31 October - 13 November
Today is November 13th. Which means I have not written any post for 2 whole weeks! What a bummer.
But in my defense, it has been a rather tough two weeks. As soon as we got back from Kashmir, I caught the flu and the husband caught the stomach flu. Just when we recovered, the little one caught the stomach flu. And just when she recovered, I caught the stomach flu! Yeah, it was messy. And I was completely spent after about 12 days of this sickness extravaganza.
But then beautiful things still do happen. Let me list out 14 good things over the past 14 days, just as a means of compensation.
1) Diwali - I was pretty sick during Diwali, so we weren't planning to do anything special at our place. But thanks to some encouragement and help from our helper, we ended up celebrating Diwali in style! All of us got dressed up, lit the lamps placed around the house, did some puja, ate sweets, took pictures and felt pretty good. Especially now that we have the little one, I really want to celebrate every festival, and am glad that we had our own small, beautiful celebration! We also attended Diwali parties at my brother in law's and a friends's places - complete with cards and other games, great food, lights and sparklers. Nett, it became a pretty good Diwali!
2) Winnings - Diwali became even more awesome because, for a change, I actually won a few rounds of Bingo (also called Tambola/Housie) and Teen Patti (a card game). My winnings are of the range of $6 - $15 only but as we all know, it is about the experience of winning than the amount. I usually have terrible luck when it comes to these games and it felt great to be on the other side!
3) Hubby's office - The hubby, who is working in a startup that he has co-founded, had recently expanded his office. I had not been to the new office and just got an opportunity to take a look when we went there to perform a small Diwali puja. I fell in love with the walls in the brand colours, the bean bags scattered around, the ergonomic chairs and the excellent chococino from their espresso machine! It was all pretty awesome! His partner and family were also present and we had a short but nice time together, while the kids...they have a boy and we had taken our little one along as well.... had a pretty merry time themselves. It was fun!
4) Aravindum Aarumughamum team comes together - We were supposed to shoot the film end of this month but one of the lead actor's dad fell ill and he had to rush back to India. I decided to postpone the shoot but in a heartening turn of events, was asked not to do so, by the team including this particular actor. They encouraged me stick to the plan and committed to make the most of the time that we have, instead of postponing indefinitely. His dad is better now and we are sticking to the original schedule. We are no longer as prepared as we should have been by now, had things gone according to plan, but just the fact that the team believes in the project and wants to see it through, makes me super happy!
5) Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - She is my most recent literary discovery. I am always on the lookout for interesting books by Indian authors and came across a collection of her short stories and man, she is awesome! Turned out that she is not an Indian but only married to one, yet her stories set in India give incredible perspective on the way of life there and she has managed to capture so many of the nuances typical of the country! I am definitely going to look out for more of her works, but for now, thoroughly enjoying myself reading her "East into Upper East: Plain Tales from New York & New Delhi"!
6) Little one's final birthday celebration for the year! - Yes, her birthday celebrations are still continuing! We didn't really get to celebrate the event with our friends here in Singapore and hence, now that we are back from Kashmir, we decided to give them a "treat", Indian style. Even though the original plan was to treat them for brunch somewhere outside, our helper insisted that she wants to cook for the event and got me to invite everyone over! It was a rather nice gesture by her and I was pretty touched. She made Pulav rice, Gobi Kheema, Kerala style chicken curry, Aloo 65 and Baked yogurt! Everyone came over, showered the little one with gifts - including a gigantic soft duck that is now occupying half my living room, had lunch, sang "happy birthday" as we cut a really cute cake that I ordered last minute, played games and made it all very merry and happy. Thus, her birthday celebrations for the year came to an end with this last round of small, beautiful gathering! Wishing her many, many, many more!
7) Kitchen & Cooking - Cooking is a rather rare activity for me. But for the little one's birthday celebration, when the helper said that she would like to cook for everyone, I decided that I need to help out as well. So after a long hiatus, I was back in the kitchen and was given the task of making baked yogurt dessert. And I enjoyed that - figuring out the mix, decorating with different types of jams, packing it all up in tiny serving cups for refrigeration and finally serving them all with relish, all under her able supervision, of course. Post baked yogurt, I even grated a ton of cauliflower for the gobi kheema, which made me feel like a pro! Totally awesome!
8) A good cause - I managed to raise some funds for a family back in my hometown. The husband is suffering from kidney failure and requires transplant and the wife is the donor. This puts them in a pretty tough situation with both being out of job, with three kids and hefty bills to pay and debts to clear off. When my mom told me about this, I did my best to spread the word and collect some funds to help them. I guess one is supposed to do these things selflessly but I would be lying if I say that it didn't make me feel good. Because, it did.
