A pleasant surprise :)

Today will remain the happiest day of my life :)

A few days back, an online friend of mine ( we haven't met each other yet, but we are connected through a gardening group called the OTG) had posted this on her timeline which I felt was so endearing and took part in the same. 

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After all the recent terrible tragedies that have happened and are happening, this world needs as much kindness as it can get. I'm participating in the 'Pay it Forward' initiative: The first five people who comment on this status with "I'm in" will receive a surprise from me at some point between now and a year from now - anything from a book, a ticket, something homemade, a postcard, absolutely any surprise! There will be no warning and it will happen when the mood comes over me and I find something that I believe would suit you and make you happy. These five people must make the same offer on their Facebook status. Once my first five have commented "I'm in" I will forward this message to you privately, so that you can copy and paste it, and put it on your status, (don't share it) so that we can form a web of connection of kindness. Let's do more nice and loving things in 2015, without any reason other than to make each other smile and show that we think of each other. Here's to a more enjoyable, friendly and love filled 2015 for everyone!

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This is the indoor bokashi composter that I received today as a gift :) 

I felt this was something so beautiful and unconditional! I did the needful by re-posting the same on my timeline and offered the folks on my list the same! Just posting such a thing gave me a sense of happiness. 

I have always believed in spreading peace, happiness and positive vibes and I also believe I have a purpose in life, to serve the society regardless of caste, colour, age or sex. Its my life's only goal. To pay back what I have received from the universe! :) 

Today around 3.30pm , I got a call from a courier person -- Mr.Srinivas, informing me about a parcel that has come by for me..no denial at all..I was super excited and at the same time I was wondering what the parcel was all about, and just then I saw a message on the box and it was from Kaveri ( the person who had posted the pay it forward message and in which I had participated ) . I was simply thrilled and speechless! That was such a wonderful gesture by her. I was falling short of words/ emotions at that point in time. I was really grateful for that beautiful gift, it is easily the best gift that I have received . It is an indoor bokashi composter --- Ecobin. 

I was very concerned about the wet waste which was being generated at home on a daily basis. and I being a gardener myself, often felt very bad that I am unable to do my bit to the environment. Just a few days ago, I was thinking so much about buying this product if not immediately, atleast in a few months and look what happened! :) 

Its a very beautiful feeling which I am unable to express just with words. 

I am a great believer of this quote ---

"And, when you want/ wish for something from all your heart, the  whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”  

~Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

How much more true could that be? The law of attraction indeed was strong here :) I am very grateful for this very special gift and I will definitely pass on the positive vibes unconditionally to anyone, anywhere, anytime and all the time. 

There is nothing more important in life than being happy and making others happy :) 

"All that matters most is being happy" 

So, what are you waiting for ?? Go spread happiness and may the wave of happiness and kindness never stop! 

Much love,

Kavya

You're my honey bunch, cuppy cake.

Dearest Vittu/Shreeja,

So, today is your 5th happieee wala buddaayyy!! It still feel like yesterday that your Amma was in the labour ward, anticipating YOU! We all were equally excited and nervous at the same time. I remember praying so hard to lord for a healthy baby. voila! You popped out at around 21.58 :D
All of us present there had tears of joy. We dint know how to express our happiness. It all seemed so blissful. Amamma held you first amongst our family members. You were nothing but a baby rabbit, rolled in a white towel! Oh my god! That moment ! It was simply priceless. I wanted more of you already...imagine just a few minutes of your arrival, there was a strong bond already making an appearance! :)
That first touch, first kiss, first time our eyes met, the way you held my little finger with your whole palm, your beautiful smile, the heart shaped mole on your left hand...ummm! I can probably go on and on!  Never before had I felt that happy,blissful,loved and responsible. I knew just one thing, I wanted more of you. I wanted to spend a lot of time with you. Wanted to make a bond with you, so strong that we never go apart. You were nothing but a miracle. I was in my 12th standard and had my board exams in March..honestly, I dint bother about my exams..because I knew you were more important to me :D Now when I look back, I feel so good that I chose you over my exams ;) But luckily I was able to score averagely well for my very poor preparations! :D
I grew up again with you..every day, every month, every year.
Last 5 years have been wonderful just because of the fact that you are in my life. Its really hard to believe that, the baby whom I held, took care of, fed, cleaned, gave bath to, has grown up so much today.
The best part now is, that you are able to think on your own. I definitely know how much you love me. But, I love you a little more :)
The 'n' number of games we play, all the secrets that we share, all the kithapathi's we do jointly..I will cherish all of this for a lifetime.
Now you are almost done with Lkg. I am sure in no time you will be in class 5 :)
All said, I have a little wish and advice for you my kanda.

