2013 - Another year gone by

Today on the very last day of this year, I want to look back and see how my year went. I am still confused, am not able to judge how my year went.

I don't even remember what my resolutions were for the year :) (yeah very convenient!)

I made mistakes, terrible ones. I fought with and didn't speak to 2 of my most important people in my life for more than a month for the reason that they are not spending enough time with me. I couldn't have been more foolish than that and lost more time in quest of gaining some.

I took on more on my plate than I could chew, ended up with health issues, got scared of dying sooner. Life is indeed precious and there was no other way I could be made aware of it.

Akshara got admission to one of the best schools in Bangalore (we were surprised too ! :) )and all of us settled down in to this new routine of sleeping early(8:30 pm anyone? )  and waking up early(5:00 am.. yes!! )

2 memorable holidays in the year. Small dent in the savings but worth it. Look forward to bigger dents next year :)

There were ups.. where I felt on top of the world and there were drastic downs when I felt I was at the bottom most bottom of the earth , stayed there for sometime and then realized I was at the top of another side :)

Happy new year folks, wishing, hoping, praying 2014 is as good as your best year so far, and only gets better! Happy ride on one more round around the sun! Go earth!

Ace of hearts

Love.Truly.Madly.Deeply.... I do
Moments of love.... I have 
Sweet memories.... I lived
Bonds for life..... I built
Respect .... I earned
Friends for life..... I made
Regrets..... I deny 
Forgive ..... I excelled
But... 
 I miss.... YOU n Only YOU

Pat on the back!

I have achieved quite a few things in the recent past:

1) Achieved 324% burn rate on the jog.
2) My daughter called me "cooking leader" yesterday after the lil experiment with the shaped puris.
3) My boss called me dedicated and a quick learner during the mid year review. ( no awards though! :( )
4) N appreciated the chicken curry I cooked yesterday night. (He will be served the same tonight too.. so much for appreciating!! )
5) My friend called me creative for the ideas I gave her for her daughter's fancy dress competition :) (Shez my best friend from today :D )

Am on a high! Totally!

Appreciation does a lot to boost your motivation. Now am all set to do better at work, surprise my daughter with varieties in her snack box and yeah lose some weight and be a better cook :)


Barfi juke box on.. back to work!

Pure Love.

Birthdays are exciting and fun between the age of 4 to 23.. (give a cushion of 2 more years on the higher range if you are just married or not yet married but have a huge gang of friends to celebrate with) .. after that the charm of birthdays die down. You are either bugged by the increasing number of the age or by the amount of your hard earned money that you spend on treating others( this thought never crosses once when you blow up your dads money to treat your friends :) ) or you have become so old that your birthday is just another day and your children's bday takes precedence.

Out of all this hullaboo about birthdays, am glad to say that I know one man who gives so much importance to his grandson's birthday that out of the 36 birthdays so far, he has missed only one. He makes it a point to be with his grandson on his birthday year after year. He is 85+ now. He has to travel around 20 hours by bus and train to reach his grandson, but for him it doesn't matter. He can muster all his energy and be there right where his grandson is waiting for him.

Its delightful to such bonding, where it grows only stronger by the years, no expectations, no complaints, no disappointments, just pure love.

This instills my belief in human bonding by love and not by any selfish motives, expectations, give and take or just a formality.

Love me for who I am!

concerns of thirty plus.

Health tests - done
results - partly done
resolutions - many taken... Broken some today.
Good health is a blessing and am counting my blessings today. Jaan hai tho jahaan hai
May God bless you all with good health, peace and happiness. Rest all will follow.

good deed indeed

Its a good thing to remember birthdays and to call and wish. It makes the bday bum feel special :)
I remembered to call up a friend whom i last met about 17 years ago and wished her happy birthday. We were benchmates till class 6 n later i changed school. We were best of friends and i still felt that bond when we spoke today.
Nostalgic. Definitely. And a feel good moment that I made her feel special, that i still remember her birthday after all these years and get back in touch.
Let the life race go on but I resolved to collect sweet memories all way long.

Introspect

A bad dream.. a lingering bad thought... a disturbed mind. Those times when uncertainity of life bothers you.. you feel you are not living the present enough.. I dont have the courage to face the uncertainities.. I shed tears for others suffering.. living in this imperfect world leading an uncertain life has left me scared today. God bless everyone with peace n happiness.

Missed call from Life

There are times when you retrospect, and think of all the opportunities that you had overlooked which were life changing.

The opportunities /choices thrown at us are abundant... so life is essentially the choices we make and finally blame others for everything that had ever gone wrong.

so much philosophy..... pondering over my missed calls from life.. how life would've been different from what it is now!

