Hello

Hello Friends!

Hope you are all doing well. Its been a long time since I posted. 

This is first time in my blogging history that I could not post Rangolis during the December January (Dhanurmasam) season.

Since Covid times we all have had our problems to cope with. Some lost their kith and kin, some lost their jobs, some lost their health and many such problems. Stress worry, depression, health issues - many of us had to deal with these and still dealing with them. I too had my share of problems. I did not feel like blogging at all. I kept away from arts and crafts and creating something new. Just keeping up with routine was all I could barely manage on my personal front.

Any way life has to go on.  If  life was predictable and without any ups and downs it would cease to be life and be without flavor. When we reach the end of the rope, we must tie a knot in it and hang on it till we find a way out.

R. W. Emerson said that life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. We will face many defeats in life, but we must never let ourselves be

defeated. Every time we fall, we have to pick up ourselves and get going. 

So I too decided to get going and my motivation for this thought is all YOU people out there who are supporting me and standing by me and encouraging me.

Please do keep on showering your love and support. Thanks a lot to all you beautiful souls.

I want to post frequently now may not be daily but much frequently now. Let the NEW YEAR motivate all of us to get up, face the challenges and get going at full throttle.

What do you say? Do you agree? Will you keep on supporting me?

THANK YOU !

Thank you for all your kindness and support. Watch out my blog...

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Hello New Year

Hello Friends

Welcome to my blog.

Wish you all A Very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

Hope this year is much much better. I am sure we are all happy to say good bye to 2020 and welcome 2021. 

I think we can never forget the year 2020. What an year it was! Locked down for so many months now. It is kind of depressing and stifling.  Couldn't go out freely. couldn't  visit friends relatives or neighbors. No schools. No festivals. No celebrations. We did not step out of our home for the past many months. We are also not allowing any one into our home. 

I lost some of my friends, some of my relatives and mentors due to covid. It was really a very depressing year.

Then there were heavy rains for days together. It was really difficult.

This year despite being home bound, I couldn't concentrate on my blog. Not many posts. First because of Corona and then my and my moms health also had to be taken care of.  

I thought at least from December 15th I could start again with my Rangoli Posts. But  then a part of my computer crashed and all my data was in it. At first we thought we couldn't retrieve it. But slowly we are retrieving  the data as much as we can. But it is a very slow process and takes ages to retrieve even a small folder.

I don't know how much of my data I can retrieve. 

Apart from this, I had to conduct online classes for my students. This is not so easy as compared to regular classes. It took me some time to get adjusted to this. Apart from that one cannot gauge the reactions of the students as we do them face to face. Time is a limiting factor. Sudden power cuts or internet problems add to the woes. So this year I could not keep up with my schedule as there were delays.

Every year I make some New Year resolutions like all of you. Last year every thing went haywire. Nothing could be planned or done according to the schedule despite best efforts. 

I hope I can do something this year. I am keeping my fingers crossed. Have so much to do this year. But our movements are restricted because of Corona. 

Many people lost their jobs, and for those who are lucky even payments are not in full. So we have to spend very carefully. 

Hope the New Year brings us happiness.  Hope I can achieve what I want to do this year.

We can only Pray  and Hope for the best, that's all.

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Revamping My Blog

Good Morning.

Friends, I am revamping my blog. As it may take some time for me to complete it, please bear with me.

If you find anything that is amiss or needs to be changed or attended to, which I might have missed, please do tell me. Your suggestions for improving the blog are always helpful and much appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

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Hello There

Hi Guys. Been away for long time. 

Annual (final) Exams are going on for the children. My niece completed her exams on 16th. Xth class exams are going on. Many of my students need my guidance. So I have to be available 24X7 on Whatsapp. Technology has many advantages too, which the present generation knows how to use.

