Upwork - work from home options.

Hello readers. It's been a really long time since I posted on my blog. I have checked once in a while though. I have thought of posting so many events and occasions, but just kept forgetting with daily chores. 😞

So recently, as in from May 2017 I started working from home. Again, I am put up in a small town that pretty much has no IT jobs. And now that I have an almost 5yr old boy, there is no scope of moving to other cities in search of job; which I have done in the past.

After waiting for almost 6 months for any IT opportunity, I finally thought of looking for any possible "work-from-home" options. I have never been keen to work from home, I am social person and I would like to go to a real work place, meet colleagues and work ..the usual work life!

Anyhow, I really didn't have much hopes of finding anything. But I came across a website https://www.upwork.com/

It had a freelancer account creation. So I followed the usual online profile creation; uploaded my latest resume. This website has logins for both job hunters and job posters. So as a freelancers seeking a job, I can send a proposal to the jobs I search. I basically did a keyword search like "testing"; it shows up tons of jobs posted and you can submit your proposal. Basically the rate at which you want to work etc; its pretty much like a regular online job aplication with resume and cover letter.

If they like your profile they might get back. Also the jobs posted display the pay they are willing to provide. I considered the posts that has a blue tick mark saying "Payment verified". I believe it means they provide payments sincerely.

So I created my account not having much hopes; but to my surprise I got an interview invite mail in 3 days and I agreed to interview and after an hour of video call interview I got the job. Now I won't say the pay is exactly what I'd earn at a regular office job; but it ain't bad either considering I get to work from home, no travel, easy breaks as required.

How it works is once you get a job, the website provides an software to install that clocks your time and takes random snapshots of your PC screen. Basically monitoring your work hours.

Tip: As a freelancer, you can take up free tests on different subjects which I did and I chose to display the scores on my profile. Not sure, but it must definitely make your profile score some points and appeal.

Now it's almost 8 months and I am happily working from home. Infact my entire team works from upwork from different locations across the globe...US west coast, east coast, germany, UK, australia. Everyone works during their day time. I can take breaks as needed (flexible hours), so I can manage getting my son ready for school in the morning, drop him and get back to work; pick him up on some days if my husband is busy at work. And this job came just in time as my son started a 6hr school. So sitting idle at home watching movies and shows would have been such a waste. Instead I get to do what I love and also paid ofcourse!

I wanted to share this information for all those women who are at home after marriage or kids etc...and want to start working. There are different jobs with different work hours. Like my job is 40 hrs/week; so it's like a regular 8hr job. But you can look for jobs like 30hrs per week or anything that really suits your situation, your expected pay and your skills.

Hopefully this post will help one or many readers out there who are looking to get back to work at their pace. Best of luck 😊

Home made costumes

Aarav has quite a busy month of March at preschool. With so many events, I end up being busy doing craft projects on his behalf.


Every week they have a "letter of the week", and his teachers mentioned couple of weeks in advance that during the week of W, they'd have a day of wearing "What you want to be when you grow up". 


Personally, I didn't take up this event seriously because at his age of 3, he doesn't understand the question of what you want to be when you grow up. And even if we ask, his answers are so cute..but wild! Some days he'd say "I want to be a Kangaroo", or "Penguin" or "horse" on other days, as he gallops around the house.

My husband insisted to buy a pilot costume, which when I googled came out to about $50!!! So much for a couple of hours! Then as I surfed through the internet, I noticed the commercial pilot costume is easy; white shirt, black pants, shoulder pads, tie and a hat. With so much of crafty things I do, I happened to have all the required things to make his costume except for the white shirt which I bought. Rest all cut out from the art sheets; referred a video for making paper pilot hat and voilà, Pilot costume ready!

And then March 3rd was Dr. Seuss birthday and they had to dress up as one of the characters from the comic. A blue feather garland from dollar store and matched up his red clothes and again, voilà - Thing1 character was ready! 


His teachers loved his costumes at school. We never had these events during our school times, but I enjoy the fun in making these creative things while making memories for my son to look when he grows older!