My wish for you is that may you live a very long life with good health, happiness, prosperity, peace of mind, lots of love for ever and ever.
While you live your life, I want you to enjoy every moment of your life no matter what the circumstances are like. You must learn to be happy even for the silliest of things. I want you to be grateful for everything that you are blessed with..for the kind of family you are born into. You must always be humble and kind. At the same time, remember, the world and people around you are not always fair. There are chances of you coming across many people/situations which might seem very unfair, but remember just one thing -- Everything happens for a reason.
So, you give your best and leave the rest to God. I want to see you as a successful musician bangari :)
Given a chance, I would go on and on. But, let me keep more of it for the letters to come :)
I love so much vittu. You will always be Chikkamma's most favourite baby. You remind me of my childhood and all the mischievous things I was up to as a little girl !!

Happy birthday, Princess!

Much love,
Chikki.

Time for a new chapter!

Ummm! So, 2014 is almost coming to an end. Like everyone, I too have a lot of goals, some resolutions, promises and "things-to-do" for 2015!
This period of the year gets me thinking a lot more than usual! I re-visit the whole year in mind and analyze certain things like how much of it was 'good' and 'bad' and usually make a note of it in my journal.
2014 has been a great year even if just means my little accomplishments as an Entrepreneur (first time), Musician, artist, teacher, student,gardener and as a person. I am happy and darn proud of it :)
This year I found a very different side of me. I started The Kreative Kottage my baby maiden project! I had never before even thought one day I would end up making jewelry , forget making it for others, I never even thought I 'could' make something so amazing! I really never thought that side of me even existed! It was somewhere around February that i was bit by this bug called "Quilling" and fell head over heels in love with it ! I have always made cards for my loved ones even as a little kid, so this whole idea of making personalized cards using the technique of Quilling was a pleasant surprise. I was pleased with my work :) It was just around that time, that I was uploading a few pictures on my profile and my work was well received and almost everyone suggested that I create a page dedicated to my work, and only after a month or so I really thought about it and finally gave it a shot! March 12th 2014 was the big day :) I started learning new techniques, how to protect the paper jewelry from water and dust etc. It was a lot of trial and error before i thought they were good enough to be sold off, because I wanted to make sure my 'customers' felt really good using something that I have made and for they have paid! So I took all the care and precautions to make my products reliable and lasting. Happy to say I had about 100 orders in a span of 4-5 months. I took a long break in between and I am yet to resume to work. Hopefully from January I will be able to start taking orders.

During the same time of the year I fell in love with Organic Gardening, this surely deserves a special post. Very soon I will blog about it with many pictures of my little harvests from my terrace garden :)

These two were the main highlights from this year..something I would cherish forever!

Otherwise, it was a lovely year with some ups and downs, many lessons for life, many new experiences, a few new friendships and loads of memories to cherish for times to come!

I am really grateful for everything that happened this year. Would love to see myself as a better person in 2015.

A few promises to self --

* To stop complaining about the things I do not have and instead shift my focus to EVERYTHING that I am blessed with and to show gratitude for the same.

*To be more musically involved. To practice music daily.

*To stop procrastinating.

*To be productive, smart and sharp.

*To master time management.

*To walk daily.

*To be positively inclined and avoid negativity in any measure.

*To have a lot of "me time" .

*To do more of what makes my soul sing & dance with joy.

*To travel a little if not a lot ;)

*To start learning Samskrit and Kannada like a dedicated student.

*To read a LOT of books. (Kannada and English)

*To learn driving a four-wheeler.

*Reduce a lot of weight naturally with hard work and balanced diet. To be health conscious.

*To be environment friendly. To not litter. To carry a bag always. To avoid plastic. To segregate waste.

*To be content with my present wardrobe and not to buy more clothes.

*To start saving up some money instead of spending it all on useless things.

*To appreciate every little thing in this universe. To be calm. To be more patient than before. To be more tolerating. To be more humble than ever.

*To be kind, compassionate, affectionate and loving towards everyone.

*To be of some use to someone, someday, somewhere.

*To dream big. To work harder.

*To declutter all the negative people and also the people who matter less from life for ever.

*To spend very little time on social networking sites.

*To meditate. To observe myself. To be more alert about myself.

*To blog more often!


Hmmmm! that sure looks like a big..err BIG! list ;) Really wish I  to achieve atleast half of it :)

Well, its the last day of 2014 and I think I have done the right thing by writing a blog post ;)

Like every single day, my only prayer is to the world, the universe and beyond.
I hope, pray and wish the best for every living creature in the universe.
"Sarve janaha sukhino bhavanthu" --- this has always been my prayer :)

Lastly, I would like to salute the creator for everything he has been kind enough to bless everyone with. Thank you lord for this life. The very fact that I am alive, breathing, able to see, hear, touch, smile and think are more than enough reasons to feel happy, blessed and humbled.

A big round of applause to 2015!
A very happy new year to everyone! :)

Spread love,happiness and positivity everywhere you go!

