Lifestyle Archives — FORBABYNMOMMY

“It’s my choice”- Impact and importance on life!

We all have made many choices in our life, that have made us proud and sad at times. Today I would like to talk about my one choice that changed a lot in a better way with a roller-coaster ride. First let me share why I am writing this post today?

“This post is written for IT’S MY CHOICE Blog Train by Gleefulblogger & Wigglingpenin association with Vedix & Kerala Ayurveda “

Before I share my choice let’s understand little more about it.

What is CHOICE ?

Choice is a chance when you have two or many options and you have to decide among all what’s the best for you. Let’s take very simple example from your life, when you were have to choose between different flavours of ice-cream and after waiting for a while you choose one. That’s your very first CHOICE as a kid.

But as you grow older these choices becomes more hard and options becomes less and you have to decide what would be the best for you as that can impact on your life.

CHOICES -Impact & Importance

Your every choice has a big impact on your life either in a good way or bad way. When you have to decide your subjects it sets a bigger goal for you in your life as whatever stream you choose your will join that profession.

So it is really important to make all your decisions with proper understanding of all the pros & cons as the results can be fruitful or bitter.

My Choice and why I am proud of it?

I choose to put myself before all the traditions and emotions that were holding me back trying to make happy all people around me.

Now let’s talk about the decision I am happy and proud . It was when after my delivery , when I decided to stay with my husband to take care of my newborn without any elderly support as they were not able to stay with us ( personal issues).

This was a big decision as being first time parents we know the journey would not be easy for us, but this journey prove to be the best learning experience. I was learning everyday to take care of my baby and everything, this DO IT ON YOUR OWN situation boosted my confidence to handle everything .

What I gained !!

Home Baker & Blogger

I started baking to beat the postpartum depression and it worked as a therapy for me, Meanwhile started writing down the parenting experiences and this started my BLOGGING JOURNEY.

You can check my healthy bakes Check all healthy bakes and recipes here .

Cloth Diapering & Baby wearing ambassador

I researched about cloth diapering and baby wearing that was one of the best choices too. As they made my life easier and they were eco-friendly, as it was not so popular at that time my learning helped me understanding and by this I was able to help many other new parents who have the same doubts.

Today when I think about that decision,I feel that if I have chosen to go to my parents place. I wouldn’t get the chance to know my capabilities to handle such situation. As we get support we will never try to find new ways to get out of the situation.

Finally, all my experience made me realise it’s always good to take a decision for you and work on it. It might be hard at that time but you would be proud that you did what you felt right for you.

How to make Kombucha from Scratch?

How to make Kombucha without scoby

What is Kombucha?

Kombucha is a fermented drink, made with tea and sugar with help of culture of bacteria also known as scoby. It is also known and consumed for its health benefits.

It is full of probiotics, enzymes, and healthy organic acids, it improves your gut health and immunity and can replace your sugary drinks with it. Because it’s fermented, it contains no or very little sugar!

We can create different flavours from the base kombucha, with the help of fruits and herbs. For detailed study visit here

Recipe to make Kombucha without scoby

Ingredients

Raw unpasteurised Kombucha ( I am using raw Kombucha from Peepal farm link to buy )
Clean glass jar 2lt-3lt (washed properly with soap, vinegar and dried in sunlight)
Clean muslin cloth ( link to buy)
Sugar 120 grams
Tea 15 grams
2lt water

Procedure

How to make a scoby?

Wash glass jar with soap thoroughly first and then wash with vinegar.
Keep it for drying in sunlight to kill unwanted bacteria.
Add 500ml raw unpasteurized Kombucha in the cleaned glass jar.
Cover this jar with clean muslin cloth and tie its mouth with a elastic band or thick thread.
Keep this jar for 3 weeks in dark warm & dry place (temperature 23C-24C)
After three weeks, you will notice a disc floating on the top of liquid.
This disc is your scoby for next step to prepare Kombucha.

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How to make scoby

Steps to make Kombucha

Boil 2 litre drinking water in a clean container.
Add tea and sugar when the water starts boiling and put off the flame.
let it cool down to room temperature .
Add this water to the scoby jar and close it again with muslin cloth.
Now keep it again in dark warm place for 2 Weeks.
After two weeks you can take out the jar and your kombucha is ready for next step.
Pour this in clean bottles and close the lid (air tight ).
Keep these bottles again for 7 days in the same place.
After 7 days keep it in fridge and enjoy your healthy cold drink!

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Click here for more such healthy recipes!

Working from Bed/Sofa/Floor to Proper Work From Home set up

No one had thought that people would be working from home for such an extended period. Indian IT does not have Work from home culture. Due to pandemic companies were forced to adopt and it’s great to see how people manage things working remotely.

