Everything I do, I do it for You.

I do not like housework. I do not like cooking. I do not like doing dishes. I do not like being a housewife. Yes, I am not an ideal wife. In fact, I am far far far away from being that.

Ever since I’ve been married, I’ve not been working. And the ‘title’ housewife was bestowed upon me. Not that I did not have fun. I did. Free from pressures of work, free from early morning start, free from constant meetings, life was fun most of the times. But there were times when I wondered, what was I really doing with my life.

I tried not to complain most of the times. In fact, I had nothing to complain about. My life was perfect. But at times in the night, when I thought back of all that I did in the day, the only things that I had seemed to have done were cooking, cleaning, some more cooking and some more cleaning. And I would become grumpy. Grumpy because I was doing what I was not liking. It was not because I was not doing something that I like to do. (You may have to read the last sentence again to understand my point).

To make my point clear, I was grumpy because of my ‘like/dislike’ and not really because of the kind of work I was doing. What I needed was an attitude change. I heard someone say recently, ‘God will not take you to the next level, until you learn what He wants you to learn from this level’. I did not quite understand at that point what he meant but this statement lodged itself in my mind.

Coming back to my attitude towards house work, I been praying about it. Praying that God would help me change my attitude towards the things that are my duties, whether I like them or not. As part of this process, I even have a note scribbled in my kitchen that says ‘TO everything you make, add a dash of love’. And it sure does help. 2 nights back, when hubby and I were praying, perhaps for the first time ever so truthfully, I prayed aloud saying, ‘Lord, if cooking and cleaning is all I am supposed to be doing, help me to do it happily, for what ever I do, I do it unto You’. And I meant every word that I prayed.

The next day, I received word that I got one of the jobs that I have applied for. Now, you may call it a coincidence. But I like to believe that God wanted me to learn my lesson first. And that is, ‘Cooking and cleaning are always gonna be a part of my life. I might as well enjoy doing it.’  All that I pray now is, ‘Lord, help me remember it all through my life’.

I’m starting work this Monday and God knows what lessons he has for me to learn then.

CMB series: Men and Women DO NOT think alike.

Anybody married, will outright agree with me on this statement. Men and Women do not think alike. I can go a little further and say, After marriage, men will totally stop thinking about certain things. If you are a wife and you do not agree with me, your man must be the ‘one black sheep’. But I bet ya, you will be on my side sooner or later.

Gone are the days, men think of ways and means to impress you. Gone are the days, men think of doing things for you. I’ve got a bunch of young wives for my friends and every time we talk, we all agree on the things we say. It’s pretty much like, men are the same universally. They think food magically appears on the table, dishes wash themselves, the house cleans itself and that they are lions. Of course, the last one is pretty much applicable to all of my hubby’s friends.(NO guys, this does not mean I accept you are all lions. It is far from that.)

After dinner, if there are a lot of dishes to be washed, hubby always feels bad for me and comes close to my side and sweetly says ,’You can do it tomorrow’. Oh yea, you heard it right. It’s not  ’I'll help you’, or ‘Let me do some dishes’ but ‘You can do it tomorrow morning.’ . I always found this little hilarious. But what I found out was that my hubby was not the only one who says this. The other ‘lions’ say the same to their wives.

At times, I have spent sleepless hours obsessing over words I have said to hubby, thinking that perhaps he had misunderstood what I meant. But hubby would happily sleep through the night. And the next morning, hubby will have no recollection of what I had said. See what I mean by men don’t think?. I found quite a number of wives who agreed with me on this. The truth is, I guess, we women think a lot. And we think a lot between the lines.So wives, take note. The next time you are worried over something you said to your hubby,fear not. Chances that your hubby did hear it, are really slim. Chances that he got offended, is like one in a  million.

While women like to mean what they say, men like to nod to what women say. I read somewhere that men nod because they agree, but because it is much easier to nod than listen to what women say and give an intelligent reply. An example conversation that we had recently went like this.

Me : Sh, blah blah…

hubby : hmmm…

Me : seems  blah blah blah

hubby : hmmm….

me : blah blah

hubby : hmmm….

