15 Marbles

Finally at the gym!!Bikram, your turn now 👍👍👍

Yayy!My birthday month is here and I am excited! Can you tell? Can you tell?
Ms.A’s first day at school was really good and exciting. She was one of the two students picked to be the line monitor-she was excited about being picked and more excited because one of her classmates picked her. She is so serious about doing this job well.
My first day back at work was fun too. Its always lovely to go back after a break. I am well rested and as my regulars walked in, it was like a mini-reunion 🙂
Although I loved the holidays and the lazy days-that I had to fill up to entertain the brats, I am loving the routine even more.
This year, my plan is to be better organised with our meals, with our finances and with our life in general. My phone is full of reminders, but at least everything is in one place and I don’t double-book activities/events and then do the balancing act. The other thing that I am doing actively is, taking a back seat. I am learning to say ‘No’, instead of stretching myself too thin.
Speaking of thin, I still haven’t gone to the gym. Bik has made me responsible for his workouts too..Sorry Bik..hopefully next week will be better. B.U.T. I am eating healthy,so that’s a start.

I need a favour from you lovely readers.If you know of anyone that has worked on their own backyard and turned it into an oasis (of sorts) please point me in their direction.We have a fairly good sized backyard and at the moment its just dirt and weeds and all I want to do is turn it into my zen space.All advice will be greatly appreciated.

Hope you are having a good weekend..more soon.

Hooray! The school holidays are over and Ms.A is back at school.This year is a bit special,because she has moved to a new school.First day of Grade 3 and first day at the new school.I was a bit nervous and asked family for prayers,but she was all excited.She was out of bed at 6:30 am and getting cross at me for not waking up. Well,it was a little hard,specially since I had trouble falling asleep.
Morning started a bit rough-Ms.An woke up sick,but drop-off went off alright. The first day of school is special in our family and we all went to drop Ms.A to her class.As soon as Ms.An realised that her sister wasn’t coming back,all hell broke loose and SP had to take her outside and calm her down.
It was going to be my first kid-free day,when I wasn’t working and I was so excited,but I couldn’t possibly send Ms.An to daycare when she was sick,so we turned the kid-free day into Mum-daughter day- spent a leisurely morning at the café and now watching Frozen. Its so much fun watching the movie with a 3 year old.She notices things that I might not notice otherwise,laughs at things that look normal to me,like I said its fun.
All these days,I was tired of answering Ms.A’s constant questions,but to be honest,I am missing my little chatterbox today.I leave you with a pic of my babies that are growing up too soon 🙂

First off,a warm welcome and a huge thank you to all the followers. I am feeling the love 🙂
Australia Day weekend is over and the school holidays finish in 2 days too and as much as I love my kids, I will love them more,when I am not sorting their differences or balancing 2 play-dates in a day and organising countless meals and snacks through out the day, while yelling at them to tone it down.
We have made a conscious decision to eat home-cooked meals-both for health and budget reasons. Eating out is expensive..healthy eating outside is even more expensive and not as fulfilling So,I am cooking more and finding smarter and frugal ways to stretch the dollar.To be honest,I love frugal living…but that calls for another post,this one is about why I love cooking.

In the last year that I started working 3 days a week,our meals have been just sub-standard ..as per my standards. I was still cooking ,but I know I was just doing the motions,my heart wasn’t in it.I had one goal and that was to put food on the table. Quickly put together meals replaced the well thought out ones and a lot of times, those were also replaced by takeaways.

But,something has changed in the last couple of weeks..I don’t know if its my new kitchen or its the mounting expenses that come with building a house..but I have started cooking more.And I have started enjoying the cooking too.I am carefully planning the menu and enjoying creating the perfect combinations.
I love the rhythm of the knife on the chopping board and the tinkle of my steel spoons.The  step-by-step addition of ingredients reminds me of my chemistry lab and I am filled with a new  excitement to see how/what the end product will be. I find the whole process from start to finish,whether I am following a new recipe or just throwing one thing after the other into the pot,just so calming,so rewarding.Every step brings me closer to my zen state and I love the high that lasts for a good while,even after.
Today I made phulka from scratch,after the longest time and the girls gobbled them up without a fuss and SP dug into his meal with the happiest look on his face.Happy dinner time ,happy me 🙂