9) Kashmir blogs - Even though I was sick, I did manage to write the blogs on the Kashmir travel in detail. Initially I was planning to put a couple of pictures and get done with it, but then decided against it. That gorgeous place deserves every bit of writing about it and am glad I took that trouble. Now all the details could be forever remembered. Also, after reading the blog, quite a number of people said they will be planning trips to Kashmir and that makes me happy, because the locals thrive on tourism and due to the tensions in the region, are in quite a bad situation. So the more tourists, the better for them!
10) Yoga record - Including what I managed over the last couple of days, I have now done 60 days of yoga this year, which is kind of a personal record for me! The previous highest was 59 in 2011. I know 60 doesn't sound like a lot but each yoga class takes 3 hours including commute, so am glad I managed so much.
11) Exercise record - This also brings the total number of days I exercised this year to a grand total of 150 - 50% more than my target and 20% more than my highest annual number ever! I will do another check at the end of Dec, but I already feel pretty good about this.
12) Lost a kilo - am not sure whether it is the effect of the exercise or just the sickness, but looks like I have dropped a kilo. Even though am no longer too hung about the extra weight am retaining post pregnancy, it felt good when the scale showed an unexpected drop. Let's see how long this will be maintained!
13) Little one's tricks - The little one is becoming quite an entertaining person to watch every day. She goes into these melodramatic acting sequences - it is like watching a Tamil movie from the 70s. She screams, stretches, quivers, pops her eyes, rolls over, sticks her tongue out and end it all with her toothless grin. She has also now figured out how to use the iPhone and iPad - switching the main button, swiping it on, glancing through the pictures, playing games and so on. I never thought that it would be this fascinating to watch kids on their discovery journey. She also imitates every single thing - if I "shush" her, she does the same to me. If I talk on the phone, she pretends to talk on the phone. If I pretend to go into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, she will go into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. What fun! Plus her first words are out - "amma", "ta ta", "nah".
14) Transcendental Meditation - And last but not the least I have discovered transcendental meditation. This simple but rather fulfilling method has really got me hooked! Hoping that it would turn into a regular practice now.
And with that - I conclude on the last 14 days. I was sick through most of it, but it definitely wasn't bad at all. Thank God for that!
Today is November 13th. Which means I have not written any post for 2 whole weeks! What a bummer.
But in my defense, it has been a rather tough two weeks. As soon as we got back from Kashmir, I caught the flu and the husband caught the stomach flu. Just when we recovered, the little one caught the stomach flu. And just when she recovered, I caught the stomach flu! Yeah, it was messy. And I was completely spent after about 12 days of this sickness extravaganza.
But then beautiful things still do happen. Let me list out 14 good things over the past 14 days, just as a means of compensation.
1) Diwali - I was pretty sick during Diwali, so we weren't planning to do anything special at our place. But thanks to some encouragement and help from our helper, we ended up celebrating Diwali in style! All of us got dressed up, lit the lamps placed around the house, did some puja, ate sweets, took pictures and felt pretty good. Especially now that we have the little one, I really want to celebrate every festival, and am glad that we had our own small, beautiful celebration! We also attended Diwali parties at my brother in law's and a friends's places - complete with cards and other games, great food, lights and sparklers. Nett, it became a pretty good Diwali!
2) Winnings - Diwali became even more awesome because, for a change, I actually won a few rounds of Bingo (also called Tambola/Housie) and Teen Patti (a card game). My winnings are of the range of $6 - $15 only but as we all know, it is about the experience of winning than the amount. I usually have terrible luck when it comes to these games and it felt great to be on the other side!
3) Hubby's office - The hubby, who is working in a startup that he has co-founded, had recently expanded his office. I had not been to the new office and just got an opportunity to take a look when we went there to perform a small Diwali puja. I fell in love with the walls in the brand colours, the bean bags scattered around, the ergonomic chairs and the excellent chococino from their espresso machine! It was all pretty awesome! His partner and family were also present and we had a short but nice time together, while the kids...they have a boy and we had taken our little one along as well.... had a pretty merry time themselves. It was fun!
4) Aravindum Aarumughamum team comes together - We were supposed to shoot the film end of this month but one of the lead actor's dad fell ill and he had to rush back to India. I decided to postpone the shoot but in a heartening turn of events, was asked not to do so, by the team including this particular actor. They encouraged me stick to the plan and committed to make the most of the time that we have, instead of postponing indefinitely. His dad is better now and we are sticking to the original schedule. We are no longer as prepared as we should have been by now, had things gone according to plan, but just the fact that the team believes in the project and wants to see it through, makes me super happy!
5) Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - She is my most recent literary discovery. I am always on the lookout for interesting books by Indian authors and came across a collection of her short stories and man, she is awesome! Turned out that she is not an Indian but only married to one, yet her stories set in India give incredible perspective on the way of life there and she has managed to capture so many of the nuances typical of the country! I am definitely going to look out for more of her works, but for now, thoroughly enjoying myself reading her "East into Upper East: Plain Tales from New York & New Delhi"!
6) Little one's final birthday celebration for the year! - Yes, her birthday celebrations are still continuing! We didn't really get to celebrate the event with our friends here in Singapore and hence, now that we are back from Kashmir, we decided to give them a "treat", Indian style. Even though the original plan was to treat them for brunch somewhere outside, our helper insisted that she wants to cook for the event and got me to invite everyone over! It was a rather nice gesture by her and I was pretty touched. She made Pulav rice, Gobi Kheema, Kerala style chicken curry, Aloo 65 and Baked yogurt! Everyone came over, showered the little one with gifts - including a gigantic soft duck that is now occupying half my living room, had lunch, sang "happy birthday" as we cut a really cute cake that I ordered last minute, played games and made it all very merry and happy. Thus, her birthday celebrations for the year came to an end with this last round of small, beautiful gathering! Wishing her many, many, many more!
7) Kitchen & Cooking - Cooking is a rather rare activity for me. But for the little one's birthday celebration, when the helper said that she would like to cook for everyone, I decided that I need to help out as well. So after a long hiatus, I was back in the kitchen and was given the task of making baked yogurt dessert. And I enjoyed that - figuring out the mix, decorating with different types of jams, packing it all up in tiny serving cups for refrigeration and finally serving them all with relish, all under her able supervision, of course. Post baked yogurt, I even grated a ton of cauliflower for the gobi kheema, which made me feel like a pro! Totally awesome!
8) A good cause - I managed to raise some funds for a family back in my hometown. The husband is suffering from kidney failure and requires transplant and the wife is the donor. This puts them in a pretty tough situation with both being out of job, with three kids and hefty bills to pay and debts to clear off. When my mom told me about this, I did my best to spread the word and collect some funds to help them. I guess one is supposed to do these things selflessly but I would be lying if I say that it didn't make me feel good. Because, it did.
9) Kashmir blogs - Even though I was sick, I did manage to write the blogs on the Kashmir travel in detail. Initially I was planning to put a couple of pictures and get done with it, but then decided against it. That gorgeous place deserves every bit of writing about it and am glad I took that trouble. Now all the details could be forever remembered. Also, after reading the blog, quite a number of people said they will be planning trips to Kashmir and that makes me happy, because the locals thrive on tourism and due to the tensions in the region, are in quite a bad situation. So the more tourists, the better for them!
10) Yoga record - Including what I managed over the last couple of days, I have now done 60 days of yoga this year, which is kind of a personal record for me! The previous highest was 59 in 2011. I know 60 doesn't sound like a lot but each yoga class takes 3 hours including commute, so am glad I managed so much.
11) Exercise record - This also brings the total number of days I exercised this year to a grand total of 150 - 50% more than my target and 20% more than my highest annual number ever! I will do another check at the end of Dec, but I already feel pretty good about this.
12) Lost a kilo - am not sure whether it is the effect of the exercise or just the sickness, but looks like I have dropped a kilo. Even though am no longer too hung about the extra weight am retaining post pregnancy, it felt good when the scale showed an unexpected drop. Let's see how long this will be maintained!
13) Little one's tricks - The little one is becoming quite an entertaining person to watch every day. She goes into these melodramatic acting sequences - it is like watching a Tamil movie from the 70s. She screams, stretches, quivers, pops her eyes, rolls over, sticks her tongue out and end it all with her toothless grin. She has also now figured out how to use the iPhone and iPad - switching the main button, swiping it on, glancing through the pictures, playing games and so on. I never thought that it would be this fascinating to watch kids on their discovery journey. She also imitates every single thing - if I "shush" her, she does the same to me. If I talk on the phone, she pretends to talk on the phone. If I pretend to go into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, she will go into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. What fun! Plus her first words are out - "amma", "ta ta", "nah".
14) Transcendental Meditation - And last but not the least I have discovered transcendental meditation. This simple but rather fulfilling method has really got me hooked! Hoping that it would turn into a regular practice now.
And with that - I conclude on the last 14 days. I was sick through most of it, but it definitely wasn't bad at all. Thank God for that!
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