Reach for help

 I pride myself in being an upbeat,optimistic person. I tend to find solutions or distractions out of problems. 

But for the past few days I was just sad. There was an all permeating sense of grief. The usual methods of making myself feel better were not working. Nothing felt good at all. I didn't feel like exercising or listening to music. The tears were relentless.

I took the day off sick. I could have tried harder, but I realised that it was just not done. I took the time off. I chatted with a dear friend and felt much better for sure. I knew my job wasn't making me any happier so I went ahead and applied for another. I know it was perhaps a rash move, but it was something I wanted to do. Then I exercised a bit and definitely felt better.

I am so glad that we live in  a day and age where mental health is given importance. I feel blessed that I was able to book the time to step away from work and the demands of it. I feel blessed that I have the support system of a small but sturdy network of friends and family. 

But I also wish that everyone is able to avail it. The small joy of having someone to talk to, a shoulder to lean on. There I am sure ample avenues to talk to someone when in need, someone outside the network of friends and family. If anyone reading this, feels the need to talk to me, please feel free. The feeling of acute sadness, when nothing feels nice and one seems to lack the energy to do the basic tasks can be quite debilitating. There need not be a concrete reason for it or there can be a mixture of many. It is not a pleasant feeling to silently sit and suffer. I hope everyone realises when they are in need of a good talk, when they are in need of a mental break. And I hope everyone who is dealing  with it, a speedy recovery. 

Parents are annoying indeed!

 You remember when I wrote about my super duper annoying parents? Well they have proven to be more so with the passing years. 

My sister had gone to India to visit them during the Christmas vacations. During one of the video calls, I mentioned that it had been nearly years since I had mutton curry and had in fact forgotten the taste of it. Not that I am a bit mutton eater or even a non veg eater for that matter. 

But it was something my parents registered. The day before my sister was to start, Papa got the best mutton he could find. Mummy sweated for hours to make her signature curry. They froze it so that it remained fresh for the more than 24 hours it had to spend in different modes of transport to cross continents. And finally I had a taste of mummy made most deletable mutton curry ever! Every spoon tasted of love and concern and the undying commitment my parents have for their kids. In our younger days they did their bit of guiding and scolding. But now that we are adults, when they pamper us with these small but super meaningful gestures, it feels like divinity itself. No one spoils an adult like their parents!!

Cant help but reminisce

 The total bliss of Christmas holidays are over. And I can't help but look back at the wonderful time that went by. It went by in the blink of an eye, it seems. 

The kids' holidays kickstarted on the 19th of December and since then the 'holiday spirit' kicked in. There was no getting up right on time, getting their breakfast, hair and uniform fixed and rushing out of the door before logging into work. And then the madness of the evening with the pickup and the meal preps and what not. The mornings and evenings were way more relaxed and that for me is the best part. 

We as often is the norm got an early finish on the 23rd which was the last working day before Christmas. And then there were some more phone calls to home and general relaxing since I had an invitation from a friend for dinner that night. My friend is Romanian and vegan. And she had made some wonderful stuff combining those two characteristics. I was wary of the kids since they are very fussy eaters. But they fared amazingly. She also presented them some kid friendly mock-tails and adult looking desserts which pleased them to no end!

We do not do much over Christmas but this year we had plans for an early celebration for Pumki's birthday. That warranted a cake! So on Christmas eve we marched to the nearby shopping centre to get cream and cocoa powder which were essential ingredients. On the way we met a few strangers and it was a very pleasant feeling to wish random people. 

We had two ginormous lego sets for the kids as Christmas gift. Since they would take a load of time to build, they were game for them to be handed over a day before Christmas. The excitement was just awesome to see them unravel the gifts and get building on them. They enjoy lego a lot and it is a very immersive gift. Thanks to them being tied up with it, I was able to do a ton of cleaning in the house and also catch up on 2 Hindi movies! I generally dont watch movies since I cannot give the time for it. A disjointed movie is not a good experience to have. But this time I was able to carve out the hours to watch Doctor G and Freddy. And the best part was, they were very good movies. Two that I would definitely recommend. 

Christmas Eve and Christmas day were more or less hibernation mode for us. There were four of us in the living room, the heating on: K playing video games, girls on lego and me reading a book or watching the movies. It was so deeply pleasurable. It was just immensely joyful to feel that warm wrap of family. It was good that we were having this restful time, since there were some busy days coming up :D 

Toodaloo 2022

 This time of the year comes around so quickly doesn't it? Literally seems like yesterday I was penning this for 2021. And we are about to draw the curtains on 2022. 

