Food

Vacations are always a good time to reflect on things that sometimes you don't think about too much. Since the 25 May I am on vacation visiting my brother and family in the United States. I had a great time visiting Washington DC with the family and seeing some of the most amazing buildings and sights. Enjoyed some awesome food in some great eats in the city. Talking about food, every now and then my mind keeps wandering back to this art piece at the National Mall in Washington DC. Now I don't consider myself a serious meat eater but I do enjoy an occasional indulgence every once in a way. But this trip for various reasons have gotten me to think seriously about the whole affair with the kind of food we put into our mouths. Even thinking about where your food comes from and what kind of processing happens before it is presented sometimes can trigger a lot of mixed emotions that is not always appetizing.

Where did the year go?

My little rabbit is an year old!!! Cant really believe it!! Wow it just seems like yesterday when that nice tender warm bundle of life was thrust into my arms. I still remember that look in those beautiful big eyes looking up and saying 'Hi Mama, its me :-)'. Now that bundle makes sure that we are on our toes at all times, making all her demands loud and clear and making sure that her older sister really learns to share all her toys!! A friend mentioned today that children teach parents so many new things in life and I believe this is so true.

Was fun today to meet most of our friends who could celebrate little rabbit's first birthday along with us.

The weather was perfect, the birthday cake was yummy, the kids had a blast and the food was as always at Wimmers really good.

Was back at home almost close to midnight and would have expected to crash into bed but here I am wondering where the last year flew by so quickly.

Analysis and Analysts

Was away at my company's corporate event in the beginnng of this week. It is definitley one aspect of my work which I like a lot because it gives me an opportunity to meet with people who actually work with what I work on. I talked to couple of analysts as well and this got me wondering as always. Analysing and predicting something based on analysis is definitely a huge value add for any industry. But today in all areas of life what you hear is mainly post analysis and extensive reports based on post analysis. The world financial crisis, the EU crisis, corporate mergers and acquisitions etc etc. are always analysed post happening and dissected and views and ideas are shared on why certain events happened and not why certain events will happen. CNBC as a television channel with a bunch of extremely smart analysts and newscast thrives on postmortem analysis of all the reasons why we are in the financial crisis that we are in today. Wish moving forward we could preemt more of these. Could apply this thinking to all aspects of life as well actually...hmmm...

BBQs and more

This week seems to be rainy and cold, but the last weeks of April was really T-shirt and shorts weather. Remember the lovely Sunday (Apr 25) spent with friends on the bank of the Neckar. The place is called the Neckarwiese a nice green area on the banks of the river Neckar. Perfect place to go for a picnic, there is a separate to grill your food which is what we all did, soak up the sun and also the lovely city and all the diverse people who come there from different parts of the world. But looks like everybody had similar plans like us! A lovely day indeed and looking for the sun to come out with all its power.

Vishu and shopping hours

I remember last Wednesday evening (14 Apr) so well. A long day at work followed by a high decibel evening with the girls, late evening work calls after the girls were in bed and a presentation for the next work day to be completed. In between all this I realised that before going to bed I needed to arrange our Vishu kani for next morning. A quick mental check and I realised that I had forgotten to pluck some bunches of the lovely Forsythia bushes which grow all over the place at this time of the year. Thank God for the new opening hours(07-24 hrs) of our friendly neighbourhood supermarket Rewe I got some lovely bunches of yellow roses which looked so good.

Plus I enjoyed the quiet of the close to midnight shopping, all the shopping aisles were on display only for me. It was so nice to wake up hubby and girls next morning to the beautiful display in promise for good luck hopefully for the rest of the New Year.

Picnic time

This time around it was little rabbit's daycare group who organised a picnic with the whole family to the beautiful Luisen Park in Mannheim.

The day started early Saturday morning when all of us met at the entrance of the park and then after a nice little trek went on a Gondola ride covering the stream that runs through the park.

Of course after all this the kids were quite hungry and then we all decided that it was time to sit down and enjoy a nice long picnic.

All the little ones from the daycare got a nice folder with tons of pictures and documentation about what they had done in the last weeks. Looks like everybody was just waiting for spring to start planning trips like this one.

Spring time at last!

Yeah it seemed like it took forever this time around for Spring to arrive. But finally it is here and we had lovely weather for most of the long Easter weekend. Little bunny had lots of fun hanging out some beautifully painted Easter eggs. I learnt how to empty the contents of an egg and get it all primed and ready to be painted. Hmm..you might think is easy but try it out yourself and see what I mean.