Collection of quotes

I have been looking for a collage for quite sometime...many have collections, but this one is really good..extensive actually. Dont be baffled by the look of the site..just bear with it and dig in.

The site is: Windsom Quotes

Official start of Winter?

Winter Solstice?! Never heard of that..actually never heard before that 'today is the first day of winter'.

I was watching news today evening, the anchor was rambling on and on about the health care bill that got signed this morning, how fair or unfair the voting procedure was, pork to the senators..blah blah blah...and in all this rambling, there popped up the catch phrase - 'first day of winter'! I wondered what is it or when it is and googled for it. Turns out there is good amount of scientific significance to calling Dec 22nd of every year the official day of winter. Wiki quotes: "The Winter Solstice occurs exactly when the earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26' ". This is the day when the day is shortest and night is longest in the Northern Hemisphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice

Reading through the article was like recalling the science lesson in school. Helps to learn terms and brush up memory sometimes, though all I know or care for now...T'is the Holiday season and I am looking forward to my looong vacation!! :)

Cyber Monday

Never heard of this term 'Cyber Monday' before. I was watching the 11Alive news and suddenly the anchors were talking about internet and frenzy and how Cyber Monday is catching up!

Hmm..wondered what it is and took help of the 'default' search engine(Google) and found all the answers on the 'collage of encyclopedias' (Wikipedia)

Turn out, the Monday after Black Friday is called Cyber Monday. Named so because of all the online deals from various merchants. It started 4-5 years ago and is picking up momentum very quickly because the online deals are way cheaper than the black friday deals, a lot of them offer free shipping, people dont have to get out of their home or waste their energy and time beating the bad weather. Instead they can stay at the home or even work, take a few minutes, and few clicks and get what they want! Check out Wiki for more info on Cyber Monday.

What I liked most about it?! Why the name..."The name Cyber Monday grew out of the observation that millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed Internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked"..hehe, interesting :)

Purchasing scented candles:Fragrance Vs Life for money value

We all like and buy candles for various reasons. I know of many who buy un-scented candles, because they are mainly interested in the light rather than smell. I buy scented candles most of the time..I like the light plus am a big fan of fragrances. After controlling my passion and piling up on perfumes, I drifted the passion to candles. As an 'everyday' candle user, I tried using many brands, but with time I have come to observe and realize few things about the brands and how they make their candles.

Pottery barn: I love Pottery Barn candles for their unique fragrance. From my experience, their collection is so different and hard to match anyone else. I always use them for a special occasion or mood because none of the others can excite me and make me smile with glee as these. The trouble I have is they are very subtle. I need to have a few of them in my room to actually smell the aroma, but cannot buy so many of them because they are expensive. Also, I do not like the fact that they do not last long. I shop the outlets most of time to save a few bucks, because the regular stores in the malls can be more expensive.

Yankee candles: I like Yankee candles for the large collection of fragrances. More fragrances to choose from than Pottery Barn, few of them are very very good, and a lot of them are 'nice'. For the same size, they are lesser expensive than the Pottery Barn candles and last relatively longer too. They are still expensive. To beat the price, I do not buy fragrance of the season, I normally wait until they go on sale and stock up to use whenever I like. The 'home fragrance' collection and few others have a strong aroma, so I normally use these to light up the house and diffuse the smell while I am cooking, and they work well for that purpose. I also do not need very many of them..probably 2-3 scattered across kitchen and living area are good for my purpose. I occasionally use few signature collection fragrances for special occasions. These candles are almost worth their value, burn well, and last long..and burn almost to the bottom of the jar.

Colonial Candles: These are the best value for price and fragrance and size. The fragrances are not the best for smell, but they have a decent collection. The price is decent. The best feature: they burn until the last drop of wax in the jar...and last months. I use them more like a regular candle while cooking and even though I leave them burning for about 2-3 hours and probably 1 in the kitchen and 1 in the living room..thats enough to diffuse the smell from cooking and they last about 4 months for a 23 oz jar.

Occasionally few other candles from Glade or Bath and Body Works or Pier1 Imports attract me, but probably I'll not buy a lot of them to fill the house and use them everyday. I am yet to explore the unbranded local artisan work.