Lesson learnt : When life's calling... answer! :)

life's lil surprises

Its sometimes nice to run into old acquaintances out of the blue. Was pleasantly surprised to see one of my college senior seated right besides my cubicle wow n yes he recognized me too :) In order to fix some things i broke multiple things at work. Bad work. Naatu kodi koora for dinner made my otherwise useless day worthwhile :)

Wassup?

A comment brought me back to the blog.. been quite sometime.. haven't managed to get time to write with the current scheme of things.

June 28th : Akshara's first ever homework! I was excited... but yeah it soon died down. It was quite amusing  how she could cook up stories to avoid doing the work and had all the question in the world to ask right then! Getting the 2 page homework done once a week can be quite a task. Kudos to parents who get their kids to do the homework every day!!

June 23rd : I was reading a book and she popped an innocent but heartbreaking(for me of course) question.. "Amma.. do you have a tail.. like a buffallo tail.. are you hiding it in you pant?" What kind of question is that and I have no idea what prompted her to ask that!! I so want to peep in to her mind and know her thought process :)

June 15th : I made the creamy , melt in mouth mango cheese cake and it was near perfect. Never mind the calories. The very next day I make a basic(est) dal of Andhra cuisine and it turns out to be a disaster. All I had to do was put the lentils for boiling to get a typical consistency of the boiled mass. I failed.. miserably.
The day I will be sure of my cooking, I will be in heaven (quite literally)!

June 7th : Akki's first day at school, new school, bigger one, while she was ignorant of the life changing event, I was a bundle of nerves. The school routine is more to discipline our lives! Uniforms, socks, shoes, snack box, school bus, homeworks.. its just too overwhelming and too strict a routine 11 years after college!
Waking the lil one up from deep sleep at 6:45 AM seems like the greatest sin I ever committed. Her non stop wails to get ready and get going only add to the guilt. We(all 3 of us!) have never ever before waited for a weekend this badly.

May 29th : Cousins's wedding in peak summer at the hottest place (Kakinada). It was fun, sangeet dancing, mehendi, sarees, jewellery, best part.. the compliment (Groom is your elder brother, right??  haha he is 4 years younger to me yayyy :) ) Was at mom's place for 2 weeks getting pampered silly. Hated to come back .. but yeah had to. I now treasure the days I was at home so much more and so badly need a time machine to live those days back (may be along with akki :) ). Psst ... Secret fantasy : I want to have N in my class in college and have a love marriage :) You get the drift.. :)

So long.. till the next peaceful 10 minute me time!

Couple of thoughts

1) If I am through learning, then am through.

Reason : Am learning a lot , through people, through books, through articles, through everything else around me. Its fascinating to know about new things, but the day that enthusiasm will die within me to learn new stuff, I will be done with everything else .

2) Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid. - Einstein

The fish is best at swimming, it knew it couldn't climb  a tree. It still went ahead and tried and got judged on that. Fish got it right almost there.

Fish failed and it let the judgement make her believe it was a stupid! It really was stupid. How can we make someone else's judgment affect us so bad that we stop believing in ourselves and our abilities? Why does it matter so much.. what others think of me should ideally be none of my business.. but in this bad bad world.. it just doesn't work that way. People judge you every minute, everyday on everything. For you to be declared the best in the field, someone else who is already considered the best needs to judge you and tell you .. you are the best! When you try to tell the world, you really are good at something, you will be considered pompous!

Tomorrow I will be judged on my knowledge I gained over last couple of months, with just 45 questions. It sure is going to affect me if I do not get through, but I don't want to end up being the fish which thinks its stupid all its life simply based on tomorrow's judgement. Is this doable? Am I ready for it? Am in a total smudged state of mind and hence this post to get some clarity and do some introspection. God bless me, I do not want to fail.

Back to learning.

little ones- Sweet littles

The little ones innocence instills some hope in you that its not that bad a world afterall.
Some things that they say, amuses you , and makes them even more adorable.

Yesterday, I took out my lunch box after coming from office and my daughter asked me, "Mamma, did u finish your lunch? What did u take? " I told her I took rice and I finished it. What she said next, made me feel so good! She said "Very good Mamma.. good job :) " I dont remember when was the last time I was appreciated for emptying my lunch box :) She just made my day by saying that!

The other day, it was her usual pee pee session before sleep, and she was not getting it. I was sleepy and was asking her to do it fast. She said " Mamma, am not getting it now, I will do it tomorrow ok? " Awww..

I hope she retains her innocence longer and give us more such precious moments!