This week I could not do what I set out to do.
My word for this week was to ‘Create’ and I had set out some specific goals for myself and I just couldn’t do it. And even though I didn’t create what I had in mind, it doesn’t mean I didn’t create AT ALL.
In between being slightly under the weather over the weekend, Laddoo being home on Wednesday (Jan 15) for Sankranti, and my maid showing up on only 2 out of 7 days, it’s a miracle I didn’t lose it more than once.
I kept reminding myself that I needed to adapt and to believe that things will work out, so made my peace with not being able to have a clean-ish house, with not having the healthiest of meals, with not being able to walk 10k steps every day or even write every day. If I wasn’t able to do these basic things, how in the world was I going to make a card or hand-letter a quote?
I told myself it would sort itself out and waited for the magic to happen.
And it did.
In ways that I never thought of.
Here are the things I DID CREATE:
1. A NEW ROUTINE
I started attending Yoga class from Monday (Jan 20). Now, three days a week, I will wake up before 5 AM, shower, and be off to do Yoga and be back in time to comb Laddoo’s hair for school, which is pretty much all I do these days for her in the morning. Next week onwards I will try and wake up by 4/4:30 AM even on days I don’t have Yoga class, and try and go to the gym or go cycling. If nothing else, I will wake up early and READ. Or write. In peace.
2. TIME FOR LADDOO AND SANDEEP
With the maid not showing up, I had to let a lot of things go when it came to my personal daily tasks. So I thought why not spend this time enjoying with Laddoo and Sandeep.
On Wednesday, when Laddoo had a holiday and the maid didn’t show up because she wanted to ‘go out,’ I took Laddoo to the mall. She was in TimeZone for an hour and a half while I treated myself to coffee and doughnuts from M.O.D. and managed to do some writing.
On Saturday, when Sandeep had to unexpectedly go to work, Laddoo and I went to our Clubhouse for a breakfast date and then I took her to the playground IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY to play in the sand.
On Sunday, we all stepped out in the morning and went to the huge park in our society premises. I carried my coffee and book with me and managed to finish reading Big Magic while out in the open and did a mini photo shoot. That’s where these pictures are from.
Later in the day, we went to attend Palava Tamil Sangam’s Pongal Celebrations where Laddoo was performing with a few other kids from her dance class.
I couldn’t reach my writing goals on 3 or 4 days, but that’s okay. I got to laugh and have fun with my family and that means a lot.
3. SPACE IN MY LIFE FOR SOMEONE NEW
Now this is one of the three items I DID HAVE on my list last week when I chose this word. And I was successful in chucking out one absolutely unnecessary and useless person out of my life so that I could bring in someone new.
My maid.
I get household responsibilities. I get emergencies. I get taking care of kids and other family members. Believe me, I GET IT, because I have them too. But when someone has taken 5 holidays since December 25, and doesn’t bother to call and INFORM that she’s not going to show up, that’s where my understanding ends.
Now, don’t laugh. But one of my 10 wishes when I did ‘Dream with Kat’ was to have a good, reliable, trustworthy house-help whom I could leave Laddoo with, if need be. Or at least delegate more household chores to her and rest assured that she would do them well.
Side note: Do you want to know what the funny thing is, though? This item didn’t make it to my list until I made version 3 or 4. And by the time the final version of the list was ready, I struck off a vacation to the Caribbean from my list, but this item stayed.
Ladies, a vacation is for a week, or maybe a fortnight, A MONTH TOPS, but a good maid will last at least A FEW YEARS! Of course, I’d much rather have that because that would make most days better than what I have now.
Anyway, how could I get a better maid if my current one was still with me?
So I let her go. With JOY! I did the vessels on my own one day, and even broomed the entire house. While that was fun, and I actually don’t mind doing it more often, I can’t do it on a regular basis because it would mean lesser time for other work. So I set out to find a new maid.
And lo, behold! Today, someone came in, and when I was explaining to her how I wanted the washed vessels to be stacked, she actually finished my sentence. I’m not in love, exactly, but this looks promising. So Im’ma wait and watch how it goes from here on out.
4. SPACE ON MY PHONE
As an iPhone user, this has been my BIGGEST issue with my 32GB phone. Well, the battery life is a serious concern as well, but because I love documenting our life and want to click and record as many pictures and videos of Laddoo, this lack of space had been bothering me for a long time.
To ddd to that, my 1 TB hard-drive seems to be corrupted. And it has ALL of my photos from 2011, or even before that. So I had no place to transfer photos from my phone either.
ENTER GOOGLE PHOTOS!!!
WHY DIDN’T I DO THIS SOONER???
ARRGGHH!!
Anyway, this deserves a separate post altogether, but long story short, this is the current status of storage on my phone. AND I LOVE IT!!!
So while my ‘Create’ week didn’t go as planned, I do like how it turned out to be. I know I am one day late, but I will share my word for this week tomorrow evening. Stay tuned 🙂
Being Mamma Bear 