Fin Fun

 
My little boy turned seven this past weekend. He's still an animal lover. We took the day off to celebrate his special day. He decided he wanted to see Sealife in Grapevine and lunch at Rainforest Cafe. He's still an animal lover. Nothing's changed there. Rainforest Cafe is still his favorite restaurant. Sealife is not too bad, considering it was hot outside. It's a nice place to take the kids during Summer when the temperature roars up in the 100s. You will be glad you picked something indoors.

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School Lunches & Copious Basil

I have to admit, I been slacking off with packing lunch for kids this academic year. There are numerous documentaries out there (some on Netflix) that shows what is being served for school lunches. A simple visit to the school cafeteria during lunch will confirm the same. Most of the lunch is made from frozen or canned food. Not to mention, a variety of junk food are available for the kids to choose from, like kids Cliff bars, fruit bars, ice creams, Doritos, Cheetos so on and so forth. To top it, there is the snack provided by the after school care ...what do you expect, another round of cheetos, pudding loaded with sugar, doritos and the likes. No doubt, a few days in a month, they try and provide fruits for snacks.

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People Watch

I live in Central Time Zone and work in Eastern. Pretty much that means, my working day starts early, whether I am ready or not. The days I do not have meetings before 9AM, I drop my son and grab a cuppa Joe from Starbucks. I like Cafe Americano with a little bit of streamed milk, extra hot. The few minutes I wait for my drink to be made, I watch people, especially those well dressed women on their way to work and make notes to myself on the trends I like.

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Dragon Festival 2012, Lake Carolyn

We went to the Dragon Boat, Kite and Lantern Festival by Lake Carolyn on Sunday afternoon. As the name suggests, the festival included kite flying lovely lanterns swaying gently in the afternoon breeze, a short boat race and carnival type food vendors.
It was sweltering except for the shade provided by the trees. We bought a couple of these cute looking Japanese/Chinese umbrellas to keep the sun rays away. Loved the painted cherry blossoms. The inside of the umbrella looked hand made. Not bad for 5 bucks.

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Happy Sunday Morning

Cure for Sweet Tooth = Bananas + Yogurt + Mixed Berries
The Great Indoors is closing their store all over the country and that's where I heading this Sunday morning. May be I will pick a thing or two. Girls night was great and we roamed around aimlessly for a while and settled on Grand Luxe in the Galleria. It's similar to The Cheesecake Factory, slightly upscale and they claim their food is fresh. 

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Easy To Read, Hard To Do

Saturdays are library days. On some Saturdays, it's a family affair when all of us head to the library and on some, I pick books for the kids and myself. Of late I have been picking "The Biggest Loser (TV show)", "How To Think Like A Naturally Skinny Person " type of books on top of those on home improvements. It's high time I realize no dosages of these tips can help until I stop my frequent visits to "The Cheesecake Factory" and the likes.

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And Then There Was Light

Like I told you earlier, I am smitten by the home improvement bug. The light fixtures provided by the original builder are of good quality but not something I would call aesthetically pleasing. What a shame, to replace a perfectly working fixture just because it is not in sync with what's in style. May be I would do it, if it was easier to donate the one that's working fine.

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Public Speaking and Life In General

There's anything fancy I do on my business trips, especially the ones to Richmond. I might put on a dress, heals and go on a date with my book to a nearby restaurant in the Short Pump area. The place literally has a beautiful fountains with short pumps. The pumps do bring back a ton of memory from my childhood in Chennai. Our primary source of drinking water. I cannot count the number of creative excuses my brothers and I made up to escape the daunting task of pumping water. There was always a test in school right when we were needed to pump water. Studying history sounded more fun than pumping those days.

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Mother's Day

The entire Sunday was spent going over Knowsys words with my daughter, close to 250 words. She has a test this Tuesday. It's one of those where a last minute effort has a short term effect. The review session we had was more to convince myself that she is ready than prepping her up.
Least of all, she kept it entertaining with her creative sentences. Recant, was one of the words and her sentence was - "Joe wished he could recant the moment when he said 'I do', to his wife.".

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Bless Your Heart

I am reading Paula Deen's new book, "Savannah Style" and falling in love with everything Southern. The porches, the breezy afternoons, the dull hum of the ceiling fans and a nap on an old wooden or wicker  rocker. There's something genuine about Paula that draws me to her cooking and books, even though I hardly ever (another way to say never) make her recipes.
This is the season of lemonades and freshly grown cucumbers. With too many failed tomato plants, we decided to bring home the patio tomato plants in pots. I am probably the only one in the Northern hemisphere who complains about difficulties in growing tomato plants. I know many who distribute tomatoes to friends and neighbors because they had over-production.

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