……

….

hubby : What shall we do?

I was telling hubby about things that were totally not related to us and all of a sudden hubby let in this intelligent question.  And he was busted. This happens more than often at our house. I am sure that lot of women can vouch for the validity of this scenario. But what I doubt is that,any man can say the same of the wife. When women listen, they listen. They might forget later on, but at least women sincerely listen.

I’ve been accused in the past of being biased in my series towards women and rightly so too. I only talk for my kind. I have been threatened in the past that ‘lions’ will counter attack this series in their own blog, but that day remains to be seen. Like I said, only women mean what they say

Disclaimer :

• All stories/characters featured in my CMB series are not fictional and always resemble a real person mostly alive and is entirely intentional.
• I write based on the inputs received from friends around me.So…. RESULTS MAY VARY from your perception/ idea.

And a big hug to my hubby for being so sportive about these series.

For more of the CMB series, click here.

I, Me and Myself.

When looking at group pictures that include me, my eye always goes to my picture first. I check my dress, I check to see if I look nice, I check to see if I look fat etc. Only when I am completely satisfied about my appearance in the picture, do my eyes scan the others in the picture. This is my regular habit and I am not worried about me being self-centered with this habit cause almost everyone I know , does the same.

But what I did not know, was that, this habit does not limit itself to just pictures.Let me explain what happened. A blog friend of mine is doing a series of interviews with her blog buddies and featuring them on her blog. And mine was one. You can catch my interview here. At the end of the interview, were few kind lines that my friend had put in about me. I was excited when I read that. I was touched that I had been an inspiration to her, etc etc. I even wanted to write in telling her how much I appreciated her words . But I did not yet.

Today, another interview was posted and to my shock, the same lines were there for the other person also.I quickly browsed through the other interviews(that I have already read before) and found the same lines for everyone..(Busted E.C ). I was quite embarrassed at myself and really glad that I hadn’t mailed that thanking mail to her.(Maybe, procrastination isn’t all that bad ). Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I realized, how much attention I pay to the things that concern me.

I, Me and Myself… Is this everybody’s nightmare?

You could be dead the next moment.

I witnessed a crash scene today from my house balcony.Thankfully, no one was hurt.

A car crashed into the sidewalk right opposite to my house. It was God’s grace that no one was there at the time of the incident.Cause, judging by the tire marks on the road, the car must have been in a good speed. I heard the sound of the crash and went immediately to my balcony.Saw few people on the road on their cell phones. I assumed they were calling 911.

It was amazing how the police, ambulance ,etc were at the scene in less than 2 minutes. The sound of siren is something that we constantly hear for we live in the downtown area. I remember, in the beginning of summer, the first few days after we started sleeping with the windows open, I would hardly sleep at nights as the sound of the siren blasting every now and then, used to keep waking me up. But now, it’s part of our lives. After witnessing this crash, I won’t complain anymore.

The whole scene was cleared in 45 mins with the car being towed away, few wires that were pulled off by the crash were taken care of and the yellow ‘do not cross’  tape was removed and everything was back to normal.

I took some pictures (as usual) . Later, as I was going through them, I realized, that anybody who could have been standing at the sidewalk at that moment would have died. If not, at least had a near death experience. And this is a side walk that I walk on, pretty often. It is right in front of my apartment where most of my friends live. And somehow, that thought sent a shiver down my spine.I thank God for making sure nobody was standing there at that moment.

Isn’t this life? Unexpected things happen in the blink of an eye.You can never be sure that you will wake up tomorrow morning. The wind can kill you. The rain can kill you. The earth can kill you.Anything can kill you. But the question is, are you ready? Are you ready with your answer to questions like ‘what will happen after I die?, where will I go after I die?, What if, God was true?.  Are you ready to meet Him?’ .

From where I come from, thinking or talking about death is considered bad luck. I don’t believe it to be. Cause, if it were true, I would have died a million times already . But the thought here is, ARE YOU READY FOR THE INEVITABLE?

Why do I write???

As a blogger, I constantly question myself on,’Why do I write?. What do I get out of writing?. Do I waste my time writing about random things which someone may or may not read someday?’ And every time I ask this question to myself, I land with the same answer.. And that is, ‘I write cause I want to write.Period.’

