Pongal Poi Pongal Vandhadhu

Time flies...I cannot believe that I am standing in 2015 and பொங்கல் (Pongal) is already here. I wish I was eating sugarcane and enjoying சக்கிரை பொங்கல் (sweet Pongal) in my house in Chennai. I wish I had burnt old stuff the day before and beat the drum before throwing it into the fire. I wish I had worn new clothes to celebrate the birth of new and good times and the month of தை (Thai). Oh! Well! Cannot have everything.

If there was nothing for me to wish for or miss then I would not have led a good life, so for that fun I have had and the fun to be had...I would like to wish everyone a very happy பொங்கல் (PONGAL).

And I realize that I have written three posts about Pongal in the past...think I love this festival a lot.

The one I wrote in 2007 was 5 days before I found out I was pregnant. The memories are so vivid and from then on there was a Babs element in all of them :)

http://anurussell.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-few-days-in-south-indian-calendar.html

http://anurussell.blogspot.com/2010/01/too-much-work.html

http://anurussell.blogspot.com/2011/01/its-harvest-time-once-again.html

Love
Pongal Eating ART

The Year That Was!!! 2014

2014, I could not have asked for a better year. When we started out, we were on the rocks a bit. Not really, but health wise, I carried with me a horrible cold after the flu just before 2014 started. It started in a hotel room with friends chatting and almost forgetting the onset of a New Year. In general, the health pattern carried out throughout 2014. I have never had so many colds or fevers in one year like I did in 2014. I worked through a lot of them, slept three a couple but the general immunity seems to be down. This year also coincided with my weight gain. I tried to keep it down, work out, bike, run but everything barely took off for more than a few days. I had so many exams to take, people to entertain that "I" took the back seat in my life.

January: We ended our 4500+ mile drive through the country, driving through mountains and beside the ocean, through the dessert and staying high above the ground in Vegas to eating at Batali's. It was a good month.

February: Was uneventful. We relaxed a bit, visited family in Houston. Spent time recuperating.

March: Brother moved to Dallas and spent three months with me. We had a blast. We relaxed, ate, spoke a lot, and caught up with each other's life after a long time.
We also spent the spring break weekend at a spooky BnB in Seguin, TX.

April: I went with Babs to her school Field Trip. It was super fun to spend time with her and her school mates. We also did Holi in our front yard with friends. It was also the month when Babs started to ride the bike on her own.

May: We spent the time getting ready for summer. I had exams to study for imminent in June and spent more time on that than with my brother or family. It was stressful but we sailed through.

June: Saw us planning our trip to EU. We were mentally ready for a vacation. We rarely take time off from work, which always explains the extra PTO that stack up for me as well as G. We make it to work through rain or shine, especially since I cannot work from home, I have to be physically connected to server most of the time to be able to do what I do. Therefore the trip was something all three of us looked forward to. Off we went to EU for a 15 day break. We went from Paris to Barcelone to Nice to Rome to Pisa to Annecy and spent more time in Paris meeting my BFF and enjoying relaxing.

July: We came back from Paris and did not want to be here. We loved being back on our beds in our home but we missed the break, the relaxation, the fun and family.

August: Our friends spent the month with us. It was so good to have the house full. The kids played and fought but the adults relaxed with some good drinks and food every night after the drama kid dramas went to bed. Babs started another year in school and life got back to a routine. We enjoyed seeing and hearing Mika Singh live in concert in Dallas with friends. It was amazing.

September: Our friends left and we had the house for ourselves for a bit. We had no idea what to do. We missed them a lot. Babs school and classes took over us. We went to SLAM show in Houston with friends and had the best time of our lives.

October: My parents came and spent three weeks with us. It was fun. Babs turned seven and G turned a year older. We did trick or treating and also Diwali. We could feel the year winding down.

November: We had two weeks before G's parents came. We spent time trying to get the house ready for the big family arrival. M and I ran the only 5K this year. We promised that we would run together a lot this year but that has not happened yet.

