Seriously!! You can tap me with a feather and I’ll probably fall over.
I followed the trail of this post from Ritu’s to go and do my blogger duty and vote like a good citizen of blogland.
I went through each section voting one after the other, until, yours truly got to a place that had a name called Jacqueline. I like knowing the Jacqueline’s around me, so I took a peek by clicking the name and saw myself staring at myself.
Oh wow! I feel so honoured and humbled to be nominated for the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards.
We had a HUGE number of nominations, over 350, so thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate.
Voting Closes June 9th at 12pm. The winners will be announced on June 11th at the Bash. If you can’t make it then a winners post will go live at 5:15pm on June 11th.
Choose carefully, you can only vote ONCE per category. There are 10 awards, (so it’s a long post) make sure you vote in them all.
Good luck to all the nominees.
Disclaimer: The committee has done their best to coordinate the nominations and to ensure, where possible, we gave nominees a choice of which category they wanted to be in. Due to time constraints and limited resources this may not have always been possible.
On Thursday’s, I share pictures about ‘Echos of my Neighbourhood.
I would like to invite you to participate. The challenge is quite simple.
Every Thursday, share a photo of bits and pieces of wherever you are at any point in time. It could be a house, backgrounds of your neighbourhood, activities and so forth and you can tag it Echos of my Neighbourhood, add my link to your post so that I will get the ping from your post.
Every other Thursday, I will publish a post with the links of all those who participated the previous week.
This is just a fun way of getting to see more of the World around us through your eyes since we cannot all be at those places, we could, at least, see them through you.
If you wish, there’s a tour Bus that takes people around the city for a fee.
Coloured Panels
Around Sharjah
A Mosque in a neighbourhood.
Night observers
I don’t know what it’s called
Museum Districk
Making shadows
another interesting artistic contraption that writes a different letter with each light bulb.
….and this
I like this
Twisted lettering
Reading a poem
Let’s hug trees 😉
Made from paper plates
Sculpted Faces
Threading the alphabets
Lovely
Wall story
Artistic fangled sticks 😉
Cut out story
Calligraphy on sand
Alphabets cut into fabric
Interesting faces
Face painting
Better made out of cups filled with milk
Museum District
Around the city
Each weekend, I try to fit in some outing/entertainment activity in our lives to balance work, school and other things.
Last week Friday found me dragging my troop on a day trip to Sharjah for an exhibition. It was an hours drive from home *counting in traffic*, though the traffic inside the city is quite tight.
The Emirate of Sharjah is one of the states of UAE. It’s not as glitzy as it’s sister state Dubai but leans towards history and culture. There are several museums in this place and they all beg for exploring.
Sharjah was declared by UNESCO as the capital of Islamic Culture in 2014 and it’s rich heritage museums show it.
However, on this trip, we focused on the Calligraphy Biennial exhibition which took the better part of the day. Other museums will be explored at later dates.
Whenever I say museum, my children mumble under their breaths, but they get to enjoy it and learn from it. As usual I took lots of photos but will only share some with you for now.
We sat in our homes and travelled to many exotics locations. Hop on let’s go and see 😉
English Civil War re-enactment: Maybe because history was one of my fave subjects in school, I totally enjoyed these enchanting scenes captured by Louise. Thank you Louise, for joining us this week 🙂
“I love books. I love that moment when you open one and sink into it, you can escape from the World, into a story that’s way more interesting than yours will ever be.” Elizabet Scott
“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” Unknown
That book she’s reading must be some good stuff 🙂
There are books that are such compulsive reads that when you sink your teeth into them, you are lost in them and you keep going until it’s finished.
Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.
We are all standard bearers, but the question one should always ask themselves is what standard am I bearing?
You are a source of inspiration, then again, what kind of inspiration might it be?
When we realize that we are called, not just to live and die in ignominy, but to live happily and to leave a legacy that will stand as a testament for our time spent here.
Enduring legacy goes far beyond material possessions, but legacies that embed in memories that even the passage of time doesn’t wash away.
If you think you can’t make a difference, you are so wrong. All the men and women who made a difference long before you and I, were mere mortals just like you and I.
You may only be in the position to do small things. Yes, do those small things with a big heart. Therein, lies the difference.
For this week’s Writers Quote Wednesday challenge, we have an interesting prompt ‘obsession.’
There are times I’ve questioned my reason for writing. Why am I so subsumed with this demanding mistress of mine? Could it be defined as an obsession?
….and I realize that to stop writing would be fatal! It’s like asking me to stop living. How will I speak when my voice is dimmed?
I can live with my irresistible passion, even if you call it an obsession, though I’ve written a poem about fatal obsession below.
“To be the object of someone’s obsession is horrible.” Tippi Hedren
They said their love was written in the stars
she reveled in her attractive man from Mars
he made her feel coveted like a prized possession
even when it became a smothering obsession
she excused it as the ultimate profession
of love, that turned fatal in slow progression.
From obsession to repression,
to recession and aggression…
a total mind game bent on suppression
to bring about her complete subservience
he pummelled her into manic depression
with his consistent intelligent oppression
His love became the poisonous dangling apple
that choked anyone who cared to take a nibble.
The End!
Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.
Sometimes, just when I feel that I can’t do this, the strength to go on comes and I know that such grace is only from above.
It’s been a super-charged week but I’m truly thankful for the sense of well-being, the inspiration, and motivation that I find in this place.
From being in long brain-storming meetings at work, wearing mother and wife hat, writing, blogging, networking and thinking of how best to market my poetry book, how to start my second self-hosted blog that’s calling me, squeezing out time for my second book, it’s really a full calendar, but I’m totally enjoying this.
The show of confidence this past couple of days from fellow sister bloggers who chose to be my strategic partners at a nominal fee has been such a heartwarming gesture.
I’m in the right place. I’m with the right people who inspire me a lot and I’m so thankful for these blessings.
There’s always something to be thankful for. I hope you see it, even if you’ve got to squint your eye 🙂
In a typical year, if your commute to work is 60 minutes to and fro, cumulatively, you would spend an average of 20.8 days or more just on commuting.
These folks commute to work each day on these open boats.
As much as I like water, I doubt if this would not frighten the jeepers out of me having to sit like this on an open boat, day in, day out and without life vests.
For me, it’s only good for a one-time adventure. Well, I guess they’ve got to do what needs to be done.
This is it. The waiting is finally over.
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a cooking pot and twisted tales 