As we are not used to do work from home for say more then few days, usually there is no proper setup at our homes. In Mumbai you have such a small homes that you can not think of making one room as your study or work room 🙂

At our home we didn’t had any dedicated desk or chair where one can sit for longer duration and work . We use to work from Sofa or bed using a small bamboo laptop table.

Many a time we use to sit on floor due to posture issues as while sitting on bed or sofa you tend to curve down which leads to back pain.

It was kind of Ok for first few months as it was all new and any which ways we can not do much as there was complete lock down. So somehow we managed.

But in the mean time we were looking for some solution to this problem as this Work from Home is there to stay.

As per the space available on our home we were looking for modular table, by modular I mean which can be folded and kept aside when not required. Indian market is not that good for modular furniture as there were way less options.

What ever good options we had are way to costly as all the brands want to make money on this new opportunity.

After lot of search and reviews on different websites and considering the amount we would be paying for that piece of furniture we have decided on the design and size of the table.

For us it was a collapsible wall mounted table of size 80*50 cm. We came to this size based on the space available on the wall beside our sofa.

Also this was sufficient to keep my husbands 2 -22″ monitors, docking station & Laptop. Budget we had was Rs 3500 for this as this is what my husband can claim under work from home policy.

In this budget and table size we had limited options, one was this on Amazon or this & 1 or 2 more. Now we have a lot of options.

Still we were not getting the desired size and material. All of these were made in MDF which is not good for durability of furniture which is going to be folded and will be hanging on 4-6 screws.

So we contacted the sellers via Amazon and few said that they can make it in plywood but the cost will increase as plywood is costly then MDF.

Finally we agreed to pay more and bought the one from India Decor. But it was not that easy. We did placed the order and it was shipped and reached the nearest Amazon hub as well.

Then came another Lock down in Mumbai/Navi Mumbai area and that hub was closed and they could not deliver the product and it was returned to seller 🙁

Now our search started with local furniture vendors/manufacturers. We gave them the details and asked them if they can give us this particular piece and in how many days.

Only one said yes and he agreed to deliver only the top board as for the folding brackets there was no shop open. We asked him to give at least the board.

He took 2 days to give that to us, in the mean time we ordered folding brackets from Flipkart as some how they were delivering and Amazon was not.

We paid extra as it was costly on Flipkart then Amazon but it was a required so we ordered. We had Makita drill @home and this was another reason to order this kind of table.

This won’t require any carpenter service and one can easily fix it. Well it was not that easy as you need do proper measurement’s to make it align and to fix it at proper height.

For alignment our Stanley Level came very handy.

So finally we installed everything and the table was up and we were very happy as now we can work properly.

Setup is incomplete w/o a office chair with good lumber support.

Lumber support is required as one has to sit for long hours and proper lower back supper is must. Again we have to do a lot or search and go through lot or reviews for this.

For this we again contacted few local vendors/manufacturers to costing and quality and most of them were out of budget.

Our budget was Rs 4000 as this can be claimed under the policy, but we thought we can buy little costly as this is quite important for good sitting posture.

For this we looked @ all the furniture websites like Transteel, Pepperfry, Amazon, Flipkart etc. but everyone has more -ve reviews then positive.

Transteel has good chairs but the delivery time was more. Finally we finalized Da Urban and ordered it from Amazon, as usual cheapest as compared to other sites.

Reason to choose this was recent reviews were good and one major reason was it had Metal wheel frame. We didn’t want full plastic one as we have seen accidents in office when one leg breaks and person fell down.

It came in big box, packaging was kind of Ok, we were more concerned about the chair and it was intact. After thorough sanitization we installed it.

Installation was quite easy & in 5 min the chair was ready to sit. we even checked the level of seat to make sure it is not tilted on one side as mentioned in few reviews and it was perfectly fine and balanced.

The chair is comfortable and we can sit on it for long duration.

Along with this we did purchase a cable organizer and a good extension with spike guard. There are multiple cable organizers present on Amazon but we choose this as this will able to hide your cables and has enough space to store 4 socket extension.

We bought GM extension with spike guard.

Choosing Work from home furniture –
* One should choose as per space and requirement
* Place it near to fan if that room does not have AC else you will be sweating all the time 🙂
* It should serve multiple purpose, in our case we will be using it as small dining table
* Size should be adequate to fit multiple things as while working you might realize we could have ordered a bigger one
* Make sure the height is appropriate minimum is 30″ from floor
* Chair min seat height is 17-18″ and it can rise above it as as per your height adjust the table height
* If you can do DIY then look for solutions from local vendors as this will be cheap
* Opt for plywood as it is more durable and long lasting then MDF
* Decorate the wall behind else try to place the table near the open space

How to choose steel cookware?

