Mesmerizing View

Yesterday's sunset view felt mesmerizing to gaze at since its been a long time that I got to witness a bright sunny day. Though trees hampered the beautiful sight, the prominent dark yellow and red hues were too magnificent to be ignored! 

Whose coming over?

We received our visitor's parking permit today after a year since we applied for it!! Nevertheless, we are happy to see our request actioned!

Water Jet

As the jet of water splashed on our car windscreen, the ripples created reminded me of the song "Goonji si hai" from the movie 'Kyun ho gaya na'! Its one of my favorite songs and I particularly like that shot in the song!

Some incidents unknowingly and spontaneously refresh your memories from the past!

Anniversary special

Yesterday was my parents 28th wedding anniversary! Cheers to them on completing 28 years of togetherness! As I wished them, they felt years have flown by so quickly!
They made the occasion special by having lunch at one of their most loved restaurants 'Bhairavi' followed by purchasing saplings and planting them before it starts pouring down heavily! They both are passionate about gardening and I am sure there wouldn't have been a better celebration and mutual gifting than this!!!

I too made the day special by buying a business purse considering it as a return gift form them!

In the shoes of.....

It happens a million times when we answer scenarios where we had to "put ourselves in the shoes of..." but rarely happens that it turns into a real-time experience!
Praveen is lucky enough to get such an opportunity. Due to his excellent academic track record, interpersonal skills and his glorious achievement of landing on a job in his field, his trainer at the professional year course allocated a batch of six students for him to interview.

It was altogether a different experience for him to do this task. He had to prepare well in advance for the questions, note the answers given by each, formulate a structured feedback based on their performance and most importantly correct/guide them where they went wrong or could have answered better. It made for a great learning curve for him to understand student tendencies, interests and at the same time be extremely attentive to what they answer. 

As expected, it was an exhausting day with lots of talking and feedback sessions! Though tiring for him, his effort and feedback helped them all know more on how to be job ready for the Australian market and the small tricks which instantly distinguish you from other candidates.

  

Rug up Melbourne

Melbourne weather, June 24 2016: Hail, rain and snow to descend on the city!

This headline is more than enough to get goosebumps! Two years back we had experienced a severe hailstorm and its effects! People were unable to believe that it nearly snowed in Melbourne making everyone excited and frostbitten!

1st August 2014

1st August 2014

Today we might get to witness the same wintry state as the outskirts of the city are all set to get blanketed in snow!

Rug up Melbourne, today is going to be very cold!

Utterly Butterly Delicious - Amul!

Amongst all the pictures that I saw to mark the International Yoga Day, I loved the one Amul put-forth!

They have got the trick to retain and get more fan following by coming up with creative ads with a sweet personal touch. I am sure they successfully would have casted their magic spell by this one too!

Simply Idlicious

Yesterday's dinner was perfect for this horribly cold weather. The dish was a combo of hot steaming idli's and wada's!

Shreyash had invited us for dinner as his parents are in town. His mom prepared idli, wada, dosa, chutney, sambar and sevaiya kheer. It was a feast to have them all home cooked and served hot on the plate. All items were very tasty and gave us a feel that we were in a restaurant enjoying a lovely dinner! 

Treating Ourselves

Over the past week, we have had many friends come over for dinner and both of us constantly engrossed in the preparations. In all the hurry while cooking, serving and cleaning we forgot to 'Treat Ourselves' with the yummy food and so decided to have the feast today afternoon!

Choole Bhature with a sweet dish of gulab jamun is our all time favorite. It felt heavenly to enjoy this treat and eat peacefully till we were full!

  

BOSE

Praveen booked online the BOSE audio system (Sounddock-3) which was paramount on our wishlist. He kept this booking in secrecy and wanted to surprise me directly by purchasing it! I was overjoyed to see it finally there rocking our house!

We kept listening to all sorts of music and soundtracks till late night and enjoyed all compositions with the explicit sound effects the system is well-known for!

Its Friday!

The feeling that its "FRIDAY" today gives altogether a different relaxation and you dont need to withstand the blues to get going! I caught the best evidence for the same!

Revival

This archived image looks more like a cover page of a novel than just a snap! I love the effects specially the vastness of the ocean and land both captured excellently in the same picture. Few old pictures appeal you much later when you casually glance through them!

Dried fruits and nuts

Having a handful of dry fruits everyday really helps build up strength to fight the cold. 

We never realized this before rather we never were attentive on our intake, but this time we are able to make out the difference in sustaining our body heat especially when the temperature changes drastically. It has surely built up our immunity and prepared us for winter!

Electric Blanket

With the low range of temperature since the past one week, we felt an intense need to have an electric blanket over our bed. The name 'Electric Blanket' when first heard felt a bit scary with the fact that we would be sleeping over a mesh of electric circuits! But with hands and legs freezing at nights, I was ready for that as well!

Jokes apart, the blanket is really a life-saver! It has multiple settings which makes it easier to adjust temperature as per weather changes. I would say its more appropriate to call it a 'Electric fitted sheet' as it holds on the mattress and makes the bed warm in no time.

Our caring boon companion is comforting us throughout the night just to ensure we have a sound sleep! 