I have savoured many things in 2021. Since I am typing this from a hotel room it makes sense to highlight the best thing to happen this year. It was the trip to Iceland. It was to be a trip of dreams..something we could only imagine  given the fact that Iceland is quite an expensive place. But an of the cuff discussion led to prices being checked, with plans being made, with holidays being booked and a trip being made. It was the best place I have been to. It was tiring, rejuvenating, unique and spiritual. I have written many posts about it and I could keep waxing eloquent still. I had not experienced anything like Iceland and I am grateful to God to have brought it to me. The amazing trip came with its dark cloud too. The kids didn't like it as much as we would have wanted them to. :( Especially Pumpki who simply hated it. She is not yet game for the long tours that are a part of covering such exotic places.

We were able to make a trip to the Jersey islands which were another unique place to have been. It was deeply educative to be through the numerous museums and forts. And we managed to ring in Pumpki's birthday with a trip to London's natural history museum. The wannabe paleantologist deserved this as her birthday gift. It was every bit fun for Chiyaa and the adults. 

Talking about trips, the one I hated was those to my work place which had been made mandatory twice a week from March. When lockdown hit in 2020, working  from home became a part of life. Going back to working at actual desks in formal attire seemed like a thing that happened to other people  by late 2021. But 2022 saw the 'opening' up of places and the return of normalcy as defined pre-pandemic. I was not game for returning to office  and had to start looking for places which had a flexible attitude towards it. I was not very keen on carpet  bombing my resume through job sites either because I loved the place where I worked, loved the people I worked with, loved the stuff I worked on and also loved the pay I got for doing the stuff I loved. Looking for another place satisfying all these criteria was going to be hard. So I took the delicate approach of sending my resume across to ex-collleagues who were more or less friends. And one shot clicked and I ended up getting a new job in July! 

Anything new comes with a ton of re-adjustment. On the surface most things were hunky dory. But I had too many good stuff  happening at my previous work place. It would have been impossible for any new job to match up to it all. At the moment, I am quite dissatisfied with a lot of things and harbour a keen desire to move on. But the work from home is too luscious a carrot to forsake, so for the near future I am sticking with that as incentive. 

Talking of incentives, K and I bought a pair of adjustable dumbbells as an incentive to workout. And somehow they have been the best thing ever! We have encouraged each other to carry on stenght training. But I must confess we have neglected the cardio aspect of fitness. The new year we both plan on coming back to running and improving on stats there. New year comes with many more plans too. There are plans for the house. There are plans for a few more trips. There are plans with family. There are plans with friends. 2022 had taught me, not everything every time goes to plan. But hoping for the best and mentally preparing for any consequence helps. Here is hoping to anyone passing by this post that 2023 brings to fruition all the pleasant plans. And if some plans don't work out, may it just be a pleasant learning exercise. Happy New Year! 

Its the most wonderful time of the year

 Or so the song goes. Its not the most wonderful, but it is relaxed for sure. The girls are on their Christmas break and the house is filled with their howls and giggles :) There is enough fighting and just enough peace making. Since the weather is quite bleak and murky they do not get enough outdoor activity. To remediate this, in steps Cruel Mom Mwahahaha! 

I mandate a walk in the evening. So yesterday we went on a walk around 1630 in the evening. It was pitch black by then, but thank God for street lighting and the jolly Christmas lights that people tend to put up around this time :) To incentivise the walk, I give one ear pod each to a child and act as the DJ dishing out songs. Now poor Pumpki has much smaller ears. The ear pods keep popping out. We had walked only a few metres and they had come off twice *facepalm* Then there was a brilliant idea by yours truly! Hat! We ran home and got a hat to secure the ear pod! Wow! The joys of cold, murky weather :P

