Highs and Lows of last year - Day 9

Trying to catch up with my Blog Marathon :-)

Topic for Day 9: Highs and Lows of last year.

This one is easier. Last year being 2012, one of the life changing ones for us.

Highs :

2012 January - My sister's marriage....happy for her dream to come true... international couple getting married in an Indian setting. Love without boundaries, beyond the countries, cultures, religions, and one of the most fun weddings i attended till date. 

2012 May - We got lil bun in our lives. First time we saw him, hold him and kissed his delicate cheeks. Lots of joys and different perspective to our lives that he brought. 

2012 May to August - I got to stay with my mum for almost 3 months continuously after more than 10 years ! Same with dad, 4 weeks together after 10 years !

Lows:

2012 January - Spending 2 days in ICU during January'2012 while in india. Less than a week to go to my baby shower, less than two weeks before my sister's wedding. Worried faces all around. Not knowing what happened, waking up in hospital and worrying if this might have affected lil Bun inside me.

2012 August - When my parents left to go back home in August'12, i cried for 2-3 continuous days. 

2012 August - September - When i had to leave lil Bun in kindergarden and start back at work.

Quite an eventful year we had, 2012 we will never forget you :-)

By the way how was it for you?

Place I would really want to visit. - Day 8

I would like to, but don't know when will it be possible considering cold, lil Bun, holiday schedule, budget everything combined.

7 Me - Day 7

As you can see, i already faced some hindrance in my marathon blogging. 

But i told you in the start itself, not to have too high expectations from me... i know i can be lazy but this has more to do with my schedule now a days, packed. Let's see if i can catch up, atleast nothing wrong in trying, right? :-)

Day 7: 7 facts about me, 7 being my DOB.

This one was really difficult. I can't believe myself that i cannot think any 7 interesting things about me, may be because i have too many to write or may be i have written so much about "i, me, myself", there is hardly any fact remaining to share worth sharing ! :-P

Lets see if you think you knew this about me : 

1. I didn't have a single girlie thing in my wardrobe when i was a kid. My first dress, i begged and fought for. When i got it i wore it, i danced and i circled closing my eyes in happiness. I have a picture like that as well. Thanks for clicking and saving that wonderful memory maa-pa :)

2. I used to write a diary as a kid. It went on something like. 

I woke up at 7:00am, I was late for school. I came back home in afternoon at 12:30. I had lunch. I went out to play in the evening. I slept at 8:00 pm.

And then i wondered why do people say it is good to write diary, mine reads same everyday. I used to be happy when we go out as then i can write today we went out for dinner. Or we went to xyz's house. Something different, huh? I even thought it is good to write because may be when i grow up i would like to read exactly which day i woke up or slept at what time. Guess what, I was wrong !

3. You know those white spots we get on nails as some calcium/ zinc/ vitamin deficiency. As kids, we used to think number of those marks shows how many best friends we got, and we used to keep counting how many each of us got. Look at the irony, i got none of those now. Does that mean i have no friends left? Nah, don't believe you stupid tale.

4. I cannot stand dumb people and dumb questions. Not that i have some extra-ordinary ideas about myself and my IQ, but somehow dumbness always came as a big turn off for me. Lack of general knowledge, can do with world being so vast to know it all but lack of common sense ? Nah no.

5. I couldn't eat too much sweet, after a few bites i start feeling uneasy. But during my pregnancy i developed a sweet-itooth...specially chocolate cakes. No wonder lil Bun loves them as well. More than year's time and i still haven't managed to lose my sweet tooth :-P

6. When i was a kid, i always wanted to be an engineer. I did become one and look at the irony i work for one and still not work on that !

7. I wanted a little sister and asked for one. I got one, cloud 9 i was on. My sister wanted a little brother and asked for one, we got one and were on cloud 9. I know we have amazing parents, don't i keep telling you? So much pressure we put on them...hehe and they delivered :D

Phewww. So did you know this about me already? :-)

Love to read - Day 6

I loved reading since i was a kid. I think i inherited from my parents, both of them loves reading.

I remember my summer vacation, we used to go stay at my grand parents. My grandpa not only loves reading but he had a small library setup in one cupboard. So it was a treat, i will forget to eat or drink and will be lost in my own world trying to finish as many books as i can.

Today's topic was "Favourite Books", i changed it as I don't have a favourite book ! I do have some authors that i like to read more may be. As a teenager i read anything i came across. I read those short storied which used to come in special editions of news paper on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Then i started reading Ashwini Bhatt, and i loved those novels. I even took my first library card so that i can read all of his novels and at the time it used to be difficult to get hold of them as they were that much in demand.

