Golu 2020

Our Home GOLU: 2020

Navarathri usually comes during September month this year it is coming in October month.

This is the first year we using steel shelves for arranging golu dolls. Usually I make it using old carton boxes. 

We bought regular 5 steps golu padi. It took nearly 4 hours to fix it. As it was first time we making steps using steel.17 rods, 5 slabs with bolts to fix it.

We had no idea of how to fix it. So we managed to count holes on the rods to help fix correctly. 

But still we faced little challenges while fixing our steps. We first settled base part of our Golu and started fixing slabs from lower step to top.

When fixing slab of 4th step we could not fix bolt inside the hole, later we came to know that all other steps we kept vertical ovals hole as top. In this it was horizontal oval so we couldn't insert bolt through it, later we changed the rod upside down n fixed it.

Then after final fixing golu padi was still shaking after tightening of bolts. Then we decided to check counting of holes again and changed its position by balancing it correctly

This is how it looked.

Then i covered steps with my DH dhotis for all steps. In the middle i put a blue colour cloth to add beauty to our golu. Then first kept kalasam on first step and placed all idols in each step. This year new arrival doll is peenkan leaf vinayaka. This is how our golu looked.

This is our park arrangement for this year.

Our PALIGAI:

Friday POOJA:-

This year saraswathi pooja:-

Last day Aarthi by my sons,

Our prayer 

Dear God "Like this year every year we want you  to come to our Home and bless us".

Saroji Patti's kaivannam- Part 1

This is special write up post for our Grandmother's cooking. Saroji patti is my Dh's grandmother. She is living in thiruvaiyaru. She has a great passion for cooking especially I am a big fan of her chappathis which always stay soft even after hours of cooking. I have personally tried making it following her steps but still cannot reach her perfection of making it that soft. Will soon make a separate post of her doing chappathis.

Today I am sharing two different receipes done by her.


Receipe :1

Narthaillai podi:-


It is made from narthangai tree leaf.

Things needed:

A)Fresh leaves picked from tree, need to be washed and wiped off with clean cloth.Later need to take out thin strip in middle of leaf and tear it into pieces like picture below.

B) Next need to sun dry the below ingredients for a day.

C) Grind all the above slowly in a mixer grinder to get narthangai leaf powder,which tastes yummy with curd rice and also good for digestion.

Final picture

Receipe 2:-

Kandan thippli rasam:-

This is good for relieving body pains. There are two types of thippli arisi thippli and kandan thippli. So we need to buy kandan thippli. 

Things needed:-

To be roasted:

Kandanthippli,dry chilli,coriander seeds, pepper,toor dhal(qty as shown in picture).

Curry leaves and cumin seeds(added with grinding ingredients)

Small ball of tamarind and salt as needed

A) first need to roast flame. 

B) Next grind the ingredients in mixer adding needed water.

C)Now take tamarind water and boil it with medium flame.Next add grinded ingredients and bring to boil and turn off flame.

Final picture of kandanthippli Rasam

Ajuba memories .........😀

Mor kulambu is an authentic lunch menu of South India. Of course it has its own unique tastes. Not sure if I had eaten in my childhood days. But I am sure I started liking it since 2003 for sure.

I used to wonder if eating a food at certain places makes impact in our life this much. It is very true that certain food tastes never goes out of our memory. For example I still remember the days I tasted Michael's ice cream shop at the corner of road opposite to arch entrance of trichy chinna kadai veethi. There we used to have vannila icecream for Rs.2 and fruits salad for RS.2.50. the taste of that ice cream is still on my tongue as memories.

Same way panakalkandu milk shop which opens especially in the evenings of andal veethi is also one among my favorites as we used to have that whenever there is teppam festival. Especially loved and enjoyed walking on chinna kadai veethi before day of Diwali to purchase and do window shopping. Certain childhood memories are so fresh even today.

In college days there was another icecream shop sea Kings on the same parallel back side road where icecream tastes very superb especially Rocky road for RS.14 at that time for affordable cost and tastes ultimately.One of my favorite pass time with my friends during my college days.Even after marriage me and my DH visited that shop once to taste it. Waiting for right time to go with my kids one time.

