The Wonderful Idea

The wonderful idea about my next topic for the blog crossed my mind when I was driving to the office and in all excitement I even selected the topic – Me, the Wanderer [sounds pretty fancy to me!]. To me wanderer means traveller but to confirm the meaning I quickly Googled and found -

Web definitions: someone who leads a wandering unsettled life.

Right, so not much of traveller then! I would like to make myself clear before I dig more into this ‘wanderer’ in the post, my life is pretty settled and I have no intention of pressing undo button in this regards. But at the same time I do want to confess that I have wandering unsettled ‘thoughts’. I know everyone has them but I think I have 100 times more than the normal person’s quota and I have very strong facts to prove it!!

Wandering thoughts can sometime be really unsettling but occasionally have the ability to make wish come true. When I was growing up these thoughts would act as my driving force. If I liked or was inspired by something I would immerse myself in it and my wandering thoughts would help me to do the best so that I can achieve what my heart wants. They would build a little world for me where that subject was all mine. If it were an object then I would be cherishing and holding it in my world feeling very proud, satisfied and happy. But if my desire was a non-object  for example if I wanted to score a certain percentage in the class [yeah I am the sort of person who always likes to maintain a certain level for myself in almost everything – and never fall below that, always on the top!] then these thoughts would make a world where I could see myself happily dancing after the results were out as I had scored my desired percentage, my parents are looking all happy, my sister is giving me usual look, my friends all jealous and looking at me with surprise and thinking – Oh my God how brilliant and hardworking girl she is!

I would make a blueprint of my dream which would be followed by a robust road map and that would take some time to finish as it would require lots of dreaming and thinking of achievement. My experience says, if you really want to achieve what you desire then you need to just think about it all the time. I don’t know how many of you are you aware of a children show called ‘Peppa Pig’ – Reva loves it and at some time I love it too. Very silly show which revolves around Peppa, shown as young female pig, her family and friends. Each of her friends is a different species of animals. Peppa and her family loves jumping up and down in muddy puddles. And once there is a championship of puddle jumping and Peppa’s daddy takes part. Peppa asks daddy how he is going to practice for the jump and he replied that he is going to sleep and dream all about the puddle. On the day of competition, daddy pig is all ready for the jump. Peppa asked her daddy again – what are you going to do now Daddy? Daddy says ‘To become the champion I must become one with the puddle’ and then he jumped. He made such a jump that the muddy puddles went all over crowd and left no signs of it on the ground. Daddy pig is declared as the champion of the puddle jump. Moral of the story is to achieve something you have to first absorb it in the soul. .

But then there comes time when you are at the saturation point, you have achieved almost everything you ever dreamt for, no desire left for any fancy objects and just want to live your life as it comes. In a way you fired your wanderer thoughts and hired the wander-less ones. They have nothing to do, they have been working very hard for all those years in the past for you and suddenly they are jobless. But idle mind is devil’s workshop. And  when all the thoughts in the mind are wander-less and have nothing to work upon  - they start to pick negativity. They start to make a mesh of complicated thoughts that you ever came across and then things gets even more complicated. You start losing your faith, patience and above all positivity. I have been experiencing this negativity in past [fingers crossed] and as a result had quite a lot of trouble lately. Well I am not here to give excuses and would rather stick to the reality. I had a burst which tormented me to the bottom of my soul and I finally came to conclusion that blaming all the stress on work, travel, taking care of kid, husband and home won’t work. Time to revisit my beliefs and roots – to accomplish them all I need is positive energy.

