Crafts, leisure and happiness

Vishu's pet hippo - Bubba Originally uploaded by vin E

I absolutely love visiting a craft supplies store out here in the USA. For one thing it kindles my creativity and another, its fun just going over the hordes of stuff that people do and need supplies for. I'm sure most people from India would feel the same way. I remember when I was in school and needed supplies for a project all I had to do was run to the neighborhood "fancy" store, yeah that's what they were called, atleast in Bangalore, and ask for the specific item I was looking for. If I needed craft paper (or more aptly color paper) there was only 1 kind, at the most 2 and one kind of glue and one kind of card board - K.G card board (if that's the way it is spelt and hmm, I wonder why it was called that). Every aunty I knew in my neighborhood had an interest in art and craft. My mom knew how to emboss on metal, to sew and knit and my neighbors and family friends could knit, crochet, paint on canvas, on cloth, on ceramics, embroider, whole saris sometimes, m...

The rain, the sea, flowers, autumn, spring, summer, coloring books, books, running babies that have just learnt to walk, drooling babies, potpourri, lights, candles, watching the rain, snow, babies, me, friends, toys, lakes, rivers, mountains, sunsets, long drives, long drives in the rain, music, ginger-tea, paint, colors, stacks of towels, stacks of yarn, green lawns, puppies, kittens, wrapping paper, receiving packages in the mail, the Sunday morning extended ginger-tea-time in bed looking out at our tree from the window, the leaves on the road in fall, watching the rain in Bangalore, a summer afternoon at home in Bangalore reading the Sunday Times with the musical background of the street vendors' voices outside, Vishu and me sitting quietly engrossed in our own thoughts in the living room, an intense game of risk with my friends, emails from friends, ingredient listings on the back of grocery cartons, milk, chips, chocolate, chocolate ice-cream, chocolate fantasy at Coffee Day...

Trail Originally uploaded by vin E Who would have guessed that on Thanks Giving day, the Bailey Cove trail near Redding, CA would be deserted. It was mere luck that led my husband and me there when we were looking for something to do. The changing coldth (I refuse to use the spell check suggested word here) and warmth of the trail gave us a perspective of the sun's hide and seek with the sides of the mountains. The silence interrupted only by the tread of our shoes on the thick carpet of leaves and our controlled whispers of awe. The smells were green and brown. The colors, damp and dry. A chirp, here, a glimpse of a deer sprinting away, there. The afternoon sun reflecting against the now reduced waters of the gigantic lake Shasta. The fallen acorns, some of which now adorn the petri dish in my living room. It was indeed a thankful Thanksgiving.

I've always been interested in craft work, probably because my mom would enroll me in different courses during summers. I never had the time or the resources earlier to pursue this interest until I moved to the US and found I had a lot of weekends and evenings on my hands. So I started to knit. This post is for anyone who has always wanted to knit and did not know how to go about starting it. This is what I did and I hope it helps Pick your project. Pick an easy or intermediate project Pick one where the size of the finished project need not be accurate for it to be usable. For instance a sweater or cardigan may not be a good idea, but a blanket or scarf or bib might be. Pick your project from one of the many available projects online. I picked my project from http://www.michaels.com/ . This was a baby blanket and it involved knitting the same pattern over and over again. Click here for instructions . Pick something that does not involve more than one color. Joining new colored yar...

I think giving her a name makes the loss more painful but the crematorium required that we name her. Her? We could not even find out if she was a girl or a boy, so we decided she was a girl and she was Deeksha. She waved to us during the first ultrasound. I've always wondered if that was a desperate call for help that we failed to notice. I've wondered if she was in pain. And if she was, was she in pain every day of the 20 weeks? I will never know. I've always believed that everything has a reason, every sorrow, every pain and I hope to find a reason for Deeksha someday.