Vacation memories

Do you have any strong childhood memories?

Hi There,

Can you just believe it that it’s 30th of June today? The last day of the 1st half of the year 2025, the very year that we were just wishing Happy New Year and making goals and plans?? I have no clue how did we land here so soon. Feels like a blink of an eye lid.

It’s summer break here and July and august are school vacations. Which makes it harder to be away from home. So these days I have been drawing so much from my childhood memories. It’s hard right now

There are lots of things to remember. Summer vacations were the best, mainly because there was no school and we got to travel to our hometown to my grandparents place. And when I think of Indian Summers, what comes flashing is loads of jackfruits, mangoes and coconut trees. And then we had hens, roosters and cows and a Daschund named Sheeja. Along with laughs and giggles with cousins, yummmmy good by my grandma. Spending afternoons under trees and lots of more.

But there was one memory that I look back with bitter-sweet feelings. And it was -

Jackfruit Feelings

As a kid we went for summer vacations to our grandparents place in Kerala (India). Summers also meant Jackfruit season in my hometown.. we were surrounded by Jackfruit trees and each filled with Jackfruits.

They were hot favourites of everyone.. everyone except me.. I hated them.. I couldnt stand the way they smelt and how sticky they were and how they pricked and were way too heavy.

I still hate them.. but everytime I see a Jackfruit I am taken back in time.. and I have so many very fond, beautiful memories of summers, my grandparents, cousins and so much more coming back to me. We had swings put under the mango and jackfruits trees. We spent afternoons under the tree just talking and playing. It was just so much fun.

I don't look at the Jackfruits the same anymore. I still hate to eat them but I Love them for the memories.

Do you have any such foods that everyone loves but you don’t? Yet they bring so much of pleasant and beautiful memories?

Personal Project - 100 days of characters

Also, I started a personal project of 100 days of characters. Something I wanted to do for a long time. I always get so stuck wanting to add backgrounds, adding a bit of storytelling that it was stopping me from the joy of mindlessly creating characters. So I decided I will set aside sometime everyday and just enjoy without the stress of adding backgrounds or looking for story. I wanted to use this as a visual library of characters that could maybe use for work.

Here’s a collage from week 1

I am curious. Do you work on personal projects, the one with a plan or sequence or something you really wanna work on? I usually have something I want to focus on every month. Some times life happens and nothing gets done, but by the end of the year I still get some of them done from my bucket list of to-dos.