Much love,
Kavya


 

Declutter.

In life, we usually tend to hold on to people or things that hardly matter or are of any significance in our lives. Decluttering is a therapy, not just with respect to "things" , but also with respect to people who matter less or nothing at all in our lives.
To lead a happy and peaceful life, one must make sure to be surrounded by happy, loving and positively inclined people. It does make a lot of difference. Happiness and positiveness are highly contagious and so is negativity.
If you are holding on to someone who is doing no good to your life and is in no way making you feel good, or grow as a person,  then its time to re-think about that person. Decluttering is the next step!

Life is too short and beautiful to hold on to grumpy and negative people!
Surround yourself by people who matter in your life. Someone who respects you..someone who loves you unconditionally and someone who wishes you good! There should be no room for people who are always complaining about life,society,people and doing nothing to improve it!
Be happy, make others happy and surround yourself by happy and positive people and see how your life changes!

Happy decluttering! ;)

Love,
Kavya

Of yesterday's and tomorrow's..

So yesterday, a friend of mine told me that she got back to blogging after a long gap of 5 years! That is when it flashed to me, that I hadn't updated my blog since a year! :D
I came back to my blog and started reading my previous posts and was self-motivated to start up blogging again! 

So in the last one plus year, a lot of things have happened ( I have luckily made a note of almost everything in my journal ) some very pleasant one's and some very unpleasant ones!

I think I will first talk about the unpleasant one's in this post and all the super awesome moments in another post! :)

I will start with the unpleasant one's and finish it up soon! 

Towards the end of October 2013, I lost a very far cousin of mine. She was just 31 and died after delivering her baby! The baby survived for 2 days after her death and then left this world. It was the unfairest of things that could ever happen to anyone! She already had a 7 year old daughter. This incident, kind of shook me up! It came like a lightening right into my heart! Days went by and things began to look normal,yet again. 

Another incident that I am going to share is also about a very close family friend, more like a dear brother , who lost his life in a tragic train accident on Dec 28th 2013. It was a fire accident and his body was brought down to Bangalore with great difficulty as the bodies were completely burnt and chances of identifying the same was very very less.
He was blessed with two little kids of 6 and 3, a loving wife , and old parents! I personally had never faced a situation as bad/helpless as this before ( I hope not to in the future as well. *fingers crossed* )
He was only 32. Just not the age to go away. Forever. 
He was someone whom I always enjoyed spending time with! He always bought me an ice-cream no matter how late in the night it was! Anyway, if I start going back, I can probably never stop. It hurts. Even today. And forever. 

So, what I was trying to convey from these two tragic incidents were, that, life is very very short. Sometimes, very unfair too. We have to live our lives on daily basis. I mean, Live. Not to just exist! Time is running and how we utilize every moment of this life is the biggest challenge! 

I learned a lot from these two incidents.. 
I decided not to --

Postpone happiness 

We often take our lives for granted. We are busy planning for tomorrow and meanwhile miss out on today's happiness. 
Live.Laugh.Love. while you are still alive!
You never know when is your last moment. Nobody knows it either. So why take life so seriously? Keep it simple, silly!

Complain 

I decided, I must never complain about anything in life. 
I decided to be happy with everything that I was blessed with. I am ever grateful for every little thing I am blessed with. I realized...life is very beautiful when your wants are very less. 


Waste time with people who don't value it  

Yes. Its the most important thing in life. Never waste your precious time with people who don't value it. Its a complete waste of time. So, surround yourself with only those who truly love you. 

And, from the same tragic incidents, I decided, I  must do  more of these - 

• Smile more often
• To be happy no matter how bad life is at that point in time.
• Do all the things which gives you peace of mind and happiness.
• Worry less about anything that is not in our control and to be very grateful for this life.       

So, I think I will conclude by saying, life is beautiful , but very short. So, its always better to be happy and make others happy! 
We can live with a motto to spread love, happiness and peace everywhere that we go! Its a beautiful feeling, you know! 

I have promised myself, that I would blog more often from now! :)

Much Love,
K

The perfect someone.

Firstly, let me tell you that my post for TOUCH Thursday no.2 gained a special mention for that particular prompt! I was really happy to say the least! That was the first time ever that I had participated in any such writing prompt! :) yay!

Today is again a Thursday and Preeti Shenoy has come up with a new prompt - TOUCH Thursday no.3 ! ( I couldn't help but participate in it! I have had  always been wanting to write something about it for a long time now!) 

Here's the prompt -

Anjali, 25, single, is a character in the book. She has dated 6 men and rejected all of them. She is still looking for Mr.Right. She feels it is hard to get what she is looking for.

If you are a woman, write 3 things (or more)  that you really want from men.