We walked a decent stretch and were a few paces from home when the girls kept fiddling with their ear pods. I asked them to hand it over to me. They did. In my enthusiasm to secure them , my cold, numb fingers dropped one of them! On the road! With traffic buzzing past! Good Gawd!!!! The ear pods are a blessing for me. They keep me company with audio books when I do the most soul zapping tasks like folding clothes or cleaning the house. Even for interesting tasks like cooking, they are good company ;) And now I would have one :( The tragedy! And the over thinker me, already charted how one ear would be more impacted than the other and then it would lead to all sorts of issues.  When the traffic was clear, I kept crossing the road to look. Thankfully being a residential area, the cars were not zipping past to kill me. The kids were equally distraught. Then suddenly Pumpki shouted, I found it. It was just a few paces from here. Being closer to the ground due to her shorter height she could see it. (This totally reminded me of a physics problem we used to do in school, about what would be the height of a person if he can see the sun across a sand dune, or something like that. Also not sure if it was Physics or Mathematics. ) This was the reversal of that situation of what distance a person can look down :D 

With Pumpki having saved day, a lot of praise was bestowed on her. Even by Chiyaa who is not so generous with praise for her younger sister. She was patting Pumpki's back and thumping her shoulders as if Pumpki has scored the winning World Cup penalty shot! All is well that ends well and to end it even better, the trio marched to the nearest store to get some chocolates to celebrate!

PS. I think it was a Mathematics problem in trigonometry :D

Yours thankfully :)

 I turned a year older. Not that it matters. But the day is made so special by people who love me that I can only thank God.

It started with Chiyaa taking the responsibility to bake a cake. As I have said, we love the channel Bake with Shivesh and his Devil's food Cake. She took the full ownership to check the recipe and mix the ingredients while taking minor guidance from me. It was amazing to see her so committed to the effort. Pumpki was not so keen on it initially. But then enthusiasm like all emotions is contagious. She too joined in and the end result was an amazing, luscious cake! On my birthday, breakfast was cake! What can be more awesome than that for a child 

K and I had the day off. We have realised that the city centre is a 5.5 km walk from our home. For his birthday we had walked the distance and rewarded ourselves with a Japanese buffet. We decided to do a repeat this year. It was a bit hard to walk in the 0 degrees temperature, loaded with heavy jacket and scarves and hats and what not. But we still managed it.  The buffet was super satisfying and I must say I am so so in love with Japanese food!

Food done, we did some window shopping and took in the sights of the Christmas decorations. There were a lot of tempting options, but then we moved on with promises to come back and shop at leisure some other day. Because school pick ups beckoned. 

We had plans to go for an ice skating session at a nearby mall. We went all geared up. And my God! were we awful at it. The kids fell and I had to control my laughter and pick them up, all the while making sure that I did not fall! There were some tears of frustration from the kids for sure, but I will applaud them for taking it on their chin and trying their best. They even managed to stand and take a few steps without help. For the first attempt I would say it was amazing! I on the contrary was determined not to FALL on my birthday. So I clung on to the side railings as if my dear life depended on it. I kept going sssssslide quite some time and on the verge of falling on my backside, but then my arm strength worked. And I was able to cling to the side walls without a fall. After a bitter sweet experience, we have decided to go for skating lessons nearby :) 

End of session, we re-fuelled ourselves and then called it a day. A day of sweet nothings. A day full of love from family and a lovely set of friends who keep me in their thoughts. I could not be more thankful. 

Stupid Distances

 Last Saturday my sister went to India for the winter holidays. She was with me for a little over a year. It is funny how time flies. Reminds me of a quote "The days are long years are short". It seems like a blink of an eye that she came here. There was the initial adjustment. Then she got used to stuff. And then she started pitching in to some house tasks being a life saver. Especially cooking the lunch on a Saturday (Saturday mornings are madness because of the girls' swimming. There is utter chaos getting both of them out for their lessons. Then its an even tiring routine of getting them showered and drying their long hair) She used to take the very important task of getting hot meals ready on a Saturday morning. So much so that when last Saturday when the girls came back, the first thing they said was "We are so used to having her at home :) "

She used to play with the girls especially Pumpki who loved bullying her and playing with her in equal measure :D It is seamless how someone new comes over and then becomes an integral part of things. She has been here through two Diwalis. She has been here when I used to goto work in my last place for the 2 days. She has been here when I was preparing for a new role and was isolating myself to prepare. She has been here when I got the new role and had the first months of realignment. She has been here on family holidays. She has had fights with me! Like all siblings, we too have our fare share of fights :) But like most siblings, we patch up quite quickly too :) 

I miss the emptiness that she has left. I miss sitting beside her and working. I miss sharing memes with her and chuckling. I miss her cups of tea. There is some solace, she will be back in 6 weeks and she is with our parents who miss her too! The distances are just so stupid :(