Steel cookware

From a long time I was planning to replace all my non-stick cookware and aluminum cookware with good quality steel pots and pans. As we all know healthy eating is important and so is healthy cooking. Most of the non-stick pans are coated with polytetrafluoroethylene, also known as Teflon. With the use of any metal spoon and over a time period this layer flake off and at times if you cook in that it mix with your food too.

With regular use the non stick pans loose it’s non stickiness, plus there are a lot of rumors out there that Teflon might be toxic and that these pans may not be safe to use.

Then the question that came to my mind was how to choose the best steel cookware from the available options. Some are really costly and some cheaper.

So while I was searching and reading more about it, I sum up with few points for u guys.

Heat Conductivity Materials

This is a really important point to consider as you want a good quality cookware. You need to check the base elements of your pan like only steel can’t conduct heat well so the base of the pan are made to copper or aluminum or both with steel on the top. Copper helps in better temperature control and aluminum helps in retaining the heat for a long time. So you can choose as per your requirement.

Nickel ratio – there will be some numbers on cookware when you see the description like 18/0 , 18/10 18/8. It represents the ratio or nickel and chromium in the pan. Nickel content give your pan great shine and durability so it’s always better to choose high nickel ratio. Like here 18 is chromium and 0,10,8 is nickel.

Handles and Lid-

Choosing the cookware with good quality handles and lid is equally important. Handles should be sturdy and should not get heated up fast. The lid should be proper with good covering and holding handles, as we need to open lid many times during cooking.

Pan weight

Pan weight is also to be considered as too heavy base pans are not easy to hold and move. And when you are cooking it becomes more heavier, so choose wisely.

Heavy are good though but usually not used in houseold cooking, they are more of a large scale cooking or for more professional cooks.

Pan size

Selecting the cookware size is also important and will affect the price too. You can select as per your family size and quantity that you normally cook. I always prefer small to medium as at times you need to cook for some guests too, so small pans are not useful at that time and you can’t buy a big one together.

Prevailing offers

It’s always better to buy your costly cookware when some offers are running. Like you can buy in festival sale or you can buy them in sets of pots and pans. Buying solo is not a good idea as there might be no good discount on solo cookware. Well there is always some offer running on sets.

Budget

Now here comes the most important one to consider before buying. Check your budget and requirement and then plan accordingly, you can get a medium range good brand cookware. Buying local is not a good idea as it comes with risk either it will work well or not.

I hope these points would be really helpful for selecting the best steel cookware for you. Will be sharing my review for the steel cookware I bought after my search.

Stay tuned for next blog, coming soon.

I am taking my blog to the next level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa. You can read my other articles for this #MyFriendAlexa campaign here #forbabynmommyblogs .

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Save my little friend Sparrow

Today it was such a beautiful morning, after 4 years changing two cities. I saw my childhood friend calling me from my window. I was making tea in kitchen and I heard a known voice after a long time, and I rushed to my window. It was such a happy moment to see this little friend of mine after so many years.

Telling more about my little friend, she loves to stay in urban cities and loved by all. She loves to move in groups of 8-10 and keep chattering with each other all the time. But now I can see them rarely and this time almost after 4-5 years.

Now as you so much about her it’s time to introduce her. It’s our loving bird Sparrow, brown in color and small as a tennis ball. This bird loves to build her nest in our homes, holes in buildings and walls.

I know we all have seen them playing in our homes in our childhood. But I am so sad to see they are not seen now from last few years and I fear our kids would be able to play and love them the same way as we did. As their population is on decline in every city. I fear our future generations would miss to see the love these little birdies show to us.

Reason attributed for the decline in population of sparrows:

The rapidly changing cities are no longer a suitable habitat for the house sparrow, as the new and modern designs of infrastructure does not give any room for the sparrow to nest.
Pollution caused by (electromagnetic radiation) microwave, towers, phones and pesticides.
The house sparrow loses its foraging grounds (natural grasslands) as the green spaces in our cities give way to more concrete constructions.
Our windows and house is now covered for safety reasons, so it’s hard for them to find the place as before.
No easily available food as before, normal open kirana shops where they used to munch on open packets and fallen grains are now converted into closed supermarkets.
Smoke and pollution in the environment is not suitable for these little birdies.

How to save them?

Custom made nest boxes are available now, you can put it in your balcony or terrace.

Steps to control pollution, good for both humans, birds and animals.
Use of good quality fuel in your vehicles to minimize pollution.
Providing food grain in their bird nest, terrace and balcony using bird feeder.

Let’s join hands and do a bit from our side to save these little birdies. Our small efforts makes big difference in changing the future. Let our future generations love them the same way we did!