Treasure trove of natural fragrances ... Juniper greens ... :)

If I were as stingy with my money as I am with my garden greens ... my husband says ... I'd be a millionairess by now ... ;)

my Juniper's just got their first trim  ... and I just couldn;t get myself to throw away all the cuttings ... I love the  heavy woody fragrance ... and if its my treasure then I got to have them in the treasure chest ... :)

there are some very fragrant greens in the garden ... if you try them ... some of their cutting make the room smell beautiful ... and in case of the more woody ones like the juniper and other conifers ... you can even mush up some thicker stems and branches and hide them in all that green ... the thicker ones are more fragrant at times ... then the tender ones ...

So next time you are doing away with the greens  ... think of me  ... :) and ofcourse please ... Oh! please share with me what you ended up doing with them ... in the meanwhile .... aaaouch! they are bloody pokey  ... but I am enjoying the fragrance ...and they look pretty too ... what do you say...  :)

Bougainvillea ... when colors go berserk ... :)

 Nopes, that's not my garden ... its a bunglow that I was driving past in Goa ... the gorgeous bougainvillea's made me take a u-turn and I had to take this picture. Today ,it is so inspiring me... :)

I am looking to add some shade in the little urban patch that's my garden ... and I need color ... like loads of it and tons of blossoms ... and I want it all year round ... my patch is so tiny that I have to be carefull with what I plant or else  ... it's going to be a big oopsy - daisy ... situation.

Toyed with couple of climbers ... but I think nothing beats the burst of color ... like the bougainvillea.With the weather getting better I need to head out to the nurseries and find myself some of these ... Ah! the tough time I'll have deciding on which color to pick... ;)

Hope to share with you some pictures when my lil' patch is carpeted with  new grass ... and you can bet I'll  keep you posted with loads of stories from the outdoors too... :) Now, please do excuse me while I go look for Chandan Singh my new gardener ... Chaaannnnndaaaaannnnn ....... ;)

 

MY SINCERE APOLOGIES ... :)

AAAAhhh ! OH DEAR!!! .... MY SINCERE APOLOGIES ... ! My blog post ... A chandelier affair ... and a story to remember ... :) ... seems to have earned me a comment ... looks like my write up makes my readers ... ' wince' ... weee ... oh ! Deary me ... that was sooooo not my intention ... I would like to sincerely apologise to all my readers who are offended by my non-puritan style of writting ... :) ... And I really mean it ... ;)

But also do believe in me ... when I say this, that my mum ... and my highschool English teacher ... are in no way psychologically tormented by the way I write my blog ... ;) They are strong ladies ... they are doin' just fine ... :)
In the meanwhile ...  I do sincerely hope you enjoy my blog and love coming back to check out the updates ... :)
Folks , I love what I do ... and I love the way I do it ... :):);) And I am sooooo encouraged by all my readers ... thank you all for ... ALL YOUR SUPPORT ... and sorry about that potpourri English ... Aaahmmm! or is it continental ... then again .... hhmma... Ahmmm ... ;)

A chandelier affair ... and a story to remember ... :)

 My Chandelier is up and all lit ....I wasn't quite sure how to react ... when my electrician came and did the final connecting of the chandelier ... oh! believe me ... between Sam and me ... we had assembled (it comes off in like a million pieces) and hung ... it all by our selves ... but there was some glitch somewhere ... so the electrician had to step in ...

You 'll ask me so what's the big deal about this piece ... honey, we've all seen one ... similar or prettier ... so what's the story ... :)

Well! the story is that ... at 26yrs ... just married ... and a first time home owner ... this was the biggest  (besides the house ofcourse) and the most expensive purchase of my life ... you know one of those things you do and it makes you feel all grown up  ... AN ADULT ... incharge of your own life ... like ...'look what I do with my life'... kind of purchase ... ;) Yep! exactly ... :)

The picture above was my apartment in Belmont,California ...  and a lot of my old readers might remember this picture from a feature I did ( read it here) about peach walls I painted in this ... my first home ... :)

And there ... the chandelier ... all hung ...lit and I was so madly in love with it ...

that's how it looks in my new 4 month old ... still figuring our things out home

And so madly did I love it that when I moved back home to India ... I

brought it with me ... never stopped to think if I'd run into any trouble lighting it in India ... aaaannnndddd ... weee ... I did ... like most NRI's returning home and blowing up there expensive gadgets ... ;) ... I thought I was a smartypoo ... I knew I needed it rewired to work in India ... what with diff. current (the AC..DC fundas) ...

.... aaaandddd ... haaahaaa ... lil' did missy know that ... that wasn't quite the end of the story and happily ever after ... you see the holders for the bulbs are much smaller in the US and Europe ... and here in India and south asia ... the are slightlybigger ... (that's all the deal with standard trade practices) ... yeah!whatever ...

