Announcing a garage sale!

I love Ikea and I simply can't come back home from Ikea empty handed. So, everytime I went there I kept picking up things big and small. Now It is time I say bye bye to them!

I'm having a Garage Sale at my place in Hougang (Singapore)

Cane Armchairs with Chair Pads
AGEN - chair rattan/ bamboo (2 nos)
NORNA - Chair Pad

S$20 (for one with cushion)

Eight months old.
Condition - Excellent


Chest of Drawers
MALM - chest of 4 drawers (2 nos) Medium Brown

S$100 (each)

Eight months old
Condition - Excellent


Why do I want to sell? - We're relocating to India next month and cannot ship everything back there.

We will not be providing any transportation for the items listed. If you are interested please get in touch with me at shobster(at)gmail(dot)com

Teething times

Uthkarsh and I are both teething. As I gave more thought to the word teething, I was increasingly confused if it was a verb or a noun. It sure does feel like a verb, but apparently it is a noun!

Anyway, yes, Krishu and I are both teething. He with his baby tooth and me with my wisdom. Both are perhaps equally painful and an irritating sensation to deal with. I don't remember how it was with milk teeth, but the wisdom tooth grows for a couple of days and then hibernates for fifteen to twenty days after that. As if it was garnering enough strength to force itself through the gums onto the inside cheek. The inside of my cheeks hurt so bad and I just can't seem to get my teeth together to bite. Gosh, it is really annoyingly painful. I am now in a position to empathise with Krishu.

Still talking about teeth, I made a very bizarre discovery a couple of months ago. One morning, all of a sudden one of my canines started to hurt very badly. And to my horror I felt it shake under my touch. I was very confused and scared and did not know what to expect when I went to meet my dentist the next morning. She took one look at it and said "Do you think it may be your milk tooth?" I laughed and brushed the remark aside and told her that it was impossible. She then took an X-Ray, which she said, would put an end to all our questions by giving us the answer that we may not always like to hear.

The X-ray got ready in a few minutes and she said, to my horror, "It IS your milk tooth"!!!

My mind was racing with questions juxtaposed with flashbacks of my falling teeth and the absent tooth fairy until I finally gave up and asked her what I could do next. After some thought and consultation with her peers and seniors, she said that I would have to have both the new canine and the milk canine surgically removed!! My next question, "And what would happen to the gap that it would form? She told me that they would ensure that the aesthetics be addressed to my satisfaction. Now it was up to me to get an appointment fixed for the ordeal that was so uncalled-for.

I still have not taken a decision. Like I have a choice, but I think I will want to have some second opinions to help me put my mind at ease. These are indeed very teething times.

Happy Pongal!

and Happy Harvest Season to those from other states!

Uthkarsh - Ten to Fifteen Months

Fifteen Months

Fifteen Months

Fifteen Months

Fifteen Months

Fourteen Months

Fourteen Months

Thirteen Months

Thirteen Months

Thirteen Months

Thirteen Months

Twelve Months

Twelve Months

First Birthday

First Birthday

First Birthday

A day before his First Birthday

Eleven Months

Eleven Months

Eleven Months

Eleven Months

Two days to Eleven Months

Ten Months

Ten Months

Ten Months

Uthkarsh - Growing up month by month

Nine Months

Nine Months

Nine Months

Nine Months

Eight Months

Eight Months

Eight days to Eight Months

Seven Months

Seven Months

Three days to Seven Months

Six Months

Six Months

Six Months

Three days to Five Months

Four Months

Hello Chennai!

Come February and we'll be in Chennai, this time for an entire year. I'm very excited about this entire deal. This will only mean more impromptu trips to meet near and dear, have more people come over to visit, Krishu will get to meet this thatha's and paati's and aunts and uncles more often than ever and I get to finish all unfinished business that I had left behind. Yes, it sure is exciting but it is change, change from routine, change from the daily drum I'm so used to hearing and change is scary.

I called my friend Ritika and told her about my current situation of mixed bag and she screamed in her usual excited tone, "girl, if I was you, I'll be throwing a party". That is a very Ritika thing to do, but that's not me. 

When we moved to the house we are currently living in, we realised with the new addition we needed more furniture than what we were provided with by our very kind house-owners. So, we did some shopping in Ikea and bought things and then went there again and bought more things, and then some more and then my heart grew so fond of them, I cant seem to let go. I convinced Kumar that it will be a better idea to ship them to Chennai than to sell them. So, we went on to find people who do end to end packing and asked them to give us quotes. We simultaneously tried the option of having our many things stored away here in a warehouse for a year. We got quotes for them too. All the quotes hit the roof and came back down crashing on me. I knew I had to come to terms with the inevitable fact that selling was and is the only option we had.

