Today morning I woke up with a chest filled with phlegm. Okay, let’s not get into the details. But ideally this is not a day I should be using my limited “me time” to sit up and blog, except that I am!
This one’s for NaBloPoMo. I took out my camera and tried to catch some colours.
This is all I could find inside the room I am sitting now. Of course, I could drag myself to the next room and raid my son’s tent. But man, I deserve a good sleep right now. I feel drunk on cough syrup.
And so, I’m posting a weight loss update. “But why?”, you ask. I say, because all the other cool girls I know are doing it. I thought I can be cool too.
During my college days, I was 47 kg. Well, 47 was the lowest I can remember. If I’m not wrong, I was fluctuating between 47 and 52 but since 47 sounds cool, I always told people that I was 47 kgs. My jeans was size 27 and I had the flattest tummy in the class! (SIGH! The good old days!)
3 years later, when I got married, I was still maintaining 52/53 and 6 months later, before I got pregnant, I was at 55. During pregnancy, my maximum weight was 69 and right after delivery I was 63. (A result of removing a 3 kg son and quite a lot of gluey stuff out of there)
1 year later around my son’s birthday, I was 59. Now a days I fluctuate between 57 and 59. But exactly why a fluctuation? I know not why. Probably the question has to be asked to the friend who gifted me 2 kgs ice cream which I (did I mention that hubby doesn’t eat ice cream?) finished in 2 weeks.
My current jeans size is 32 which is wee little loose near my tummy. The funniest part is, a couple of weeks back, I put on my jeans and found that it was way too loose. I had to pinch myself to confirm that it was happening and then I called hubby to share the great news. He took a glance and laughed at me. I was actually wearing his ‘size 34′ jeans!!!!
I love soduko, or sodoku, whatever. I’ve always associated numbers with challenges. I still remember before going for job interviews, I used to do some math inside my brain. I try to think of 3-4 digits multiplication and calculate inside. It made me stay awake. I’m not a maths major neither am I great with numbers but I enjoyed it.
When I was introduced to soduko, I was hooked up. Whenever I felt drowsy at office, I would play this game. It helped me. Now a days, I spend 10-15 minutes almost everyday solving the puzzle from morning paper. I tell Hubby that it rushes blood to my brain thus getting me started without having to do complicated physical exercises.
A few weeks back, I bought crocs for my son. On the way back, I met a good friend and we shared our shopping experience, and of course, displayed proudly what we had shopped. When she saw the crocs, she told me that 2 years back there was some incident about crocs being dangerous in escalators. I decided to do a research on it and here’s what I have found.
(I did not post any links. If you need, please type “Crocs escalator safety” in google and you get the exact results)
Here’s what I personally feel:
I still allow my son to wear his Crocs. I believe that if crocs can be sucked up, so does any other shoe of this size and similar materials. Unfortunately, most kids’ shoes are this size and material. So there’s really not much we can do about it. But what we can do is to understand escalator safety. Most of us don’t follow the instructions said about escalators. We have got so much used to it that we don’t think about escalator safety anymore.
My child is in a stage that he wouldn’t want to use a lift. He wants to walk up to the escalator and ride on it himself. Some times, he insist that I do not hold his hand, even though he is not balanced enough to ride escalator alone. But I do let him enjoy it holding to my hand.
As far as entrapment is concerned, I do not allow him to stand at the sides. He is always in the center of the escalator steps. And I don’t let him use the escalator if it’s crowded. We just wait patiently until everyone has gone (if it’s possible) otherwise, I carry him to the lift against his protests.
Feel free to share your views on this topic.
I’m taking this tag up from Monika. Here are the rules.
Ok then here are the abc’s…
A – Available?
No, invisible.
B – Best friend?
Saji, my only best friend since many years. We share nothing in common (neither in our own personalities nor in the people or things we chose) but her life seems to travel parallel to mine. I hope that was clear. Well, I’m not great with words but what I mean is this: For all the differences we have, she is always there within an arm’s distance and we can always break into each other’s homes in the middle of the night and demand a coffee, and a hug!
