Check out my recipe blog

Give me ideas on how to make it better. I hope to make this a regular thing, especially with my mom moving here, hopefully I'll be able to try new and better things :-)

Kitchen Tandav!

iPhone: "don't you wish your cell phone was hot like me?"

So, the craze begins. Apparently, much later here on the East coast than on the West coast. Washington Post reports people lining up for this hot new commodity as early as Wednesday evening, at the Annapolis Apple store, the earliest in line was 6:30 a.m. on Friday, the day the iPhone will start selling at 6 p.m. According to some news sources, in New York, people started lining up on Monday. That's nuts!

I dropped Jeff off at his store this morning and there were 5 really sleepy people sitting in the line. I'll be going back to see what it's like later during the day and when they open.

Look for pictures here tomorrow.

Pictures are on my Flickr account under the iPhone launch set.

Isn't he a rake?

If you open the second photo, you can actually readd all the different doggy faces' names :-)

It's my birthday

So, I turned 30 today!

Here's a timeline of the wishes and celebrations:

- Last night, Jeff and my coworkers took me out to dinner at P. F. Chang's at the Columbia mall.



- Madelyn, friend from grad school, emailed me at 1:52 a.m. (why were you up that early?)

- Myphotoalbum.com emailed me at 5:45 a.m.

- Ankur, a friend I grew up with in India, emailed me around 6 a.m.

- My family in CA (grandma, unle, aunt and 2 li'l cousins) emailed me at 6:04 a.m. (why were you guys up THAT early?)

- Jeff wished me a very sleepy Happy Birthday at 6:30 a.m. this morning

- My parents called me at 7:40 a.m. from India

- Shop 'n Chek, a mystery shopping company, sent me an email around 8 a.m.

- My best friend, Shallu from India text messaged me at 8:46 a.m.

- My cousin, Nabheet, from Denver, text messaged me at 9:54 a.m. ( which, for him, is a REALLY early time to be up)

- Work colleagues got me a strawberry ice cream cake that we ate at 10:45 a.m.

- Jeff wished me a Happy Birthday with a card and handmade Tiger's Eye jewelry.



- Jon Baugh, a friend from MI, sent me an email at 2:22 p.m.

- Cold Stone Creamery sent me an email congratulating me on my birthday at 2:26 p.m.

- My cousin, Taresh, from Denver left me a voicemail at 6 p.m.

- Jeff's sister, Kelly, left a voicemail around 6 p.m.

- I received cards in the mail from my parents, Jeff's sister Jenny and bro-in-law Chris

- I received cards at work from co-workers

My very first lasagna

This was my first ever attempt at baking a lasagna. This is how it went and the recipe I used:

A 26 oz jar of pasta sauce mixed with 1 lb browned beef:

15 oz ricotta cheese, 1.5 cups shredded parmesan-romano, 4 oz shredded mozarella, mixed with 1/2 cup chopped parsley, 1.5 tsp ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, paprika to taste, 2 eggs

Pour enough sauce to cover the bottom of the lasagna pan, then layer three sheets of lasagna pasta lengthwise. Cover with 1 cup sauce, and 1/2 of the cheese mixture.

Repeat pasta, sauce and cheese layer.

Top with remaining sauce and sprinkle 4 oz mozarella cheese on top.

Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees, covered with aluminum foil. Remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Things I would change for next time. Do one more layer. Use twice the amount of pasta sauce and cheese mix. Add mushrooms, italian sausage and bell peppers to the sauce mix.

It came out a little flat because of not enough layers, but it was still good:

Bandit must not recognise Smokey

The little lamb got shorn

I could not stop laughing when I picked up Smokey at the groomers. I shouldn't have but I just couldn't stop myself!

Poor baby:

Look at the skinny little body:

His spindly legs:

Baby is tuckered out:

Sylvie had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb ...

The house

We went by the house last weekend and we walked around inside. Here are pictures:

The entrance:

Living room, kitchen on the left up ahead, study/3rd bedroom up right

I think this is the second bedroom and bathroom on the left

Our first houseguests:

View out of the master bedroom window

Baby!

My coworker, Linda just became a grandma 5 weeks ago and her daughter, Melissa brought the utterly lovely and adorable Sadie Lynn to our office a couple weeks ago. She liked me best :-P

Barbecuing with the fam

Last Saturday, we went up Bel Air to have dinner at Uncle John and Aunt Jeanne's place. The weather was beautiful and the kids took advantage of that to get in the pool. Then, we had awesome barbecued burgers and hotdogs, finishing it up with toasted marshmallows.

Heather likes swimming on other people:

Playing catch in the pool:

Enjoying some salt and vineger chips at the end:

My life's soundtrack

I stole this from Kat's Musings and Meanderings, who I found via Mark Maynard's website. I am going to have to cheat and either not use the Hindi songs that show up or maybe I'll translate them. This will be interesting, what with the techno and rap my husband puts in there and the country and hindi music I have.

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend your cool...