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Hey Anjali, nice to know that you are on your 'mission' to find Mr. Right! :D 
I thought of sharing what I really want from 'my man' and this is entirely my point of view :)

So let me get started! I really believe that, for a relationship to be strong and working, both men and women must put in a li'l effort.. :)
I can probably go on and on about this, but I have decided to share just a few points here! These are some of the things I would want from 'my man' ! !
1. Unconditional love

Yes! when there's unconditional love between two people, no matter who is at fault, they ultimately forgive each other and move on! This is a really important aspect of love! This also includes honesty and trust.

2. Art of complimenting 

This is another very important quality I would love my guy to posses ! Seriously!
This world literally needs the "ART OF COMPLIMENTING" course! This is so darn important! This is important not just for men, but equally or more important for women too! In fact, I would say, if you want any relationship working, be it Love, friendship or even professional for that matter, if you are someone who knows the "Art of complimenting" , you can easily win anyone's heart! :)
If you are a married man, PLEASE! For god-sake try complimenting that wife of yours. You do not need too many big things to make a woman happy..it's all of these small little things that makes her life worthwhile. Compliment her for all the many little things she does..and you will end up making her day/month/life! And let me tell you, no matter how many people compliment her, she is the happiest when her man compliments her...it's a totally different feeling, you know! :)


3. Freedom of thoughts/action/choice

Yes please. Let her think, act and choose without thinking about your reaction to it. Make her feel warm and speak to her..that she certainly has all the freedom to think, act and choose for herself..as long as she is not going wrong! That will really make her feel good and in turn she would ask you for suggestions. Be kind enough to help :)

4. Kindness 

Yes :) Please be kind, not just to us, but everyone you come across. You lose nothing by being kind to somebody..you will be blessed. Give a helping hand to someone who can never return your help in any possible way. That is when you are a real man! Smile!! that is more than enough :)

5. A sense of humor that I can die for 

This again is  the most important trait I wish my  guy posses :P
What is life without a pinch of humor ? I am the happiest when I laugh and I have a good sense of humor.. so this is something I want my man to have! (hopefully an inborn talent to make someone laugh their lungs out...I would love it :D )

So yeah, that is it ! :) Not asking for too much :D

Life is an amazing journey..please put in a little effort to make your "special someone" happy and wanted and you will end up making your own life a garden full of lovely roses :)

Cheers,
Kavya
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Thank you Preeti for this opportunity to think about something so important! :)

How a small gesture can make someone so happy! :)

           It was a sunny afternoon when K and her mommy went shopping in the busiest areas of Bangalore--Shivajinagar. Honk-honk. BMTC buses, auto-rikshaws everywhere. K and her mamma loved shopping in this area. K's ma knew every road, in and out! Let me tell you, K's ma was very very good at selecting the best of dresses for her li'l princess, but K always did nakras :) But, ultimately she would love her ma's choice and oblige. Going to Shivajinagar would mean, a lovely lunch at a wonderful restaurant near by, which was K's favorite! After lunch, they both would go to a near by Juice shop and relish on some yummy mango milkshake! SLURRP. These (going to the restaurant and next the juice shop ) were almost a routine for this beti & ma. 

After all the heavy shopping session, K and ma decided to leave for home and were walking towards the bus stand when K saw a very old man selling socks. It suddenly flashed to her that, her school would begin in a few days and that she wanted a new pair of white socks. So she spoke to her Ma about it.

k-" Ma, did you forget? You were supposed to buy me a pair of white socks as my school starts next week"

Ma- " OH!!! Yes baby, I totally forgot. Come let's go to the Shoe shop and buy them"

K- "Maa!! I would want you to buy my socks from this old man ( pointing towards the old muslim man who had just returned from his daily namaaz) instead of buying it from the big shop, please? "

Ma- "why so baby? "

K- " I was observing, almost everyone on the street went into the big shop and bought stuff, but no one was buying things from this old man. So why can we buy it from him, ma? "

Ma- "Haha, okay lets go buy it from him"

K- "happy smiles"

K and mommy went and bought two pairs of white socks from the old man. 60 rs/- for 2 pairs! K's ma gave him a 500 rs/- note and he had to return 440 rs. But, the old man had returned 640 rs.( more than what they initially gave) 

K's ma did not observe all of this, while K observed it all ! She told her Ma, that , the old man had given back more money. Mamma checked her purse and yes! The old man had returned extra money! So K insisted they go back and return the money. (By now, K and ma had already boarded a bus which was about to start)

So, K and ma got down the bus and walked back to the old man to return his money! 

K ran to him and returned his money! The old man was elated to see how honest an 8 year-old could be :) K's ma was overjoyed by K's level of thinking. She had some happy tears.

The old man blessed her with a happy and long life. K smiled at him and ran back to her mamma.

Life is a lovely journey. Never, never miss a chance to make someone happy! Just smile, and you might end up making someone's day! 

So, get on with your mission to spread-- Love, happiness and peace every where! :) 

Much love