Coming to mor kulambu part, I happened to visit Maya mess for taking lunch in 2003 with my family after a long time. After our long tour to many places of course temple visits we reached trichy to see Rock fort temple. As our native is trichy we had visited Rock fort temple multiple times, me and my younger sister are fastest climbers as we used to walk and climb rockfort and return back by 8,to taste our mom's kolukattai for vinayagar chathurthi. 

After moving to Chennai  from 2001 we didn't get a chance to go there, after my elder sister got married we all planned for temple visit and finally reached trichy to see rockfort. We were all very hungry as there was no proper food as we traveled many places before we reached trichy. We reached Maya mess as food tastes good there.

We all sat for our lunch. We all were served food in banana leaf. As we were hungry we all ate well. Finally when we were served mor kulambu that time I avoided but my father told me to give it a try as it tastes good here.Although I was not in a mood to eat, i just gave it a try. What a wonder it was so tasty treat I ever tasted. 

I first saw bucket full of mor kulambu with light yellow colour. The colour was so appealing and its consistency was just perfect not too thick nor watery nor curdly.It tempted me to eat one more time. Usually adding white pumpkin makes the dish watery or lessen salt in the dish we use it. But it was perfectly blended with mor kulambu.That too eating it on banana leaf added more taste to it. All food items tastes yummy when we eat on banana leaf.It was a delightful memory.

Though I was not a big fan of mor kulambu I became so from then onwards. It made such a great impact on me so when ever I taste more kulambu or prepare it, that days memories flashes for a second,even today I prepared mor kulambu in my home and got reminded so finally ended up sharing, my memories…….

Also my mom's rasam is one of my favorite too, my mom used to say I don't like tiffin items at all especially idly and dosa are my greatest enemies,I used to eat only rice items more, so especially while eating my mom's made rasam I love it to eat without ghee to enjoy it's full taste and flavor….whatever food mom's do, we can always eat more.

Both my grandmother's are excellent Cooks am great fan of my mom's mother made snakeguard kuttu it always tastes ultimate.

My father's mom who is still active in this age does many dishes but her handmade thogaiyals are always yummy and tastes best.

To be contd……..😀

Twelve years old!!!!

Today is 19th February 2020

My elder son's birthday,

We stopped cake cutting and partying after first three years, for few years we used to decorate different creative decorations n did cake cutting. 

These days we celebrate by cooking all favourites of my kids on that day and make them feel special. Of course this is quite interesting, both my sons love this idea, my DH also enjoys celebrating this way.

Me and my sons love doing creative stuffs and mostly our house is a mess by doing all these never mind kids enjoy these very much. Birthdays are meant for celebrating and spending time with family, those party celebrations are not suitable for us as we can't focus on our kids for that day and make them feel special.

So we follow like this any creative decorations, any new add on special items we see for birthday like birthday banner, led balloons, party coolers likewise, and a special birthday dress for both my sons ( to avoid feeling left out), and their favourite dinner menus, for recent bday they used to prepare birthday menu cards with their favorites and stick on the fridge a week before so that it is easy to organize.

Ok let me share my experience elder son's birthday celebration for this year.

Started day with his favorite food like idly sambar for breakfast,schzewan fried rice for lunch and chapathi panneer butter masala for dinner.

His birthday card
Inside view

 Out side view

 His favorite jamun

Simple birthday decorations I used cloth drying stand to display smiley balloons with his 12 gifts.

Super duper birthday surprise

Well this is February month my elder son's birthday month,today is 16th three days to go.....

So Planning for birthday surprise

Indeed it is a big task to make surprises but not a difficult task….to surprise our kids and make them feel special on their birthday as kids enjoy small happiness of their life, especially my sons love those cute little stuffs.

So I am preparing for surprising my elder son for this year's birthday as this is his 12th birthday and he is just stepping on his teens and also for 2020.