I get a feeling that the concept of “making best friends” faces a slow death after college days. Your colleagues, business associates, neighbours are the people who you spend most time with. But there is always a wall between them and you and lots of things in life fail to make it’s way through this wall. Not like the transparent college girl life and nobody from my current life can even stand near what I call as a ‘best friend’.
C – Cake or Pie?
Cakes. Hmmm. Yummy. May be I should make one today.
D – Drink of choice?
Given a choice, it would be somewhere between coke and starbucks cappuccino. But I chose the healthier option which is green tea with honey. Good for the skin and also throat.
E – Essential item you use every day?
Cell phone, toothpaste, clothes (!?!?!)
F – Favorite color?
I love the whole color spectrum.
G – Gummy Bears Or Worms?
Neither. Both are tasteless.
H – Hometown?
Nagercoil.
I – Indulgence?
Chocolates.
J – January or February?
February. For some reason, it is fascinating. It is also my sister’s birthday month.
K – Kids & their names?
15 month old son, Pappu.
L – Life is incomplete without?
Passion. A passion for atleast something. Hobbies, loved ones, faith, money, you name it. Whatever you choose, it requires a passion without which you don’t live at all.
M – Marriage date?
July 6th, 2006. A week after our wedding, we were in Munnar for honeymoon. We met another honeymoon couple there and when they asked when we were wedded, Hubby answered that it was on 7th july. We both laughed but we really didn’t feel much changes after the wedding.
Our jobs, busy weekdays, sleepy weekends were all the same except that we were sleeping together after the wedding. We assumed that the wedding day was of no importance except a formal announcement of our togetherness. That’s the reason we never celebrated our wedding anniversary. But we were wrong. That we understood only after celebrating this year’s anniversary. It is a beautiful renewal of our wedding vows and it feels like only now we are truly married.
N – Number of siblings?
1 sister.
Long back, I watched the movie ‘In her shoes‘ and I loved it. I so wanted to share it with my sister especially the poem by E.E.Cummings, but somehow I couldn’t talk about this to her. Now, this is a kind of sisters’ relationship you would have never heard of. We don’t talk comfortably about these things. Please don’t ask me why.
I never had the courage to talk about this, not even to my mother. Now, I shall share the same poem specially for my dear sister. I don’t care if this reaches her or not. But I know like the back of my hand, that she shares the same feeling too.
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go,my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)
i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
E E Cummings
I am not a poetry kind of person. So special thanks to the movie, without which, I would have never known who E E Cummings was.
O – Oranges or Apples?
Neither. I’ve eaten too much of both in the near past that every apple or orange that finds its way to my fridge would stay there forever until it’s been releaved of it’s poor soul. But currently we are surviving on bananas, watermelon and cherries, all of them Pappu’s favourites.
P – Phobias/Fears?
None.
Q – Quote for today?
Successful people do things that unsuccessful people are not willing to do. The secret is, they don’t like doing it either, but they do it anyway.
R – Reason to smile?
Everyday, Every minute. If these are not reasons enough to smile, here are some more. Every other smile that finds it’s way towards me, every loving word, my son’s face every single morning, sun shine, cool breeze, every second spent with the baby, hubby’s massage, his phone calls with no reason, and much more……
S – Season?
Anything except flu season. On a serious note, I love all year round. There are no seasons in singapore.
T – Tag three people?
U – Unknown fact about me?
I’m mostly an open book. What you see is what is behind. If I chose some fact to be unknown (if any), it ‘d better be left unknown.
V – Vegetable you don’t like?
Bittergourd. Otherwise, I like anything that is tasty.
W – Worst habit
I do not allow myself to rest. Even though ‘hyperactive’ is too strong a word, I walk around even when I’m thinking. I do not like to sit idly. Infact that explains why my toilet breaks are noticeably short.
X – X-rays you’ve had?
The first X ray that I remember: My sister and I were playing hide and seek in the roof terrace when I was about 10 years old. After a while, we thought it would be more exciting to cover one’s eyes with a cloth and try to catch the other. It was a pretty common game in the area, may be not on the terrace of a single storeyed house. Game went on excitingly for a while when I felt something in my leg and I slipped. Thank God for my closed eyes, I didn’t see where I was. All I could hear was my sister screaming “Mooooooooooooom. Sue fell down”. I sat up and removed the cloth from my eyes. I was in the yard on the ground floor. My grand father who was watering the plants came running towards me . I saw the shock in his eyes and strived hard to realise what I had just done. What happened after that was a blur, my nose was bleeding, I was rushed to the hospital. I was in full conscience and I even remember some of the minute details of the incident. That day was my first memory of having an X-ray done.
