Good morning!
I am pleased to announce that Be young 4ever has a new address - www.gayatrigadre.com/blog
All the previous posts are now available at the new address and this blog will be redirected soon. So see you there!
 |
| www.gayatrigadre.com/blog |
Friday, September 22, 2017
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Book Review : A to Z - poem for an Idiom
As part of the #BlogchatterEbookCarnival, 35 ebooks were published in May after a successful completion of #AtoZChallenge by many participants across the world. Blogchatter team provided this wonderful platform to the first time authors like me.
Why A to Z - poem for an Idiom by Prakash Hegade?
I know Prakash from NaNoWriMo 2016. He was true inspirer, taking lead, arranging virtual write ups and encouraging us all to join in. When I first found out about his theme in A to Z Challenge, it amazed me - An idiom for that day's alphabet followed by poetry!
I will be honest, poetry is not my cup of tea. Whenever I attempted to write poetry, it didn't look anything like one remotely. As a result, I have the utmost respect for those who write beautiful poetry. Prakash has taken it to a whole new level by taking up an idiom for an alphabet and write poetry for that. I was awestruck by the creativity behind the idea.
I will be honest, poetry is not my cup of tea. Whenever I attempted to write poetry, it didn't look anything like one remotely. As a result, I have the utmost respect for those who write beautiful poetry. Prakash has taken it to a whole new level by taking up an idiom for an alphabet and write poetry for that. I was awestruck by the creativity behind the idea.
Highlights of the book
I finished the book in one go. I couldn't keep it down once I started enjoying it. The best part was all of them were so simple, poetic and yet logical (I always thought logic & poetry don't go hand in hand).
My Takeaways from the book
Below are my personal favourites from the book,
C – Clear as mud
G – Guinea pigs
H – Hop skip and jump
I - ichi-go ichi-e
K – Kangaroo court
M – Mind your P’s and Q’s
P – Pyrrhic Victory
U – Ugly duckling
W – Walk a mile in my shoes
Z – Zip it
G – Guinea pigs
H – Hop skip and jump
I - ichi-go ichi-e
K – Kangaroo court
M – Mind your P’s and Q’s
P – Pyrrhic Victory
U – Ugly duckling
W – Walk a mile in my shoes
Z – Zip it
Rating : 4.5 / 5
About Author
Academician, always a research student and blogger who loves to read and write!
Connect with Vaishali -
Friday, August 11, 2017
Book Review : Picky Eaters – Guaranteed hacks to make you happy
Why Picky Eaters – Guaranteed hacks to make you happy by Amrita Basu & Abhijit Misra?
I have numerous nephews & nieces. Most of them are picky eaters. I was really curious to read the authors' take on the topic and see if I can provide my cousins and friends with some useful tips.
Highlights of the book
The authors have kept the book quick and easy read. It is full of tips with links to articles for elaborate reading, which made it really fuss free for me to read the simple tips and spend extra time reading about the topics which mattered to me the most.
Key takeaways for me
Healthy eating habits have to start from the parents themselves. The best part is all the tips given in the book are simple and easy to follow, but they can go a long way to form healthy eating habits in children.
Rating : 4 / 5
About Authors
Dr. Amrita Basu, an ENT surgeon and a mommy to a five year old. Dr. Abhijit Misra is a
paediatrician and a teacher in a medical college. They are the co -authors of this book and
partners in real life. They are passionate about spreading the message of health, wellness and healthy life style. They love gardening, travelling and playing with our little girl in our spare time.
paediatrician and a teacher in a medical college. They are the co -authors of this book and
partners in real life. They are passionate about spreading the message of health, wellness and healthy life style. They love gardening, travelling and playing with our little girl in our spare time.
Connect with the Author -
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Book Review : Potpourri of Emotions & Moods
Why Potpourri of emotions, moods by Sneha Sasikumar?
The name piqued my curiosity and I found myself selecting this book over others. I was curious to read the Author’s take on various emotions & moods all of us go through.’
Highlights of the book & Key takeaways for me
Sneha takes us on a journey of emotions, 26 emotions to be precise (to be very honest I had never realised we humans are capable of so many emotions).
I loved her list to address boredom, next time I get bored, I am surely going to follow it.
The guest posts are as good as the posts from Sneha herself. I loved the story on Empathy. It takes a great deal to understand the other person and their limitations.
The book taught me that the key to many emotions is acceptance.
I loved her list to address boredom, next time I get bored, I am surely going to follow it.
The guest posts are as good as the posts from Sneha herself. I loved the story on Empathy. It takes a great deal to understand the other person and their limitations.
The book taught me that the key to many emotions is acceptance.
