For the last two evenings we have been enjoying this wonderful tea 🍵 from Jaftea called Blueberry Delight.
It has a very juicy flavour profile, that is such a joy to drink.
Someone gifted it to us here in Malaysia. Blessed be those souls!
#MalaysianDiary
Pretty pleased that I navigated through a bunch of things—custom themes, debugging template errors and some CSS styling to get “Reply on Mastodon” up on the site.
Not sure what I broke along the way. But that is for tomorrow 😆
The community around at Micro Blog and @help has been awesome!
A very good primer on Sex, Gender and how to update our thinking about it.
While I was aware of this idea of gender, the fluidity of it and how one is free to choose it, the highlights of this talk for me were —
Go listen to the talk.
Gender Theory
Such a good news to read about the impactful work of passionate folks, in otherwise bleak world news from the last week!
She used to feel as though the world had forgotten about girls in Afghanistan. “I was wondering if there are people out there that care about me,” she says. “I hope one day I will be able to go back to school, but until then Dars can help me to feel connected with my classroom.”
BBC show is a ‘lifeline’ for Afghan girls, UN says - BBC News
The below article by Steph Ango, resonates with how I would also approach purchases. It is nice to see how Steph has put a process heuristic around it.
Whenever I buy things I try to prioritize cost per use. Sometimes I consider other priorities such as cost per smile, cost per thrill, cost per externality, and cost per lesson.
Buy wisely stephango.com
We recently visited Kuching, Sarawak. The Borneo Cultures Museum was the first on our list.
We started off with the section called Healing Crisis: Lessons from the Pandemic. This simple presentation captured so well the essence of our lives during the Pandemic!
It was one of the well curated and presented museums we have been in the recent times. And there is a section for Children that will keep them engaged a really long time. I highly recommend it.
#Travel #Sarawak #MalaysianDiary
I have been accessing the internet since 1998. It started with chatting on Internet Relay Chatrooms (IRC) on text-based Unix terminals. I have come a long way today, being online almost all the time through my mobile and laptop. Someday, I hope to document the journey to this point, but for today, I will focus on the key milestone of my online journey—my own space at jrr.digital.
After renting spaces online for email, blogs, microblogs, and photoblogs, I have finally come to realize the value of owning one’s own space in the online world where the content is mine, and I am in control of it. I am no longer subject to whimsical policy changes or the whims of site owners I rent space from.
I know I am a few decades late to this game of owning one’s own site. I consciously stayed away from it because of the costs and effort involved in running one’s site. Also, I’ve always felt that I have a lot more to learn and know, so what new could I actually add in terms of posts?
However, over the years, I have realized that learning is a continuous process, and it is better to learn in public. I used to be concerned about contradicting myself over the years. But I now realize that I am a work in progress and will continue to be one forever. In the process, we may never look at the same thing in the same way. It is no longer me contradicting myself, but it is just me growing into, or rather being who I am today.
As far as the costs are concerned, it is affordable for me now. I have been paying for my own email for the last couple of years, and at $50 a year, it gives me a lot of peace of mind and control over my email aliases. As for the website, I liked the idea of Wordpress and the simplicity of hosting your own place on the internet there. However, off late, I have been enamored by the principles of Indie Web and Fediverse. I find Micro.Blog a perfect fit for what I want today. It has everything I need—hosting a site, options for both long form and short form, photo blogging, cross-posting, etc. And all of this at $50 a year.
So here I am, taking the plunge of buying my own domain jrr.digital, hosting it on Micro.Blog, finding a new home for all my previous online posts (Instagrams and Tweets), and starting to share my thoughts here, beginning with this post.
I have a vague idea of how I want to organize this place—posts, interesting links, photos, books, etc. I hope to do this over time as I tend to this digital garden of mine. 🤞🏼
At around 7.30p each day, #OhBoy kisses and waves everyone good night. Me and him step into the bedroom and approx. 20mins later I am out. He sleeps through the night and wakes up at around 6am next morning.
This was not the case a year ago. Here is our journey.