After that i was into Shree Kainyalal Munshi. They were so rich with history and royal characters that i remember being in love with those characters and i couldn't stop thinking about them for days after. I felt so sad when i finished them, i just wanted them to go and go. He is one genius that Gujarati shahitya was blessed with. I think i would still like to read them again. 

Then i moved to English ones and i will not bore with all the names but again it started as reading anything we get hold of...borrowing and sharing with friends. There have been phases of preferring one author over other and quite a few.

But in recent times one of my favourite authors is Dan Brown, i  liked his Deception Point and Da Vinci Code. I have read all of his books but i think the recent ones are not at par with those earlier ones. 

My current no-brain, light read chick lit favourite is Jill Mansell. Just because her characters are i can relate to, and they feed hopeless romantic inside me making me believe everything falls in place in the end. 

So that's me. 

How about you? :-)

Biggest Regret of my life - Day 5

Only if you turned back your life, what will you change ?

There might be all, there might be none.

If i change back my life, how will i be sure, you will be still in my life?

So basically, i love my life and i do not have any big regrets. Small mistakes ofcourse, but i wouldn't have learnt and grown without them.

When i try hard, there is one thing i can remember though during my teenage years.

That was my board exam year, i wasn't worried about my results. Because i always thought i wanted to be an engineer and i knew i will score enough to be one.

So i hardly studied. When my classmates stayed awake whole night studying, i would happily go and sleep early in my over-confidence.

My dad might have thought he has such a brilliant kids, like all parents think. And looking at my past records he thought i will score enough to become a doctor. I kept saying him that i see the life you lead, odd  hours...any time emergency calls so i am not going to be one. He laughed it out and thought might be me joking. 

Year passed and when my result came, sure enough i scored enough to be an engineer. But i broke my dad's heart. 

Only thing he told me that day was, it was ok if you didn't want to be a doctor...i wouldn't have forced you but i am shocked to see you didn't try harder thinking you might be. (And i feel ashamed accepting, he was right ! ) If you had scored for it, then it would have been your choice that you could get in anything you wanted and then you selected something you always wanted to do. Now it is you have limited choices open. 

And that moment i knew, the mistake i made.

I broke his heart and his trust, someone who trusted me and still does as much as no one in this world ever did or does.

So my biggest regret of my life is i didn't work harder, i didn't try harder.

In the years that followed, i have never forgotten those words. That was the biggest lesson of my life, try and then if you do not wish to go ahead with what is in front of you..... you will always have a choice to make. If you do not try, there will be no cross-roads to select from, no choices to make.

Favourite Comfort food / Favourite childhood toy - Day 3 / Day 4

Yes i missed Day 3, already !

But i told you my aim on the first day itself, didn't i? So today i am just going to combine Day 3 and Day 4 both, as seriously i could have written one word post for both topics if i wanted to cheat and keep the marathon day count on track.

Day 3's topic was : Favourite Comfort food.

There cannot be more difficult question for someone who just loves food.

My other blog "Cook with me..." is a proof of that, i just love to eat. I actually love to cook as well but after lil Bun's entry in our lives it has got a bit complicated.

I used to love parathas and paneer sabzis, but now a days i love different kinds of soup, i have tried so many varieties at home in last 3-4 months that i hadn't tried even in my whole before-this-obsession-started-life combined till then.

But you can't eat just soup everyday, and you need something more solid, more filling to fill your stomach. Now a days that award will go to Pizza and Pasta. We make Pizza at home atleast once a week, sometimes even after that we eat it out or order them home. And we eat Pasta min once or twice a week. So it had kind of become our staple and comfort food. We eat indian may be once or twice a week only. And when we do, we end up with bloated uncomfortable bellies complaining heavy food or over-eating !

Day 4's topic was : Favourite Childhood toy.

Now this one is even more difficult, considering i don't remember me being a toy person !

I remember i was into collecting pens. I needed a new pen before every exam, and that too only if papa got me a new one and that will be the one i would be writing my exams with. I was so fond of pens, my cupboard had a special corner for them. Whenever we visited stationery shops, all i would eye is big displays of pens. What i loved the most as gifts were pens ! haha So easy it was to please me ! lol

But when i try hard enough to remember a toy, one things which comes to my mind is a stuffed goat that i had...kind of real looking with real goat hairs. I used to love it. But then after some years its hair started coming off and my parents decided it wasn't good enough for me to play with it anymore. So for some years it stood on highest shelf where i cannot reach as i wouldn't allow throwing it away. There atleast i could see it and can be happy it is there. It was as if it was my pet, i wanted it with me all the time. I would pat it, touch it, pamper it, play with it.

I have some pictures with it, even in the family pics i have it standing beside me. I don't remember how old i was at that time.... when i got that goat i was less than 3, i am sure, may be 2. I don't remember getting it, all i remember is i had it forever from my earliest memories.

