31 March 2013

How Do You Paint an Auto-Rickshaw?

"I want yellow paint and pink paint and blue paint and brown paint," is what Muffin says when asked how she wants her auto-rickshaw to be painted. We have to be a little more specific than that when we talk to the painters so this morning we took photos of some designs we like.

We're going with a classic yellow auto with a black roof. I like pink flowers under the windscreen:

We like the stripes on the back and sides:


I like the flowers on this "4-in-all" logo:

We like the "For Hire" font but we're thinking of having it say "Private" instead:

I like the bajaj logo and the stripes that came on our auto:

And we like this little light panel. We'll have toggle switches installed, some of which will control the headlamp and turn signals and some that will simply light up the buttons on the panel.

We have a lot to discuss with the painters. Most of the work is decals but we'd like to have the designs hand-painted on instead, for more permanence.

And of course, the obligatory shot of Muffin driving an auto. The drivers were so curious as to why we were taking so many photos. As thanks, we had to take some of them with Muffin.

Previous posts: Auto-rickshaws.

28 March 2013

Happy Spring Holidays!

It's a holiday week here in Hyderabad. I'm more of a spring equinox person than an Easter person, but, you know, if someone invites us to a good party, we'll show up.

Last weekend, Muffin went to an Easter Egg Hunt party.



She's so sweet, she still thinks the fun is simply in finding the eggs. She never realized they were full of candy. After the hunt was finished, the kids got a bag of jelly beans and some chocolate ice cream, and she was satisfied with that. It never occurred to her to open the eggs. I emptied all the chocolate out later when she was sleeping. Since the party her favorite game around the house has been Easter Egg Hunt. I can't count how many times we've played now.

I made her dress from a 1960s-era vintage pattern.

From the clean and angelic to the devilishly cute and messy...

Yesterday was Holi. Muffin's first little friend ever is moving away from Hyderabad this week. Her mom invited Muffin over for the neighborhood Holi party so the girls could have a memorable last play date.



Happy Holidays, whatever you're celebrating this week!

18 March 2013

Log Off and Go Do Something

Image from Pinterest.
I've been on a somewhat forced exile from Facebook and other things online due to the summertime power cuts in Hyderabad. The internet company doesn't have as good a generator for their servers as we have at our house so once the scheduled power cuts kick in for the day, the internet goes out even though we still have electricity.

I've been doing a lot of offline writing. (It's been frustrating because I'm the administrator at Hardship Homemaking this month. I'm frantically uploading and scheduling posts when connected internet coincides with a sleeping Muffin.)

I've been doing a lot of sewing, working on Muffin's summer wardrobe. I've given up on making her take off the long pants for school but I absolutely must hide away the flannel pajamas. After I've made her some summer pajamas.

I've been running and doing yoga. Not quite as much as I'd like to, but enough so that I feel reasonably happy and healthy without feeling guilty about leaving Muffin at home. She loves playing Legos and Play-Doh and all sorts of other things with her baby-sitter; she doesn't miss me. Muffin's school starts summer holiday in a couple weeks and I have to find activities for her to keep both of us sane. We can only go to the park so many times.

Base mileage, base mileage, base mileage. Every step counts for something. But this morning my steps took me to the coffee maker instead of out the door in my running shoes.

17 March 2013

Progress on the Auto-Rickshaw Bed

The last time I wrote about our auto, it looked like this: We Bought an Auto-Rickshaw Today. A day or two after we bought it we brought Muffin over to see it. They'd moved it to the metal shop and taken the canopy off but hadn't done any other work to it. Muffin was in love:


Today we went back to the metal shop to check on the progress. They've taken out the seats and the engine and they've lengthened the body by about six inches to accommodate an American twin-size mattress. They've started patching and welding the rust spots.



We're impressed with the progress so far. Mike and the other guys discussed exactly where it needs to come apart into pieces so we can get it into the house. I started to have a sinking feeling that after all this work we won't get it up a flight of stairs and through the door. But Mike is confident it will be done. Having it come apart will also be extremely useful for packing it up and moving.

Now there is a lot of cleaning and rust repair to do before they paint it.

08 March 2013

I'm Losing the Battle Against Long Pants

Muffin and I are in a battle of who could care less (to quote Ben Folds).

 Her school has a dress code policy of girls wearing leggings or shorts under dresses and skirts. I’m fine with this; Muffin spends a lot of time in the sandbox and leggings provide extra protection from sand getting into places it shouldn’t. With the Hyderabadi style of khurtas worn over pants or leggings, Muffin has embraced the the local fashion and wears dresses with leggings and sometimes even wears jeans under her dresses. I’m okay with all that. I want her to have confidence in choosing her clothes and expressing herself.