Opening Credits: Who'll stop the rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival

Waking Up: Bootstraps bootstraps - Klaus Badelt in Pirates of the Caribbean

First Day at School: Indian outlaw - Tim McGraw

Falling in Love: Shake your lovemaker - Cherry Poppin' Daddies

Fight Song: I love you - Donna Lewis (haha funny fight song)

Breaking Up: Well it's true that we love one another - White Stripes

Prom: Bole Chudiyan (These bangles say) - from Bollywood flick Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (Sometimes happiness, sometimes sadness). This is actually a pretty good dance tune.

Mental Breakdown: No sugar tonight/mother nature tonight - The Guess Who

Driving: Medley March F the King of Laois/Paddy's Jig/O'Keefe's - The Chattering Magpie - The Chieftains

Flashback: Do you remember rock 'n roll radio? - The Ramones

Getting Back Together: Raat ka nasha (The night's intoxication) - Chitra from the movie Asoka

Wedding: Honky tonk women - The Rolling Stones

Birth of Child: Blasphemous rumors - Depeche Mode

Final Battle: Fishing in the dark - The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Death Scene: Burning bridges - Collective Soul

Funeral Song: Mahi Ve (O my love) - don't know who sings it but it's from the movie Kal Ho Na Ho (Wheteher tomorrow comes or not)

End Credits: Nobody knows when you are down and out Eric Clapton

Tagging anybody who reads this :-P

30

I'll be 30 in exactly 2 weeks and people odler than me keep telling me to shuttup about it. However, I find myself comtemplating the big 3-0 and wondering if I am exactly where I should be.

When I was a teenager, I had hoped that by the time I was an old lady of 30 years, I would:

- be a computer programmer since at that time, that was the only job to be had (my uncle, who's been my hero sine I was a little girl, was a programmer)
- be married to somebody I love whether my parents liked it or not; I think I actually hoped they wouldn't like it and would stop talking to me forever
- maybe have a child
- have a house
- travel all around the world

Let's see what I have accomplished:

- I am working as a Usability professional, which in the time from 18-30, I have realised I love a lot more than programming (my uncle is still my hero).
- I am married to somebody I love and, who my parents adore. I believe at one point, my Dad said he was giving his daughter away and getting a son. I am actually very happy that my dream of my parents never speaking to me didn't come true. The older I get, the closer I get to my parents and the more I find myself thinking, "oh, they were so right about this or that."
- No children yet but a cat and a dog keep us on our toes.
- A house that's being built, which I find amazing, considering that most people's first house is rarely a brand new one and we might never again be able to afford a brand new house.
- I have traveleld across this country, been to Canada and Mexico and have plans for either Europe or the Bahamas for next year.

All in all, I have to say that I am not doing too bad. And those first two points bring to mind Garth Brooks' Unanswered Prayers:

"Sometimes, God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."

Kids love Smokey, he licks their faces off.

Surprise at the house site

We went by our condo development site, hoping something more had been done since we last were there. We were shocked! Not only is the first building almost done, our building is halfway there. They have townhouses across from us almost up. The curbs are fully in and the roads have been put down. Some pictures to accompany our giddiness:

This is the first building; you can see ours behind it. A closeup of our building with our parking spots :-):

Our building's elevator shaft:

Here's me pointing at what I thought was our address and unit. That is our address but our unit is actually the one to the right of the entryway, not the left.

Here's Jeff pointing at our address and trying to get the building done faster by pitching in:

This is our street name, it doesn't exist on any maps yet. The other sign was just cool.

First attempt at Illustrator

In the absence of any classes at any community colleges nearby, I decided to try my hand at Illustrator. So, this is my first attempt at a logo for our Wedding Photography business, for which Jeff and I had our first clients last month and it was quite successful.

Poor man's food

I made myself a sandwich this morning consisting of 2 slices of wheat bread, mayo and 2 slices of swiss cheese. It didn't fix the craving I'd been having and I realised I was craving my poor man's sandwich that I basically lived on my first semester of college.

2 slices of white bread
mayo
2 slices of American cheese

What was your poor man's food?

We finally made it down'e ocean!

Apparently, that's what going to the beach is called around here - going down'e ocean! Well, Jeff and I finally made it down there this weekend. Jeff had Thurs, Fri and Sat off so I took Fri off and we drove down to Ocean City, MD on Thursday night. We stayed at the north end of the boardwalk on 27th and Boardwalk at the Dunes Manor Motel. After sleeping in till the late hours of 7 something a.m., we decided to walk down the boardwalk. Along the way, we had some Thrasher's Fries. A must have snack, if you are down there.

We lay around on the beach for a few hours, during which my hubby's tummy turned very very red (it's painful right now). Some pictures from the beach:



Then, we ended the day with dinner at this awesome bar and restaurant, Seacrets Jamaican Bar, where we sat at a table on the beach. Sand in our feet, ducks walking around, baybreeze in our faces. They also had bar tables and stools half submerged in water. Too cold for that yet but the next time we're down there. we're definitely going to try and sit there. We also had Dumser's icecream after dinner, yummy!