Rating : 3.5 / 5
About Author
Seven years in the IT industry, Sneha Sasikumar is a tech lead with an MNC in Bangalore who works on finance and retail domains during the day but when she is not working on the codes and testing them, she juggles doing many things to keep her creative genes alive. One among them is blogging for about close to two years now on her blog Life as a Potpourri where she talks about a lot of topics under the sky justifying the word Potpourri. Born and brought up in the amazing Andaman and Nicobar Islands and settled in Bangalore now apart from writing she enjoys,travellingg, doodling and creating zentangles and holds a bachelors degree in Bharatnatyam and Kathak up her sleeves.
Connect with the Author -
Book review : Writing tools, 26 Tips on How to Improve your Writing #BlogchatterEBookCarnival
Why “Writing Tools, 26 Tips on How to Improve Your Writing”?
I am a blogger, working on my debut novel and has just published the first book of my life, do I really need to say why I selected this ebook for review? :) I am at a very early stage of my professional writing career and can use all the help I can get, especially if the help is coming from a well-accomplished author like Cheryl Sterling. Cheryl has several paranormal & contemporary romance novels under her belt. With solid experience of 18 years in writing, I couldn’t have asked for a better person to handhold me as I take the first steps of my writing career.
Highlights of the book
The timing of this ebook was perfect as I started reading it after publishing my own book on Amazon Kindle and I could immediately start using the tips from this ebook. Instead of reading this ebook at one go, I read it as a step by step manual following as many steps as possible to establish the online presence of me & my ebook. The book gives some very simple yet effective steps to earn those brownie points in marketing a book.
She has given some very useful tools such as BoardBooster, Canva, Draft2Digital to do various things right from designing a cover image to taking the book to the larger audience.
Overall this book is a must read for every budding author.
She has given some very useful tools such as BoardBooster, Canva, Draft2Digital to do various things right from designing a cover image to taking the book to the larger audience.
Overall this book is a must read for every budding author.
My Takeaways from the book
A lot to list it all here. In short, I had a complete marketing plan with tasks enough to keep me busy over many weeks to promote my book, couldn’t ask for more.
Rating : 4.5 / 5
About Author
Cheryl Sterling is an American author of several paranormal and contemporary romance novels and short stories. Her first novel, What Do You Say to a Naked Elf?, was a finalist in the TARA contest and was later sold to Leisure Books, an imprint of Dorchester Publishing. Cheryl is a co-founder and past president of Grand Rapids Region Writers Group in Grand Rapids, MI. She has conducted several workshops that focused on the writing craft and co-chaired their first “I’ve Always Wanted to Write a Book” regional conference. In her spare time she reads all genres except suspense and horror.
Connect with the Author -
Book review : Small Servings of Wellness #BlogchatterEBookCarnival
Why Small Servings of Wellness by Vaishali Gandhi?
I met Vaishali during the Mumbai Blogchatter meet and the first thing that appealed to me was the warm smile on her face and the calmness in her appearance. Every day we meet people from all walks of life, some of them ignite something in us, some of them make us restless and some of them make us feel calm & grounded. Many times the reasons we feel a certain way after meeting a person can’t be expressed in words and such was the feeling of calmness I felt after meeting her.
I believe that every day we should be a better version of ourselves than the previous day. This belief drives me to keep exploring ways to personal growth. There is so much to learn in this world that one lifetime wouldn’t be enough. This book offers a lot of knowledge/wisdom collected from many people, books and methods to lead a holistic life on a platter hence it was a natural choice for me to review as part of the #BlogchatterEBookCarnival.
Highlights of the book
There are so many books, speakers, workshops and other sources of knowledge available out there that sometimes it becomes overwhelming what to choose. As the name suggests this book packs it all and presents it in bite size information. This book turns out to be a guide by a trusted friend. Rather than reading reviews of the hundreds of self help book and deciding on the ones I want to read, I find it easy to use this book as a reference to read more on the topic. What I loved most about this book is while keeping the chapters short and quick, Vaishali has done a fabulous job of maintaining the real crux of each of them.
My Takeaways from the book
Instead of summarising my learnings, I wish to give some of the powerful quotes from the book
"Making things positive doesn't mean a sunny outlook; it means making the choice to
see problems as opportunities." ~ Brahma Kumaris
“We cannot learn without pain.” ~ Aristotle
“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold
peace and happiness.” –Robert Muller
“You cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert
She must learn to control her mind when everything else around her seems out of control
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
“The struggle ends when gratitude begins.” ~ Neale Donald Walsch
"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams." ~Oprah Winfrey
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." ~Lao Tzu
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.
