New mom in the 'burbs

Hosting a Wine n Cheese evening? Here is a neat little guide!

By now you must know my two favorite “food groups” – Wine and Cheese! I could live on it forever! Forever forever if you add a bunch of grapes or slice some pears! And I promise to love you forever if you add a couple of olives to the cheese plate (how do you think J got me so totally in love with him?).

But my current favorite pairing is semi-soft Brie (Trader Joe’s or safeway) with water crackers, a jar of apricot preserves, wasabi nuts served with kim crawford sauvignon blanc! You cannot go wrong with this wine and cheese plate pairing.

It’s been forever since I got a chance to sit down and blog. I know I keep blaming my schedule (which is crazy!) at work and home! I usually make it a point to never sit at the computer after getting home, my home time is for Leia and J. So the only time I blog is during lunch or between meetings or when I get a free minute and want to unwind before tackling my next major task.

Currently, we have a lot of changes going on at work which will result in me getting roped in to do more (I have no clue how I can possibly add more to my already full plate). On the home front we have been bombarded by guests – family and family friends since the day we got back from vacation. I posted on my facebook page the other day “If your evite page starts resembling your facebook feed its time to cut back on social activities” and that’s how my calendar is nowadays! Luckily tonight we have the last batch of house guests for a bit and after seeing them off tomorrow we have the entire long weekend to ourselves! We have a bunch of BBQ’s and pool party invitations but we can pick and choose where and how long we want to go – so that’s a good thing. And as tiring as it is we always love having guests over, sitting chatting all night over endless glasses of wine and having Leia entertain them with her antics  (NOT all night long – thankfully!). I truly believe you have “loved ones, money and time” very rarely together at the same time in life and when you manage to have all three make the best of it. Just to clarify what I mean is there are very few times when you are not in the pursuit of money (at school, looking for a job etc), Love (I love not being 20 anymore and making the dating mistakes I did! As cheesy as it sounds J made me realize love exists!) and time (No one has tons of time and when you do you are either in the pursuit of money or love). So when you manage to have all three together along with great friends – savor it!

So to get back to my blogging world, here is my currently post!

Loving

Life! Family! Family Friends! Its always a lot of fun to see Leia interact with all our guests and how she loves welcoming them into her little happy world. But she is always sad to see them go! (Sad = major tantrums)

Reading

I just finished reading “Rescue” by Anita Shreve for our bookclub. Although it was a decent read I didn’t care for the book too much. Lack of character development and the story just jumping about without reasoning didn’t make it very memorable for me either. I just started “The Storyteller” by Jodi Picoult and that seems pretty interesting so far. I have “Sarah’s Key” and “Firefly Lane” in my to read pile – hopefully I’ll get a free afternoon to sit outside and read this weekend.

Watching

Game of Thrones – we started third season before going on vacation and managed to watch one episode last week. Also saw “The Office” finale – I’m always sad to see shows I like end and this one was really a very sweet ending. I wish the last two seasons were as good as the last few episodes.

Listening to

Car music – Sofia the First. Tinkerbell – Fairies songs. Jake and the never land pirates. Think my almost 3 year old influences our car music decisions?

Thinking about
Strategizing the next few months of work, travel and summer family fun!

Looking forward to

A relaxing long weekend. A chance to go to the nursery and get my annuals and plant them. I can’t wait to get out and get dirty!

Making me happy

Nothing to complain about really and that makes me happy. Listening to Leia tell all her friends about “Mickey Ship” is great! And seeing this happy, crazy face does make me happy – very happy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZC1czZofyY

I love it when we can use our intelligence and money towards innovative ideas that help others! I feel anyone can be innovative to earn money and gain power, wealth and fame but the true inventors are those who come up with ideas to use technology and resources usefully to help those who need it most!

Do not ask a pregnant woman if she plans on breast feeding!!

 
 
No I’m not Pregnant
 
But Yes I was asked this question when I was pregnant with Leia – by a man – my senior executive – who was at least 30 years older than me!!

One thing that always bothered me growing up in India was that the more privileged kids of society always got all the opportunities needed to get ahead in life – good schools (the best schools in India are all Private, the public school system is a mess), good sports facilities, music, dance etc., What I loved about growing up in the US was the fact that people from all walks of life were given equal opportunities to excel and make a good life for themselves. Great public schools with good music, art and sports programs, scholarships to colleges and all you need to do to succeed is work hard and be sincere to your work.