Since Maths is one subject which is mostly hated and feared, I have to be available to my students, to help then with their last minute preparations. I have a tough time convincing, cajoling and what not so that my students do well in their math exam. Inspite of our  hard work, they still are nervous about this particular subject. I am not able to completely take away their fear for math. Xth being board exams, students and parents are both nervous. So I am busy most of the time.

Well I also start my summer sessions and next academic sessions from now itself. So there is so much work, enrolling new batch, interacting with parents and so on. 

So am not able to post much. 

Here the summer heat is raising day by day. We are preparing for our New Year next week. Money is again a problem as most ATMs don't have cash since last month or so. It is once again like in de-monetisation time. So we are spending every paisa with much care and only if absolutely necessary. 

See You all soon....Hope you are doing well and preparing for the summer holidays and travel.

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Hello There

Hello. 

Hope you are all doing well. For the past few days we have had no power supply for long hours. My net connectivity was also down. There was no way for me to post .

It is quite sultry here. My personal work is not yet completed. But I will try to post. 

We are into cleaning our home preparing for the VaraLakshmi Puja and Rakhi. With frequent heavy showers it is wet and sticky. It is not easy to attend to our cleaning schedule even if it is indoors. Neither can we go out. But we do need the water as last few years we faced high day temperatures and drought like situations.

Watch out for Rangolis  among other things.....

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Hi Friends

Hi Friends. Sorry for not posting for some time now. I am busy with some personal work and in between heavy rains, I am out most of the time running from pillar to post. It is sort of urgent and has to be fixed at the earliest.

But I have lots to show you. Many new Rangolis. From tomorrow it is the month of Shravana(Sawan ka mahina) for us here. All of us ladies will be performing Puja on Tuesdays and Fridays for the good of our families, health and prosperity. 

Meanwhile here is one of my previous Rangolis. 

The link is HERE

Then there is also Rakhi fast approaching. I have made many cards and am in the process of making Rakhis too. But not able to take photographs of them as I am working late into the nights.

Then there is the shopping to be done for these festivals as we will be giving gifts to women on Tuesdays and Fridays, along with vermilion, turmeric, beetle leaves, and other such things. I will write about that later.

Any way I promise that I will not let you down. Once my personal matters are settled,  I will post. 

Till then bear with me.

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What I Was Doing....III

I also taught them some flower making in one of my classes. Here is a glimpse..

I don't have many pictures as I was kept on my toes through out by the little ones....

Some more next time.....


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What I was Doing....II

In one of my classes, I taught them making Book Marks. Alas, I don't have many pictures. I could only take very few, as I had to help them with their creations. 

This little one is so engrossed in decorating one book mark for his little sister. His sis was 3-4 years old and kept on crying saying that she missed her mom. I had her sit on my lap through out the class so that she did not feel lonely or frightened. Only then she stopped crying. It was difficult for me to help the children in making the crafts but we all managed very well in the end with some help from the older kids. 

This was one made by one of the students and decorated with smilies, stickers and punched out circles.

Here is one decorated with sketch pens and smilies. Sorry for the poor picture quality.

Some more in my next post....

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What I was doing....I

Hi there. I have been away for a long time. I was busy with cleaning of my home, organising (which is going at a snails pace) other works and recovering my health. My health suffered again. I was also a victim of sunstroke. How much it saps your energy is something one cannot imagine, unless one goes through it.

Between this and other chaos, I taught in summer camps.

Though I could not do what all I wanted to, because of my health and scorching summer heat, I enjoyed working with kids as well as adults teaching, arts and crafts.

My kids group ranged from 4 to 14 years. For my first class I was very nervous..as if entering some competition.

Working with kids was fun but very taxing. You have to control them gently and see that they don't injure themselves(But they do get messy any way :)). They are very creative and very fast. There is always, chaos, confusion and lots of talking and bantering going on. So they miss some of the instructions and I had to repeat myself many times. With the small ones, they are very adamant on doing every thing on their own but in the end ask me to create one piece for them to take home to their mom :) :) 

Though I demonstrated various techniques and crafts, I gave them a free hand and was amazed to see their works which were really very nice and creative. 