Spending Spree

The half yearly sale also called the 'financial year end' sale, is the time when people in Australia go nuts for shopping(we are included as well)! At this time of the year, you name a category of product/appliance you want to buy and its on a reduced rate which tempts you even more to get it!
We paid visit to the Southland DFO today and were startled to see the rush there! Every outlet was packed with visitors to its fullest capacity. One of the major victims of such overcrowds was the Adidas outlet where one of the employee actually started queuing people for entering the store! This sight drove everyone crazy!  
Leaving aside all the hustle, we enjoyed roaming all around to see a wide range of stuff displayed and marked almost half price than the actual price. As I wanted to, I got a cool pair of Asics sports shoes which made my day!

Happy Birthday Dad!

We enter the June birthday mood from 10th to 12th every year with my in-laws celebrating their birthdays just two days apart!
2016 marked a special year for Praveen's dad as it was his 60th birthday today! Though we were not around to wish him in person, we tried to make it special by booking a cake online and ensured it was delivered to him on time. I also made a card with ideal messages to make it apt for the occasion!

 He loved the surprise and we were equally thrilled and content to see it happen all well!

Get together

We planned for a evening get together with our Uni friends at our place as it had been ages since we met them. I had already commenced preparations for the party a day in advance just to ensure everything goes smooth.

Me and Praveen settled on the menu : Papdi chat, Coriander wadi for snack followed by Rajma, aloo sabji, gulab jamun, chapatis and rice for dinner. We had a delightful addition of Rasmalai bought by one of them as they came (it was the best we have ever tasted here! The 'Malai' was immensely flavorful and creamy, topped with almonds, Every bite melted in our mouth and we genuinely appreciated the brand's preparation!). Everyone enjoyed the food and praised my effort to make the night memorable. Of all the items, papdi chat (as we thought) was loved by all!

We talked about a lot many things however the main topic was 'JOBS'! It was fun as well as a good learning to know the experiences each one went through. A relaxed evening making our house lively with lovely people!

Happy birthday Mom!

It was Praveen's mom birthday today and we thought we could make her feel nice by a sending a handmade card! In the same fashion how we complete submissions, the card too adhered the same timeliness and hence I thought of drawing a fun element to make it humorous and the same time hide the reality!!

Kitchen Essentials

We finally purchased this hand blender unit after applying a lot of thought on its usability and our needs presently! Its arrival has drastically reduced my veggie cutting time and it was surely worth the buy.   

The set has a chopper and whisker suitable for moderate cooking needs. The chopper chops the veggies super-fast, which reduced my 15 min work to just a few seconds. We haven't tried the whisker yet, but I am sure its going to do a great job!

Steadlers

I got a set of four Steadler colour pens and truly felt that their make is beyond perfection! They write superfine with the metal-clad tip giving the right thickness in lines throughout. I enjoyed scribbling with all the four colours and it was irresistible to stop that silly activity!
While I was engrossed in doing so, I thought of a spot-on tagline for the product-
"Steadlers: Where scribbling is inexorable"

Divine Blessings

We felt ourselves blessed and lucky to have received the Tirupati prasad from our badminton mate Shreyash, whose parents traveled to Melbourne yesterday. We could perceive its fresh preparation with its typical and distinctive aroma and relished its flavor in every bite!

  

Saturday Treat

Praveen treated me with some yummy donuts and a pizza yesterday night. It was a much needed break for the weekend!

It was since long that we wanted to try these donuts from a store called 'Shortstop Coffee and Donuts'. They hold a specialty of  being made fresh in-store throughout the day and aren't filled and topped with extreme sweetness like the regular ones. They were super soft and spongy and made our supper thoroughly enjoyable!  

Bird Sunning

I saw these cute birdies sun bathing on the ramp with their fluffy feathers spread out!

I had been observing them for quite a while and was surprised to see them in the same pose for quite long. Their behavior was captivating and it underlined the irreplaceable joy that living creatures experience by any patch of warm sunlight!

Foggy Night

It was a creepy cold night yesterday! With the extremely low visibility index noted in different parts of the city, Praveen made a prediction that Melbourne is surely going to experience snowfall this winter!

That precious step!

I have been diligently tracking my steps on the pedometer app on my cell phone for the past few months. I set my target to complete 10,000 every morning (of course only if the weather permits me to do so!!) so that rest of the day adds in a few more to the number! For the last two days, its been a coincidence that I opened the app on the 9,996/9,997th step! I thought I would get to see 9,999 at least once but it incremented directly to 10,002/10,004!

Those digits really make you feel achieved especially the outburst of party poppers!  

Dahi Bhindi

I tried making 'Dahi Bhindi' today and it turned out really well! Initially, I had a gut feeling that this is unlikely to work mainly because I felt bhindi and curd combo would somewhat not go together. But I was completely wrong, it tasted very appetizing!!

It isn't a typical preparation (atleast in our kitchen), so here goes the recipe:
1. Cut the bhindi into vertical pieces and stir-fry till it turns dark green/blackish green and crispy.

2. In a bowl take curd, add turmeric powder, garam masala, red chilli powder, salt and 1 tea spoon gram flour(besan). Mix well.

3. Heat 1 table spoon oil in a kadhai. Add in mustard seeds, cumin seeds, hing, two green chilies, curry leaves and fenugreek seeds. Pour the curd mixture to this and get it to a boil. Then add the stir-fried bhindi to the mixture and let it cook for another 3-4 minutes.

And its ready to go on your plate!
Must try dish... Very delightful and mouth-watering!