Y – Your favorite food?
Would anyone even care what my favourite food is? If not, I’m too lazy to list about 100 favourite food here.
Z – Zodiac sign?
Please wait a while. Let me check. Do they find it out by one’s birth date?
Edited to add: Cancer.
Who said money can’t buy happiness? It clearly does buy happiness, along with many other expensive goodies. (It’s only a bit difficult to digest the whole truth that money can buy happiness and beyond, if you keep money under control and not vice versa.)
We’d been too busy the past few months that we couldn’t find time to shop. As a result, I was repeating my clothes all the time and the other day Hubby wore tennis shoes to beach coz his sandals were worn out.
We spent the past 2 weeks shopping for them all. It was totally fun. I didn’t have time to blog, cook, eat and sleep. So I post photos here and try to convince you that it is of course a valid blog post!
***
We started with this for pappu after we lost his squeaky snoopy shoes. (Now I’m going to all the places we had been to during the past few weeks in an attempt to find them. Somebody will return it to me)
One of these days we went out to buy Hubby’s sandals but came back home carrying enough clothes for all of us and shoes for me and Pappu.
Oh please don’t ask me. I don’t moisturise my skin, alright.
And then we bought a denim overalls for Pappu. I’d been planning this one for so long. I was right. Denim overalls are the cutest things on earth.
We did finally find the sandals Hubby wanted in one of the shops (Only one shop in all of singapore? Hubby sure is a man of unique taste).
You spend a whole long day of shopping and you will still feel energetic. And you spend more money filling up your tummy and then you ask your Hubby to get some pictures and tell him to ignore your belly. He does, but the poor camera, it doesn’t know how to ignore the 2 kilos of extra fat hanging on to your tummy.
And not to mention, the joy of spending money even gets to the face of your one year old.
(For concerned souls, we did not buy these glasses for him.)
Last monday was our wedding anniversary. Like everybody says, I do not believe that it is 3 years already. But what everybody doesn’t say is, this was the first time we celebrated our anniversary. Because we had planned to celebrate the day we met instead. And I never remembered to celebrate the day we met. And my mother reminds me every anniversary day in the morning. So we decided to celebrate wedding anniversaries starting this year. I made a great lunch complete with payasam (a famous dessert in India). Hubby worked from home, by which I mean, he stayed home with me and played with pappu.
***********
But celebrations was not over yet. Friday was my birthday, and this time hubby took leave to really stay home with me and play with pappu without guilt.
This is what I got as a gift. Especially after last year’s gift from Hubby, this birthday had sure raised my expectation.
The white baby bear opened and I found this inside…
And the surprises were not over. There.. oh.. something was written on the inside.
Ah! The fun of receiving. All our names were inscribed on the inside of the ring. Oh dear, my darling Hubby has mastered the art of gifting…….
This is my fourth birthday since my wedding and my parents were with us for 2 of the birthdays before this. 2 years back on my birthday we went to a good restaurant and had a romantic and expensive dinner. Finding us by ourselves this time, we decided to do the same, a romantic and expensive dinner. Only to do it for lunch because we had some appointments at dinner time. By the time we got ready and brought our clan to the restaurant, it was 4 o clock and they told us that we reached too early, for dinner, period. We filled our stomach with starters and patiently waited for dinner. It was romantic enough, alright, in a dim, candle lit room with soft music where we found it extremely challenging to chase the running toddler and to keep him from bumping against people and things. It was an exciting time anyway, and expensive. That I understood by looking at the bill.
***********
After that we went to a business gathering and I received this. I never knew I had so many friends in singapore. I’m really thankful for the crowd.
***********
And last night we invited some friends over for dinner and I cooked. All by myself. Anyway it was a success and we all had fun.
