from a 25 year wedding anniversary party.  Are you wondering how we survive ? Yes we do with the attittude – it’s never bad weather , it is only bad clothes.  My thoughts then went out to those in the wild. I was happy I put PEPPER my rabbit IN before I left.  (I compiled this post some weeks ago  but we still have snow and cold temperatures though not that severe :-) ).

Is it something with the extreme conditions that make people more conscious and aware of the needs of others or is it that all cultures have passed on the beliefs, values and life experiences to establish credible ethical and moral care - just like what we are seeing in Japan now.  The case in point here is how well the visitors to our gardens are taken care of. The chirping birds survive the extreme winters here with the food and water people provide . The feeders are always  topped up to prevent them from having a wasted visit, which they  just cannot afford as they need lots and lots of energy to keep them warm during the long winter nights. It is as common a site in the grocery store to see people pick up a bag of bird feed as they would pick a milk carton.  This brings back to me the memory of my grandpa always passing on the first morsel of  food served to him to the birds outside in the name of his forefathers. I do not know the religious significance of it though. 
 Let us now peep into the gardens in my neighborhood :-)

Grø is 83 yrs whom I see bicycling in our small streets shopping food for her and her birds

Rakel - my neighbor's aesthetics show in her birds house too.

It's just not birds alone look at this special visitor on my balcony one morning

some new bird houses at this Crafts Mela I went some weeks ago

Let's do our 2 cents in whatever we can.