Now working on his Easter party goodie bags for his friends at school! 

Painting Gift for Birthday

Original Image

About 6 months ago, a dear friend moved to a new house and I thought I would paint one of my modern Ganesha as a gift. When I shared my thought to her, she said she had a wonderful picture of Infant Ganesha that she'd like to put up in her study room; it'd be great if I could paint that for her.

I asked her to share the picture while playing it safe; saying I'd try to paint it. I sat over this idea for about 6 months and just a week before her birthday I thought I should give it a try to make it a birthday gift.

I started to sketch on the canvas board and it got really difficult as the pencil gets stuck in the groves of the canvas cloth. Racked my head for more ideas, came up with drawing on chart sheet and framing the final painting.

My attempt

Drawing on plain sheet is so super easy; I finished the sketching in like 15 mins. Almost exact to the original. The sketch looked so beautiful, I wanted it on a canvas so she can hang it directly on the wall. Then I racked my head further and the idea of carbon paper lighted up! Spend 2 days looking for carbon papers; finally found a good stationary store locally - The Paper clip  (better than Michael's) about 14 miles from my house. Drove down and got perfect A4 sized carbon papers.






Only on second attempt with the back of a fork, I finally traced out the image onto the canvas board. Next day, finished the entire painting in 1 sitting. Have totally fallen in love with this image of Ganesha, couldn't believe I'd be giving it away as a gift!

But it made a perfect gift for my friend. Feel accomplished! Glad I attempted and it came out close to the original picture. I may make a copy of the same painting for myself too!

HELP: A friend diagnosed with Breast Cancer

Sara McDowell

I met this amazing girl Sara McDowell during my Seattle days in 2009, doing Thriller flash-mob. She recently was diagnosed with breast cancer. Frankly as much as I was shocked to know someone from my friend circle to have this illness, I'm praying each day for her recovery through her well planned treatments. She's a wonderful girl & she's got the right spirit to fight back, all she needs is some financial support that can help her get through the treatment costs. 

Of course, an illness like cancer is going to cost her a lot, and she is trying her best to deal with the stress of both recovering and covering the cost!

If you can, PLEASE help her with any possible amount, small or big. Every amount paid is going to help her for treatment costs, medicines, food etc.

Please read the link below to know details of her illness and ways to help her. Thank you for helping my friend. And please do share among your wonderful, kind-hearted friends.

THANK YOU :) 

https://pages.giveforward.com/medical/page-t1dtrj5/

Star of the day - Aarav at school

My almost 3 yr old son has been going to a christian preschool for the past 6 months. After the first 2 days of 3hr separation, he got the idea of school. From day 3 until now, he's always been excited about "going to school"! At home he converses like adults, frankly he has a great memory and he uses my sentences exactly each time in the right context!

I got his FIRST report in Dec, all good but working on skills of crayons, painting and pasting. So over the Christmas vacations I made him complete all the crayon art sheets he gets in school, that are incomplete. He wasn't very interested but I managed to sweet talk him and hold his hand to finish all the incomplete sheets.

For pasting, I had color papers and glue from my art hobby, which I'm not pursuing anymore. So now everyday we sit and do simple pasting projects like a tree, sun and letters!

Art work at home

Over these months at every meeting with his teachers, I have learnt that he's a very sweet kid in class, never throws a tantrum, in fact he's always smiling! I asked them at occasions if he talked to them willingly, because he was in that phase of conversing 3-4months ago. But they said, apart from asking for using the restroom he wasn't much of a talker! Surprising, coz we at home were pretty much like "Shhhh...stop talking for 2 mins".. haha.

Reason for this post is- Yesterday one of his teachers, Ms. Tiffany came to speak to me and she mentioned "I just wanted to let you know that Aarav has been doing so well, he's been talking to us off late, he does all the activities so well, we just wanted to share this with you. He was the best kid in class today!"

I was so happy..I just thanked them. I'm so glad they are getting to see his real side! The way he's so interactive and talking with us at home!

When I checked his bag, I saw the certificate for being the 'Star of the day'.

