Memories of reading

I've always loved reading. I don't really remember how I got into it - my parents never really encouraged me to do it as I was living apart from them at the time and living with my grandparents and books were not really very accessible at that point in time in my life. I was probably in 4-5th grade when I got into reading in earnest.

The earliest memories I have of reading was reading some comics (Amar Chitra Katha, Archies, etc) in my school during one period which was designated for reading. Some books would be brought to the classroom and we could pick a book to read.

My other memory of reading is of getting ready to board a flight to go visit my parents with my sister and I was reading a comic while waiting to leave for the airport.

After that, the memories are stronger - when I moved to the Middle East to live with my parents, my school had a library. A small library to be sure, but a library which I didn't have access to before. Before the year was out, I had finished reading most of the books in the library. I would rent out a book a day and finish reading that book the very same day.

My mother was a teacher in another school which had a bigger library. I would go to that library with her and get books and read them too. I remember reading a huge book which was a compilation of all of Jane Austen's books.

I wish I had the time to read books like that now.

Tomato plant

When we'd gone shopping a few weeks ago to get our plants, we had gotten a fully grown tomato plant in a pot from Home Depot.

As the days went by, the plant slowly started dying and we couldn't figure out why. The other plants we'd bought were fine and even the other tomato plant was fine. The leaves of the plant were turning yellow and starting to droop.

The condition of the plant was getting worse and we thought that we had just wasted $15. But I happened to be talking to my friend one day about this plant and she told me that Home Depot has a 1 year warranty on plants and that we could take it back to the store and return it or exchange it.

Luckily, Home Depot had emailed me the receipt and I was able to dig it up in my email. We took the receipt and plant to the store and were able to return it. We bought another tomato plant - a different variety. Now we just have to wait and see how it does.

Toddler Favorites

My daughter, who is 22 months old now, is very active and her personality's really coming out now. Her favorite word is "Noooooo!", of course as with all toddlers. 

She's really into reading books right now. She loves bringing me books and saying "Book" and plopping down in my lap. Her favorite nighttime books are currently "Goodnight Moon", "Time to Bed", "Goodnight Gorilla" and the "The Sleepy Little Alphabet". At other times during the day, she loves reading "Bear says Thank You" and "Barnyard Dance". 

Her favorite toys right now are her dolls. She calls them "babies". She loves feeling them du-du (milk) and putting her to sleep on mats (pillow) and covering them with a baby blankie. She also loves playing with her teapot and pouring into cups. 

She loves watching Barney videos and listening to Barney songs. Her favorite songs right now are "Pop goes the weasel", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Five little monkeys", "ABCD..", "I love you, you love me" and "Tap Tap". She likes so many songs it's hard to list them all out but these are her favorites right now. 

(This post contains some affiliate links)

My Cilantro plant

My cilantro plant has grown like a monster and is now tall and thick. Unfortunately, I think I made a mistake it letting it grow so tall without cutting it frequently.

As I learnt from reading this article How to harvest cilantro, I learnt that you need to harvest frequently and most of the growth is good only in the early spring or early fall as it required moist and cool temperatures. Also, I should probably plant some cilantro seeds soon as my plant will probably start bolting soon.

This weekend I plan to plant some cilantro seeds and hope that it germinates before this plant starts bolting.

Goals for this week 6/4 - 6/10

This is my first post on a series of weekly posts I'm hoping to maintain. My inspiration is from Money Saving Mom and I would like to do weekly posts on my goals for the week and next week, be publicly accountable for how I did on those goals.

Like MSM, I will split my goals into 3 broad categories - Work, Home, Personal.

Work is going to include any work projects I have, professional growth, any pet projects I have like my deals blog.

Home is going to include home-making, being a good mother and my relationships.

Personal is just all about me - my personal growth, books I want to read, projects I want to do, stuff I want to do for myself.

Though I hope I can meet my goals every week, life will sometimes get in the way. I'm going to start out slow and hopefully pick up steam as I get better at meeting my goals.

Home:

1. Go to the library and pick up some books for Anjali
2. Pay medical bills (have been putting this one off)
3. Post at least 2 updates on my daughter's memories blog
4. Finish baby blanket I was making

Work:

1. Learn about the competitor product and do some research into it
2. Write at least 3 blog posts for my deals blog
3. Write at least 3 blog posts for this blog

Personal:

1. Read 2 chapters of Vicki Iovine's Girlfriend's guide to Toddlers
2. Give blood test for yearly checkup
3. Make Prasadham for temple

Experience with Panera Bread

I've always loved going to Panera Bread and in the last year, with a Panera Bread opening near my office, I've been going to Panera Bread quite often - whenever I forget to get lunch from home or if there's no food at home.

Recently, I stopped by Panera Bread to pick up some breakfast. I was in a hurry and I love their souffles - so thought I'd get one. I ordered it on my phone through their iOS app.

I went to pick it up and it was not there in the Rapid Pickup area. I asked some of the cashiers there and they weren't sure. They asked me what was my order and I told them it was a "Spinach and Artichoke souffle" and they got me the bag and said that they did not keep it in the rapid pickup because of food allergies. I said ok and I left.

10 minutes later, I took a bite and spit it out. They had given me a souffle with meat in it. I am a vegetarian and was quite upset with this. I hadn't expected this from Panera Bread. Not only was I hungry, I had a bad taste in my mouth from the meat.

I called up Panera Bread and complained to the manager on the phone. He did apologize and offer to give me my next 2 meals free and refund my souffle order if I could bring the receipt in next time I came in.

I will update on if they actually follow through.

Croquet

Over memorial day weekend, I had gone to a friend's house where we played Croquet in the backyard. It was so much fun and felt like a version of cricket.

Croquet is a lawn game played with mallets and plastic balls. In the version we played, you use the mallet to hit the ball through hoops and wind through an 8 shape around the lawn and get back to the starting point. There were 7 of us but only 6 players were possible so I played only one game since I had to take care of my daughter as well.

My daughter had so much fun with the game too - she kept using the mallets as a push toy and pretended it was a lawn mower.

I believe the game we used was this one.