Twenty- five Seven

Of this and that #MondayMusings

January 4, 2016
How do you manage it Corinne?

Wow! 2016 is already four days old. This is the first Monday of the week and I was totally inspired by Corinne’s new badge for the #MondayMusings blog hop hosted by her on her blog#Everydaygyaan.

For those who don’t know her ( and I doubt there are too many) Corinne’s daily dose of inspiration and motivation at EverydayGyaan is just what every one needs to get those juices flowing.

How do you manage it Corinne?

You must be super organised and this year as part of my #woty resolve, I plan on being more organised because that is the real me ( or at least what I would like to be the real me) .

It’s not fair!

Mrs. Funnybones

I woke up this morning and looked into my phone to see what messages had come for me in the night. ShantalaNayak’s fb update immediately caught my eye and I was once again struck by amazement and a lot of envy that Twinkle Khanna can share her life’s events and observations and not get any flack for it? For that matter, I often wonder how Shobha De, Erma Bombeck and several other satirists in the past can write a humorous account of their lives, making obvious fun of their friends and acquaintances get away with it?

I think I look at life through “funny” glasses and can see the funny side of most things. However, when I write about it with pseudonyms for both myself and the people concerned, somehow the person I write about gets hold of one of my daughter’s phone numbers and sends them messages that go thus : Better tell your mother to stop writing about us or else!!!!
Perhaps I should change my name to Twinkle Toes or Shobha Night and then may be I’ll get away with it.

I’ve already broken my first resolve.

Alas! I knew it was foolish to make a resolution which I make every year and never manage to fulfil – but in my quest to live up to my #woty reslove of being me. I had decided to finally seize the brush and actually paint – only on SUNDAY – I promised myself. However, the first Sunday has come and gone and I haven’t so much as dusted the dust off my paints… I can slowly see 51 more Sundays slipping by and the canvas remaining as fresh as it was when I purchased it 20 years ago.

I’ve actually forgotten what I wanted to muse about!

Can you believe this? I can hardly remember what I’d been musing about this morning and last night , thinking of what to write about today’s post. I had actually made a list in my head and decided that this first post on #MondayMusings would be a dazzling piece that would set the tone of the posts for the remaining 51 Mondays. The good news is that I’ve registered for Blogging University’s online course beginning February 8 on Writing 201. Hopefully this will give me some inspiration and guidance on how to be a better blogger.

I’m linking this to Corinne’s post on #MondayMusings

#MondayMusings has now officially shifted over from Write Tribe to Everyday Gyaan. In honour of that, we have a new badge, which you must admit is quite lovely!

Would you like to take part in #MondayMusings? Here’s how it works:
- Write a post sharing your thoughts with us – happy, sad, philosophical, ‘silly’ even. Make it as personal as possible.
- Use the hashtag #MondayMusings.
- Add your link to the linky which you will find here and on the post of a co-host.
- Use our #MondayMusings badge to encourage other bloggers join in too.
- Visit and comment on the posts of other bloggers linked here.
- Share the love.
Thank you World#GratitudeCircle

December 31, 2015
Today is the last day of 2015.

I don’t know why today should be different from any other day because the sun will still rise in the East and set in the West.

While returning home last night, daughter no 1 remembers Y2K and all the hype that went with it. She asked if we remembered what we did on that day. I still remember very clearly that I’d told my brother that on 1 January 2001 we’d get up to find ourselves in the Southern Hemisphere because the earth will flip on its axis. It was a flippant remark because obviously nothing of the sort happened.

But for many people it did – for those families who experienced a dramatic reversal of fortunes or circumstances. I can’t forget that on the morning of 31 December 1999 a well loved person in the extended family actually breathed his last, making his family’s world literally go upside down!

So on this last day, I look back in gratitude for all the 365 days that went past: the good, the bad and the ugly.
So what was good?
- The two grand babies born in the middle of the year. I’m grateful that my children have given me this opportunity of becoming a grandma. Many people of my generation are baby sitting houses or dogs for their children.
- The trip to Dubai in early April was a great getaway. Even though the weather wasn’t the best, it was a great time to connect with friends, the extended family,my Better Half and myself. I am grateful for this time away from home that allowed me to reflect and recharge my batteries.
The bad part of the year was the constant activity that gave me no time to exercise. I’m not a very physical person but I enjoy a long walk in the morning, taking in the bracing air or a leisurely walk in the evening catching up with a friend. But then, having things to do and being “wanted” and “needed” are great ego booster. I’m grateful I have the opportunity to do the things I like with the people I like and am happy to be needed and wanted.

