Blogging!

Every time I look at the B on browser, I want to click and start typing away, like I used a few years ago. I would think about what I wanted to write, formulate it in my head and at the first chance in front of a computer I would be typing away. The last few years have been difficult to think of my blog. I try to revive it at least three times a year and then it falls asleep. I am slacking at marking milestones in my life for my child to read back.

I have tons of unfinished posts sitting in my folder. I loose interest half way through. I feel bad and I want to continue...but then I realized that most of them are rants. Rants about people in Facebook, about people in real life, situations in real life, life in general and such on. I think the minute I start typing it out, I feel better and realize that it is of no use any more. The main idea to rant publicly is to get rid of the bad negative energy.  If you are able to do it before you publish it then what more do you need? I have accomplished Zen through writing half unpublished posts in my blog.

So the Zen me has no reason to blog. There is a lot of happiness around me not just an angry me. The happiness is a feeling. I try to verbalize it writing posts about how glorious my Diwali was or my daughter's birthday was but it cannot be expressed to its full impact.What is the point then? My happiness is mine and mine only but my rant could be yours too.

For example, today my friend posted about how she dislikes Mason Jars and that she is done with them...OMG...that is exactly my same feeling. I liked her post and expressed my ire towards the bane of jars. I could agree or disagree with her rant but when someone posts about how happy their kids birthday was or their rocking life, all we can do is do a "like" and keep moving. Somewhere in the back of your head, you hear a little voice say, "bragger."

Oh well...this does not mean that I will stop ranting or bragging...they will continue, but a Zen pace now. I could be calling my laziness Zen, either way it is good.

Happy Blogging Y'all

Love
ART

Shut the Front Door - School Already???

Sunday night I furiously worked on painting a sign for my little first grader. I had to have it ready for her to strike a pose with on Monday morning while she steps onto another milestone. Yup...first grader already and our life is zipping past us in comet speed. We did the "meet the teacher" and B who shows less emotions when I am searching for one did not disappoint me and acted cool while she waved hello to her teacher. After the meeting she also told me that, she has to wait and see before she says anything about the teacher. That is how the school year began and we are looking at 150 plus days of happiness, sadness, excitement, and not so much ahead of us.

Bubs has never known what it is to stay at home and not be in school on weekdays. Yes, the choice we made for her was to be in day care so that her parents could work. Not the ideal one but it is one we have all made peace with. There is an occasional "why me?" but that is expected from us going through mundane frustrations. B to most part has never fussed about school, one day here and one evening there she would complain but she has always reticently walked out of the car and into the various day cares. I have never heard complaints and she was always a happy well adjusted kid.

In the daycare world care professionals rarely complained because there is not much expected in terms of results. The kid can play, study or do nothing and yet everything they do will be counted as a milestone. To give an example, a child who decided to hold pen after five days or persuasion will be called a genius and the parents are also made to feel excited. School, on the other hand is not the same. This is the ground zero for child personality development. The coy kid becomes brash, the loud one is the quietest and the smart one forgets that it can have a voice. Things change here and drastically so on a daily basis. Every day as I drop her off, my heart wrenches for the hours she will be spent where there will be fewer kind words and more stress on following orders. This will be the place where she will be pitted against other kids and parents will fight for attention from teacher so that their child can shine. A kind of place where you really do not enjoy much until you are old enough to get away with small silly things you share with your friends on the sly.

For me, it was high school when I started to enjoy school. We would hide in the cafeteria to avoid classesor would sneak out to eat "chocobar" at the canteen during a boring hour. We enjoyed Physics lab the most because most of us could take a nap as the teacher was too lazy to move. Chem lab was another story, we would finish the experiment in ten minutes and have two hours to sit and chat. Exams were serious but school life was enjoyable. I hope for B that she enjoys at least a little of her Elementary life unlike me. She has a spirit, an enthu to enjoy, a need for fun and laughter, which I hope does not get drowned in the monotony of school and homework. I do not want to see her come home sad or disappointed.

Today, as I dropped her off at school I told her, "B remember, everyday tell yourself that school is Awesome and it will be so." B replied, "Yes amma, school is Awesomely Boring." Just like her dad!

Love you B
Amma!!!

The Grind

Work 10-12 hours a day
Home 8-12 hours a day
ETC - the remaining time

This is life on a weekday.

Classes 4 hours a day (drive time included)
Random Party 4 hours
Home improvement 4 hours
Sleep 8 hours
Random things - the remaining time

This is life on a weekend.

My life seems to be on a schedule. On Friday evenings I am excited to go home but before I get home I am tired from the past week. I make plans with G to drink, watch a movie, and veg out and the only thing I accomplish is vegging out on the sofa watching a TV program that was recorded two weeks ago. Of course we never get to finish the program because the two of us are stretching it out on our respective sofas. At approximately 2am I realize that I have a strained neck and wake up feeling that I am in a strange place and slowly migrate to the bed. And the weekend begins.

God forbid I make plans to hang out with friends, I am out of the zone. I am constantly thinking of how to juggle Sanjana's weekend classes with the various other commitments and how to do something at home and something for work. Nothing goes per plan and I am running helter skelter like a moron who lost his hat while it is still on her head.

The vacation was a good break. It removed me from the routine and put me onto a different grind. One that I definitely think has better prospects than my life. I sit down with a cup of coffee and remember our Romanian friends coffee in Paris. I wear a pair of pants and I think about walking in it through the streets of Barcelona. Pair of slippers remind me of what a pain they were in Pisa and my sun glasses remind me of how they were both glasses as well as hair band through the trip. We made memories and I believe that is how you measure the success of your vacation. You have a longing to go back, you are back in the present but the past is still keeping you engaged.