A year ago, #OhBoy would wake up every 45m to an hour and would only fall asleep with a feed. He was using The Missus as a soothing toy to fall sleep. Both of them were not happy with this arrangement and resulted in cranky behavior throughout the day (dare I say for both!).
Things got so bad that we would dread evenings as the sleep time approached. This is the time The Missus read about sleep training (on Mint Lounge, I think). She searched about the author Kerry Bajaj and purchased her book—Sleep, Baby, Sleep, on Kindle.
The Missus read it first and was convinced on the way forward. I read the first chapter and agreed with her. The book talks of many things—setting a routine and avoid surprises, being boring at sleep time, low to no light in the room, white noise etc.
We were adopting some of those things already. Like an evening routine—bath, powder, read a book and sleep, using yellow lights instead of white lights etc.
A year ago from today, 29th May 2020, we went cold turkey to begin sleep training. We stuck newspapers on windows to block ambient light. Setup a nice cozy bed for the evening and showed it to #OhBoy all day to make it familiar. Fed him well to sustain the night. I had an early dinner at 7.30p and went into the room with him. I locked ourselves up with just a bottle of water for him and a speaker playing rain sounds.
After almost 45mins of crying and fighting to get out of the room, he slept off. It was tough on us to bear those cries, but we all believed it was the right thing.
The first night he woke up 4-5 times. Each time I gave him water and he grudgingly had it and fought a little, but went back to sleep.
He was on a two nap routine, so we did the same next day for his morning and afternoon naps as well. Day naps were tougher than nights, given the daylight around. But we made it a point that this was the way he is going to sleep.
What started with so much resistance from him, went on to become something he loved. He began seeing sleep as an enjoyable activity, instead of something that made him miss all the fun around.
During the course of the year, we invested in a separate bed/crib for him.
We went on a couple of vacations, but all through, kept up with the routine (much to the disappointing nods from many around!).
We also took turns on who would put him to sleep, so he would not build an attachment to just one of us to fall asleep.
We were able to see the change. He was a happier kid with less cranky outbursts. More importantly he embraced sleep as another essential activity.
We still have off-days once in a while, when he wants to lie in bed and throw silly tantrums. Then there are days when he goes on about choosing pillows/sheets, wanting to get cozy on the shoulder, asking to pat or sing a song etc. But more often than not, we both would get in, talk for a while and he would lie down, toss around and fall asleep.
We see our role now as those enabling him to catch the sleep train each night.
We highly recommend the book Sleep, Baby, Sleep by Kerry Bajaj. In fact, we have presented the book to new parents in our circles and talked about it at every chance with new parents.
PS: Yes, our parents did not follow this “fad” of sleep training. But this is the need of our times. Super bright lights, plethora of screens, increased ambient noises etc., have all changed since we were kids. IMO to accommodate all these changes, we need to sleep train kids. Else it is a disservice to them.
When reading our morning papers, we often found #OhBoy peering into it and staring at the coloured images.
So we got him his first book which is about shapes and colours. And now mornings are spent showing and telling stories on them.
He is a happy one staring at them in loop. And his latest trick is that, if you lift a page, he turns it for you 😱
#YoungReader #FirstBook #Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
#WallArt #Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
Happy Deepavalli to all you folks celebrating it!!
En route to Kadapa this morning, somewhere near Thiruttani.
#Landscape #BlueSky #Clouds #Travel #TravelDiaries
One of our favorite breakfasts is Pan con Tómate (Bread 🥖 with Tomatoes 🍅), a dish that we picked up from our stay in Spain.
It is simple to make. Grate a tomato (we being us, grate a green chilli or two as well) and add salt to taste. Toast bread slices and you are done. . Today we added a Cheese Omelette. Coz more cheese is always welcome! 😜
While at it, the #Ciabatta bread at @oldmadrasbakingcompany is our latest favourite. Hard on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, it is good both plain and toasted. Look at those air pockets in the bread! 🤩
#Bread #Breakfast #CheeseOmlette #Food #Chennai #chennaidiaries
Having put #OhBoy to sleep, we were catching up on TV. Someone on screen mentions ice cream and the Missus goes ‘‘How long has it been since we had ice cream! *sigh*'’. And as they say, the rest is history! 😂
Both Guava and Roasted Almond ice cream at Apsara Ice Creams are total flavour bombs! Loved it.
#Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
Happy Vinayaka Chaturthi folks! What fun is a festival without good food. *Burps*
#Festival #VinayakaChathurthi #Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
This is us from 2007 to 2019! Happy 12th anniversary to us!!
#Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
Team outing at @writerscafein and they are celebrating #MadrasWeek with some goodies for the patrons!
#Food #DiningOut #Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
Celebrating birthday of The Missus with some Vadai for breakfast. Went well with the rainy morning we had in #Chennai.
#ChennaiDiaries #Food
We had consciously decided to use disposable diapers only when travelling outside with #OhBoy! At home we decided to use just cloth nappies.
All it took was 2 weeks to look for alternatives, since the daily rinse and wash cycle was getting too much 🙈and coupled with the rains the drying was taking way longer 🕰! And most importantly #OhBoy! would wake up frequently and be cranky.
We were looking for cloth based diapers and ended up with @superbottoms. We are super happy with their product. It sits nicely between meeting the functional need and being eco friendly. They also had a friendly on-boarding and follow up process!!
#Chennai #ChennaiDiaries #ClothDiapers
Yesterday’s Chennai rains had some perfect company – chai, pakoras and a good old friend.
@v.niths and I started our career together at TCS, in the same training batch at Trivandrum. It surprising to this day, how we stayed in touch, given that we were at each other’s throats at every possible opportunity during the training.
But then we did stay in touch and kept meeting all around the world - Mumbai, Bangalore, SFO and now Chennai. Hope to see you at some other corner of the world @v.niths. And happy 40th to you! 🥳
Over the weekend we had our school get together. Some 32 of us made it to the reunion. Many of us were meeting after 20+ years. For a few hours the 40 year olds magically transformed to high school kids. How happy were we to be together again!
Flood gates of really old memories were opened up. What fun it was to be with this bunch, who had a common childhood and school life and many many shared memories.
This was for most part enabled by us living in a gated community (or colony we call it) of our parent’s employers, which also had our school inside it. And hindsight, we were indeed blessed to have had such a setup.
#Reunion #SchoolReunion #BatchOf96 #SpicSchool #ChennaiDiaries
Most folks get retrospective hitting this number. I am just swamped doing the chores of #OhBoy What I am feeling though is a sense of gratefulness. For all what life has offered up to now and where it has me today.
I am grateful for things at home. Couldn’t ask for anything more.
I am grateful for things I get to do at work. I am enjoying it and hope the folks around me are too :) I am grateful for the kind folks in family and friends circles, for keeping us in their thoughts and helping us at times of need.
At this stage of life, you know nothing lasts forever. You just savor the most out of the present and hope the good things last as long as they can and the tough periods are short and leave you with learnings!
Here is to life, the great 40 years and some more to come :)
I used to be crazy about toppings (pepperoni, meatballs, sausages). Over a period of time, I’ve grown to appreciate the bread/crust of a pizza more than the toppings on it. Now all I crave is a pizza base cooked to perfection with a basic topping of tomato sauce and mozzarella.
@thefatboychennai is one place that bakes such perfects pies. Their airy dough, beautifully charred in their wood fired oven, is such a delight to have. You should check them out if you are in Chennai!
The one in the picture is their Hot Boy pizza. If you love spicy food, this is your pie. .
#Pizza #Food #DiningOut #Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
These beautifully ripe and plump Rumani mangoes were plucked last week at a farm on ECR!
While last summer we had 13 varieties of mangoes, this year has been more satisfying with just 2 varieties - Imampasand and Rumani.
#Mango #Mangoes #Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
Picked some of these Rumani mangoes 🥭 off the trees in a farm on ECR. Sunday is progressing well! 😜
#Mangoes #Mango #Summer #Chennai #ChennaiDiaries