In my last post I told you that I am reading this book on Positive Thinking, I am not just reading it but also trying to practice all the methods book has mentioned to restore the positive attitude. One of the lessons is to negate negative thought by positive thought. Looks simple but believe me it is not – when your mind is tired and used to negativity, thinking positive takes a lot of effort. The most annoying habit of mine is I think too much, I think and think and make a sort of imaginary world around myself. I will give you a small example – I took Reva to see the doctor and at the reception I gave my documents to let them know that my address has been changed. I got my driving license with me for proof and then told the lady over the counter to change my husband’s address too. She took the form which I filled in and DL to take the copy, and when she came back to return them she said ‘you know you should have brought bank statement or leasing document which has both you and your husband’s name on it. What if your husband is not living with you or in future if that happens’ – I was quite offended by that and in fumes I replied if that would have been the case I wouldn’t bother to touch his documentation. As I have got sick child with me so I just took my DL with me and left. But those words kept lingering my mind. Left me thinking I should have said more like ‘how dare you ask questions like that’ or ‘you should have told me in first place or mentioned that in the form that please bring your own address proof irrespective of the fact that you are family or not!!’ I was so annoyed by that comment all day long and spend all of my energy thinking what I’d missed to say. This was just a small trailer, so you can see my chain reactions to a stranger’s passing comments – just multiply it by 100 times when more serious things happen. I wasted all my time and energy thinking what should I have said or done instead of leaving that subject as it is and move on. When I began reading the book in first chapter I came to conclusion that I can’t Forget and Forgive which is the key of happy living. I need to stop living on grudges and forget everything which made me sad in the past.
An idea came to me when I was driving today – instead of thinking of subjects which drive me mad why I don’t try to think interesting stories with the help of my wandering thoughts and offer them a new job. Like this post – all thanks to my wandering thoughts which planted this idea in my head. But true driving engine of this post was a little fiction story which popped into my head when I took the motorway to work. Last night my father in law was asking Vishal about my drive – how far is the office, is there any highway to reach there, what is the drive time, how is the traffic and all that stuff. I was thinking to plan a visit for all of them to my office today but then left it as there is not point of taking 3-4 hours trip just to visit my office. But then I kept thinking about it and was imagining the drive and telling them about all the junctions- which one is the busiest one, which one is prone for traffics and we reached our office which is situated on the most beautiful location. We all get down near to the hill which is just on the entrance. Reva started running on the trail which goes to the farm side. Vishal is on the camera and my in laws are all standing there and praising the location and the office. And to my surprise Mr CEO is also taking walk on the trail and joined us asking ‘how are you and what makes you come up here’ [please don't laugh on my very optimistic dream], he meets with everyone and praises me and my department’s work [you know I send a report every Monday directly to the CEO and always wish to have reply back from him]. After meeting us he took his leave with a big smile on his face. We then headed back to our home and took a quick stop over at nearby service station.

When I was out of my dreamland, I was left with a big smile on my face which remained all through the day. Then it occurred to me why don’t I stick to this habit of dreaming all the good stuff and earn a smile a day

It is Ready!!

Reva’s crochet dress is ready. I’m really rather pleased with how it’s turned out. So is Reva – she loved her new dress and wanted to show all her friends in her nursery

Aah! [big pleasure-sigh]

Three Things

Flowers are blooming in my house which I bought them last week – still quite fresh and colourful. Winter has done knocking and now slowly slowly entering in our lives and preparing to make it gloomy for next 6 months or so. As the winter crawl over I would start to bring more colourful flowers to coverup outside greys.

The other two things of mine are long-awaited to do things – Crochet and Reading. Yes I am back to my hook and a book.

About crochet –  I was missing it badly and it has been over a year since I last touched it here. I was so tempted to order new colourful yarn inspired by Lucy, but then I decided to clear up my old pile and then jump to new yarns. I really miss my crochet and touch of yarns and the time where its me and two of them. True bliss to see how a pattern come out from a simple thread with the help of a simple hook – absolute bliss  This time I am making granny inspired dress for Reva – cant wait to see how it will turn out [ so excited] !!

