Just plain good and giving

I am thankful and grateful for surrounding myself with goodness and generosity and its all from the one main person in my life, my husband P.

The one quality that beats everyone and everything - he is just plain good and has a heart of gold.

In terms of generosity and his giving nature too he is alongside my paternal grand mother and my mother - the 3 people I have seen in my life who can selflessly just give and take a lot of pleasure and seek happiness by their kind deeds. Its overwhelming at times and yet I feel blessed.

There are no other adjectives or superfluous words that can describe a person being good and generous.

I hope the girls inherit the goodness of character and the giving nature. He is an excellent role model on that front.

Had a pretty good weekend. Shopped a little after a very long time at Walmart. Since FIL is leaving next week there were a couple small things to pick up plus been wanting to go to the temple for a while.

Sunday was a very pleasant day as we headed to Harvard Sq. Harvard Sq never fails to disappoint you. Lively and always a lot of activity. Our lunch at Tanjore also was pretty good and we all relished the lunch buffet there. We must really try to go there more often and just walk around. We spotted a Curious George store there and AG and AL went crazy and started hoarding stuff, their final loot were bunch of small sized figurines of animals, mostly bears and I got them a couple of penguins and elephants since they have been going crazy with Pingu series and listening to stories on the bear from my mother.

The girls had their rowdy moments when we were walking around. My heart almost stopped when AG ran and we couldnt catch up with her almost on to the main road. That split second you just get so worried, Phew! Both of them got it from me. AL listened and mellowed down not AG she had that "I dont care" and "Oh I am so cute" look! Phew! At the restaurant they did ok didnt eat a morsel, AG nibbled a bit and AL took pleasure in feeding her Dad peas.

Otherwise days have been so full at work, the past 2 weeks flew even more fast than usual. So much that we can see Fall slowly setting in. P even thinks he has his allergies bothering him since yesterday. So we see summer slowly receding.

This and That

Tough morning with AG refusing to go to school. We let her cry and moved on and dropped off. She was totally fine at school. She got too emotional poor baby. Fever has come down hoping they do ok at school and continue as usual.

I have been feeling particularly exhausted this week. :-)

Weather is cooling down already!!!! I like the quiet white winters so no complaints anyway as of now :-) ;)

Been picking names for my best friend's baby I am so glad she is blessed. Also heard of another acquaintance who was craving for a baby finally is expecting. The joy when I see people who truly deserve the blessing of parenthood and motherhood is a beautiful feeling. Only people who know the value of what parenthood is will know.

My 2 cents to A & A

Dear A&A,

I have been thinking and wanted to pass on some advise time to time....

As human beings we are very judgmental. We want things to happen our way. We claim we are very flexible and accommodative but we turn our backs are capable of nurturing negative feelings. Everybody is different no two people are alike and that's what makes life interesting. But bottom line we all judge people, its human, but please remember you have a choice you dont have to share or pass judgements vocally about anyone especially about immediate family members and close friends to others. Whether its your parents/inlaws, siblings, sons/sons inlaw or daughters/daughters inlaw, cousins, aunts/uncles all the immediate family members and your best friends or next door neighbor . You must be frank and honest in all your relationships. Nobody is perfect remember, We all have flaws and like I said human mind will not stop judging you have to train it, but keep it to yourself and try not to pass it on. As an exercise for every negative thing you talk say two positive things about that very same person. If you cannot find any, you know that you are nurturing way too much negativity in you. However you rather not have that relationship than pretending and complaining about it. Either be honest and focus on improving it or not have it. Its all a matter of choice. You choose your own happiness. I am learning too everyday and trying to practise the above.

Dont crave for attention and burn bridges. Just because you want to be liked and adored and respected you dont have to put others down, Focus on yourself and your relationship but dont "scheme and plan" to hurt others for attention. As babies you crave for attention and tend to hurt one another, I know its your instincts its natural and happens, but I dont encourage as it is and you get time outs for that and I will continue for it not to happen once you are grown up a bit. At the same time Sycophancy is the dangerous opposite of the former. Be yourself. No excessive praise and flattery to anyone to get things done. You cannot insult and hurt or "use" your immediate family members or anyone to nurture your ego and then expect all your relationships to be normal going forward. You mess up then you have to face consequences for it.