Marriage Cetificate

If you are an NRI living in the US and are going to India for wedding, DO NOT forget to get your marriage certificate along with you when you are coming back. I do not know how it works out or is required in other countries, but in US, especially if you are in the GC process or will likely be, you will soon realize that it is one of the most critical documents required.
Neither me nor my husband had any idea that we need to take a marriage certificate after the wedding. My mother was the first person to tell it to us and she was very persistent..she reminded each day until we went to the local registrar's office and got it.
It took us about 4 hours to wait for the document, but it was all worth it.

I recently talked to a friend of mine whose GC went into inquiry because of missing marriage certificate. Of course she also did not have her birth certificate and submitted a non availability certificate for it. She struggled through quite a bit to submit subtitutes...and finally got through later.

Mango people

You know what this means if you watched 'Love Aaj Kal'. I have been watching quite a few movies off late...just thru and after dinner almost everyday. When we started to see this one, we wanted to stop watching right after 5 mins and switch on news or something else. It was so haphazard and had no relevance between this scene and the next one, dialogues and Saif did not make sense. But, slowly with time, the movie became interesting. It is a good movie, well taken with a good screenplay. Yea, it has its own share of flaws, but not to focus on them, the story flows and the genuine acting and dialogues bring in good laughs.

Plaster Vs Pottery Painting

By the look of it, at the first glance, you might not be able to tell the difference, but if you did any of the painting, you clearly know and can tell what is pottery and which is plaster. The plaster painting molds are made of plaster of paris and have an acrylic coat on them to give them the finish. Pottery painting molds on the other hand are made out of ceramic, and will need to be fired in a kiln to give them the finish. Plaster ones are cheaper and much more affordable than pottery. Also they are easier to paint because just one coat of color or one stroke is enough. When painting pottery it definitely needs to be done in multiple layers, there needs to be base coat and then rest of the art can go on top of it. The advantage of pottery painting comes in when 'edibility' factor comes in..you can actually use the mugs or plates or any other crockery, while the plaster ones are plainly for eyes delight and art's content :)

Hindi Movie: Sikander

My brother called me last week and told me particularily to watch this movie. He called me right after watching the movie and said he was moved watching it. He gave no further info, so I was very curious to watch the film. I finally saw it today - a powerful movie, though not impressively taken. It revolves around the life of kids in Kashmir, how they are effected by the terror that is going on during the fights in Kashmir. As soon as I realized the movie is around this theme, I was very tensed, because I was not prepared to see the children suffer or to see any kind of atrocities happen to the kids. I was tensed through out and had a terrible headache because of that. It was emotionally draining tho the movie did not involve any violent or abusive scenes. Overall, it is a good movie..should not be watched for purely entertainment for sure...thought provoking and brings realities to vision.

Hindi Movie: New York

I watched New York last night and was very impressed. I did not hear about the movie until last month. And once I heard that it was a Yash's movie, I postponed watching it thinking it is another comedy or musical. I was thoroughly amazed to see that the movie content it revolved around post-9/11 dealings with the suspects of the attack. Even though it is a very sensitive subject, that too for a foreigner(non-US) to handle it, the story, screenplay, direction were all meticulously crafted and very well handled. Also to my surprise, Katrina is not just another 'model' in the movie...she actually acted well and carried her character efficiently. Thanks to Kabir Khan, Sandeep Srivatsava and the Yash's..we do have a good movie to watch after a long time. Whats interesting is (to the best I know) there have been no other movies on post-9/11 related to Gitmo detention center made so far and I am glad the first one is indeed good, non-controversial and perfectly presented.

Learning words

I was playing Text Twist on Yahoo games..and...learned couple of words interesting new words...
Ell: old European term for of cubits- arms length

Burr : Has may references..fruit/seed, deformed wood growth on a tree, scrientific theory and many more. I never knew it was a word and it had a meaning, I was surprised to see so many meanings of the word in different contexts. Whats most interesting on these is that the burr seed: it was inspiration for Velcro!

Ebb:
1 : the reflux of the tide toward the sea
2 : a point or condition of decline

Ode: Greek Lyrical verse

No perseids

A whole night without sleep, still no perseids :(
I read that even the night of 12th is good to watch the meteors this year. I went to bed by 10, but couldnt sleep well anyway...woke up at 1.30 in the night and spent 2 hours looking at the sky.....no luck! I was quite disappointed..
watching the dark blue blanket of sky and gazing at the sparkling stars, after long, was a very good experience though!!