Books: More than a year since I have read my last book (The Lost Symbol). I was so dying to go back to reading again. And it was just not the hobby but my desire to give some peace of mind through reading which motivated me to pick a book. A friend of mine in office gave me a girly book which was perfect start and there is another one I got yesterday from Amazon order, also recommended to me from one my dear friend. It is about positive thinking and I just completed chapter one – loved it. As the title describes that it is all about thinking positive but the thought that hit me most is about praying – yes prayer is ultimate solution to all the problems. Bigger the problem, the bigger prayer should be – so correct! In this fast and busy life I have absolutely stopped praying and started feeling that I am the most sorry person in the whole world but now I know. Really thankful to my friend for pointing me to right book.

Thank you God for giving back my three things

Chance of a Beach

Went to Bournemouth for a day visit with my team mates week back. It was a Team outing and glad I joined. You see this isn’t about myself or team, this is about the perfect weather and place which made the trip totally worth spending 5 hours on the road that day. We have been in UK for almost 2 years and before that we were in San José and both the places are famous for their beaches – like California is related to Malibu beach and UK with Cornwall, Dorset, Bournemouth and other famous and beautiful south-east beaches. Unfortunately our stars never aligned with proper beach, weather and timing. It was one way or the other – in California the nearest beach to our city was Half Moon way Beach – very beautiful!

But we always had  a misfortune of ending up on the beach with freezing cold gusty wind. Hardly spent 30 mins and had to rush to near by coffee shop to get ourself warm. This wasn’t happened to us one time – it was every single time when we headed to the beach. We had gone back again to half-moon bay another time in proper summer but still had no luck, some friends told us that it was as expected and we should try some 17 mile drive beaches – went there, same gusty cold winds always which gave us headaches. When we went to LA on thanksgiving holidays and had plan to visit Malibu but fate didn’t agreed upon it and had to come back without visiting it.

Last year we went to Brighton –  weather was awesome, sunny no signs of any wind – checked BBC for hour and hour forecast. We were all geared up with proper beach essentials. I had bought castle making thing for Reva and planned my self a lazy lay-down on the beach. Dreaming of walking on the sandy beach with Reva, picking some sea shells with her – maybe have a dip in the water…..

Right, with all excitement we and our close friend family headed towards Brighton. Yep everything was according to plan – we reached there in almost two hours but had no idea about the distance from pier and parking bay so had to park like 1 km away from the beach. That didn’t bother us and we were all excited and happy was to walk. After walking for almost 30 mins – finally had a glimpse of beach started to emerge. People around were looking happy and all beachy. Finally we arrived at the pier and started to look for some place to mark our resting area for rest of the day. All I can see was less sand and more pebble. Thought that particular area is full of pebbles, walked little further from pier, again pebbles and then I worriedly said – why are so many pebbles in this beach – where is the sandy beach??. Then our friend said, oh! you didn’t know Brighton has pebble beach and then I was shattered.

So when we came to know that we are going to the Bournemouth for day out on BEACH, I didn’t hope much but thought of giving it a chance not to the beach but to myself. I had makeup my mind that I will enjoy only with my team mates and didn’t even dreamt of sands at all.

Bournemouth is more than 2 hours drive from my home. We left early for the day so that we would leave early and reach home by usual time. As it was weekday and school was resumed that week so city was very quite. Thought might be a usual city with a usual beach. When we reached at the pier – oh my god it was breath-taking. So beautiful!

Sandy beach with a chair

I had a most lovely day out on the beach – did whatever I dreamt of but with a catch of missing my family – I missed Reva and Vishal that day so much. When we were having lunch and I had most delicious fish and chips ever, I missed Vishal. I missed Reva when I was picking sea-shells on the beach. I miss my family when I had most amazing ride on big Balloon

It was a splendid day at the beach, have to come back again with family and I am keeping my fingers-crossed this time

Running !!