Every one has a way of letting out steam.Letting out the feelings of the heart.Some may do it in silence, some in tears, some in a smile and still some, in a painting. I choose writing. Writing to me is directly connected to my heart. What my heart feels, my hands want to write.

There have been times when my day has been nothing short of completely awful.Times when my day turned out perfectly as planned and  times when I have been overwhelmed with joy.And in all those times, I only find myself wishing that I could pen it down. For as long as I remember, every time I’ve been upset with someone or something, I’ve always taken a piece of paper and written down what I felt.And it has always made me feel better.Like now.

An eventful Coffee!!

Once a milk hater, now an ‘early morning cup of coffee’  lover. That’s me!

How did I become one? Simple. Before wedding, someone else always made breakfast. Be it mom, or the cook at the various hostels I stayed, someone else made my breakfast. So, all I had to do was get ready and have a steamy hot breakfast but post wedding, I have to make my own breakfast. (The sad smiley at this point is really appropriate.) And to do that, I need to wake up. And coffee helps me do just that.And over the period of months, I’ve began to love it.

That’s where my story starts.I woke up today morning with the same love for coffee. Forcing myself out of bed, I made myself a cup of coffee.I was quite sad that my coffee powder was getting over.(It was my favourite brand of coffee and an Indian one too. So where we stay, we don’t quite get it regularly.I’ve been on the lookout for that brand in the last two shopping trips I went but rather unsuccesfully.) So you see, I had to savor the final cups of this brand.

I took a sip of the coffee and it tasted quite exceptional today.Just the way I like it.Ah!! Bliss. I logged onto facebook, took another sip and placed the cup on the table.And !!@#$%^&* there’s coffee everywhere. On the table, on the papers, on the couch, on the book that I was reading last night and ON THE CARPET.(Not again!!!). I quickly brought in my personal commando (hubby) and did some damage control. But the damage on the carpet was done.

Now is probably a  good time to tell you that I am a queen of dropping/spilling drinks and the like.I had earlier spilt coke on the carpet some time back, very close to the spot that I spilt coffee today.Sigh!.Anyway, I made myself another cup of coffee and made sure I did not spill this one too. And of course, I savored every sip of it.

Few lessons learnt today.

• Coffee wakes you up. But only if you get enough of it in your system.After just two sips, your body is still sleeping. So beware of what you do.
• Apparently, coffee stains on a cream shade carpet is much better looking than the coke stain on the carpet which tends to turn black after multiple attempts of washing it off.
• Always keep some reserve milk, sugar, coffee powder every time you make coffee. If you are down to your last cup, DO NOT DRINK IT. Cause if you spill it, you won’t have back up.
• Coffee tastes best just when it is about to be spilt and the moments after it is spilt.So watch out every time your coffee tastes amazing.

Why did I blog about this??In hope that my experience today saves someone’s coffee someday!!!

Which cook type are you?

All my life, I’ve been eating.Eating what some one else prepared. While, I always appreciated the food I ate,I never spared a thought to the cook behind all the food I was eating. But all that changed once I got married.Now, I have to eat what I prepare and somehow, I’m not loving it.

Being a ‘vella vetti illatha‘ person, I think a lot. And during the course of one of my thinking sessions, I realized that there are many a type of cooks in this world. Of course, I will not spare you the details of my thought. But, before I go into that, let me introduce my readers to the famous Tamil (an Indian language) phrase that I mentioned before . Vella vetti illatha means no job or work.To know how it is pronounced, go to Google translate and type ‘vaela vetti illatha’ and chose ‘from’ language as Tamil and click on the ‘Listen’ button or press the ‘read phonetically’ button. And listen.It’s pretty close to the real pronunciation.

So, back to where we were. The different kind of cooks.