After I woke up the next day and searched online again. I read that the night of August 11th and early morning of 12th, before 3pm...that was guaranteed to see some showers in almost all places in US, North America actually. The night of 12th had a chance, not a strong one may be. There will be a chance again sometime in December..there will be Geminids. Can try to watch then, provided we can dare to stand the cold!

Perseids

Last chance to watch the meteor shower today! We wanted to watch it yesterday, but couldnt. I hope I can wake up before 5am tomorrow or stay awake until after midnight today and see the shower. It is suppose to be a very good view this year somehow..with an abundant chance.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090812-perseids-perseid-meteor-shower.html

Some enjoyed the show yesterday already and I saw some videos online today..looks like they had good fun!
A good guide to get more general insight:
http://www.earthsky.org/article/earthskys-meteor-shower-guide

Cash For Clunkers

Commonly seen as "$ for clunkers' on TV or online it is essentially the Govt CARS program - Car Allowance Rebate System.
Working in the Automotive industry I should have caught up with the news and 'terms' well in advance I guess, but did not hear about the CARS until yesterday. In our regular weekly meeting in the office, one of my team members was sad that he missed the eligibility by few points or something and that he cannot take advantage of the program. Intrigued, I looked up the subject online.

There is tons of info already available online and the official website is http://www.cars.gov/
Few of the things the program says:
- Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
- Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify
- Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)

I thought it was a pretty neat idea of the Govt to get rid of old cars and encourage purchase of new ones. This:
- improves new car sales
- initiates flow of money
- one way forces fuel economy
- helps making the Earth green.

These were the immediate positive effects that I could think of, which are all really healthy both to economy and environment . I heard our Director comment that he had a friend who owns a dealership, who actually said that he ran out of new cars last weekend because he had a lot of customers come for the trader-in. Surely 3,500 or 4,500 dollars in not a small amount!

Mom's cooking: cilantro pickle

My mom is like a free-lance cook! She never strictly sticks to a particular recipe...she enjoys cooking, serving and eating alike and changes ingredients slightly per the 'liking of the moment'. I guess I genetically carry that from her and make a few experiments myself :) Here's the generic recipe:

Ingredients: Cilantro, Tamarind, Salt, Sugar/Jaggery, Red Chilli, Urad Dal, Chana Dal, Mustard, Turmeric, Asofotedia. Optional: Garlic, Curry leaves.


Making:
1. Prepare seasoning first. In hot oil fry urad dal and chana dal till red. Add turmeric, mustard and red chillies. Wait for about 1 min, add Asofotedia, stir and remove the vessel from the stove.
3. In few drops of oil lightly saute' the cilantro for 1-2 mins.
4. Separate out red chillies and grind them.
5. Then grind cilantro with tamarind, salt and jaggery.
6. Mix the puree with rest of the seasoning.

- If using garlic, it needs to be slightly sauteed as well, along with cilantro and grinded. The heat will remove the strong pungent taste of garlic.
- If using curry leaves, add them to seasoning after adding asofotedia.

Simple Pleasures

In the hustle of busy schedules of everyday life, we tend not to notice or not fully enjoy simple pleasures in life. As I tell my husband always, life always gives us ample opportunities to look at it and appreciate it...all that is needed from us is to take an extra minute and pay attention. The few things that caught my eye, mind and heart alike and pleased me the most recently...

- a bright yellow flower along the river side
- smell of cilantro
- bright light green color of grass
- orange red shades of sky during sunset against the silhouette of pine trees.

Nature is a healer. It presents everything in the most beautiful shape or form. It is only upto us to actually perceive it and pay attention.

Re-cycle

I heard about recycle a lot, but started practising it only since last year. Herez what I have been doing:
1. Carrying re-usable shopping bags to either groceies or mall or anywhere I go shopping. I try best to never bring back a plastic bag from any store.
2. Recycling all paper and plastic: I have separate bags beside my trash can - 1 for paper and 1 for plastic and recycle every paper/plastic and paper/plastic-item. Later on, I empty them when I empty trash as well.
3. Using lesser plastic items in the home. For example I have completely stopped using disposable plates, silverware or glasses. I use more steel/wooden items in the Kitchen now than before..like spoons, boxes, etc. I still have a bunch of them from before, but I am not buying any new ones.
4. When I have a take-out or make my left-over lunch or dinner 'to-go', I ask if I can have a paper bag. It is not possible to have one many times, but I make sure I ask.
5. Using hand-towels..cloth ones as much as possible instead of paper towels.

