A new hobby

For those of you who have been waiting with baited breath (thanks for asking, K! Sniff, and here I thought nobody cared), here it is. In simple words, it is cutting and pasting paper. It started somewhere in the dark ages when I was preparing for job interviews. I don't remember exactly what got me started, but by the time I has a job in hand, I had a phone full of plans on what to make.

The first one -

 

 

This one started out very differently in my head. Wool was going to be heavily involved. Thankfully this is where it ended up. I cant draw for nuts, so all these images were printed, traced onto paper and then cut using an x acto knife (as you can seem I can talk the talk!) The dude made me put the leaf at the top of the Ganapati.

 

The second one -

 

 

 

 

The one at the top started out from the leftovers of the first one. Then I traced out the Om at the center and, this is what I cannot believe I did - hand drew the final shape of the golden paper!

The one at the bottom was inspired from here. It could have been much better.

 

 

The third one -

 

 

 

This one took the longest. I cannot find the original that "inspired" this. This one was probably the toughest - I had to take a picture I liked and stretch it out in MS paint, adding leaves etc to make it big enough. Then trace it on paper, keeping track of what goes where. The dude picked the bird and traced it out. Getting this up on the wall also turned out to be a challenge.

 

 

The fourth one -

 

This one was inspired from here. S is what my son's name starts from :) (Yes, I have become that mother whose wallpaper has her kid's pictures. Whattodo).

I also tried making something with paint (actual paint) but those projects only reinforced how terrible I am at painting.

In spite of a new country, new baby, new job, life somehow still mostly feels like the same old same old. This has helped giving it little bit of new.

 

 

New year and all that

I didn't really expect to be back here. It's been to long, mainly because I have found other outlets for my writing urges - yes, Facebook. Wider audience, instant feedback, it's difficult to resist. Yet, here I am. For many reasons. One, a lot has happened since I was last here. This place has been a more or less faithful record of my life for so long, I thought I owed it this. Second, some things are not for Facebook. Maybe because it is too personal or too controversial or just doesn't go with my "persona" there. 

 So, we had a baby! Bittu, we call him and he is, believe it or not, a US citizen. It felt very weird initially, especially since he used to look like a South Indian village boy. It's still weird, how can my baby not be Indian? 

I got a job! After months of preparing, interviews, rejections, more interviews. They were not good days, studying with a newborn around. Somedays I wouldn't even manage an hours worth. I would be around the baby all day and never actually spend time with him! Quality time is a real thing, I now know :-/ Anyway. I have a job! And my son is a good little boy all day long, and when I get home I get a welcome like no other. He shouts and shouts and shouts, I don't think even he knows why.

Confession time - having a baby hasn't changed my life. I mean, of course it has changed the contents of my life, which never had so much fussing over someone else's food or so much poo, oh so much poo and putting a person to sleep was not even a thing, leave alone the highlight of my day. But it hasn't changed its meaning, whatever that may be. It hasn't made me more patient, it hasn't increased the size of my heart or filled it with anything new. It hasn't made me want to leave the world a better place because my baby will inherit it, at least not anymore than I wanted to before he was born. Having a baby in my life has been a lot of things - overwhelming, fun, tiring, exciting. There is a lot more laughter in the house, and there isn't a day that goes by when one of us don't want to just eat up the bundle of cuteness. But what it isn't - is magical. As of now, he is just yet another person to love.

Okay. Too much baby talk! Next time I shall be back with news about my new hobby! It is almost entirely unlike me, and no one is more surprised than I am that it gives me so much joy.