1. Type 1- The new cook : Full of enthusiasm for cooking. Want to try out various dishes. But is a little apprehensive of the outcome.Significant action is the ignorance to the amount of salt to be added in the dish.
2. Type 2- The still self claimed ‘New’ cook: Not at all happy about cooking. Even after a year and a half, will still think that he/she is a new cook and can hence be excused from the quality of the dish.By a stroke of luck, sometimes dishes turn out good. Focus is more on ways and means to balance the ‘too much’ salt or spice in the dish.
3. Type 3- The bad cook : Technically no one falls in this category though every type 2 cook thinks he/she is a type 3. Almost all dishes suck big time.
4. Type 4- The good cook: Happens with experience over a period of years.Can guarantee the outcome of the dish.Every Type 2 cook’s dream.
5. Type 5- The extraordinarily born genius cook : Every type 2 cook’s envy.And the cause of my despair at times.All my friends seem to be in this category. I have a friend who is a vegetarian but she cooks amazing non-vegetarian dishes. How, you ask? I seriously don’t know.Like I said, born genius. (Now, this is the part where you (the reader), scroll down and leave a comment saying something that goes like ‘ It ok…. No one likes their own cooking…..I am sure you are an amazing cook…,etc.Basically anything that would make me feel better.)

So, which type are you?

Raining in Google??

I’ve always been inspired to write at the weirdest of hours.Like for instance, my painter was written in the midst of a very crowded Indian bus on the way to work in the morning hours.Many of my articles have been written in the darkness, deep into the night.So, I’m not really surprised that I am writing this at (what I consider) way too early in the morning, Read on.

Hubby and I were talking last night about the thunders storm warning that have been issued in Alberta.And I think,the following conversation is a result and a continuation of our conversation last night.

Hubby : Is it raining?Can you see? (I should have probably used my brain to think why hubby wanted me to see if it is raining in the middle of his sleep)

(Struggling to open my eyes, I take the laptop and try to unlock it)I can’t unlock the system.I can’t see properly.(I am still way too sleepy at this point to really think anything) .(Making a mental note to self)’Come on, you have to open your eyes, You need to see whats on the computer. Hubby needs to know. You need to know’. (I should have also remembered at this point, that Google is not always the solution to questions )With great difficulty and awesome passion, I finally unlocked my laptop and then…..then WHAT?? (I have no idea why I switched on the laptop to see if it was raining.Heck, I don’t know why hubby wants to know if it is raining in the middle of the night(well… not exactly middle of the night).So, I turn to hubby to ask him why he needs to know if it is raining and behold, he is SLEEPING like a baby.

Seriously, all this was just sleep talking??? so, I decide to go back to sleep, only now, I am way too awake and my tummy decides to growl.I cannot sleep now.So, I pour myself a glass of milk and I write this post.

Hubby darling, if you are reading this post and I am sleeping, it means I finally managed to fall asleep again.Can you do me a favor and fix your own break fast?  :) .(Now, this ought to wake him up )

Horses, more horses and then..some more horses.

Howdy People!I realize my blog is becoming more and more like a travel blog or a picture blog, but I hope you are being entertained by my posts.I have been doing quite a bit of travelling lately and the things I see are too good to miss letting you guys know about it.Tomorrow hubby and I are going boating . Us doing all these activities, comes as a surprise to even us, cause neither me nor hubby are outdoor people.But, hey! make hay while the sunshine.Umm.. I mean it quite literally cause in Calgary, the sun shines only or 4 months is a year.so, HEEEEE HAWWWWWW!!!!(This gal is going country today )

Calgary hosts a 10 day event every year called the Calgary Stampede.It’s a celebration of the wild west.There are gonna be a lot of events happening in the city for the next 10 days including rodeo stuff,  derby etc etc. I can’t give you the full details yet cause I have no idea what all this means.We’ve got tickets for a couple of events.. Will keep you guys updated with pictures, so you feel like you are a part of Calgary Stampede 2011. YAAAHOOOO! (That’s pretty much what I have been screaming since morning.)

You can check out the official website of the Stampede here. Go ahead, check it out to really know what I am talking about.And oh, oh oh… Did I mention that the royal couple William and Kate were also here. I caught a glimpse of Kate waving from inside the car but they passed even before my brain could process what my eyes saw. So, forget about pictures of the royal couple in my post.

Us camping out...

