Holidays 2008 - warm up !

For the last few holiday seasons we were in India and missed the freezing cold weather in NJ -;). This year Adit (and Samika too ..) were all excited to celebrate the holidays and so we got started ... 

The first thing Adit wanted was a nice bigggggggggg holiday tree with a lot of decortaions. Thanks to Gouri's shopping skills, we have a nice 6.5 feet tall  pre-lit  holiday tree. The whole family got involved in decorating the tree. Since this was our first year doing this all of us had our own idea on how a holiday tree should look like and where in the house it should be placed. It felt like few blind men trying to describe an elephant -;)... Finally we did it !!!

The tree is nicely placed in the corner of our family room viewable from two of the windows. Each evening as the sun lights dim (ie @ 4-4:30 pm), Adit's job is to put the lights on and he does it diligently.. Samika is just happy that we have lot of lights in the house. The weekend before christmas we had a about 4-6 inches of snow.  The kids and I went for a nice stroll in the wet-snow and took some pictures (slideshow below).

more pics/videos coming after the holidays ... Happy Holidays !

Want to blog about my life..everyday??:)

Hi,

Right now its 1.54 am. Date is 16th May 2008.

15th May was Abhi's b'day. Abhi my DH(dear husband). He was wished by our closed ones.

Its been 10 years for him he left India(and 8 years for me), so the initial big circle of closed ones has shrinked to only couple of them. Anyway....but as someone has said in Hindi "laankho sitaros se ek chaand achcha".

Nothing special going on in life. Agenda for this weekend is to finalize birthday party place for AAdi(my son). Now he will be 4 years old and he has started planning for his own party. He has his own guest list, party idea and never the less which gift does he want from mommy and daddy.Sami (my daughter) is always integral part of his all planning.

Yeah! small highlight of the day...Got a free Iced coffee from Dunkin donuts...they were running some promotion....my DH got mad...said...why you have to be so Happy for this small cup of coffee...but free is always good...;)

can't wait for the intelligent kitchen

blogging after a long time !!!

The kids are keeping us more than busy these days. Keeping us and the kids well fed and that too healthy has become a everyday challenge. Every time we open the fridge to check the fresh produce section or the freezer section the same questions pop-up ... what do I have to cook today? is it fresh? what is the expiry date on the package? what recipe can I make with what I have available ? can some one take care of this please ???

while the option of moving back to 'apna des' and hiring a bunch of people to take care of your daily chores is still in the 'pipe of dreams';) is not an option in the short term. Meanwhile I was thinking why can't we have an intelligent kitchen which will take care of this daily question?

I think the technology already exists and the LGs, GEs of the world must be working on this for 2010 model. However for me the need is now. If we think about it should be simple. The refrigerator (which is the center of any kitchen activity) is the hub of this intelligent kitchen and drives the whole show. All our grocery purchases(from fresh apples to the exotic european cheese) should be RFID'ed and easily reveal a lot of information. The refrigerator keeps a track of the daily needs of the family and keeps a check on the availability of the raw material in the kitchen needed for a healthy meal. It automatically dumps (after some warnings to us) expired food packets into the garbage chute which is hygienically connected to the kitchen system. It connects to the preferred grocery (based on my cuisine taste and habits viz. Indian, Italian, American etc) and places home delivery order needed for the week ahead. So all is set well before I open (or login) my refrigerator. It quickly tells me what i can cook today (based on the food availability, my eating preferences and yeah my mood today !) or do I want to get it prepared by the automated stove system. Man I did get carried away ... I have to head back to the kitchen now and give some hand to Gouri who as usual is trying to keep us well fed and healthy :)

I think I will keep dreaming for this one for some time.....