Two months gone? Already??? with a movie review at the end!

Gosh, it feels like we celebrated New Year only yesterday! I opened my diary yesterday and found only two more pages for the month!

At Karthi, February came in like the usual lamb. How could it not, after all, whose birthday does it start with? Didn't get the hint??? Take a look at the pic below and don't forget to look at the birthday candles!!!

Things went well till DH decided to give me a cake cream facial - couldn't waste all that chocolatey, creamy goodness, could I? 

One of my best birthdays ever... I think this pic says it all!

The first half of the month went by in following the results of the 35th National Games. Way to go Kerala - ending up in second place behind Services! In fact if Services was split up statewise, we would have got at least 50% of their medals too because there were a lot of Malayali athletes in the Services team. 

Then the boys decided to make a Sabarimala pilgrimage. The rush to Kottayam, then to Sabarimala and back took their toll on DH who contracted a severe sinus infection which he is yet to recover from. Ani too missed a few days of class. Now I'm pumping the whole family with Ayurveda remedies and preventives enough to keep them healthy through the exams that start next week! Talk of the month going out like a lion!!!

Meanwhile there's nary a cloud on the horizon and there is an uncharacteristically harsh heat wave going around. I guess all the moisture went around the globe to make snow storms in the US. My whole garden droops in the heat, but I am stern and water the plants only once in two days. I upbraid them for being brats spoiled by the heavy monsoons of the year and adjure them to send roots deep into the soil to find what they can. 

My ongoing feud with the tree across the road is finally over - at least for this year.  Each morning this month, I woke up to find a ton of its leaves littering my yard - so spiteful of it to hurl all those leaves across the road into my driveway!!! Now I look up at it and laugh triumphantly because it has no more leaves to torment me! "I'll see you next Feb!" murmurs the sulky tree as it towers disdainfully over puny moi.

Just as the National Games ended, what should start but the ICC World Cup! We watched the Indian innings of the Ind vs. Pak match down to the last ball in my MIL's home at Kottayam before having to leave for the railway station. On the train, we were at the mercy of two networks on DH's phone and mine as we followed the ball-by-ball updates on Cricinfo and had to watch the frustrating  rotating circle most of the time. 

Finally my phone showed the winning ball and forgetting that we were on the train, Kunjunni and I let out a cheer, only to be shushed by DH into embarrassed silence. If cricket is India's religion, I guess we were the only believers in a whole compartment of atheists that day! 

My Kala Chaarutha workshop is littered with the remains of a lot of projects and experiments in new techniques which will soon make their way to the FB page.

The movie of the month was Picket 43 which we all loved. This one from Major Ravi is a short, sweet film with a good message and wonderful performances by Prithviraj, Javed Jaffrey and Renji Panicker. My only problem with it was that the scenes shot in Kerala were unnecessary and cliched. But without that, the movie would have been even shorter. A little stretching of the imagination too was required, but the message is good and it was moving. Definitely a good watch.

Bidding a fond farewell to a wonderful month and gearing up for a scorching March! See y'all next month!

A first time for everything...

Karthi was a bedlam of activity the whole of November. Why? Because Kala Chaarutha was gearing up for its first ever exhibition stall at a corporate event. The dining table was snowed under with paper clippings, metal findings and the occasional shiny rhinestone. 

 

There were few horizontal surfaces in the house where paper, bead or crochet jewelry were not reposing in various stages of formation. One weekend saw DH wandering disconsolately around with his open laptop in hand until he ended up in front of me. Of course, I cleared up some space for him immediately - but there WAS only just enough space to put down the laptop, not even the space for a coffee cup beside it. 

I also managed to rope in two people to help me. My cousin, to whom I had gifted a beginner's kit for quilling and had taken a class for came with her own wonderful creations to add to my repertoire. And my sis came in to act as cashier. We gathered at Karthi on the day before and were taking care of last minute things till the stroke of midnight! It was fun!