To kick off the Stampede, there was a parade this morning. 2 hours before the parade could start, me and couple of my friends camped on the roadside. It was fun. Of all the days, today saw the temperature drop to somewhere around 10-15 (my guess) cause it was soooooooo cold and very very very windy.The Stampede is all about horses and cowboy/cowgirl. So we saw a lot of horses. Beautiful, beautiful horses. So huge and magnificient.Lately, I’ve been watching a serial called Heartland which  is all about horses and guess what? I am in love with horses.

Since, today was very windy, there were hats flying everywhere.All the performers wore hats and it was funny to watch them running after the hats in the middle of their performance. The wind actually played spoil sport today.There were a couple of girls performing with guns. You know, throwing the guns in the air and catching them and swirling them and so on.Once, all of them in unison threw the guns in the air and there was a gush of wind and all guns dropped to the ground.Oh, I don’t even want to imagine how it was for the performers on stills. Couple of times, the horses kind of dashed against each other because of the wind.

Overall, it was so much fun today and I saw a lot of horses. Felt like I was in a dreamland of horses.So, here are today’s pictures for you to enjoy..

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Niagara- As seen from my eyes….

Just back from my trip to Toronto, Canada and my mind is fresh with with many breath-taking scenes and sights.So, this is me, trying to make you see what I saw.

Toronto, Ontorio

Toronto as a city, reminded me so much of India.Lots of Indian restaurants (my hubby was one happy guy there ),lots of Asians and amazing places to visit. The city is quite a bit of a tourist hub and can get really crowded on weekends.Navigating is a lot easier with a GPS. After spending 3 days in the city, I’ve kinda realized that people there are not very honest. Could be just that it is a tourist spot and hence it is easy to take people for a ride or maybe it was just our experiance but I think you need to watch out for yourself.(Hey! Sorry to offend Toronto guys out there).Quite a big city surrounded by water on every side.Looks beautiful.

Niagara Falls

Niagara is an hour’s journey away from the downtown , Toronto. But on crowded days, the journey can take up to 3 hours. So be warned. But, what ever be the crowd, Niagara is well worth the countless hours of traffic on the road.You can read all about it and see for yourself here.Niagara is on the Canadian-US border. The falls itself is on the US side but Canada definitely boasts of a better view and experience of the falls.

The falls is the US side and I am standing on the Canadian side

Niagara itself has two main falls. The smaller one called the Bridal Veil and the huge one called the Horse shoe Falls. Bridal veil actually is huge but smaller compared to the Horse shoe falls.The falls reminded me so much of the power that water has.Reminded me of how small I was compared to this huge natural fall.Reminded me of how creative God must be. The whole time we were there, we could see the rainbow over the HorseShoe falls and I couldn’t help but think, that God was displaying his creation at his best just for me to see.

The Bigger Horshoe Falls

The Bridal Veil... More rocky than the other

Couple of must do things at the Niagara are the Maid of the Mist ride and the Journey behind the falls walk.Maid of the mist is a boat ride that takes you right up to the foot of the falls so you an actually feel the height and the force of the falls. Journey behind the falls is a walk through a tunnel that takes your right up to the falls midway.You can hear the water gushing all around you. An amazing experience I say.Maid of the mist is available on both canadian and US side but the journey behind the falls is available in the canadian side.

Maid of the mist boat ride that takes us right to the falls.

Journey behind the falls walk that takes us right besides the Horse shoe Falls.

I must warn you about the various tours being offered around Niagara. Beware of information centers. As usual, Arun and I stepped into an information center first and we were told that everything around the city is very expensive. We were told that every place that we wanted to visit were far off and that each included a parking fee of 30 dollars etc etc. And for an amount of 100 dollars per person, they would take us on  a tour. Since it was very crowded that day, we almost took it up. But thankfully, the moment we stepped out on our own, we realized what a bunch of liars they were. We ended up paying 10 dollars for parking the whole day and almost every place was walk-able.See what I mean by people were not quite honest there?

Niagara is too good an opportunity to miss and I am glad that I had a chance to see this magnificent scenic beauty. So, I present to you, THE NIAGARA…

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