Its truly said that one has to "earn" respect. If you have a clean heart, are honest in your opinions and feelings towards all, you dont have to fear anything, you dont have to seek respect, respect will come from every nook and corner by itself! Like AK quoted in SJ - Respect comes with behavior and conduct not merely with qualifications/degrees, age or money. Earn it dont claim it and misuse it.

　

This is all from personal experience and a few mistakes made and a lot of observation. Hope this helps at some point in the future.

PS: This is not a preaching just advise. Like I said I am learning and trying to practise it myself. Once you guys grow up a bit hope we can guide and support each other if possible.

Past week...

So its been a good-busy week/fortnight. Lot of activity on the work front. It was good to meet my Uncle's family and cousins and kids meeting them. Got a chance to meet another relative's family too who are local to Boston. Attended a birthday party, and finally over the weekend both girls are down with fever :-(

Didnt do anything for our 7th anniversary as the folks were flying out to CA that day and then AL was already down and I knew AG will follow soon. Hence we were home even the following day for my dad's birthday. So we had a quiet one over all.

One of the best things I can thank P after 7 years of marriage and knowing him for so much more longer is the ability to appreciate and live in the present. Being content with what we have today and enjoying this "today" . Cos I see people constantly living in the past or worried about the future or worried that we are not worried like them about the future ;) and be frantically scurrying for the future. Relax, take a step back, smell the flowers and take a deep breath. You need to plan for your future but not obsess with it and give up your present.

zzzzz

So our extended fam from Dad's side from CA came to visit us on Saturday and met our local relatives too. Mom cooked lunch in the morning and we had a nice time catching up. Headed to downtown rather late as they wanted to have Clam Chowder in Boston. By the time we drove, got through a flat tire for a car and changed cars and took the wrong route mostly my error cos I forgot I was to give directions and got distracted with the GPS and got to the place which is 15 miles away it took a while added another 12 miles to the journey :-(. Plus kids had such a late nap they just wanted to continue sleeping after that and skip dinner. So we obliged and crashed at 12am one crazy day and been sleep deprived since 2 days feel like a zombie today :-) AL got some allergy/flea bites kinda thing in her feet which is itchy with and some cough which kinda kept us awake couple of nights. Hope her skin condition improves and so does her cough. Poor baby!

My Uncle's family is off to Niagara and TO and we will see them next Saturday before they head back to CA.

Parents are off to NY-DC trip 3 days and 2 nights. The moment I told sleepyhead AG they are off to NY she pointed and said statue! statue! to the Statue of liberty memento I had in the shelf - smarty pants!

Zzzzzzzzzz! Its Mondayyy!

Happy birthday :-)

Had a quiet birthday. Mostly cos it was a Wednesday and wasnt sure Aanya and her insect/bug bits in feet would be comfortable enough to head out for dinner. Plus our weekends are lively enough that we enjoy our routine Mon-Fri ;)

Met P for a quick lunch. And I am glad we work so close that we go out for lunch every other week.

Girls sang Happy Birthday and totally get the concept now that they are 2 years 2 months. Relished the small chocolate cake. That is all that mattered.

Received loads of messages and calls that I have to respond to.

- This little guiding light of mine, I am going to let it shine, let it shine, all the time, let it shine... :-)

Second beach trip this summer

Had a great time at Crane beach with the kids. This time kids opened up very quickly to the water. The beach was wonderful, big, fairly crowded (although mostly returning crowd by the time we got there at 3pm), shallow waters, soft sand and water was pretty warm in some patches for the toddlers to run around and play in the sand. Girls were happy to play in the sand and water. Although AL who is a clean freak didnt like the mess with the sand sticking to her and kept constantly washing herself plus she had a runny nose which only got worse with the water. AG had a ball! The views were pretty good around the beach. The inner roads approaching the beach and many farms which made it lovely route to drive past. P and I really enjoy such places, its relaxing to the mind and pleasing for the eyes. Thank Goodness for the ability to appreciate finer and simple things in life.

Our friends joined us too so it was good to hang out with them, although I wish we could have spent more time with them. We tried to head to a restaurant after that but wait times were too long. We stuck around till maybe 7 and headed home, I cooked dinner, we all ate and crashed by about 11 pretty tired. The finishing touch was the lovely sunset we saw, after a longtime I saw the a complete clear orange ball of fire. I would totally recommend the beach and rate it higher than Wingersheak we went few weeks back.

Completely relaxed at home on Sunday and enjoyed the feeling of doing nothing. And now its back to work...

I enjoy such spontaneous mini trips.