Now Indians all over the world are known to be smart and intelligent yada yada yada, but honestly the world see’s only 5% of the real Indians – the privileged kids who have all the opportunities to study and do well. No doubt there is hard work involved – I remember studying from 6AM till 11PM non stop when I had my school exams and entrance exams and slogging at our labs day and night to get my results and I know the position I am in today is because my parents could afford to give me everything I needed to succeed compounded with my hard work – but that’s not point of this blog. I always wonder why we don’t use our intelligence and resources to help the future grow – to give opportunities to those who are not afforded them! I always adopt a few kids a year to sponsor their education and my mom also volunteers extensively at schools to use her business acumen to bring them up to par, but I want to do more. Now I was reading this article and was really impressed! This is an example of how we can use technology to reach the far flung places to educate our future!

We weren’t going to make a big deal out of Mother’s day this year because
A. We were on vacation the entire week before
B. 10 days of no cooking, no cleaning = pure bliss
C. J booked me for the best all body massage and facial while on the cruise
D. J bought me some very beautiful Tanzanite pieces while visiting St. Marteen
E. We were getting back pretty late Saturday evening

But the best gift I got was sleeping in with my baby boo till almost 10AM on Mother’s Day. We were all dead tired and just cuddled in bed till around 11, spoke with my mom on the phone for quite some time, received a delivery of a beautiful floral arrangement from J’s parents, then got ready and took J’s mom for brunch. After a leisurely Mexican brunch and a spot of shopping (J’s mom got me the prettiest summery wedges) we sat around a bit and showed J’s parents our pictures, gave them the gifts we got them and got home to get ready for the week ahead (bletch!). All in all was a great day spent with family.

As soon as she woke up, Leia checked her toys to make sure they were all OK. she took her tray and started feeding me! “Eat mama – NOW”.

Feeding her mama

Getting ready for brunch! See Princess shoes!

Hanging out after brunch

The girls down the street baked a pie and gave it to me for being a good mom! How sweet is that!

We are back! Funny faces and all – although I wish we weren’t! Still waiting for someone to knock on my door with a platter of gourmet goodies. For some reason the Room Service on the cruise knocked on our door every day at 2:00 with gourmet goodies – yum! Related – if you haven’t been on a Disney cruise – do go for one! Its AMAZING!!!

 
At Animator’s Palate.

 
It will be liberating to not have my phone, work emails, regular emails, facebook, evite and pintrest for about a week! This week will be all about family time with our Disney friends! See you on the other side!

So my foodie penpal for this time sent me the most amazing box of Texan goodies!larrupin’ good!

When I was asked what I would like, I jumped up and asked for a Texas themed box (since that’s where he is from), funnily enough as much as I have traveled I’ve been to Texas only once and that too the people I was with were all about eating wings! I love trying out new cuisines at new places but oh well! My penpal made my Texan food dream come true! He sent me some chili, salsa (Fire roasted salsa – yum!!! I have been digging into it this week), some cookies and a big box of taffies (don’t know how we’ll finish those!). I’m waiting to get back to make our special Chili – so that will be out for a bit. But I have a fabulous recipe for homemade roasted tomato salsa/sauce!

Also, I mentioned to my penpal that my husband always talks about this Steak restaurant where if you wear a tie they chop it off and stick it to the wall – guess what?? it is about 10 minutes from where he lives! So he very sweetly sent me the menu’s for that restaurant! Thanks for making my foodie penpal experience so much fun James!

M’s Roasted Tomato Salsa (Saucy)
So we had a whole box of cherry tomatoes left over after a party and remember my pantry challenge? Well I took all the tomatoes I had at home, liberally sprinkled EVOO, sea salt and freshly ground pepper and roasted in the oven for about 25-30 minutes (peek in and you’ll know when they are done) at about 400 degrees. After they were done, I added the tomatoes with their juices, freshly chopped green chilies, cumin powder (1-2 tsp), minced garlic and freshly chopped cilantro to my mixing bowl and pulse away, add a dash of lime juice when done. Stop when you have desired consistency – mine ended up a bit saucier than salsa but worked wonderfully with the taquitos I was baking that night for dinner. The next afternoon for lunch I added it to rice, cooked it in chicken broth and garnished with cilantro – made the most amazing Spanish rice!