Alas, I could not take much pictures as I had tough time in controlling and guiding them. One more thing there was not enough light in the room for me to take pics. 

Here are some:

In one of the classes I taught them making greeting cards. Here is one class where the children worked with, paper streamers, satin ribbons, stickers and card stock. 

I enjoyed interacting these children as this is the first time I was teaching arts and crafts to such a group. I don't know what they learned from me :) But I learned a lot from them. But they did enjoy my classes and wanted to have more classes. Well that is a pat on my back.

All in all we all enjoyed and I am now confident that I can handle small kids too:) I didnot even notice how the time flew by in these classes.

Some more next time..

Oh I will also be posting my creations shortly. But with heavy power cuts, I am not able to log on to my blog for long periods.

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New Year Resolutions

Guys, first of all I am sorry, I had some problem with my net connection. For the past few days I had no net connection. It got rectified just now. So, I could not post anything leave alone Rangolis. It is really frustrating.

Now coming to New Year resolutions, every year we make so many-weight loss, eating healthy, better time management, keeping in regular touch with near and dear ones, spending more time with our family, taking more care of ourselves...etc..etc... But how far do we achieve? May be a month or for more stubborn ones two-we struggle to keep up with our resolutions. After that, we fall back into our old habits.

Every year I too make many resolutions. After a month or so, or even before that, I realise that some were very impractical, some were very difficult to keep up with, some were very vague-no proper goal setting, no planning, some I left off because of my laziness and so on...All in all the ultimate thing is that, I lacked proper focus, steadfastness and zeal in setting and follow my resolutions. 

Last year one of my resolutions was to blog more frequently. But alas it was far less than what I wanted to do. I had my own reasons for it. Last year, I had some personal problems and some major set backs, health wise and other matters. So I just had to keep myself up and alive-that was my primary concern. 

For the past few months, I was slowly gaining back my health. While doing all that, I did some introspection. Based on that, I realised that biting more than what I can chew is not much helpful. 

So this year, I have set more realistic and achievable targets. Whether, my home front or blog or my work, I now want to enjoy what ever, I do- may be little or may be more. Ultimately, what ever I do, if I am not enjoying it than it becomes more stressful and more of a burden. 

This year, I would like to 

• be more focused, 
• better my time management,
• be more organised, 
• lessen procrastination
• take care of health (fitness, healthy food)

My goal is to be more- healthy, happy, fit and enjoy what ever I do. My motto is be content, be happy and spread peace and happiness, enjoy what ever I do.

It also includes more blogging...:) Let us just hope this year, I am more successful than last year. 

I am sure you all have some resolutions of your own for this year. Hope that this year we will all do much better than last year, improve upon ourselves and achieve more...Happy New Year to all of you once again....

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Hi Friends

Friends, I am sorry, I could not post any Rangoli designs for Dasara. I am still not feeling well. This year with the political situation in my State being not good at all, with no public transportation and the families of employees as well as the common man suffering due to agitation for the past two months, some how we also did not feel like celebrating the festival. And my niece also met with an accident, which shook us up. Now she is well.

Dasara being a religious festival, we just stuck to our prayers, fasts and other rituals during the past 9 days. But there was no enthusiasm or fun. No celebrations. Since the Navaratras are good and auspicious, I got on with my puja and meditation as much as I could do. I some how managed. So I could not do any thing else after wards as I felt tired after my sessions. 

With the cyclone Phailin's threat, we were worried about our friends and relatives staying in the path of the cyclone. We kept on praying for them and watching the news day and night. But luckily, the human loss was not much due to timely action by the Govt. Still the loss to the infrastructure and the coconut, cashew plantations and other crops is really very devastating to the farmers. We are grateful to God that there was not much loss of life. 