December: We started December with illness. All of us had something or the other going on but we were ready for the holidays on time for family to arrive. All of G's family is here and we officially celebrated Christmas together this year with tree, gifts, decorations and every thing set. The kids had a blast and do did the adults. We got Kinected (xbox) this year and also switched entirely to Samsung except the one Ipad that is still working. There is a lot of noise in the house with three kids running the show, there is food always to be found and drinks everywhere.

I pray and hope that everyone has a great 2015 and it is just as good as 2014 was to me.

Happy and Prosperous 2015.

PS: This is my 600th post! WooHoo!!

The Selfie Crowd!!!

That is what I called ourselves and most of others who ran the 5K this past weekend with us. My main aim was to not finish last. M and I put in a lot of effort to ensure that we were not the last two to roll to finish line and have everyone sympathetically clap for us. We made it in decent time. I wont ever say great...but we made it in at least before 400 others...so we are good.

The main motivation for the chocolate they promised if we finished the run. So we ran because we were getting food. Yes, not a great way to get back in shape. Four years ago when we ran our 5K, we were fit, we finished very fast and ran the whole darn thing. Last year, I kinda sorta ran the whole thing, this year...oh well...we ran walked it but we ran 2 miles of it. We paced ourselves because we had to and also because most of the 5K people walk and there is never enough space to run freely. Which is when I came up with the title...Selfie Crowd. All the 5K runners are typically selfie crowd. They come to pose, take photos, walk and have a good morning chat. They do this after paying close to $50 per person. Could they/we not have done it around our neighborhood? Uh, no!

If we someone would have the start and Finish air filled gateways near our house we might do it, so we could selfie first and then head out and selfie after we are done. If they had goodies everyday after our run/walk there would be more motivation. If our selfies could motivate others and make some feel J, we might do it...none of this happens...so we run 5Ks sponsored by chocolate companies or charities. We run so we can let the world know we are healthy, and make ourselves feel better that we are at least trying.

So, it was a fun weekend, as my bestie and I ran/walked the 5K, and finished with wiping off dripping melted chocolate from our faces we were proud. We were proud that even after a year of nothingness we could still do it without much fuss, we were proud that we made some use out of our Sunday morning. We were proud that we could make fresh promises of working out better and getting fit, We were proud that as we age, we were doing it in style. We were generally proud because that is who we are!!!

With love
From
Selfie ART

With Age Comes...

Maturity??? Ya right. I remember being mature at 18 when I had to choose a career path, at 22 when I had to choose my university abroad, at 25 a life partner and at 29 a name for my baby. They happened, just like that. If I remember correctly, I put minimum effort into any of those. Everything just fell into place and I just had to walk the talk.

At 36, I have done so much in my life past that I can actually look back and call out incidents by the year and sometimes even month. I always wondered how my grand relatives did that. I remember a grand uncle telling me a story about how he was just-out-of-teenage boy on a ship going to a concentration camp in Poland as a POW. He had the exact date, number of people aboard, and the weather conditions detailed out to us. I could not even remember what I had for dinner the previous night. I have surely matured now, because I can say I how sad I felt leaving India on the 4th of July 2000 to come to US or how I felt after I graduated in 2002 unsure of what lied ahead.

None of these came to my head until I got into bed last night and G asked me to massage his tennis elbow. I refused saying that my hand was hurting and so was my ankle. We both laughed, "we are falling apart, one thing at a time." This morning I walked into my closet and saw that we had collected every sort of brace that is available in the market. There were two knee braces, two ankle braces, two compression bands, one arm brace, and two back braces. They all lay there thrown together for the emergency situation, which unfortunately seemed to happen more often that we would like. It just confirmed, that we were breaking down, one joint at a time. Both G and I have used all the braces at least once in the past 3 to 4 months.

So, I guess, with age comes maturity but before that you fall apart.

From
Aged ART

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