My First Giveaway

I am doing my very first giveaway here at my blog. I thought it would be fun to join the carnival over at Shannon's blog. What I am planning to give away is an elephant.

Please don't go away. It is not real. You don't have to feed them or anything. It is 4'' x 6'' in size. The pictures are given below.


They are authentic Indian made, so it is coming from a local artist's hands in Kerala, India 10,000 miles from you. I got it from there during my last trip and I have one left which I would like to give away. Here is a close up.

All you need to do is let me know you visited in the comments below. I will leave this post at the comments open until November 2nd midnight and I will pick a winner on Saturday, November 3rd.


Bloggers and non-bloggers in US are welcome to participate. Let the fun begin.

For more free stuff, head on over to Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

Teaching Woes

I teach Sunday school once a month at our church. I don’t like the fact that I have to miss preaching the day, but I think it is great fun and very rewarding. Take yesterday’s lesson for example.

The lesson was about Joshua and Rahab.

Me: And Joshua sent two spies…

Student 1: What are spies?

Student 2: Are they people who take kiev of you?

Me: What’s that?

Student 2: Take KIEV!!

Me: I don’t understand you sweetie…

Student 1: Take kiev as in taking kiev of a baby

(She shows gesture of holding a baby)

Me: I see… Taking CARE! Yeah, ok. NO, NO. Spies don’t take care of you.

Student 3: Do they steal stuff?

Me: No, they just watch what you do and report you to your enemies…

Student 3: What is report?

(When will I learn I am talking to 5 year olds?)

Student: So are they BAD people?

Me: Hmm, well…you know…not always

(I was the picture of eloquence)

Student one or the other: Then why did Rahab save them?

This is when I realize I probably should not be teaching Sunday school. At least not to 5 year olds who are much smarter than I am.

Genesis to Revelation - It's all good

I am on a read-the-Bible-in-a-year program. It goes continuously from Genesis on to Revelation instead of jumping from Jeremiah to Jude. I am currently on Mathew. We made some changes in our schedules and habits to make it happen.

Here I go with lists again. I think I will lose my entire readership because of all the lists.

• We changed Netflix subscriptions from 3 to 1. Also since hubby and I like different things, I changed the order such that I end up getting only 1 DVD at a time. Saves money AND time. I still have a fixation for one show a week and I do watch that for an hour on Tuesdays.

• Not having cable really helps. We do not have cable not because we are cheapskates and very holy people and think it is a tool of Satan, but because we are out of control. Although, the one on being cheapskates is debatable.

• I love to read. I read at least 15 minutes a day. Now I do not allow myself to read unless I finish my passages for the day.

I keep thinking that it should not be so difficult. But it is as Paul says in Romans: The good that I should do, I do not do. I do not always do the right thing, worse still I sometimes do not even WANT to do the right thing. I prayed before that I would be able to go through with it and so far I have been able to. Now I am excited about it.

I once studied the book of Hebrew. Studied as in really studied as for an exam…Dictionary, concordances, root meanings- I can only describe the experience as exhilarating. I then discussed it with some senior friends and they were excited for me as well. I always worried that I might not be able to grasp the meaning and I may read too fast when I go over 4-5 passages at a time. That has always been my problem with these programs. But God has been good to me. I really am seeing certain things in a whole new light. It is surprising seeing as I must have read the Gospel of Matthew at least 25 times. And I know it is only by the work of the Holy Spirit.

He really is one good Helper. All you need to do is ask.

And another thing was yesterday’s preaching. It was about Personal Bible Study. It was a further encouragement and I am thankful to the Lord. I will write about (hopefully soon) what I learned in a coming post.

I am back

I cannot believe I didn't post anything for two whole weeks. I have been writing blog posts in other's comment boxes though. That should count, right? The world has not been bereft of my illuminating wisdom. I was so busy writing there that I never got around to writing anything here.

I never did post the birthday pictures, write about our trip, or the other things I wanted to do. But I did do many things that I never planned on doing.