The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
Rating : 4.5 / 5
About Vaishali
SoulMom aka Vaishali calls herself a constant seeker and explorer. She is an avid reader, passionate about travel and photography. Curious about energy sciences and the spiritual ways of the universe. An innate artist fond of experimenting with different media. A fitness enthusiast who swears by yoga and meditation.
Professionally dabbled with a diverse set of skills across advertising and marketing communications. Personally, she continues to be on a wonderful journey as a single mom to two beautiful daughters.
Connect with Vaishali -
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
It was a conspiracy #BlogchatterEbook
Befoe we begin,
I take on the baton of Blogchatter Ebook Carnival from Deepa whose Ebook "Parenting Tips and Tricks" is also a part of the mix.About Deepa's Ebook:-
A parent’s guide to raising happy, insightful, creative and generous kids. Parenting blogger Deepa Gandhi believes parenting is easy, only if we remember to stay calm and enjoy parenthood. It is an insight from a learning and evolving mom.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
This is how the conspiracy began
That's right, this whole A to Z Challenge and the Ebook carnival was a big conspiracy. Conspiracy by the universe to make it all happen! How else can I explain it? Here I was working on my novel, publishing my ideas on my blog whenever I could find some time from my work and suddenly there came a wave which changed everything for better.
It all started with A to Z Challenge. I came across it somewhere on the vast ocean of Social media (I can't even remember where exactly I saw it first) towards the end of March and my first thought was 'How on earth will it be possible for me to publish a post every day? My project deadlines may take a toll'. But I decided to participate and take it in stride. I thought if it becomes too much for me then I will quit. After all, there is no harm in trying it and leaving it halfway rather than not doing it at all. Next I knew, I was swept off my feet by the overwhelming response, support & encouragement by everyone around me - family, friends, blogger community and even people unfamiliar till that moment.
But that was only a start. Within a week of starting the A to Z Challenge, hubby dear suggested I gather all my posts when the challenge ends and publish a book. Until that point, I had read that some of the last year's A to Z Challenge participants had published books with their respective posts but I wasn't sure if they were handpicked by the Blogchatter team based on their contributions in the challenge. In less than a week's time, Shubhreet suggested me the same. Coming it from her was a big deal for me as she comes with years of experience in journalism. It all got me thinking seriously about publishing a book and here I am!
Off Beats is special in many ways for me, first and obvious reason is that it is my first published work and will always hold a special place in my life. But this whole challenge and the ebook carnival gave a massive boost to my confidence. We all have self-doubt and I guess it never goes away completely, but the ebook carnival helped me overcome it in many ways. Secondly, though I have completed 70-80% of my debut novel and am still working on it, I was not so sure about publishing it. The feedback I received from Off Beats assured me that I should publish it. This phenomenon (if I may call it so) of the challenge and the carnival took me and the blog to places we had never been to. Surprisingly not many of my family and friends had read any of the previous posts, some of them weren't even aware of its existence. What came as a pleasant surprise to me was it helped rekindle hubby's love for photography. In recent months, he hadn't been too keen on taking his DSLR out unless necessary. But seeing his photographs in the ebook and hearing all the encouraging comments motivated him. No matter of pestering from my end could have achieved the same result LOL.
But the real goosebump moment happened when a dear friend told me how reading it all helped her get through the tough time in her life. She was going through awful time and reading my posts helped her to look at things with new perspective. When we started Be Young 4ever, the idea was simple - to tell people that life is not over when you cross a certain age; to motivate them to pursue their passion. And listening to her move me to tears of joy. The only feeling I had was that it was all worth it if it could bring some sunshine to even one person's life.
So now as you can see, it was all a universal conspiracy on a larger scale, of seeing my work published, of touching lives. I really hope it continues to do the same. The more people it will inspire the more my life would have been worth it.
Here is my baby I have been so obsessed about over last few weeks, hope it inspires you - Off Beats.
Don't forget to share your comments below, I am keen to know if it worked its magic on you too.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
I pass on the Baton of Blogchatter Ebook Carnival to Pratikshya whose Ebook "Kolors Of Korea" is also a part of the mix.
About Pratikshya's Ebook: Kolors Of Korea is a compilation of blog posts at Magic Moments and some Guest Posts in A PotPourri of Vestiges on Korean sitcoms and drama series. Though the Hallyu or the ‘korean wave’ has gripped people’s imagination internationally, it is popular in India only among the female young folk. Through the reviews of various top rated drama series in this compilation, Pratikshya wants to bring this vivid world of storytelling to audiences here. Based on emotions and sensibilities, she considers most of these stories dwelling on the universal feelings of love, longing, and belonging, as timeless. Venture into this amazing world of tales, folklores, and legends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)