Can you believe my luck I just walked into a light store (here in Gurgaon) and struck up such a lovely conversation with a very interesting gentleman (believe me he is soon going to have himself a feature here on my blog) ... and I was guided the right way ... with all the wiring to change...holders and ...BEEEP! ... next trouble ...

... now if the holders are changed the original tubes that you see above ... damn it don't fit on the new bigger size ... wowwee ... what am I to do ... does that mean that's the end of the road for my chandelier ... because even if I go buy a pipe of the right size ... I'll never get it to match the rest of the chandelier and look like the original  pipes  ...

... have you heard of angles in todays world ... Mr.Marwah ... is that for me ... for all the trouble he went through to help me out ...  just for goodness sake ... and not to stop just at him ... his son too got involved ... and now if  you ask ... do miracles happen in todays world ... when all hope is lost ... hell ! yes ... Mr.Marwah and his son ... got me exact ... infact better finished pipes ... all sand blasted ... and I don't even know what all the whole procedure was to give it the exact antique finish as the chandelier ... THEY DID IT ...

And nothing beats the last bit ... they delivered it at 3 in the afternoon ... because at 4 my container left with my stuff for Pune ... I was moving once again.A short notice of 3 days ... knowing I was leaving... and may be I 'd be gone for good ... they did it ... and its that nicest feeling ... knowing such people still are there among us ... for whom its not always about money ...

As luck would have it ... I moved back to Gurgaon ... had to go say hello to Mr.Marwah and remind him of what he and his son had done for me And that I never got the chance to open the package they packed  for me ... Thank God ! he remembered ... had to buy the bulbs from his store  ...
And now everytime I light it ... I do catch myself smiling ... its a very special story for me ... ")

Fragrant homes ... naturally ... :)

Beautiful oriental lillies are a must try this season ... you are sure to chuck all those bottled fragrances ... organic or not ... :) ... believe me you will ...

... Sarah and I bought some flowers the other day ... it was a ... 'I choose one type and you choose one type' ... kind of a deal ... and the lil one goes ...''o.k mama'' ... yeah famous last words thrown at every mom before show time ...

well ... well ... lilttle do the lil' ones know ... sometimes ... mums just have a ...win-win ... situation too ... ;)... and at the end of this one we had two bunches ... the oriental lillies and white tiger lillies ...

... the pretty orientals found themselves a place at the entrance ... on the console table ...

... you can't miss the just how special the whole place feels ... and the flowers ... are gorgeous too ... if you aren't already heading out to get yourself some stems ... ' WHAT YOU WAITIN' FOR  ... RUN ' ... o.k so I'll  just wait to hear all those lovely stories from your end ... I know you'll have some ... those lillies do have that kind of effect ...  ; )

Gorgeous garden chandelier ... love...love ...love ... :)

Gurgaon is all watered down by the rain God's ... weee ... and I am so loving my lil' patch of greens outdoors ... and ... I so love this beautiful chandelier designed by Heather Lenkin ... over at http://lenkindesign.blogspot.com/  ... its something that has been on my mind for the longest time ever ... looking at what she designed ... I am still stuck somewhere between the woooow's and the weeee. .... Oh! dear  absolutely gorgeous ... now , this is already one of my fav. gardening blogs ... Do check out the full picture story behind creating such a beauty ... And ofcourse,once again .... WOOOOW ! ... :)

Loving the works of Chugtai M.A.R ... the great Indian Master ...

Hiraman Tota

Housed in the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) , Delhi ... are some of the most priceless and beautiful works of  legendry Indian artists ... some of them dating back to times before the politically motivated partitioning of India and Pakistan ... Chugtai M.A.R ... is one of those ... up there, on the wall of India's Grandmasters ...

Omar Khayyam

... I recently swiped from my mother-in-law ... the prints of some of his works ... can't help but be drawn to these pieces ... talking about works of an artist of his stature ... I honestly feel I got to go mind my own bussiness ... but I love these works and here is what I feel about them ... (all professional art critics please excuse ) ... :) 

Laila

... there's some thing very dainty about his strokes and the features of his subjects... I love the way he draws the eyes ... the  sway in his strokes  is makes me want to hum along :) ... there is a sure marked styling ref . to the miniature style paintings, of Mughal India and Persia ...

Dream

 ... some of his these works are tempera on paper ... and ofcourse his subjects are from all over the subcontinent ... be it this Radha-Krishan in Dream ... or OmarKhayyam ... Hiraman Tota ... Laila ... with the Islamic references ...

Radhika

... hope you also enjoyed the work of Chugtai M.A.R ... an artist who lived (1899-1975) ... even before I was born ... :) but is loved and revered to this day ... one of the great Indian Masters ... :)

Image source ... unknown