Monday, September 17, 2012

Lal Bagh Independence Day Flower Show

Lal Bagh in Bengaluru conducts some AMAZING, (read it as A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L) flower shows for Republic Day and Independence Day. After gaining interest in photography, I made it a point to visit it to click some pictures of the flower beauties to my heart's content. And yes, it happened.

Me and my friend, loaded with my Nikon SLR, went to Lal Bagh for the Republic Day flower show, from office (on a weekday, yes, it added to the thrill to go from workplace:-), Sorry, my organization) just to click pictures. We were surprised to see a lot of crowd on a weekday and were asking each other whether so many people are jobless like us :-)

But, unfortunately, the pictures did not turn out very well when seen on a PC as I had set the SLR in some crappy mode and didn't check the setting before clicking the photographs. Thus went the Republic Day photography session, unfruitful.

Then came the Independence Day flower show. I was cautious this time to click some real good pictures. I double-checked my settings on my SLR and the lens with my husband also. Sure that everything was ok, I again ventured out for photography (again on a weekday, but sans my friend, as she was onsite for work). I clicked around 140 pictures and mostly they were on "Aperture" setting mode, using a zoom lens. I had kept researching on different modes in photography and want to try out the background blurring mainly by setting the Aperture. And voila !!! What a result it had...The pictures turned out very good and I was satisfied very much. And I should really mention that the flowers collection and the arrangement in the flower show was just awesome. They had sculptures like panda bear, ducks, tree house all made of flowers. Very good show and I caught hold of some very good shots !! I used those shots to upload into my photography project at http://365project.org/reks/365 which is one-photo-a-day site and got good comments from my fellow 365ers.

Here is a slideshow of some of the pics taken in the flower show.

Talkathon

  • I told my kid, "Kanna, amma's back is paining ra suddenly". She didn't react much except, "painingaa". Then, after about 5 minutes, (When I myself forgot about that), she asked "Back paininga?"...I was so,so touched at her enquiry and it sure did a great thing to my mind/emotions than to my back:-)
  • She was pestering me to come and play with her when I was busy in the kitchen doing the nightly cleanup chores. I told her, "Kanna. Give amma 5 minutes. I will wash this cooker and come". As soon as I finished this sentence, she asked me, "Ayipoyinda?" (Is it over?)...When will kids learn the concept of time? :-)
  • I have the bad habit of biting nails (Yes, I know it is a bad habit, but still I do it). My madam (read-daughter) told me, "Don't bite nails. Dirty dirty". Atleast for her, I should stop this dirty habit and I have started it from this moment that I am writing this post :-)
  • She has started questioning a lot, as is common in this age. She keeps asking, "What is this amma, What is that amma. Why amma?". As usual, during one of our conversations during bedtime, she pointed to pillow and asked, "What is this amma?".
Me: This is pillow.
She: What is pillow amma?
Me: Pillow is an object.
And the conversation led to me saying the following so that I can teach her the concept of objects.
Me: P******** is a girl. Ni****** is a boy. V**** is a girl. Pillow is an object. Fan is an object. Bed is an object.
She: What is tree amma?
This question led me into a thinking mode. What should I tell a tree is? It is not an object. It is not a boy/girl. I just told her something (Don't remember what) and she didn't probe further :-)
Kids do really make us think about things...

Friday, September 07, 2012

Teachers' Day craft

Given as an idea from my SIL to gift the teacher something for Teachers' Day, me and my daughter ventured out to make something for my daughter's school teacher. So, I went shopping to get some craft items, googled to find out easy-to-make crafts for a 3 year old kid, and decided to do a bookmark.

The cutting was done by me. I held my daughter's hands to write the message. The colouring and the sticking was done by my kid. And so was born the first official gift done by my kid :-)

I told my daughter around 7-8 times that she has to tell "Happy Teachers' Day" the next morning in school and give the gift. She nodded her head nicely and also, the next day, she told me that she wished so. God knows what is the truth :-)

And here is the bookmark that was made... 


The next day, the teacher wrote in her diary, "Thanks for the bookmark. It is very cute and I am happy to receive it".