#1:##9,10,11 - Wooden Initials for Home

Hello friends. I did disappear for the past three days but I have been working on this for more than 2-3 hours everyday. I realised that spending an hour a day is fine but spending 5-6 hours on a weekend is usually very tough because it is family time and besides, currently me and my husband are working on a personal project so we are doing some other kind of work on weekends which makes it very difficult for me to manage household work, cooking meals, doing the other work and then working on this too.

Now that I am done cribbing, here is the story for my creation ...  :)

We got wooden initials for me and my husband three weeks ago. And I was looking for cheap art supplies on the internet and some shops and took another couple of days for me to get my art supplies in place. I wanted to make our initials interesting and highly personalized. I am into the whole "personalize whatever you can" charade big time so I will try to do that at every possible opportunity and this one I had created for myself so it had to be special.

So I have tried to hand paint the wooden initial letter of my husband's name which sort of reflects his personality. I used acrylic colours and 0 and 2 number paint brushes to finish this work. Wanted to use sharpies to give it a final finishing touch but I guess sharpies do not work so well on rough wooden surfaces. I guess its only their nibs that don't work, the ink is formulated to be permanent on wood. How do I know? While getting the pen to work, I just gave the pen a big jerk, covering half my wall with the sharpie ink which seems like it is there to stay! :D .

Well, the overall experience was good. Used painting brushes after a long time and you can see my amateur-style in the work done. Thick and wobbly lines are not too difficult to spot. I am pleased with the concept and happy that for the first time in my life, I patiently did paint the whole background! (I would always find shortcuts to save some effort in colouring the background.)

I feel exhausted after completing this little piece of work and I do not want to start a new artwork today. But I have had a couple of ideas to work on my next creation. Hopefully that should get over faster so I might attempt doing it later in the day. Juggling this along with the adhoc important tasks that come in on a daily basis is more difficult than I thought. And mind you, I am not even employed!

Anyway this is a warm up. Once these 21 days get over, I would start working on the real thing - my design portfolio. And that is going to be so much more difficult. But we shall cross that bridge when we get there.

For now, here is what I did to the plain wooden letter.

#1: ##8: An Experience

Guys before I start writing today's brief, I want to tell you the going is getting tough. There are weekends, there are special days, there are days you feel blue and getting an idea is difficult and implementing it is another story altogether!

So yesterday was my husband's birthday and it was after 3 years we were together to celebrate his birthday. And as it is I am quite enthusiastic about birthdays and anniversaries and all that crap! I know it means nothing to an enlightened mind like my husband's but for poor earthlings like me, it still calls for celebration. We could not decide what to do until 8 in the evening. We sort of had plans of going out but he hates non-Indian cuisines... well, most of them. The ones he sort of likes are Thai or Indo-chinese because they are similar to Indian food in terms of spices. So well, at 8 we decided that we will sit at home and eat parathas and watch a movie - that is our favourite thing anyway.

We decided to step out and get some coke or something to accompany our food because at least it should seem like we had a "fine" dinner. No alcohol for both of us. I am just rehabilitating myself from an addiction (hehehe) and he is trying to control his triglycerides. So we got zero cal beverages to accompany our food. And while all this was happening, my creative juices started flowing and I decide to create a small experience by putting together whatever I had at home. 

So I decided to have a small three course meal along with our drink. No cakes for him (triglycerides, remember?) but we needed a cake and a candle to blow and make it seem like birthday-ish. Took 2 hours to put the three course meal together, accompanied my husband to the store to get coke, set up the table and took a few photographs. I do not want to show my face as yet, so will omit the ones which has my face in it but here are the two photos that shows the trick I pulled to make our 'stay at home dinner' a little special. It wasn't the food, it wasn't the decor. I feel it was just how I responded to a chance of making dinner on a special evening and hence it deserved its place on this blog.(Oh no, that is not screaming narcissism!) 

For those interested, the menu was:

Starters: Oven roasted garlic mushrooms

Main course: Curd and Gobi Paratha

Sweet: Waterchestnut (singada) flour halwa 

Drinks: Zero cal Fanta (for him) and Coke (for me)

Cake: Sara Lee cupcake :) 

Here is the pic of the celebration

And I also grabbed the opportunity to use my white flower to enhance the aesthetic appeal of my dining table! :)

#1: ##7 : Mindfulness mini campaign

I love running and I do meditate for 10 minutes everyday (well, on most days (if time permits)). But I am already trying to get to a point where I can make that statement without the brackets. I am a huge fan of meditation purely because how I feel once I am done with it.

AWESOME. That's it. That is how I feel once I give just 10 minutes of my day to my own self. This might mean having breakfast 10 minutes later, or making that not-so-important phone call or delaying the house chores by barely a few minutes. I read up on some book for mindfulness as a meditation technique a few days ago and I tried it for a few days and it made me feel pretty good and in control of things.

I had thought of doing some campaigns for yoga a couple of months ago and did not do anything about it. Suddenly yesterday I decided to do something using Adobe Photoshop for creating something for this blog and I thought of doing a banner. I started of with the same central idea but a different visual for this. I wanted to create a message for myself, while I am trying to discipline myself and everyone who is dealing with some or the other stress related issue that we run after discounts because it saves money which supposedly will help us lead a better life (or whatever). But mindfulness does not cost a thing! It is free and it ACTUALLY helps you lead a better life, reduce stress, improve focus, control your response and reaction towards your surrounding. Thinking logically, you might not find a single reason to not practice mindfulness.

If I have succeeded in creating curiousity in the mind of those not aware of this technique or not too sure where to start from but are willing to give this a try, here is your starting point. Before we start, a BIG round of applause for you for this fantastic decision! And without further ado, here are the steps:

• You will need a timer and just 10 minutes of your time. If you are using the timer on your phone, please turn off all the volumes that can distract you. 
• Find a peaceful place to sit down - a chair or directly on the ground but make sure you are comfortable. Also, you are required to sit straight - so if you cannot sit straight for too long, find a back support but do not throw your weight on your back support, use it to stop you from stooping. 
• And if possible, just warm up a little before meditating - like shake your hands and legs for a minute, move your neck in circular direction for a few seconds and sit down.
• Set the timer for 10 mins. If you think you can do better than that, be my guest :D
• Close your eyes and start taking notice of your breaths. Take five deep breaths by inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. 
• Next step is to scan your entire body internally just to notice how each of your body parts feel. But avoid moving or shifting. The idea is to start being mindful about how you are feeling.
• Now till the timer goes off, all you have to do is pay attention to your breath. Inhale and exhale normally without trying to change anything from your regular way of breathing. Just be a silent observer of your own self. Observe but do not judge. Also, keep counting your inhales and exhales from 1 to 10. Start again from 1 after you reach 10 (obviously). But what if you exceed 10 by mistake? Or forget your count? Or just drift away and start thinking about random things? Does not matter. The moment you realise you are lost, get back on track and start your count from one again. Just go with the flow. 
• Once the timer goes off, try to turn off the timer with your eyes closed. If not, does not matter, open your eyes but remain seated and calm. Once you turn off the timer, again scan your body internally about how you feel. 
• Take a deep breath and complete your meditation. 

Mindfulness means being in the present and being mindful of your self. If you simply just notice how you are breathing in the middle of something, that can help reduce stress and make you feel slightly more in control of things around you. Please try it.

Enough said. Now it's time to draw the curtains on my creation for the 7th day... The banner that argues in favour of you practicing mindfulness.... Take a look and give it a thought!