Yes I have finally started running. It was long-awaited dream of mine. If you have scrolled my Wish List (which needs to be updated though!), running is on the number one and it took me good time to begin. I always love running whether it was just a competition in the school or off school with friends. Although I tend to win less medals in running but I always enjoy participating in the race. When we moved to abroad I often see people running on pedestrian walks, parks, treadmill and was always amazed by their stamina and admired their discipline. I gained weight and following the trend I joined gym, tried to run on treadmill but it wasn’t any fun anymore which I remembered.

In office I often see my friends colleagues taking break in lunch and go for running. They talk about their mileage and distance, about stamina, signing for this and that event for running. That was really my enlightening about running. Like there is not only Marathon running in the world, it begins with 5K (kilometers), 10K, half marathon and then comes marathon. In my department there are two London marathon runners, and I always looked to them with so respect. I always love the atmosphere of fitness love in my office – always reminded me to what I need to do and make me guilty of not doing anything. This summer my office mates created a running group which runs twice a week. I wished to join them but due to the fact that my commute is so long and have to leave office early so no time of taking break in lunch. But it was as excuse – isn’t?

We moved house a two month back and there is a recreational centre very near to our house with gym, swimming centre, library, tennis court, children park – everything we can wish for. Last month Vishal and me got gym membership and we promise ourselves to spend at least 3 days a week in gym and don’t let our body to get corroded in time – you know we are not getting any younger any day and if we havent started now we wont start ever (I know its hard to think but this is what I needed to boost myself). So we spend good amount on the membership and came back with a promise to start exercise.

Last week I took my first class with instructor and she asked me what is your goal. I was tempted to say to reduce my weight but instead I said I want run 5K. she said fine this is your 90 minutes programme to follow for next 6 weeks. It is all about running and preparing for 5K run.

This is my second week and I am running more than 2 km in 20 minutes. I make sure I get 3 times a week for myself and running and honestly speaking I am so satisfied by myself and really glad that I finally started running

Most colourful season of the Year!!

Yes its birthday season. August is celebration time at home these days. Well to be honest it starts from 1st day of July till last week of August. I love celebrations – When I was little I always look forward to letters wishing birthday, cards, cakes, yummy foods and above all gifts. Till now feeling is still the same but matured with rooms for adjustments and compromises. I don’t mind if the food is yummy or not (because its down on me mostly) or the gifts to be given on the same day. Things that I assured be on time is birthday card and cake.

I celebrated my 30th Birthday this year and it gave me a bit of a mixed feelings. Pleasure of turning in 30s band and sadness of something – I am sure it is not related to getting older but that I have so much to do and now feels like I have so little time to do all.

 

Apart from hubby and I having quite celebrations (he has the quieter celebrations of all this year as we were moving house that week), Reva celebrated her 3rd birthday. Yes my dear daughter is three now – I can’t believe my senses that she is growing so fast and Vishal is already dreading the thought that she will leave us in some couple of years and never look back :’(. We really celebrated her birthday this year. Decorate the house overnight so that we don’t missed the surprise look on her face first thing in the morning. 

Had Reva’s friends came over on the day and had a bash in her nursery. She loved it all – and I am really amazed to see how well she understand the importance of having celebrations, cake cutting, unwrapping presents and loved to be the centre of attractions. She was so shy during cake cutting -

 

We managed to have a magician came over to the nursery for the kids. She was a very cheery woman and she involved Reva very much. I initially thought that she would be shy but to my surprise she enjoyed every act. She was all dancing and bubbly with the little tricks - from holding on to a wibbly wobbly wand to touching the bunny, she enjoy the show fullest.

 

Oh my!!! my little girl has grown so much. Can’t believe we passed a year already when we celebrated her second birthday day last year.

 

She is so smart and understanding – made me proud very often. I am really glad to have her – sometimes when I am all tired in the end of the day or having a really bad day which often make me cry in the night when putting her to sleep. She would come and say “Mommy are you alright? You are not feeling very well? Dont cry mommy!!” Yeah girls are really gems and I am so glad to have her in my little treasure box. I love you my princess and may this year be the best year of all. God Bless you!

Hello Blog and Hello World!!