I thought many more things and finally ended up this way like buying 12 gifts and give him as a surprise. But just buying 12gifts n giving will make no surprise.

Ok let me share my plan.

First I made list of his like items and pack in different gift wraps.I started this process of buying from last week.

Buying is not a big deal but as this is for surprise we need to go alone for shopping and after that those items needed to be kept secret till the day of surprise. Hiding things is a big deal in our home as kids explore nook n corner of our home including kitchen.

Somehow I found a secret place, asking any suggestions to my little son will end up in announcing our secret plan, as he can't keep up secrets. So I found a place on my kitchen shelf and hided. Still few more items pending.So far I bought 8 items, one more is on way in courier, planning to buy trolley school bag and lunch bag for one more item am still thinking. 

As that day was regular school day, we are planning for this surprise on that day evening.

Step 1

Wake up with a personalised collage video song with a birthday pop up card,(hand made card)

Process going on

Will share my completed card on my son's birthday as that is a surprise.

Rest all at the end of day.

Evening by all dressed up in traditional clothes, will Give my son a code cracking game, that is in that card he has a set of clues he need to guess right word n find out this 

SURPRISE GIFT

That is he should use first letter of the 12 clues to find above two words.

Later he must go to Fridge for next clue 

The below is the clue card for fridge

Once he gets that he will be directed to gift box place ,(decorations n packing still going on)

Where he can see 12gifts, as an add on he will get 10dhms for guessing gifts correctly without opening it,which he can put in his savings box as well. 

In between I plan to make his favorite breakfast,lunch and dinner with his favorites like jamun and Pani Puri all homemade items for the day, hope he likes this surprise and enjoys his day .

Advance birthday wishes to our son Sukarman

The above is a special photo card for him.

Science project Reusable materials around home- Balloon / Manual water dispenser

This is a science project recently done by my elder son by using Reusable materials around home.

We saw many videos online and tried to make out rubber band race car, water fountain, bottle racing car,but none was working as there is some key points not shared in the videos we saw. So am still working on it to get a correct working procedures once I get a clarity will share those on my blog.

For this experiment we used plastic
bottles,straws,rubber band, glue, scissors, small beads,old two way sketch pen caps, balloon, medicine bottle caps washer.           ( white colour circle foam type sheet on lids). Empty used tissue box to make outer cover for dispenser.

First take a bottle and make a hole on its side and insert the straw in white Cork and later put it inside the cut hole on its sides.
Now apply glue around the holes and let it dry.

Later make a hole on bottle lid and insert another straw with a white Cork. So that it looks neat. Now our model is ready.

We need to make a balloon blower. For that we need,
                                    Pic 1

Pic 2

                                     Pic 3

Take things as in pic 1,next attach balloon to one end of sketch cap rod using rubber band, now insert a straw inside a small bead and insert it through other end of sketch rod  glue around the bead part so no air leaves. Now we can blow balloon using straw. 

 We need to place our bottle model inside tissue box and our side straw part should come out if tissue box top which is now used as sides in our model as shown in picture.

Our model looks like above. 

Using a funnel fill Bott let below holes level, now blow balloon blower n join the blower straw by holding tight to the bottle straw when we take our finger air releases and pushes the water in the bottle through the hole, we need a resuable container to be placed near the water dispenser. 

This is how he completed his project with Reusable materials around home with a neat chart presentation of his model.

Maths model presentation - competition

This is our own idea for the competition.
My younger son received 3rd prize for his presentation. This competition was conducted for grade 3,4, and 5. My son did last year when he was in grade 3.

We thought of many ideas as it should be a working model. It was my DH who suggested to make models using sri chakra as it is related to maths more.

Now how to make the model as a working model. I got an idea of making sri chakra as a jigsaw puzzle pieces. As my younger one crazy about joining puzzle pieces. We can think and plan many but kids must be ready to do. Especially my younger one will not do things if he don't like.

I bought a foam sheet and took a printouts of sri chakra in a 10 rupees A4 print sheet which has laminated top part. Normal A4 paper print we can't cut exact as we need to cut sharp for puzzle pieces. As we must not spoil srichakra outlooks.