I just hope that I will post some nice Rangolis for Diwali at least. I am still not able to pick up any crafts or arts. I don't know when I will be able to. I hope that it will be soon. I have never stayed away from my hobbies for so long and I am also getting bored and frustrated. 

I thank all of my friends who have sent me very lovely mails and messages motivating me and filling me with lots of cheer and hope. God Bless You all.

Hope to be with you soon.......

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Hello to my Friends and Visitors

Hello Friends. I am still not up to doing much. I thought I was back to normal, when I posted in July that I was going to get back to my blog. But I suffered from an attack of viral infection and allergy again.  With that, I slipped back into my previous phase. 

I don't feel like doing any thing at all. I am yet to organise all my personal affairs after the crisis. I am slowly coming out of it. Sometimes again slipping back into the gloom and depression. When this happens, I just don't feel like doing any thing at all. 

Added to that my health is not up to the mark troubling me now and then. My right hand is still giving me trouble. So I can't do anything for long. Typing is also difficult. Then there are family crisis too. Phew! my hands are full. 

I am not able to concentrate much on anything right now. So I have stopped all my crafts and hobbies. Just getting my day to day activities done is a challenge now. 

And as if all these things are not enough, my computer and internet  are also giving me lot of trouble. My brother is working on it as I don't know much of the technicalities. Just the other day I though everything was fixed. But again I am having some problem. 

So I am taking one day at a time. I need to rest some more. Until I feel I can face it all and get back to my older self, I don't think  I will touch any activity. But still the artist in me keeps on poking me. Though I get lots of ideas and projects, I am not able to get into executing them. 

However, I was working on some new Rangolis-nearly 50 of them, I think. But I need to fair them and colour them. I will try to post some for Dasara. 

So there you are, I am not able to post anything as of now. But still, keep a watch, as I may post some Rangolis. And If I get well soon, I may start posting again......

Also thanks to all of you who are praying for me. Your wishes and mails keep me motivated.....

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Improving My Blog

Friends, I have been trying to improve my blog so that those who are visiting my blog can get to see what they want with out any fuss. I have added new pages for -RANGOLI, EMBROIDERY and TUTORIALS, since these seems to be the most popular posts on my blog.

Please do take some time and leave your suggestions for improving my blog. Is there anything annoying or frustrating you when you visit my blog? Are you able to locate easily what you want? What further improvements can I make so that you can easily access posts of my blog.

Content wise is there any thing you want me to write about in may posts. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. 

Since I am better now-though my right arm is still paining-I am going to take up arts and crafts and will try to post regularly. 

Thanks for all your prayers, wishes and your kindness when I was struggling with my life. Many of you-I have not met or know you well. I have known you through your comments or mails.  But still you have all encouraged me, motivated me and stood by me. With out you all, it would have been very difficult for me. I can never forget that. This shows that across the regions, countries, races, cultures and languages, basically the qualities of kindness, love, friendship in short human touch has no barriers. Thanks a lot and God Bless You All. 

I just hope that my posts are useful and helpful to you. 

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Summertime.....

Hi friends, it is a huge relief to know that all my medical tests went well and nothing to fear there. The reason for such a severe allergy-no body knows. May be it is stress the doc said, as I am going through a very difficult phase in my life and it is quite traumatic. But I have immense faith in God, blessings of my elders, wishes of my friends.

I would like to thank all my friends, who have been sending me wishes and praying for my recovery. Thanks a lot. It is at these times, when I feel happy and grateful to all of you out there.

It will take much more time for my recovery and I still feel very weak with all those medicines and all. 

It is summertime here. Very hot during the day. I am really worried about my garden, as water scarcity has hit our water supplies. I still somehow try to water all my plants myself in spite of my illness. I need to move some of them into shade-may be this week end I will get someone to do it for me. But still every summer there are causalities. It is really sad to loose plants. 