When driving to office, I decided to start blogging again. This is so unfair to my blog and myself that I have not written anything since last year – the last post was just a tribute to Mr. Jobs but nothing for myself and family or crochet or cook After numerous attempt of writing and saving them as drafts, promising myself to come back and finish it but that day would never come and this process goes on and on until few months which made me realised that I am not doing anything for myself and not even blogging. So here I am now writing and promising myself to publish this blog in next 10 mins. So if you are reading this post which means I did it

So Hello Blog and Hello World !!!

A Tribute

Being a usual weekday early morning I woke up and in auto-pilot mode, took my warm glass of water and switched on the BBC News channel on TV. News readers were discussing about Apple- they must discussing about new iphone 4S launch I thought but a second later realized it was a day ago. Then I heard about Steve Jobs’s death in distant.

A tear rolled from my eye and I don’t know why?? I am just a iphone, ipod fan who thinks he was one of the genius that existed in  the world and made the people go crazy after technology. He moved technology from geeky level to status-symbol. White was the new black after ipod came out with white earphones. The white earphone connected and fingers scrolling through rectangular gadget is enough to accessorize yourself. Keep aside any brands and trends, if you are plugged to white earphone you are in. One for all and all for one.

I actually touched my first ipod on my first day of marriage, when I was sitting all alone in the room. Doing nothing except greeting everyone. Vishal gave his ipod to me to kill the time and there it was in my hand. All black and sleek and then I realize how it felt to hold an ipod. Since then I always admired every innovation of Apple and later Steve Jobs.

Apart from Apple, he gave us Pixar. Finding Nemo, Toy Stories, The Incredibles, Cars, WALL-E and Up. If I had a choice on the movie, my first choice in always animated movies.

The man is not only know by his products but also his words. One dayVishal and me was following TED and there we watched one of the Steve’s commencement speech at Stanford University. I was so impressed by his life, the struggle he made, hardship he faced – his story about connecting dots.

Thanks Steve for everything. I will never forget to “Think Different”.

Last couple of weeks

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Personal

I started this posted about two weeks ago and I got so absorbed in my routine that I couldn’t finish it. Today when I woke up I decided to complete it as soon as possible. So here is my life in past couple of weeks -

Once Reva started going to nursery and loving her time there, I decided to look for job. It had been more than 3 years since my last job.  Being without a job for such a long time really haunted me. Now only thing I want is to go out from the house. So the job hunt began. I was getting responses but due to my 3 years of unemployment gap most recruiter rejected me, or if they forwarded my résumé to the company then they rejected me. Everyday I spent at least 3 hours in searching and applying jobs and answering the recruiter calls. Some talked nicely and some laughed on my 3 year gap “Why on earth you took so long?”. It felt bad but I moved on. In March I got my first interview, I was happy yet nervous. Hurriedly I bought my first formal outfit in 3 years. Interview went good but they rejected me because I have a technical background while they wanted someone with business background. After 2 weeks I got another call for a travel company. Finally they accepted me as I am. I cleared the first interview and to my surprise they called me for HR round. It also went fine but a week later agent told me that company selected another candidate because he scored 6/6 sql written test and of course he had more recent experience than me. I don’t mind it either, in fact I learnt a lot giving an interview after 3 years. Meanwhile I applied in one of the company and they responded me. They asked me to complete one online test which I did and afterwards no news from them. A month later I got another call from talent recruiting company asking me to come for an interview. I went for the interview and it turned out to be the 1st line support  job.  The interviewer gave me an hour test which according to him I failed with flying colors. The most insulting part was that he rejected me then and there. I felt so humiliated.