There are many, many things that happened this year for which I’m grateful but essentially ,what I’m most grateful for is the fact that I’m leading the life that I am leading.

Thank you WORLD!

As I look up ,

I see a sky that is so blue

with clouds of fluff

reflected in the shiny glass

of modern buildings dwarfing the old.

Isn’t mine a wonderful world?
I’m linking this post to GratitudeCircle and Skywatch Friday.

Happy new year to fellow bloggers – may you world in 2016 be wonderful too!
Looking back, looking forward#woty

December 29, 2015
This is my favourite time of the year when people make lists of the good and bad things that happened throughout the year, take stock of achievements and goals and redefine their tasks for the year ahead .

So what are my achievements in 2015?
- Expanding my family tree:Undoubtedly the increase of my tribe by two more grandchildren born in the middle of the year : a girls and a boy born 5 weeks apart. While I am aware that this not really MY achievement, there are two more souls on this world thanks to my original two.
- Expanding my horizons:I managed two overseas trips this year, a short trip to Dubai in the first half and a longer one to Singapore. Seeing these cities brought home the fact that just 30 years ago, Mumbai was way ahead of these cities and today it is 30 years behind! Returning home, I was saddened to see my city sink further into chaos while the rest of the world marched ahead. And, what was more disheartening was the fact that both these cities are actually built to a large extent on the labour of my compatriots. What happens to us in India? Why can we not make our own cities work?
- Re-organising my BLOGS and reinventing myself: Taking a cue from several bloggers I admire, chief among them being Corinne and Vidya, I actually took the bull by the horns and took the first step to tidying up my internet identity. I took the help of Tanya of Blogelina and though I’m not entirely thrilled with the result, am happy that I took this step. Foodities and Mumbaionahigh are two blogs that are self hosted and I find, strangely enough that my WordPress blogs had less glitches proving that all that’s paid for doesn’t always work well.
- Learning how to #blog without a desktop: Now this is a major technological breakthrough for me who is a firm believer in pounding only a trusty keyboard. A month’s stay in Singapore forced me out of my comfort zone and compelled me to use my iPhone more effectively. I can now upload photos, link URLS, copy paste efficiently and above all blog and email using #Wifi! Alas the Canva experience is not possible on mobiles yet, else I’d have been making more graphics. However, I’ve discovered VivaVideo and it won’t be long before I begin posting Video blogs
- Expanding my blogging experience: I participated insome amazing events -# BOLTING with Blogadda to Tiger Hill , participating in the #softestforbabyskin Pamper Launch which coincided with #WIN15.
  - I went for several other events independent of Blogadda and participated in the A to Z challenge which had me blogging for an entire month!
- Learning to say NO: this was by far my greatest achievement. While this has reduced my angst, it has increased my weight because I learnt to say NO to exercising and reducing my intake of food.
And looking forward?

Well like most people who make resolutions,in 2016 I plan on
- Becoming a better person
- Losing weight
- Exercising regularly
- Blogging regularly
- Taking my blog rank higher
- Mastering social media
And above all I plan on learning to take life less seriously. With every passing year passing even faster than the previous year, I realise how much time I tend to waste in thinking and re-thinking and re-re-thinking. Situations don’t change by thinking,instead things swept under the carpet miraculously DO vanish.

Word of the year

Two weeks ‘ ago I read Corinne’s post on choosing a word for the year which she says is more meaningful than making resolutions that we tend to break even faster than we make them.

So my word for 2016 is actually two words : BE ME.

Over the years I’ve been amazed at finding facets of myself that I didn’t even know I possessed; qualities that remained in my subconscious, surfacing at the strangest of times. Circumstances often make you downplay or mask certain attitudes and aptitudes and highlight or adopt others. Societal norms and expectations make us change or tweak our personalities just so that we fit in. Perhaps if I make a conscious effort, I may still be able to BE ME without creating too many ripples.

I’m linking this post to EverydayGyaan’s #YourWordfor2016

and

“I’m sharing my #TalesOf2015 with BlogAdda.”