One more big problem -termites. Can some one please tell me what to do. I lost two full grown mango trees and some plantain trees in the past few years. Now I am battling for the life of Yellow Champaka (Magnolia) known as Simhachala Sampenga in Telugu. I brought it from Simhachalam. One old lady was selling the sapling just outside the entrance of Simhachalam Lord Narasimha Swami's temple. I think of it as Prasad from the Lord. Nothing seems to work with these termites.

Well any way, I leave with these yellow button roses that bloomed in my garden recently. To all my friends and well wishers.....

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Hello

Hello Friends. I am still not feeling well. I am suffering from some severe allergy, which is not getting under control. For the past two months it has gone from bad to worse. Though, it is not fatal, the pain, itching sensation and the inconvenience is unbearable. I am not able to sit for long time. Added to that, the medication (not much affective in controlling allergy)makes me feel very drowsy and weak. 

With all that, I am not able to do anything much. All the time, I am laying down on my back the bead and not even able to turn on my sides, as it hurts. For a few minutes at a time, I am able to sit. Well this week I will get the tests(prescribed) by the doctor done for knowing the cause of the allergy. 

I have so many ideas going on in my mind. But I am frustrated as I am not able to do anything at all. I don't even have energy to do the TAST stitches. So bear with me.

I will post as soon as I recover and start with my crafts and arts.....

It is quite hot here, being the summer season.With frequent power cuts, the heat is unbearable....Well hoping to be back soon.......

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Hi There

Friends, I am not well and also going through a very difficult phase in my life. I need time to sort out my life and come out of the crisis I am facing now. So I am not able to post on my blogs. Please bear with me. I will be back as soon as I can. God Bless You all.....

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Hi

Hello to you all my friends. I am still busy with my work and not able to do much with my crafts nor my blog. I am still organizing all my craft supplies and WIP craft and art projects(in various stages). I am still struggling  with storage solutions.

From 16th of December, the auspicious month of Dhanurmaasam starts. So we have to do our best to draw new Rangolis which are creative, beautiful sometimes big sometimes small depending on the area of our front yards. Well I have already started creating new designs. So brace yourselves. From 15th December, I am going to post new Rangolis daily till Pongal. At least I will try to post as much and as many as I can. 

You are also welcome to send in any designs of Rangolis, so that we all can share it. You can mail me the photos of the Rangolis along with details of no of dots used etc. 

Till then I am taking a break and will not post Rangolis.

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Hello...

Hi Friends!. I have been busy with renovation going on in my home. I scheduled some posts on Rangolis for Dasarah. But something went wrong and they were not posted. I did not find time to check up. I am sorry about that. I will keep those aside for now till i can fix it.

For the time being a part of the renovation work has been done. We have stopped the work for some time to get things organised and also because of the festivals. Dasarah is over. This year I had the satisfaction of staying at home and observing certain rituals for all the ten days. These ten days are considered very auspicious for spiritual practices. 

I am yet to fully organise my things- especially craft books, stash and other materials properly. I just dumped the sacks in the shelves. While packing I just put them in what ever plastic bag or box I could find. Now I need to go through them and properly group the material craft wise and then store them. It will take a long time. 

I have many WIPs in various stages which I had to keep aside because of dust. Now I think I will have to slowly pick them up one by one. But first I need to make a list of them and the amount of work still to be done to complete them, whether any material is required for that and how much time I have to spend on them. Then I will have to prioritize them. Only then I can make some progress. I hope I can complete them one by one.

With Diwali-the festival of lights around the corner, we are slowly preparing for that. The the month following Diwali is also very important for us.

I am going to post some Rangolis and crafts specially for Diwali.....enjoy them...Keep watching my blog.....

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Your Contributions

Hi friends. I have been getting queries as to how send your contributions to me. It is very simple. All you have to do is take a photograph of your work (if it is embroidery or embroidery designs, crafts etc) and mail it to me at the mail id given below. If you can add how you have made the craft or what embroidery stitches you have used, or a tutorial like step by step explanation it would be really nice. 