I know we can neither undo the damage that we already did to the nature nor completely turn away from plastic, but we can do atleast few things differently to prevent the damage getting worse..hopefully!

Moist yellow cake

My brother had a special request..he wanted the next cake I bake be really soft and moist...so, I managed to combine about 2-3 recipies and finally came up with a good one today:

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoons baking soda

Makes 2 6'' cakes.

2009 White House Correspondents' Dinner

This happened few weeks ago and somehow I wanted to watch it again today and have some laughs. The first time I watched the Live telecast on CNN, I could not stop rolling with laughter.
Wanda is simply cracked me up. Obama was good too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmyRog2w4DI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0GwZFAV1Lw&feature=related

blocks/checkboard cake

I was helping my friend make her son's 1st bday cake..was so excited that I thought I should write about it.

herez my thought on making it----

- a sponge cake will be good..its enuf fluffly for a little kid or a moist chocolate cake will be yummy too.

- make a large 9x13 cake, cut blocks out of them. If you want thicker blocks, make multiple layers of the cake

- make butter cream with different colors for each block..light pink, yellow, blue, green..

- decorate the blocks with white bead border... tip#5 or a bigger tip based on liking(bigger or smaller dots)

- buy rolled fondant..its much easier to make fondant and for vegetarians..the best option is to use Wiltons rolled fondant, that way you can stay away from gelatin. Roll it out and cut out alphabets and stick them to the blocks...the buttercream icing itself acts like glue. So, if u press the alphabets against the iced blocks...that will keep them intact.

- make the alphabets or anything with fondant 1 week in advance so that it gets enough time to dry...start working on the cake 3 days in advance. that will be good enough.

- If you have a lot of time you can make animals as well from cut outs or can just decorate around the cake with the kids' toys.

Doe-eyed little deer..

I saw a little deer really close yesterday..just about 15 feet!
Yesterday evening, after coming back home from work, Shailu, my hubby and I went to the Chatthahoochee natural preserve for our regular run. My hubby and I go there in the weekends, but managed to pull Shailu into it recently as well. Shailu and he were ahead of me and I was slowly running, sometimes simply walking...it was almost sunset and the grass and tree bark were glowing like dipped in gold in the tender bright evening sun. I was enjoying the beauty and wondering how good it would be if I knew how to paint well and replicate the sight....and there suddenly I panicked! There was something staring at me from between the trees. I got scared immediately..a second later, I calmed down to realize that a little deer was looking straight at me. I was on the road, there was a fence along-side it and the deer was right behind the fence! It had big, dark, beautiful eyes..and did not even wink or move. It simply stared at me. It was simply beautiful :) I walked a couple of steps and it turned its head along to keep looking at me. I thought it might jump over then fence for a second. I did not want to take any chances since I was alone and my folks were not nearby. I started to run and the deer ran back into the woods. It was the closest that I saw a deer. I have seen deers at Chattahoochee before, both times at sunset, without expecting to see them, but it was at a distance. But, this was the best....:)
I have been to the drive through sanctuary in Ft. lauderdale and had the deers come to our car, but that was nothing in comparision to seeing one few feet away, staring into my eyes, totally unexpected out of the woods!

My dearest decoration so far

I assembled my cake for final class yesterday - fondant wedding cake with royal icing petunias :)

Ever since I joined course3 and flipped through my course book, this one cake caught my eye and I fixed my mind to do this one as my final cake.

I enjoyed working on it, but it was really tough to work with the deep flowers. Even though I dried them for 4 days, until I got the technique to peel off the aluminium foil, I broke about 4 flowers. Even after I figured the technique, I broke another 2 flowers, because they dried too much.

Lessons:

1. Make many more flowers than you would think you'd use for your cake.

2. Make sure you are working with Med consistency Royal icing for the deep flowers. The flat ones like cherry blossoms can be worked with thick or thin..even if u accidentally make ur icing thin.

3. Make sure you let the flowers dry for atleast 3 days. Then check on them. Dont let the flowers over dry as well.

I sent the pictures to my friends and was amazed at their response...4 of them got inspired to take courses themselves as well, after seeing the pictures...the value of visual impression huh?!