My mom left 2 weeks back and I still find myself in hibernation. For inquiring minds, I actually proved to be a great home maker. My mother was impressed by the way I handled things when they were really necessary. Especially when I had a surprise guest around lunch time (when our vegetable shopping was due) and I invited her to lunch and fixed up a great lunch with left over vegetables all in less than half an hour! Later my mom told me that I am a great home maker. Oh so I wondered if it takes just 30 minutes to fix up things around the house to win people’s hearts. I decided to try it and now, hubby is convinced that I am a great home maker. Just 30 minutes!!! Imagine that!!!
I have been away from my blog for a while and thought some explanation might be needed. Following my mom’s arrival 2 weeks back, I spend shorter and shorter time on the internet. This is to be continued for the next one week. But why, you ask. No, I don’t sit and eat bonbons and watch operas with my mom full time. I had quarrels with my mom within the first few days of her arrival.
My mom thought I am a bad housewife just because I spend too much time creating my own blog and reading about what movie other people watched and when their children pooped. No, I don’t like that point. I’m not a bad housewife because I spend too much time on blogs. So I went out of the way and took a break from blogging and stopped doing whatever she didn’t like to prove that I’m a bad housewife even without blogs. Whatever!!!
Monika posted this on her blog and I shamelessly copy+paste it here, with my answers. But it was really fun.
1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
I should tie my hair into a ponytail today.
2. How much cash do you have in your wallet right now?
100 dollars
3. What’s a word that rhymes with DOOR?
Floor
4. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
One of our business partners and hubby’s friend who has my number on his contact list in hubby’s name. Now he sends messages to both our phones, and if he wants to talk to hubby, he gives a missed call to both our phones.
5. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone?
Anything that is a soft tone, which will not scare the heck out of a sleeping baby!
6. What are you wearing right now?
Night dress.
7. Do you label yourself?
Nope.
8. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently own?
Marco Santini.
9.Bright or Dark Room?
Mostly bright.
10. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?
Charming.
11. What does your watch look like?
I don’t wear a watch anymore…
12. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Browsing the internet via phone.
13. What did your last text message you received on your cell say?
From Hubby, on his way to office: A quote I read in this book… People say everything is expensive. Actually it is not. It’s only we are not able to afford them. That’s the thinking that will make us change. By seeing that we have something in lacking and changing ourselves instead of blaming the outside world will bring us closer to our dreams. Hubby, did I tell you that I love you?
14. What’s a word that you say a lot?
Because. Oh I hate using it!
15. Who told you he/she loved you last?(please exclude spouse , family, children)
I don’t really remember who… Actually there are lots of people who love us here.
16. Last furry thing you touched?
The monkey’s eyebrow in Pappu’s touchy feely book “That’s not my monkey”.
17. Favourite age you have been so far?
At 16, because I knew that I will never be 16 again!
18. What was the last thing you said to someone?
To my mother on chat: “ma he is crying .wants computer.]ill go sihodgoua .bath.him. ]]]]]]]]sdjLLLLLL. then will comse”. Where oh where did I misplace my mummy-baby dictionary?
19.The last song you listened to?
Just another ordinary miracle today!
20. Where did you live in 1987?
Nagercoil, my hometown.
21. Are you jealous of anyone?
Sometimes, yes.
22. Is anyone jealous of you?
You bet!
23. Name three things that you have on you at all times?
My chain which the symbol of my wedding. That’s all I have on me all the time, except if I count my ring(first gift from hubby) which used to be on my finger all the time, but then I had to remove it when my fingers alone gained some 3 kgs due to pregnancy. It is still in my purse all the time and goes with me wherever I go.
24. What’s your favourite town/city?
Singapore.
25. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it?
Probably last month, when I wrote some particulars on a feedback form and mailed it back to some credit card company! Yes, they still do that!
26. Can you change the oil on a car?
No. I don’t even know where to find oil in a car.
27. Your first love/big crush: what is the last thing you heard about him/her?
Who knows?!?!
28. Does anything hurt on your body right now?
Lower back. Probably from the twisted position in which I slept last night in an attempt to catch some sleep which feeding the baby non stop!
29.What is your current desktop picture?
The one that comes with the XP pack. Green hilly area and beautiful blue sky with clouds. Didn’t find any time or interest to change it since last reinstall!
30. Have you been burnt by love?
Not really.