Below are some cut pieces of our model.

Now,model ready so  next is script to present this project. Instead of just saying full script nonstop to make it real explain- ing and interesting for listening we followed below things along with our script.


** We used ice cream sticks to make
      Triangles.
** Took printout of other two forms and
     Pasted on card board.
** Things need to be arranged neatly so
     It is easy to handle by kids while
     explaining.
** Empty card board for placing puzzle
     Pieces, two other forms below empty
     Cardboard,3 ice cream sticks,9 puzzle
     Pieces.
****************************************
Topic is Nine Triangles

Namasthey,i am mithran of grade3A, today I am going to talk about nine triangles.

What is a triangle?

(Now he must join 3 icecream sticks to make triangle and tell answer)

A triangle is a closed 2 dimensional shape formed by joining 3 line segments. It has 3 lines and 3 vertices.

Now let us join 9 puzzle pieces and see what we get.

(Now he must arrange all puzzle pieces,
to save time and confusion during presentation it is better to number it from 1 to 9 in pencil, during practice my son used to arrange pieces upside down from 1 to 9 so he can save time while arranging and focus on explaining part).

We get Sri chakra or Navayoni chakra which is used for worship and meditation as per Hindu shastra.

Nava means nine. You can see nine triangles in the middle.Five downward triangles representing female God Shakthi and four upward triangles representing male God Shiva.

5 interlocking triangles lead to creation of 43 small triangles with a center point Bindu.

You can see two circles with eight and 16 flower petals representing a lotus.It is framed by broken squares, representing a temple with four doors open.

Since Sri chakra is based on triangles it has three forms.

(Now he must put the top plane form other side and show below form, similarly next one)

First form is plane form
Second form is pyramid form called meru.
Third form is spherical form called as kurma.

You can see pyramid form in the kandasram temple located in camp road.

Thank you.
*****************************************
 Note: Last part can be changed as per the local place near our locality.

All script inside brackets ( ) are action parts along the oral script.

Hope this post will be helpful to all. Share your feedbacks about this.

Chart models by younger son

This a chart model for science,- my plate

This a model he did for his dream school

Tamil chart preparation by a story

This chart model done by my younger son mithran for outside school competition.

The entire picture illustrations drawn by him.

I really wondered for his great presentation.

This is a story about how srinivasa nayaka becomes great "Purandaradasa"

Chart preparation models done by elder son

Energy saving chart for science

Sustainability week Drawing 

               
                      Values of my culture

Show and tell for kids

This is a simple show and tell topic as Aladdin done by elder son.

Good Morning Friends,
My name is Sukarman I am from class 4b.

I am going to act like Aladdin.

Hi friends, I am Aladdin,this is my magic lamp....I love magic lamp because it grants all my wishes....

Hmmm....(thinking gesture), what can I wish for ......
1) A cool breeze to touch my cheeks... Noooo

2) A bag full of gold and diamonds nooooo...

3) yeah(idea got it gesture) A good health through the year and also to be strong and happy.

You get things, you wish for if you have lamp like this. Thank you.

The above is a simple show n tell we prepared in a day time this is non competitive one, for presenting in class. My son took a Aladdin lamp (we made  our own model of lamp) for showing.

This is the model we made, I have attached a metal bangle by bending it to make the above shape, and attached to the lamp using a metal string.

Voice modulation in above script plus some extra add on creative lines would be good. Just shared what we did.

Song for my Elder Sister's Blog

Hi,

Happy New year 2020, this is my first blog for this year. My elder sister has created a blog in Facebook " Lakshmi Ruchi Nalabhagam" to share her cooking passions.

I have tried creating a song about my Sister's samayal varities in bhoojanam seyya varungal tune n made video for her blog. Am attaching the video here below. Enjoy watching the video and share your feedbacks.

Video Highlights:-

* We are hosting this video on my sister's daughter Swathi's birthday today.
* My elder son has played mrudhangam for my singing.

Special Note: All professional singers please excuse my voice.

Once again Happy New year to all.