And guess what !! If it was too difficult to pictures what i was talking about, i managed to dig one photo out of old albums, have a look. haha :-D Yes that was my goat :-)

So that's for now and i am really sleepy now. Have been feeling a bit of upset stomach, so a bit headache n backache as well. Time to catch up some sleep and rest as lil Bun won't change his morning schedule to let mumma rest a few mins extra ! :-)

Good Night and have a fabulous week ahead.

p.s. i will do spell check tomorrow, promise. Sorry for my fast and furious post, which might be full of unreadable english, due to my sleepy brain. Sorry !!!

My religion, my faith. - Day 2

Now this is a tricky subject, more because i am confused how religious i am ! 

I do have faith, yes on lots of things actually. And that might have to do more with people than religion.

I really like to follow some of the traditional rituals that i grew up with and the happiness which those traditions and some associate festivities bring. Happy faces around, lots of catching up, dressing up, good food, what more do we need for a perfect day? I love celebrations.

I think there has been strong reasons behind some traditions, and religious believes... but over the time some meanings evaporated and only stubbornness to follow them mindlessly remains. And then nothing stands right, religion and faith are gone. what remains is a herd. A herd of mindless faces. 

One of the things i believe is, it is faith that has kept this society going...faith in mankind, faith in humanity, faith in tomorrow, faith in each other and even faith in own self. 

If you deduct an element of faith from our lives i think this society will collapse... depressed and with no future to look fwd to. Life wouldn't be worth living. Faith stands as a strong base pushing up the optimism, making today and everyday worth living, worth fighting for. 

So yes may be i am religious, for my religion is faith. 

Faith in you and me, and a better tomorrow around us full of strikingly happy faces. 

Come, join me in the celebrations. We don't need reasons, for life is a reason.

August Blog Marathon - Day 1 : Top 3 Pet Peeves

I came across this August Blog Marathon list on Marathon Bloggers that i am member of. ( I know, i know... yes even when i have not managed to do marathon blogging. ! Pity. i know. )

Somehow i have always been an impulsive writer so i never thought to took up any blogging marathon or say marathon challenge . I normally try to share what i see, think, feel. Kind of locking on thoughts and memories. 
Now if there is a compulsion to jot down something everyday, i don't know if i can survive. But when i was nudged to join and i read the list of topics to help write, i saw it was actually quite good. And it was also on the same line of being able to write about things i see, think, feel but wouldn't write otherwise.
So i think i will give it a try.

May be i might miss a day or two here and there, but i think better to try whatever i can manage than to quit before starting. ( Don't tell anyone but i am not aiming too high here, My aim is to manage atleast 20 out of 30 and if i manage more, that will be a pat on my back :-P)

So here we go.

Day 1: Topic: Top 3 Pet Peeves.

My list might not be typical pet peeves but it's just 3 things which annoys me and often puts me off mood when have to deal with it for longer than my a few minutes threshold. Yeah yeah i am trying to improve, but i am still far away from that zen condition where i am peaceful with my inner-self without external factors affecting me ! But i am on it, watch out ;-)

1. People not giving due credits to others.

I have come across lots of people, who listens to the flying bees and then they are "the experts". Somehow i cannot stand "I know everything" attitude. Give the credits if someone told you so, give the credit if someone taught you so, give the credits if someone helped you to accomplish it., give the credits if you actually copied it from someone. It only makes you more of a humble person. No one is born all-rounder, we all adapt, learn and grow, there is no shame in accepting it.

2. Uncalled advises.

It is not that i hate advises, i actually look fwd to some sharing and learning time to time. But when someone who doesn't know what it is to be in that shoes,  and starts advising on the topic he or she had never had to deal with... it just doesn't sound right, atleast to me.
I try not to bring those topics up to people who i know might not have faced it and so will not know integrity of the subject or situation, but still you know people pick up on some things. Fortunately or unfortunately we live in a society where for some, providing an advise, is equivalent to being helpful or caring.

So while i appreciate the gesture, i appreciate one mentioning how someone else faced something similar and coped with it, I believe it should stop there. full stop. But often it gets a bit difficult to draw a line, and that is true for all of us. 

3. Exaggeration

Whether it is about knowledge, or about a situation, or anything xyz. I believe in facts and often find myself not very pleased with how a small detail or trait can take a massive form, well not literally but in someone's mind and words.

I know it was a bit serious, isn't it? 
So on a lighter note, how about this one?

1. A clown face, full of make-up
2. Noise of scratching things, anything.
3. Smell of old green colored Indian ST buses,(ya those which green seats as well)  which are about to become extinct, atleast in Gujarat !

Phewww... ok so i am done for day 1. Let's see what Blog Marathon Day 2 brings on  :-)