I knew I picked my nick for a reason. In what must be the slowest century in the history of bloglandia, I've hit my hundredth post after 4 years. Not being one for milestones, I didnt think that I would make a separate post out of it. But, sheer lack of inspiration and a compulsion to post something in January has me logged into the dashboard this evening.

Not much has been happening over the past few days. The sheer commercialism of the trailing months of the year always hits me hard and I have to expend enormous amounts of self-control not to give into the retail glut fest occurring all around me. I have slowly been converting myself to online shopping and that hasnt helped at all, since now instead of a single store I have multitudes available literally under my finger tips.

So far, today, I have convinced myself that I did not need a new flat-iron and have to repeat the mantra several times a day that I DO NOT NEED new boots. Every night, I go to bed thrilled with the amount of money I've saved due to sheer impulse control.

I also apply a trick I read on a fashion blog- basically put the item in your cart but sleep on it. If you are still thinking about it a few days later, then buy it since it's obvious that you are going to love the item. I have been religiously following this philosophy, but there's always a spanner in the works somewhere.

I didnt account for high-end items that suddenly become available at prices too good to be true. Of course they sold out in minutes, forget waiting an entire day for them. The ones that got away were the bag and the pair of shoes alongside and I have been scouring ebay hoping they popup sometime. Someone please tell me how ugly they are and how I should not lose sleep over having them in my closet. Please.

Anyway, my experience is that the retail mania slips away over the next few months so I should be more rational and less sale-finger happy in the next post. Which brings me to the question- do you shop online? If so, do you budget your spending or use tricks like the one above? And if items do get away, what do you do- hunt relentlessly for them or count it as money well saved?

Otherwise, we have been having lovely weather for January, this weekend was a warm and toasty 35F. B celebrated by whipping up these delicious, summery (because we love to live in denial) grapefruit juleps from this exhaustive cocktail book.
I thought it was a fitting way to end a post on the new year. And to thank all of you , my readers, for being so encouraging with reading and commenting on this space. I hope to be more regular this year (see how carefully I didnt word it as a resolution). Cheers to you all!

For the longest time, I have wanted to bake my own bread. Most bread recipes are pretty daunting, especially the bit about kneading the life out of the dough. I cannot even manage to knead my chapatti dough properly, so I knew I would not be able to do it (the nick is couchpapaya for a reason).