Navarathri 2018

This year Navarathri came and went. . . and it took me a good 10 days to come up with this post.

It was another hectic 9 nights with only one weekend in the middle and that meant going and visiting friends across the bay area between Friday night and Sunday night.

At least I am here for this was the thought and don't have to travel. Then came Jr.'s marching band competitions and the picking up and dropping off for that meant I got to visit even less folks than usual.

Did not do the saraswathi pooja and Vijayadasami prayer this year. San's chinna paati passed away. The golu we usually attend at MIL's cousins place was always one of the grandest. Almost every large scale display of dolls reminded me of her and conversations with her. Just did not feel like doing any pooja this year. 

Did go see some Golu(Kolu's) with San, and took pictures. This year, wanted to take photos of unique dolls in the displays that were not seen in other displays. It was a larger list and eventually a lot of the redundants were taken off the list. 

Some of these are tiny dolls that are only a few inches tall but have some amazing detail.. 

Here are a few of my favorites..

The full displays and the other unique pics are in the slideshows below..

Also learned of the new and improved Snapseed App (thanks to Raja Ramki) and played with some of the pictures with that app. It was how I spent time while waiting at airport gates last week. Given all the photos were taken on the iPhone X, made it easy.. 

Another year has come and gone. The kids showed a lot less interest in visiting folks this year than previous years. 

Next year I hope the festival falls over two weekends and there are less conflicts!

Halloween 2018

This year Halloween was interesting.. a busy day. There was a potluck planned at work. I forgot to tell San about the potluck and she packed my lunch. Once I got to work and realized the Potluck was on, called the local Indian store and got some of my favorite samosas. The guy says minimum tray order is 50 samosas and I go "okay". 

Now we still have 15 or so left at home. 

We had the kids dress up as a scarecrow and a devil but the little one does not want her photo on the blog. So this year there will be only one picture.. 

She made that stuff up herself with no help from anyone. 

They went trick or treating with different friend groups. But one thing they have been doing for years?

Grab a lot of dads favorite candy (or the ones he can eat safely with no peanuts).. Twix and Milky ways.. 

This was waiting for me on the table !!!

Daddy is happy that he has his candy.. then again, all Twix are not created equal. Some of the Twix are old and some are new.. 

Have a bag of candy at work always.. Eat one for a post lunch snack every day. . . one of lives little pleasures. 

This will add to that post lunch bag and it was collected with a lot of love from my darlings!

Something that clicked

It has been a long time doing the Triangle pose as part of Yoga class. Every type of yoga class in the US does some variation of this triangle pose is what I am told. It is also called as Warrior pose and is a lunge and stretch at the same time. 

It is not an easy pose as you pretty much have to stretch in every direction.

Having captured myself with photographs over the years, this has definitely come a long way. 

However, .. there is always a "However", on the recent workshop with Joseph Encina, he mentioned something I have heard for the first time. 

It is not a SINGLE triangle that we are striving for! It is THREE triangles. THREE freaking triangles.

The first and second one are dependent on how flat your thighs are with respect to the ground and how perpendicular you make the bent leg to the floor. 

The third one (which is the one I focus on) is dependent on how you stretch your hands away from each other and how you stretch the crown of your head away from your foot while still keeping that same line. That part I understood, but am not close to getting the 90 degrees. (have tried this on ice/ snow!)

Have tried to graphically capture this below. 

In class I am almost 90 degrees for all three. This was a late night attempt do a blog post with a tummy full of samosas, sundal, sakkari pongal, venn pongal, just to name a few of the tasty treats being eaten at 25 minute intervals all afternoon and evening as part of the Navarathri festival. 

The fact that you even see any geometric shapes in that photo after all that eating is a medical miracle! 

Will try to get this pic either in the hot room itself or right after coming home from class (provided one of my three angels is willing to be the photographer) and update this post. 

You learn something new every day!