• Arrange the coat closet, paired up the socks and put them neatly in a plastic bin
• Filed all the bills and paper work from the last month in another plastic bin
• Cleaned under the sink and put all the cleaning stuff in another plastic bin

Do you begin to see a pattern here? As I was saying some terribly exciting stuff was taken care of. Sarcasm aside, it was fun to organize stuff.

One fun thing I got to do was invite friends over to share pictures from our Grand Canyon trip. We love opening our hearts and home and spending time with people. Although I hate to invite people and have them bring food, (that practice is laughed at in our culture) they insisted that they bring food, and since I woke up with a bad headache that morning, I agreed. I made tuna cutlets for appetizer and fruit salad for desert. I found out minutes before my guests arrived that I did not have the bread crumbs that I needed to dip the cutlets in. So I asked my friend to please get some for me on her way to my home because she spends all of her days taking leisurely bubble baths, sipping tea and reading Victoria magazine, so please do some work already. (For my readers she is a busy homeschooling mama of 5 kids under 7. I can only IMAGINE what her days are like)

So when I say pot luck, I mean it. My guests bring the ingredients, we all cook around a pot, and if they are lucky, they get some food.

Much like our Christian forefathers.

But I do provide chairs and tables and plates and cutlery. I am generous like that.

I can only write posts when I am relaxed and that is usually at the end of a work week or in the night when I am home. Hubby's computer has been having issues and he has been using my laptop for his work, so I have been without a computer for some time. Which is probably the reason why I got some house organizing done.

Which is of course a good thing.

Now if only I can motivate myself to clean the bathroom...

Random stuff

I was talking to my mom today about our trip to the Grand Canyon and what we did there etc. Coincidentally at the same time, they had also taken a trip to one of the hill stations in India.

Mom: What did you do in Grand Canyon?

Me: We went on a helicopter to the bottom of the canyon and then took the boat ride on the Colorado River

(There is silence at the other end)

Me: Hello? Hello??

Mom: That is a risky thing to do. I have heard of many crashes. What with the height and everything

Me: Well, there is a certain amount of risk to everything. So, what did you do?

Mom: Oh, we just went on the ropeway

Thanks Mamma. Good to know that the "Do as I say and not as I do" is still going strong.

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Couple of those work stories-

I apparently gave some misinformation to my boss (inconsequential) and that was caught by our client. (He is Indian)

Boss: You said ABC was not available

Me: That was what I thought, but this client is one smart guy

Boss: It takes one Indian to catch another one.

Me: I guess so

Boss: And that is why there are a billion of you.

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Couple of months back I had just finished a very difficult project and there was a lot of back and forth emailing going on. At the end of the day I was sending out the finished report and I wrote the customary line at the bottom. "Please don't hesitate to call me if you have any questions." Half way through I decided to say instead "Please feel free to call me...." It ended up being "Please don't feel free to call me" I did not send it since I got a chance to review it, but some days- that sentence captures my feelings exactly.

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I got an offer from the insurance agency the other day- actually on my birthday. It was for long term care. Okay, so I do have my share of medical problems, but I am not there yet. Hello? I turned 27 not 72!

Getting dye off clothes

This is the first time I am participating in Shannon's WFMW.

My relatives in India, when they visited me gifted me with a shirt. It was a violent yellow and gold color and after wearing it once, I kept it aside on the floor to wash it separately. Hubby dear wanted to help me out and decided to do the laundry. He put it together with our other clothes and the result was pretty bad. All of his white T shirts and other white articles of clothing got dyed with a nasty yellow/orange. I tried bleach, washing it separately and it is not coming out. Can any of you suggest a method to get it out?

For more questions and answers visit Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer.

Vacation photos

I am back from vacation and since there is a lot of work to be caught up with, I am just going to post some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

I will have to finish my work before I write any posts and believe me there is plenty to write about- including the story of a fat aggressive squirrel, how my birthday actually turned out to be, and how there was yet another surprise after we came back. I don't think the pictures do justice to the majesty of the Grand Canyon-at least the pictures which have been resized by ofoto.