Blogging at Citizen Matters!

As those of you who visit this blog regularly might know, it has "diversified" a lot in the last couple of years :). While I believe my gardening and cooking to very much be a part of my "life as a mom", I was happy to accept a kind offer from Citizen Matters to start a gardening blog on their website. So this means I won't be blogging much on gardening on this space (note I say "much" ;)), and here's the link to my second blog post in the new space:

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/blogs/gardener-s-diary/blog_posts/find-seeds-for-gardening-in-your-own-kitchen

Resolution Time?

The start of a new year.. that always signals resolutions of some sort to me. This year,  I tried avoiding the topic for 3 days but it keeps going around in my head so I thought I might as well write it down. Talking of resolutions,  I loved this post by Jane, wish that would work for me ;). The ones below may be repetitive with my bucket list here and there.. seem to be setting myself a lot of work in 2013!!

1. I will sow something new every month, give away seedlings if I don't have space for them :). This is necessary for me to figure out how many of those zillions of stored up seeds are viable at least!

2. I will bake one batch of something every week, this is due to about to be spending a lot of money on an appliance that I need to justify, you'll understand as you read further down ;).

3. I will wake up half an hour earlier every morning, in the hope of getting stuff ready for D to take to school without needing to go into a panic once or twice a week as I've got up too late for preparing what I wanted to!

4. I will plan at least one complete self-pampering activity every week - may be going for a Hair Spa or even just soaking my feet. Yes, I need to PLAN it or it never happens!!

5. I have recently started "No Laptop" time on request from my kids. This is usually the half hour or so after dinner during which time S and D read to me (how clever of me is that :)?). Definitely have to continue!!

6. Mindful buying - lots and lots of thinking before buying anything new. My cupboards and home are overflowing and I will only buy things that I NEED. Of course this might include a KitchenAid, some of you know how long I've been thinking over that one.

7. I will spend 15 minutes every day cleaning - just cleaning up, just 15 minutes. Flylady says this should slowly bring my home to order, it's time I stopped just reading those mails from the site and actually implemented something :).

We are now done with the marathon blogging in December, and have embarked on Project52 - at least one post a week in 2013, so this is my entry for Week 1.

Happy New Year Everyone!

10 things on my Bucket List

Our Marathon Bloggers challenge for this Saturday is:

Let us lay our hearts open, and talk about our “Bucket List”, 10 things you want to do before you kick the bucket. It may be a plain and simple bucket list, or a contextual subset, 10 adventures you want to try, 10 foods you want to try, 10 holiday locations you dont want to miss, and the list goes on! Run your imaginations wild and entertain us all  10 is just a number, it will be easy for people to read and interact, else sky is the limit.

This is not something I've ever attempted, mainly because I wouldn't know where to stop I guess ;). But here goes:

1. Visit one new destination in India every year, wishlist starts with Rajasthan, Konark, Kashmir.

2. Visit one destination outside India every other year, phoren places start from London, going on an African Safari, parts of Europe that I've seen before but in a very touristy way, and I want to go there again with hubby. Children are not necessarily included in all these trips, as I think some parts of the world need to be attained by yourself to get the right flavour ;).

3. Become a consistent bread baker and manage to bake that perfect loaf of wheat bread - yes boring I know, but it is something I have been wanting ever since I realized the poor nutrition content in most store bought breads. I do not manage to try out the baking very regularly, so I hope a gadget like a KitchenAid (part of my 2013 wishlist) might help! As I was telling hubby today, for all the jewelry I have never bought, I do not need to feel too guilty about wanting appliances ;).

4. Become organized - seriously this is a long journey for me. I want to reach a state where thinking about the meals for the next day doesn't from time to time send me into panic mode (like realizing at 11 pm I have no butter in the fridge when breakfast is supposed to be bread!), where the house is reasonably clean all the time and I don't have to scramble when someone is coming to visit.

5. Gardening has been a passion for a little while now, but as a side effect of point 4 above, I feel like my clutter extends into this space a bit too. If I can plan better on what to plant when, do my fertilizing regularly, and have an expectation of harvest times, I hope to reach a stage where I can grow at least 50% of my vegetables. Even better if it's 100% and a farm!

6. Slight cheat, partly taking from point above, I'm hoping to move as much towards organic foods as I can, in the hope that products certified as organic actually are!

7. Be the most efficient mom I can be - provide super nutritious meals for my kids, be encouraging without being nagging, teach them to follow their hearts.. you get the drift.

8. In between all the above, learn to pamper myself in between too. My hair, skin, feet all need regular attention that I'm terrible at providing.

9. One of the smaller wants - I want to learn to take good food photos - good photos in general, but especially food photos because I seem to usually finish my baking only in the evenings, and at times of low light my lovely Nikon S9100 doesn't serve me very well. I resist buying a DSLR because I cannot yet call myself enough of an enthusiast to deserve it, but hope to figure out to make the best use of what I have as a starting point.

10. Phew! That was tough... thinking very hard on what should make up this last point, and I think it has to be that in the long run I would love to be doing something actively to spread that message of going green. I try to do my little bit, but if I could make even a few others change their thinking I would be really happy about it. I try to do it online anyway, but this is more of a grassroots campaign I am talking about.

Posted for Day 22 and Saturday Challenge of the Marathon Bloggers December Dhamaka :).