Proud mama! JJJ

Road Sweeper

The locality we live here is developing rapidly; every day we see new cleared forest area with construction vehicles and workers. On a particular route I take to my son’s preschool, I saw a vehicle that was cleaning the dust, gravel, dirt from the road. When trucks move in and out of construction sites, they obviously leave trails of thick soil which make such a mess of the existing good roads.

Superior Broom - Road Sweepers Model DT80CT

Living in India, be it any city Pune or Bangalore, we’ve all witnessed how the municipal people come, dig out a perfectly good road and then cover up haphazardly leaving back mud/gravel and bumps. When we lived in Bangalore, Electronic city was developing with construction sites everywhere. So much of fine dust would be on the roads that during the rainy days the roads would be full of the muddy slush! And in the dry hot weather, it would fly up in the air.

Every time I would tell my husband, why don’t these construction site engineers make sure to clean up the roads after they are done! All that dust and dirt particles going into our eyes, nose, mouth, hair and skin! Uugh! I never knew there was vehicle to clean roads like this!

When I saw this dirt cleaning machinery here, my mind instantly flashed back to those Indian streets. Why don’t we incorporate this tool? Make it a mandatory equipment in construction!

One of the major differences between American and Indian roads is the DUST! You never ever see dust on the streets here…we’ve discussed on this..how come there is no dust here! I guess I saw the answer – Road Sweeper!

Note: Image link - http://www.jandjequipment.com/SuperiorBroomz.ivnu

BLACKFISH – A Documentary on Seaworld Orcas

During the recent December 2015 vacations, we visited Atlanta, GA. Our son Aarav will turn 3 in March 2016; we thought it would be nice to visit a zoo and aquarium again. At his age, this was his 4^th visit to a zoo and 2^nd to an aquarium! We just assumed he has much better understanding now so he’ll enjoy better!

Atlanta Aquarium is rated as the best aquarium in USA! Personally, I have never seen whales! Never been to Seaworld. Had been to a small seaworld kind of amusement park in Hawaii where I saw the dolphin and sea lion shows; the jumps and tricks they do! Atlanta Aquarium has the Beluga whales and giant whale sharks! Huge magnanimous creatures that just leave you in awe!

Aarav was excited to see the Dolphins! He loved the show, though he was almost asleep by the time the show started! The dolphins were just beautiful!

After we returned we were discussing with our friends of the two amusement parks and how the Aquarium is one of the best! My friend shared that this particular corporation has intensive care for the dolphins and they have a panel of scientists, doctors and psychiatrist to study and provide them a healthy environment! She then suggested of a documentary “BLACKFISH” that’s available on Netflix which has the orca trainers disclose and share their experience of training the wild orcas, the unpredictable nature of the animals, how they are captured from the wild, the emotional trauma that the animals endure in captivity through their life, the major accidents that have occurred and how the huge business corporations ruthlessly work despite history of fatalities and clear indications of disturbed animals, while putting the trainers lives at risk each day!

The documentary is very emotional on many levels, mainly from the animal’s perspective that without a doubt it shames me to think of how selfish Human race is! And not just selfish, but ruthless, ignorant and utterly insensitive! There are so many points that the audience probably never thinks of like how did they get them, how are they trained, how are their enclosures etc. I never did myself!

Prior to this documentary, I never had any idea of how gentle, super intelligent and emotional these gigantic animals are, so much like us humans! After watching the documentary, I felt so so sorry for these animals, though they are so much larger in size than us, our cunning intelligence beats their innocence!

It makes me think how as an audience, I’m contributing to the animal’s captive life! I know that just sharing the information won’t stop people from going to these amusement parks, but can spread awareness. The story of Tilikum the Orca at seaworld is truly heartbreaking and to see that huge fish with a bent dorsal fin…you know it’s just WRONG!

Sharing the trailer video link on youtube. Recommend to watch and share.

While I was still disturbed after watching the documentary, I came across an article of how even Dolphins in captivity suffer and how the ‘Swim-with-dolphin’ program is disturbing!

The Disturbing Truth Behind Your Swim With The Dolphins