Well, Hello!
I am Kruthika Rathinavel, a 30-something software engineer and a mother of 2, born and raised in southern India. Growing up in a calm township, I moved to the enthralling Goa to become an Electronics and Instrumentation Engineer, graduating from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. I took the well-tread road and chose to embrace software engineering. I pursued my Masters in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech after moving to the United States. I am currently living in the United States with my husband and two boys (6 and 1).
I have owned and contributed to several different blogs all my adult life. Being a software engineer, I love customizing my site with a bunch of custom add-ons and when I found integration difficult, I started looking for better options. After playing around with maintaining my own website on AWS (Amazon Web Services), I switched to the Ghost platform and I am pumped about it. Being an introvert, I enjoy communicating with people via social media so write to me and we can start chatting about common interests.
This blog is to bring to you my thoughts and ideas related to my interests listed below.
Interests
Fountain Pens and Inks
I have been using fountain pens for as long as I can remember. I loved picking up new fountain pens at the beginning of every school year. Every new place I went to, my dad took me to a stationery store to get a cool pen. When I went visiting my grandma, she got me cool pens and books to spend my summer with. Those days it was just a blue, black, red and green inks - and reds and greens were reserved for school staff. I used to do trades with friends at school for Pilot Precise colored pens. As I grew up fountain pens took a back seat and I got busy with life - school, work, marriage. After marriage, I was a home maker for about 6 months when I started looking around for my favorites and boom - I fell down the rabbit hole of fountain pens and its sister, inks. I have been been hooked ever since. I love collecting limited editions and using the variety of nibs (both standard and specialty) and the world of ink colors. I will be posting about my various pens and inks from time to time on this blog. Stay tuned!
Paper
What are fountain pens and inks and watercolors in the current age without good paper to play with them! From simple 32 lb premium printer paper to Tomoe River paper to watercolor paper, I love trying all of them. I also stock up on paper and notebooks every chance I get. There can never be too many notebooks!
Planners/Journals
I started using fountain pens and inks again in 2014 after a few years of break, and I definitely got drawn to planners. Journals are always a favorite and I collect unique notebooks everytime I saw one. Planners have just been my school diary and the diary that my dad gave me for every new year until I saw the world of Hobonichis and Midoris. I navigated towards using planners with the cool paper types to enable my fountain pen usage.
I eventually branched into using ring bound planners and travelers notebooks and was fascinated by the small business owners making fabulous inserts. I was intrigued and also wanted inhouse solutions for the perfect insert size and type. I created my own planner inserts and offered them briefly in my Etsy shop then. I no longer sell them but offer a few freebies in my favorite sizes. You can find the link in the Freebies page.
I love leather planners and notebook covers - this is definitely a spin-off rabbit hole from fountain pens and inks. Some of my favorite brands for leather covers are Gillio Firenze and Vanderspek but I occasionally try other brands as well.
Sketching and Painting
I have dabbled in sketching and painting since my third grade when I failed a drawing contest because of being unprepared. I took it as a challenge to learn to sketch and paint and I never missed winning a contest that I participated in going forward. I love sketching and using colors. Creativity is huge part of my everyday life and I find it best expressed with sketching. Of course, again comes the different mediums. I used to paint large canvases in acrylics and oils but lately it has been watercolors and inks. I also love creating digitally. I enjoy mixed media creations often in my daily journals.
Programming/Technology
I am a software engineer by profession and love playing with coding and latest technologies. I enjoy experimenting with latest gadgets within my needs and limits. I love dabbling in latest programming language updates, understanding the current trend and how it would help me achieve something for my personal projects or at work. I am recently learning more cloud and system architecture design to address knowledge gaps and stay current.
I have a couple smaller personal projects in progress that combine my love for planning and journaling with my love for technology creating an accessible way for avid planners and journalers to setup their desired system.
My content here will be a mix of all the above mentioned interests. I might occasionally steer away from this list below to channel my touch and go interests (cooking being one of them). Feel free to reach out to me with special requests for content or to collaborate.