urban:masala

About This Place & Me

urban masala on 05 12, 2008

In a nutshell…

I am dichotomy personified. Seriously playful, yet unyieldingly serious. Acutely intelligent, but prone to ‘blond’ moments. Left-brain logical, yet right-brain creative. Strong and weak. A flawed perfectionist. Candid, yet reserved. Complex in my simplicity. The quintessential romantic. Sensitive, but sensible. An adventurous, international eater and former vegetarian. Addicted to jazz, curries, lattes, wine and Masala Chai. I love orange in summertime. Not a writer, but an accountant who loves to cook and tell. I prefer crunching recipes in lieu of numbers. Armed with a passion for life and good food, tons of cookbooks, an active imagination — and tight jeans! I associate with lots of people, but I pick my friends like I pick my fruit. I am like that only!

I am a Houston-based food lover who also happens to be a real-life “Girl Interrupted,” in that I am a stage-4 breast cancer survivor who has been through the whole nine — chemotherapy, surgery, radiation and all of the physical, mental and emotional upheaval that accompany such horrible treatments. At the moment, the only other thing I will say is that I am a walking miracle of God. I have decided to put it all behind me and move on with the remainder of my life; however, if I can be of help to anyone whose life has been affected in some way by this insidious disease, please feel free to contact me.

About this Site

I’ve been surfing the Internet since 1993, admiring many of the lovely personal websites I’ve run across. In 1999, I made my first web page on AOL with a free programme called AOL Press, which probably no longer exists. In May 2000 I decided to purchase my own domain name to expand my space, which I used mainly for journaling my day-to-day thoughts and activities (it wasn’t called “blogging” back then). This I did manually, via hand-coded HTML, as I knew nothing of content management/blogging software, CSS, Java Script, Flash or PHP at the time. In 2002, I began dabbling in graphic design and from then till now, the graphical layout of the site ran the gamut from simple to quite elaborate.

Since then, my interests have changed quite a bit as I have evolved. I purchased this domain in July 2008 (although previously written posts will also be featured here) primarily as a place to blog about my interests and certain aspects of my life, enhanced with visuals. The words and images found here are expressions of my passion for the things I enjoy and Urban Masala is my creative outlet for archiving and sharing my experiences of managing my weight, mastering the art of cooking well, and balancing my life … out loud!

Why Urban Masala? Since I decided to take my weight loss journey public for all the world (potentially) to see, I thought I would fully set up shop. As it happens, I also publish another unrelated blog and wanted to keep these aspects of my life separate — for a while at least.

This journey is about much more than losing weight — it’s also about recapturing the self-discipline and balance that are vital to my long-term success, happiness and overall well-being. Thus, while exercise and proper nutrition are both major components of my strategy for achieving my 120-pound weight-loss goal, the whole of my success will not hinge upon those two elements alone. My life involves more than merely cooking and eating and exercising. I happen to enjoy photography, music, travel, movies, reading, writing, poetry, socializing — among other things — and since each of these is a part of who I am, my thoughts, feelings and ideas about all of them will also be featured here. It’s all about balance.

If I can be of help to you in any way, please feel free to leave a message in the “Comments” section of my blog or email me at urbanmasala[AT]gmail.com. I’ll do my best to help in whatever way I can.

Thanks for hanging out with me. I hope you enjoy your visit.

I’m out. Leave the key on the table.

Namasté.

Lynne J.

*Masti is a Hindi word meaning “mischievous fun.”
*A Punjabi expression for “intoxication with life.”