Here’s my problem. Summer is upon us. It’s near 90 degrees (32 C) when I drop her off at school in the mornings and pushing 95 degrees (35 C) by the time I pick her up. Each day seems warmer than the previous day. Muffin is insisting on wearing ankle-length leggings or pants every day and she is a little sweatball by the time school is over. She won’t wear shorts. She won’t even consider knee-length or calf-length capri pants. Long pants, Mommy, long pants.

Last week I told her that it was the last week for wearing long pants. Starting on Monday, she would need to wear short pants to school. I have lost that battle every single morning this week. On Monday, once she was at school, I reduced her collection of leggings from about ten pairs to three. I showed her! Then I felt a bad about feeling vengeful toward a preschooler, so I took out a bunch of fabric and patterns to plan a new summer wardrobe for her; this week I've cut out a few items for her already. At Mike’s suggestion, I’m also going to trim several inches off the leggings and sneak them back onto her shelves to see if she notices they are shorter.

She’s rotated through those three pairs of leggings every day this week and today I’d had it again. We hadn’t even left the house yet and we were sweating already. I told her if she wanted to wear long pants she had to put them on herself. If she wanted my help, I was going to put shorts on her. And what do you know? She battled with a pair of leggings for a few minutes, threw them aside, picked up a pair of jeans, and put them on. I lost again. (And damn, is she smart!)

Today I’m going to hold off work on her Easter dress in order to chop and hem all of her pants into shorter lengths. It’s not as if they’re going to fit her next winter and we’re moving from Hyderabad summer to U.S. summer so other than a couple pairs of jeans and sweatpants (for chilly beach evenings in Rhode Island), she doesn’t need anything but summer clothes.

Should I be more flexible and just let her wear the damn leggings and be sweaty? Is she wearing them because she knows it annoys me so much?

03 March 2013

Coconut Water and Anti-Dreadmill

Muffin enjoys fresh coconut water after a hard workout.
I’ve heard that coconut water is all the rage for runners in the United States. It’s popular on the streets of India because it’s cheap and refreshing, what with all the electrolytes to help prevent dehydration. I buy small bottles of it at the grocery store (convenient to throw in my gym bag) and go to the roadside wallas with a 24-ounce CamelBak bottle to have them fill it up. It takes about three coconuts to fill the bottle and prices have gone up recently to 20 rupees per coconut so it now costs about 60 rupees, which is $1.10, or less than 5 cents per ounce. I checked on Amazon.com and coconut water prices were 13 to 14 cents per ounce. I checked Peapod.com for the Washington, D.C., area and the prices ranged from 15 to 20 cents per ounce. Yikes! How can I afford this habit once I'm back? I guess I should take advantage of it while I can. Fortunately, Muffin will only drink coconut water when it actually comes from a coconut with a straw stuck in it, more because she likes the novelty than she likes coconut water. She always asks for a sip from my bottle, but then says she doesn't like it.

I hate the term "dreadmill" even though I dislike running on a treadmill. It's so negative I feel like I've sabotaged the workout with a negative attitude before even starting. It's necessary sometimes but I'm cutting back on treadmill runs because I'm not having fun. After a rough few weeks, my alarm is set for 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. I would have done it for today but I spent Sunday night at a friend's birthday party and I wanted to enjoy myself, not set myself up for failure the next morning (not necessarily by drinking a lot and eating too much, but by staying up later than I normally would on a Sunday night). I don't really like using the treadmill in the afternoon so my only other option is to wake up early to run on the road before the heat of the day sets in. If I'm going to the gym anyway for my yoga class, then I'll run on the treadmill but using it otherwise has become tedious. And I'd rather use Muffin's nap time for eating and napping myself instead of running during that time, squeezing in time for a good meal later, and being so exhausted that I fall asleep before she does in the evening.

Image from Pinterest.

I need to get back on track and work on my base mileage for half-marathon training.

02 March 2013

We Bought an Auto Rickshaw Today


The latest addition to our family.

I know it doesn't look like much, but Mike compares it Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. All it needs is a little love.

For the last few weeks we've been networking with various elements of Hyderabad's auto rickshaw and motorcycle world. (See my previous post about this.) We looked at quite a few; we made offers that were too low and rejected prices that were too high. When Mike mentioned the project to some friends of his who do custom motorcycle detailing, though, they got excited and jumped on the chance to do the work for us. They found us an auto for sale right around the corner from their shop and the seller accepted our offer -- a price that was the lowest of all those that had been on the table with other sellers. The bike detailers have a metal fabrication guy who happens to be an auto driver so they are confident they can get the project done. 

We'll be removing the canvas top and ripping out the seats and engine. The rust spots will be replaced and we'll buy new wheels. It will get a whole new paint job. The front steering is still in great condition and we envision Muffin sitting on the mattress to "drive." We're going to wire the instrument panel with switches, lights, and a horn. 

We can totally see it as a bed.