I'm still grieving for my chest-of-drawers and a very pretty three door wardrobe for which we'll have to find new owners. Once we get that done we'll only have the rest of the stuff to pack and ship. That sure does simple to put in words to type out and just as difficult to get done.  But, it has to get done for Chennai here we come!

Vegetarian eatouts - Singapore

Last month we went to Arab street looking for a particular Arabian restaurant. We did two rounds up and down the lane, but could not find it. All that walking got us really hungry and we decided to step into a tiny restaurant called Chilli code. I was not all that kicked about the name when I walked in and hence was a little apprehensive about what they would offer. But soon I realised that it was quite unnecessary. Not only did they have a good list of vegetarian in their menu, but they also had a very western twist to our very desi dishes. It is a must visit I say.

Indian Wok was a place recommended by one of Kumar's colleague. He told us that it had a good vegetarian selection to choose from. Indian wok like the name suggests serves Indian Chinese cuisine. Very chino-indo cuisine not indo-chino, if you know what I mean. This was the first time I tasted fried spinach and man was it yummy or what! Superawesome. Delicious. Indian wok has a very mellow yellow tone that kindles your appetite for the kind of food they serve. try it out when you can.

Non-dairy Mor Kuzhambu (yoghurt gravy)

I successfully made some yummy non-dairy mor kuzhambu yesterday. I simply replaced yoghurt with beaten silken tofu and for the missing sourness I added a dash of amchur powder. It was fingerlickingly delicious. Try it yourself sometime, you'll be amazed.

I'm going to be baking some non-dairly brownies in a couple of months. Will let you know how that turns out.

To Jovan - My dear little friend

I first met Jovan a few hours after I moved into my new place with Kumar. It was just a couple of hours after we got home from the airport when bubbly, chirpy and an excited five year Jovan ran into our apartment with his mother asking for milo. Then on everyday he would visit me after Kumar left for work and stayed on to play with me for an hour or so after he got back from school. 

Kumar and I moved to another apartment after that, one that was really far away, but we still managed to meet up every now and then.

One evening in September I got a call from Kumar saying Jovan had been diagnosed with liver cancer a few months earlier and was admitted in a hospital. He had been in the hospital for a over a month. We immediately went over to see him, but they did not let us into the room. Through the glass in the door I saw how frail he had become. That day we prayed for his healing, prayed hard to give him strength. and things got better. He got better, he could sit up and got off all his support systems attached. A week after that he was discharged home. 

For Deepavalli Uthkarsh, Kumar and I went over to his place to be with him. He looked much better. He was in the living room and apart from us had more visitors from his church, who were all singing for him. We bought him some crackers that we'd taken over to his place, but he was not in much of a mood for them. We hung around for a while and then headed back home.

On December 5th Kumar called to tell me that Jovan had passed away the day before. I was sad, very sad and cried a lot, i just could not stop.

That night we went over to his wake where I met his mom, dad and brother and I saw Jovan all grown up and peaceful inside his box. He looked so grown up and so calm in his resting place where a voice kept singing "you'll live forevermore" in the background. 

His mom told me how brave he was through his last few days which were especially tough on him. She also told me that just before he passed away, he asked to see everyone one by one, as if to say good bye. He had told his brother "I'll go shopping with you after I get a'right" and to his mother he said, "Ma, be brave, I'm going to primary two".

Jovan was a wonderful boy. His memories will live forever and his chirpy voice that I keep hearing every time I think of him will live forevermore.

Uthkarsh is a year old!

Time has flown by really fast. Uthkarsh turned a year old on 12th of September. Since he loves animals and birds a lot, we took him to the Singapore Zoo. Krishu had a whale of a time there looking at the otters and kangaroos and squealing in delight now and then.

We, Uthkarsh and I, made a trip to India just before his birthday to celebrate his Ayush Homam (star birthday) that fell on the 1st of September. Kumar was there only for a week. One month was good time spent with family and friends at home Chennai and Coimbatore.

Uthkarsh's current laurels include:
"vocabularily'': 'dah dah.. thah...thah... gaaah gaah... lalalalalalal... bhrrrrrrr (spit and saliva accompanied)
motor skills: Cruising, standing on his own for as long as he is distracted and unaware of his situation, climbing stairs, using the remote effortlessly to turn on the tv, fan, aircon etc., acknowledging himself in the mirror by nodding his head vigorously from side to side, clapping hands spontaneously and when he hears the word 'clap'.

He's such a happy child, Godbless!