So there we were, on the morning of the 29th, setting out our wares in the grip of equal parts of trepidation and hope - .okay to be honest, 80 parts of trepidation to 20 parts of hope...

The good day had another surprise in store for us - we got "promoted" to a better location quite in the thick of the action and soon we were ensconced there...

Concentrating on the "product" left us little time for "decor" of the stall. I just had enough time in which to whip up a hand-written board for our little stall...

...which seeing our tagline - "All handmade, all with love" was probably more appropriate than a printed flex on a standee! Also, it served  to "mask" our billing station, leaving only the goodies out in plain view - a totally unintended effect, I assure you!

There will be no more pictures of the day, because once the people started coming in, we were too busy to take pictures of the action! And THAT is a good thing. Some came to stare, some to chat, some to try on and discard - but lots of people bought our things - which was pretty awesome an experience.  

At the end of the day, we all sent up prayers of thanks and walked off exhausted, but very happy with a cash box considerably heavier than when it came in the morning!

So far, so good!!! Besides my cousin and sister, I have DH to thank for a lot including making me believe that I could make enough pieces for display, for chivvying me all along and most of all, ignoring the dust bunnies all around Karthi because I had let the housekeeping slide in the last week! I'm still not sure whether my family got enough nutrition in that week, but since they all seem unharmed, I am relieved! 

Which does not mean that everything was perfect. I learned several good lessons in the process ranging from the variety, number and pricing of products to good display techniques. And those lessons can only come from experience - for which I am extremely thankful.

The only casualties of the exhibition are my left forefinger that is STILL sore after continually stretching yarn over the metal hangers (but to good effect because my earring organizers were completely sold out!) and my right arm that ached after all the wire cutting. But hey, what's a little pain in the face of all this joy of accomplishment?

So now on to learning more and making more....!

Back again!

Aha, it does feel good to be chatting again on my own blog. In the past two months, Karthi has been in an upheaval of sorts because the lady of the family decided to venture out into something new. And that something new meant a lot of things had to be put in order, a lot of things were to be learned in a short space of time, a lot of soul-searching and questioning was required... which left precious little time to attend to the affairs of the home and the family, let alone a blog!

But first let me show you a pic of serenity: an unexpected sight on a Sunday morning and just looking at it makes me want to indulge in a quiet and peaceful hour...

Two kids and a cat, just welcoming a Sunday morning on our front doorsteps. What better way to start the day..

So what have I been up to? I finally decided to take my love for craft to the next level. It all started with a jewelry making workshop conducted by a leading daily to promote one of their new books. I've always been interested in making jewelry and I got some supplies and made a few pieces back in 2004 in good old US of A. But once we were back in India, I couldn't find many supplies and any way I was taken up with baby and child care. 

It would have turned out like my usual craft activities: I would swamp myself with purchasing new material and then lose steam and just keep looking at my hoard and keep putting off things for later. But this time something happened. And it was probably the culminating point of a lot of subconscious processes going on, but it was actually a question from my irritated DH that did the final trick. When he saw me buying some pill-organizing boxes for bead and findings storage, he snapped, "What are you buying those for? Anyone would think you are taking it up professionally!" And I retorted, "That's exactly what I'm thinking of!"

And Kala Chaarutha happened, just like that! In this past two months, I have been climbing a humongous learning curve, the peak of which is nowhere in sight. There are so many ideas traipsing along in my head, so many images that I have to put down, so many techniques I want to try that will probably take me a very long time to learn - and I'm loving all of it! Friends and family have all chipped in with first orders and I have asked them to be merciless in their feedback. I have started off with paper jewelry to begin with, but I will soon branch out into more.

I did try to put up a different blog for the shop, but then I found I couldn't muster up more energy to start chatting on a new blog.  So notsoperfectkarthi will be housing Kala Chaarutha too from now on!

I thank all my readers for having supported me for the past four years and hope you will accompany me on this new journey too!