If it is Rangoli, then draw it clearly on a paper (with dots clearly visible), colour it if you like or even other wise it is ok. Now you take a photo graph and mail me to my email id.

summersofindia@gmail.com

All of them will be published under your name only. But please send your original creations. No copies or downloads of others work. 

Please do send your contributions. I am eagerly waiting for them.

Some of the queries I am receiving have no reply blogger. In such cases, I can answer some through my blog. But there are some which I cannot cannot answer publicly. So please send me an email on to the above id,  so that I can answer you through email. Please don't leave your email ids in the comments if you don't want it to be publicly displayed. 

And also please bear with me if I cannot answer you immediately. I am sometimes in places where I don't have access to internet. So it takes time.

Please leave your, suggestions, and criticisms so that I can improve my self and share with you all what ever little knowledge I have. 

Thanks a lot Soniya. Hope this answers your query.

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Family Time....The Indian Way.....

Who says we cannot make some time to enjoy with our family and friends even in the midst of such tight schedules and deadlines to be met. Get together with friends and family can be fun and inexpensive. At the same time we may be able to acquaint the younger generation with some of our traditions and impart some moral and ethical values.

Well the Monsoons have brought in heavy rains, which made us keep to our homes. So this week end we made most of it. My niece loves corn on cobs like me and this being the  season for it, we wanted to have  little get together and enjoy it. 

Starting with the monsoons, the corn on the cobs are sold in the markets. They are very tender now. Unlike the sweet corn, our Indian corn is not sweet but still tasty. It is generally eaten by roasting over coal and dabbed with salt and lemon juice. These days we have our street corners, picnic spots and markets filled with vendors selling these roasted corn. Some of them even visit our residential areas with push carts laden with corn cobs. We can choose the one we want. the cobs are then de husked and roasted over coals to our liking. He than dabs it with salt and lemon juice. It is really yummy to eat hot roasted cobs when it is raining and chill out side. It is also quite healthy.

So, on Sunday afternoon, my niece wanted to try her hand at roasting of these cobs on coal. I used a clay tray filled with red hot coals, as I don't have the traditional clay stove  which is used for cooking with coal.

We had fun sitting on the floor around the tray (it kept us warm) roasting corn cobs, talking about our school and college  days, how we enjoyed roasting these corn cobs, potatoes, poppadoms, sweet potatoes, jack fruit seeds on coal and eat it with our friends and cousins. We also watched Ice Age - we all love it and don't mind watching it a hundredth time. 

Every Saturday afternoon all of us friends used to meet at my place and enjoy such snacks. Or else I used to cook some new dish which was tested by them all. 

It was the same when I used to visit my aunts or my Gran. In the after noon, all of us used to sit in the open veranda in the back yard. My Gran used to roast the cobs on the coals in a big mud stove constructed with mud bricks and coated with clay and cow dung. All of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends visiting us would have a great time. Women would sit  in a group and gossip about their in laws, recently performed marriages in the family, or the arrival of a baby or clothes and ornaments. Men would have their own group talking about, politics, sports and current affairs. We children used to eat more than our quota by pinching a little from mom or dad and end up with stomach aches in the night, with lot of scoldings from our elders. But my Gran used to have her home remedy ready to pacify us and put to sleep. by next time we would forget all this and be ready to stuff ourselves again with corn cobs.

Hmmm my niece was so very happy that she could roast the cobs herself. She was bouncing up and down as if she  landed with a great jack pot. She listened to all our child hood memories. It was really fun to bond with our family. My niece learned the traditional way of roasting the corn cobs and enjoyed it too. That did not cost us much but achieved a lot.

How we roast the corn cobs the Indian way, you can read it here:

http://spiceomylife.blogspot.in/2012/07/corn-on-cobs.html

Happy Monsoons to all of you.

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