A ring on my finger!

Love... A feeling that grips your senses when you see that special someone...

To me, love was always something that would converge into a wedding. Nope, not a wedding, a marriage. What's the difference, one may ask. For someone who's watched the episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S where Monica and Chandler argue about whether to have a grand wedding ceremony as per Monica's wish or to bring Chandler's dreams of a beautiful marriage to life, the difference is not hard to figure.

Many of the dreams I wove, about a loved one making my life complete, have finally come into life. The jigsaw puzzle of my life is finally complete.

I'm getting engaged to my bestfriend next month! I couldn't be happier. I feel like all the angels up above have blessed my family and me with all the joys we could possibly have. Fingers crossed. Touch wood.

Pictures and a wide variety of editing options...

Google comes up with such wonderful ideas. For someone who started of with just a web search, they seem to be floating amazingly ahead. Try out the options on Picasa2(http://www.picasa2.com/) for example. In combination with the picture editing that's supported on Vista, even a bad photographer's picture can be turned into a beautiful wallpaper! I specially liked the 'Collage' option on Picasa2.

Another must-try software is Scrapbook Flair from Aurora Digital Imaging(http://www.scrapbookflair.com/Download.aspx). The downloadable version comes with quite a large number of templates, background and embellishments. With a wee bit of design idea help from Scrapbook and the rest from your imagination, the outputs can be as simple or as bold as you want.

Here's one I made with a picture of my team at work. Totally loved the simplicity.

How easy is it to make a rhyme?

Born to win,
But tend to lose,
Blame it on a hopeless fault,
Or a poor excuse.

Have some brains,
But they're hard to use,
Hard work pays off,
But am a lazy goose.

Time flies by, a boring day
Or a thought to muse,
The cry of a baby,
Or a darn abuse.

The kind of life we have,
We cannot choose,
Just like a beautiful painting,
With colourful hues.

The people here are fake,
They blow up my fuse,
They say they're fasting,
But drink a lot of juice.

The worst enemies are bad friends,
Bad morals and character loose,
When you have the money,
What praise they ooze.

The world's strange,
Seen from a million views,
Even if you're a fraud,
You'll figure in the news.

Life's the stage, life's a drama,
To God, someday we'll pay our dues,
One fateful day,
It'll all end in a truce.

That was pretty easy, I'd say...

Poems used to be works of art, ages back. That's why prose from the early centuries are called classics. Lately, random poetry (without much of rhyme or prose) seem to be the 'IN' thing. I'd say it's only cos people are lacking the sense of art these days. For someone who sees beauty in each of life's moments, I wouldnt think it'd be too hard to write something the next generation would classify as a classic.

The journey back home....!

This is a wonderful feeling... A mixed one... Where one's unsure of whether to be happy or sad...

The journey back home....!

Like a lioness who got a taste of blood, I was enjoying my new found freedom in California, away from home... My very first time away from home.. Actually being responsible for myself... It's an amazing feeling..

Before:
It churns your stomach
All day long, you whine !
Away from your loved ones,
The thought makes you pine...

Being able to fight with and come to terms with the fact that your family is way too far to be doing anything for you... To realise that you can do all that you wanna do and still staying sane... Allowing the fact to settle in, that the morals you were following so far were the values your family believed in; not having to stick to them cos your family isn't watching; and yet choosing to do so, cos the family has put enough sense into you to undersand that the values they instilled in you, made you a much better person than you would ever be if you had chosen to follow the beliefs you and your friends thought were 'COOL'...!

I mean, think about it! I am a 21st century girl, in one of the coolest and HEP-est places on earth-Bangalore, earning a decent amount which my family doesn't ask accounts for... I could probably do anything I wanted to do, and yet I remain sane... I make good friends, stay away from the evils, spend my money on the right kind of stuff, love my family for being the crazy people they are, go half the way around the globe to a totally new place, stay there for 3 months, and yet manage to come back without turning into much of a mess... Not too bad, huh?!

After:
Happy to be coming back,
But don't wanna leave,
I may not ever go back there,
The thought makes me heave...!

I was the happiest to be returning to Bangalore... But deep down inside, my heart felt a tug while I was bording the flight. It felt like I was leaving a piece of me back there in Aliso... I've met the most amazing people back there, learnt to live on my own terms, managed a home all by myself and Aliso had turned into a home away from home for me... Complete, with a different kind of family, a new set of friends, and a home I looked forward to coming back to, every evening. Now I can never walk down Grand park and walk into City lights...! But locked up somewhere inside, I brought a piece of Aliso Viejo back with me... To remind me at all times that I lived someplace, where the winds were chilling, but the hearts were warm, all around the year...!

Miss you, California!

Shades of the sky

Here're 4 pics capturing the same scene at the same time on 4 different days... I'm in awe of the beauty nature has brought into all our lives, in so many different way...

These scenes reflect the different moods that 've been experiencing lately... The glow that shows upon my face when I think of how my life's taken a turn for the best, the flash of anger that builds up in me many a times for many a reason, the warmth I feel when I think of home and the calm after a long conversation with loved ones...