Cranberry Walnut Cookies

I mix and matched 2-3 recipes and finally came up with something that I liked:

3 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter
1 c. granulated sugar
1 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 c. milk
2 tbsp. orange juice
1 tsp orange zest, grated
3 c. fresh or frozen cranberries, stemmed and chopped; or dried cranberries
1 c. chopped walnuts

Measure flour, baking powder, soda, and salt into a bowl; stir with a fork to mix.

Cream butter, sugars and orange zest. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in walnuts and cranberries.

Drop and spread by the tablespoonful 2" apart on greased baking sheets Bake 10 to 12 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven until golden brown. Makes about 2-1/2 dozens.

Taco Bell gets even better

I am always a fan of their chalupas, but now, I have one more reason to be there anytime..the Fresco menu. Whats furthermore impressive is that they gave the nutrition guide as well. I went to Taco Bell to get a chalupa last week and saw this menu and nurtition guide brochure there...I was pretty surprised and amazed as well. I asked the cashier and she said its been around for more than 6 months now, but I found out about it only last well, and I am glad I did :)

http://www.tacobell.com/fresco/
http://www.tacobell.com/nutrition/information/

I heard Arnold Schwarzenegger speak on the news sometime ago, asking all the restaurants in CA to publish their menus with the number of calories on the side and its nurtition value. I do not know whether its a law yet or just a thought, but it will be nice to have all restaurants and fast food places do that in every state as well.

My little garden :)

Firecracker flowers (Kanakambaram), Marigolds, Jasmine, Cilantro(Corriander) and Fenugreek plant(Methi).

Never saw a firecracker flower or hoped to see one

after I left India. I was totally excited to see them at Home Depot...grabbed the plant without thinking for another second!!

Eggless pinapple cake recipie

This is the easiest pinapple cake recipie I saw and is very very good as well:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1616,149190-241205,00.html

Blueberry muffins from scratch

Here is a good recipie that I tried today and it works great. It takes just about 30 mins..
http://www.recipezaar.com/Awesome-Blueberry-Muffins-51997

Just keep going...

In this economy...the most important thing to do is to 'hang tight'. It is important than ever..whether one is in a job or looking a job.

Looking for a job has never been tougher. Thats because there are several thousands of candidates looking for opportunities in the market and the number is increasing every day, while the number of companies that are hiring or even thinking of hiring is diminishing. The demand-supply chain has become so messed up that for the few companies that are hiring, there are needy professionals willing to work for under bare minimum salary to just keep them going. This is bringing down the market even further by making it harder on rest of the individuals who are marketing themselves and ready to accept a lower pay already...and the cycle continues.

On the other hand working hard and keeping the job thats in hand has never been tougher either. Companies/firms/offices are operating with lesser than bare minimum workforce. With such little workforce and demand of output and deliverables remaining the same or even more, the pressure to perfom is much much higher combined with the fear of insecurity that he/she might be next one to 'let-go' next if there is cutting-down again.

Govt, news, media..everyone say the economy will turn around soon and things will start to get better. No clue when that will happen, but one thing for sure is that everyone needs to keep their faith alive, have hope and keep the self-confidence strong and stay bold. Because be it sooner or later, the market will turn around and get reparied...but if one's personality is damaged, it will be much harder to repair that. So, I know its hard, but its important to calm down, relax and hang tight.

Yellow Cake from Scratch

I have tried several different recipies..but this one works best:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Yellow-Cake-Made-from-Scratch/Detail.aspx

Working with Fondant

Our class today was to work with fondant on a real simple pattern..a party cake.

It was much easier than anticipated. The easiest aspect of working with a fondant, as opposed to butter cream icing was that if something went wrong, I could simply remove it or wipe it off without messing up anything on my cake and re-do it!!

Finally here..

I have always had the habit of writing. Friends and colleagues often teased me for being verbose as well...I used to maintain a diary for a long time and somehow lost the habit. Finally today, something happened and I got back to writing..and this time, blogging...

A recruiter called me today morning to give me feedback on an interview(phone-screen) I attended Thursday morning...turns out that the interviewer wanted to 'move on' with other candidates, because he was looking for someone who could 'fire answers back' at him like he could fire questions. This got me to thinking...

It is not about knowledge or skill set or talent anymore..in this market, it is purely one's position and power to choose is a key player for a candidate to be 'picked' or not. How fair is this??