August Reset and Monthly Goals

Posted on August 8, 2022 by Bhanu Misra Marya

I’m back with another tiktok inspired trend: monthly goals!

Well technically I’ve always been making monthly goals. But even more so, I just back from a vacation… vacations have a way and making me more inspired to review my habits & goals. And sometimes you need to write down your intentions and get re-acclimatized to your dreams.

Here are my August Goals & my current status as of the first full week of the month.

Drink 3L of water: I added a habit tracker (little water drops to track every water bottle of 500mL) to my planner for every day. So far I’ve gotten to 2.L a few days.

Make art daily: not hitting this one yet. The plan was to either paint, photograph, use procreate or blog. And so far all I have excuses. Will try again this week.

Forrest walks: again not there yet. My workday is a little crazy (side note: talking to my leadership about that this week to make sure I’m putting my career goals and professional brand first – and to have more space in my day to take walks in a forrest)

Daily Journaling & Mediation: 7 for 8 so far!

Read 2 books: I recently finished Verity and I’m now reading The Secret.

Share my art weekly: Promising myself that I will share a procreate piece this week!

Our Experience at Valarie in the X Hotel

Posted on August 2, 2022 by Bhanu Misra Marya

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to check out the fantastic roof top patio at the X Hotel.

Valarie is boasted as Toronto’s newest nightlife concept with an innovative Japanese menu, inspired cocktails amidst unparalleled views the six.

What we ate:
Cocktails: Single Malt on the rocks, Espresso and Cosmo Martinis
Food: Truffle Fries, Maitake Mushroom (bowl) & Truffle Teardrop (sushi roll)
Food Menu

The mushroom item was delicious. Crispy and with a truffle flavour.

And the martinis were perfect (flavourfull and strong!)

The entire rooftop is lined with a glass balcony – so you get views of the lake, Mississauga, the downtown core and the lake of course.

And of course I only got pictures of the CN Tower.

The views and cocktails really made it for me, although I wish they had more food items.

Over all it was a great experience (we tried to ignore the early 2000s clique vibes between patrons and the restaurant staff).

We got reservations through OpenTable, but I think a walk in is worth a try!

Camera Settings Explained!

Posted on March 8, 2022 by Bhanu Misra Marya

I’ve had my DSLR for about 10-11 years. And although you’ll find me with my “big camera” glued to my face – I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t always [insert: *G A S P*] shoot in manual.

I did take a photography 101 course around the time I bought the camera, and the settings I learned about in that course are the most important and particularly the only ones I will use to this day.

So in the spirit of “sharing is caring” I’m sharing – here are the TOP TWO camera settings explained.

ISO – let there be light!

This setting is so great to create drama (less light) or to add more calm to a photo (more light). The ISO is a number, if you need more light select a higher number, when you lead less light, turn the number down.

Photography, Camera Settings, Artist, Creative, Creator, Camera Hacks, Camera Tips, ISO, Shutter Speed

Shutter: The thrill of speed

This is probably my favourite setting. I use it (with a tripod or steady hand) to capture motion (like water or fast lights) or even the craters of the moon. Here we are working with fractions of a number to large whole numbers (ie seconds). The higher the shutter speed (ie: a whole number) the more crisp the photo. The lower the number (ie: a small fraction) the more crisp the picture will be. You have to play around the ISO here, meaning if you want to keep the shutter open for longer, you may want to reduce the ISO to prevent overexposure.

Exploring Glen Stewart Ravine

Posted on August 11, 2020 by Bhanu Misra Marya

The last few months of the shelter in place with the people in your own household was challenging and rewarding experience. On one hand, we were with each other all the time without the help of our village and on the other hand we got to spend all this time together that I always felt we were missing out.

When some of the restrictions lifted it was nice to enjoy the warm weather which worked really well as some of the first areas to open for public use were golf courses, open space parks and trails.

We have some great friends and family who made plans / did the research to figure out where to go and what to see (Nokiidaa Trail, Moccasin Trail and Wahoosh Falls) and then finally got out of my energy rut and found Glen Stewart Ravine and knew we had to check it out.

Glen Stewart Ravine is a lush, deep forest albeit short trail walk in the middle of the city is pure magic. There are number of streams, downed logs for seating and lots of shade.

There are a few different entrances (Beech St, Glen Manor Dr and Kingston Rd), we came in from Kingston and there were a few 100 stairs to make it down. We managed to see the cute stream (pictured below) and then found a cute shaded area to eat lunch (pictured above).

The middle of the trail is the entrance from Beech and it literally looked like we were in Hawaii!

The trail is not stroller friendly so keep babies in a carrier and leave the bikes/scooters at home. The air is fresh and the way the sun pours in through the trees is amazing – you’ll just wish the trail was much longer :)

Our trip to India – Quick Recap

Posted on January 20, 2013 by thrulesyeux

“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most astrictive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!” Mark Twain

In saying that, the food is amazing, the history is rich, the culture is a little blurred these days but the fashion is still intense.

We had the amazing chance to expore North India (Delhi, Gurgaon, Ajmer, Pushkar, Jaipur, Jalandarh, Amrisar, Chandigarh, Nalagarh & Agra) to visit some amazing sights and people (our family :P)