Searching  job and going for an interview was not easy for me. Everything ran smoothly between 9:00-12:00 in the morning because that is when Reva played in the nursery but after that it was a little harder. It was hard to talk on phone and even harder to go for an interview. Vishal helped me a lot during first times but it was also tough for him to get a half day or full day off every time. So I have to make adjustments with the appointments. I tried to schedule them in the first half of the morning but when they fell on the second half  it was hard. Reva’s nursery helped us a lot. They kept Reva after hours. They were really wonderful.  All these things made me tired and the with the last interview I felt very disheartened. It happened 5 days before our Paris trip. I decided to quit for a while from the job hunt. On the very same day towards evening I got a call from that company for which I had given that written test.  The women on the phone said that managers wanted to meet me on Monday which was impossible for me. I was sure that it wasn’t going to happen but still I took a chance and told the recruiter that I am going for a vacation next week and will be glad if they could take the interview this week between 9-12 in the morning. She later called me with an interview scheduled. It gave me some hope but I decided that time not to set any hope and plus the location of the company was 2 hours away from our place, so another practice run I thought.

On friday I left home around 7:15 AM to catch 7:27AM train. I bought tickets online, all I needed was to collect them on the station and as obvious there was queue on the ticket machine because other two machine were not working. I missed my train infront of me. There were 2 changes in the journey, since I missed my first train so whole schedule had been changed. It turned out I was going to be late on my interview by an hour. I updated my situation to the recruiting woman and she convinced me that it is okay and I shouldn’t be worried about it as the interviewers had been informed about my situation. So I reached office an hour late all worried and anxious. To my surprised team was very understanding and helpful. Instead of an interview we had an hour chit-chat. It was a great experience and I decided not to think of the result but when returning home I thought it would be a shame if I didn’t get through the company because I spent so much time in travelling rather than giving interview.

As Forest Gump’s mother said “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”. In Paris I got the news that I got the job and we were so thrilled. Date of joining was decided to be after a month so that my background check process got completed. Once we reached London, I provided everything  required with the verification document. In few days I got a mail asking me to give more documents to support my unemployment gap, so I provided everything I could include three years of bank statements for which I thought that they are more than sufficient to support my gap. In couple of days  I was informed that I failed the verification process because I don’t have enough documents to support my gap. It was such a shock, couldn’t understand what on earth I havent provided them or should I provided to convinced them that all I did was to quit my job to support my lovely husband to live a sunny life in California where I learnt some baking, driving, done CCNA training, attempted CCNA exams twice and failed by wee numbers, did some traveling, gave birth to a beautiful daughter, spend my whole time taking care of her. And now when my princess wants to be an independent girl at the age of 21 months so all I thought was to get a job back after a long break. In return I got stupid failure on background check from some security check company – what a life!!

Lady who recruited me and the only person of the contact supported me very much. She said we will make an appeal to the company to reconsider the situation and I did. I collected all the possible documents from those periods like – 3 years of bank statements from three different banks, all the email receipt of online transactions I did under my name, driving licence, Reva’s birth certificate and many more. I would never forgot those couple of days when I was so disheartened by the fate, sorting out around 60 bank statements, searching my old emails for any transaction receipt I received under my name. Vishal was such a support to me that I can’t even define in words. We finally prepared the letter with all the supporting documents and submitted them to the company. Now came the most horrifying part – the wait. We waited for more than three days. I was preparing myself to leave the hope and prepare to start the job hunt again.

In the evening I got the call from the recruiting woman  saying company considered me and they are happy to take me. Finally I got the job !!

Colors and Shoes

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Personal

First of all I want to thank you Reva’s Aunt orramoon for helping to edit pictures for this post. Thanks again orra

We bought Colors and Sketch Book for Reva, her first ever. She loves to scribble with them in every page possible except her sketch book. A glimpse -

Colors and Sketchbook

using colors - by orra

Now putting them back - by orra

The other day she was scribbling on one of the library book, so we have to be careful and keep an eraser in the home.

Till then Happy Coloring

Oh almost forgot to post this picture, Reva now trying to put her feet in our shoes. She found my shoes which has a little heel. It was so much fun to watch her, balancing herself in that shoe -

Little Feet - by orra