Do not mistake me as I am not complaining. I like the routine, I like things to go per plan. I make plans and I try real hard to stick by them. For a person like me, the Grind is security. Once in a while a bump in that grind is what makes my life interesting!

Love
Tired ART

To leave and to be back...

The moment you drive up the house you were so eager to leave on a vacation a mixed feeling of excitement as well as dread sets in. In the two weeks we were gone, the grass in the lawn was now a field with swaying blades of grass welcoming you. Weed has overtaken one of your favorite knockout rose bush. "I am not doing lawn work today," I declare as I step out, "just too tired to handle this." Husband agrees but looks at the work in front of us. We go to the backyard to inspect our pool and things are still looking good but there is weed everywhere. The okra plant is now a rogue plant looking to compete with trees overpowering the basil  next to it. I walk back in closing the door saying, "Nope, not going back out till everything is clean." Husband comes back and tells me, "something is surely dead in the weed." Yuck!!!

That is what you get for leaving home and going to far away fantasy lands for two plus weeks. The walks, the sights, the relaxation, and the multiple coffees that you enjoyed while neglecting your house...well the house wants it revenge back. I have been walking around slowly into every room to make sure that the solitary roach has not invaded it yet. So far so good but I am always stuck with one rogue roach that manages to make my home its home in my absence.

The first few days away from home was filled with me moaning for sleep. I missed my bed, my shower, my home and my potty. We were driving through the roads of France and Spain, peeing in seatless toilets and eating food that could have easily spent a few more minutes in the oven. I was craning my neck to get a shut eye while also ensuring my husband or his brother did not take a nap on the steering wheel. I was cranky when we reached Barcelona.

From there on, every road we took was an adventure. Of course after a full night of sleep everything smells good and a smile is plastered on your face. Yes, the roads that took us through our vacation was filled with filthy toilets and basic food (sorry EU, you need to up your game on travel amenities along the road), but the views were one of a kind, the people were great and if all else sucked, the coffee still rocked. I am more of a tea person but the espresso and the style of serving it made me an instant convert. You cannot do that style with making tea.

This was one of the few vacations where I relaxed without worrying about coming back to work and mundane life. I relaxed at a coffee shop sipping on my new found love, noisette, and chatting up with our favorite Romanian barista who served coffee with such elan that I thanked my stars for being in that place at that time. Yes, this trip got me obsessed with coffee that my sister-in-law and I would sneak out in the pretense of shopping to get a sip of coffee. We would giggle like little girls while adding the 4th pack of sugar that most coffee shops thought was weird. We tried every coffees shop on the street and always landed at our favorite place.

All that high from coffee to looking at my lawn made me groan. This is it, the reality of life. You cannot go away thinking that everything will be at a standstill waiting for you to come back. Life growed on in our yard while time stood still in our vacation. I did not care if it was a Monday or a Friday. Every night when we settled in the various hotel rooms, we slept dreamless sleep, toes curled from all the walking and snored away to peace as the tired of the day behind slowly slipped away.

In a few days time, our lives will return to the grid but the memories we made will remain forever fresh like the Italian Coffee in the small shop across from Garbatella station in Rome.

Missing you already Europa. May you stand stuck in time from past with everything modern assimilating beautifully in to your lifestyle. May the coffee never go down with the recession. And hopefully we will meet again for a nice chat over a cuppa.

Love
Travelling ART

Travel Time - Page 8

The drive to Santa Fe was fun. We had music in full blast, listening to songs from all world languages we drove on lonely roads towards New Mexico. We also stopped en route at an Indian Reservation store and did a lot of shopping.We bought everything Touristy and spent a bit of a time there hanging out and stretching our legs.

Once in Santa Fe we changed and decided to live it up on New Years Eve. We put sickness out of our heads and headed to a local Mexican cuisine. We really loved the food and the ambiance. We ate our tummy's fill and drove to the city's town square.

There was a stage set up in the middle of the square and S, Babs and I got on it, played "Ainvi, Ainvi..." on our cell and started dancing much to the amusement of everyone around. We could not stop giggling. We urged the boys to join us but they laughed and refused to be acknowledged as a part of our group. Later we did convince them to do one step. We could not stop laughing at our dancing escapades.

It was so cold that night that we could not hang out a lot in the open. We rushed back to the warmth of our car and headed back to our hotel. M was going to join us to celebrate the eve with us.

M came with her daughter. Babs and the daughter started  bonding over Netflix while the adults bonded over wine and alcohol. We chatted our hearts out and yelled Happy New Year as the clock struck 12!! It was a fun trip indeed.

Our vacation was over. The next morning we headed back to Dallas feeling bad that the fun times were over and we were back to reality. Despite having flu we enjoyed the trip very much. We go to see so much that we would have missed had we flown to  these places.

America is vast. Unimaginably vast. I cannot still comprehend the vastness, ok you get it. We drove through so much wilderness with not a single human to be seen for hundreds of miles. It freaked me out a couple of times when it was just the three of us driving through the blackness of the night. America has awesome roads even where only ten cars drives through in a day. We saw beauty that nature has made and that which is man made, both of them have their own charm and deserve admiration.

If I had to do it again, sick or not sick, I will do it all over again but I would want to go to Yellow Stone! Maybe end of this year :)

Love
Exhausted ART