Clouds and Snow

Clouds - Love them when I am on the ground and they are up.
Not when my plane is cruising through them.

Snow - Love it when I am home.
Not when I am driving through it.

B and I flew yesterday to CA to attend a friend's wedding. I dislike the take off and landing part.
I envy those who are able to sleep off completely during the bumpy take off/landing times. But I managed to survive those times and reached bay area.

Kids are home with grandparents.It is a break from the routine life for some days. We will miss kids, but I have to be frank, I am also excited about meeting our classmates from Engg College. Yesterday felt like 2 days - half the part in flights and the rest like a totally new day in CA. We met our friend''s family who relocated from Pittsburgh - never thought we would be able to meet them up in their new home in the new place so soon.

Dinner was the get together of 4 families who were ex-classmates in College of Engineering, Trivandrum. We relived old times by teasing each other about college stories. We compared east and west coast work cultures and life styles. I was sort-of jet-lagged with the 3 hour time difference between east and west coast. It was a great day!

Time is valuable

This week has been so hectic and crazy not just for me, but for our whole work group. When I had to work for some days for about 12 hours, there were people around me who were putting in more. I could feel the stress creeping into me and killing me throughout the week. There was no time to eat lunch - to me, that evokes self-pity! Mornings were crazy, it was difficult to get up coz my body has not recovered from previous day's stress and dragging the kids to their respective places seemed painful and gave me guilt pangs too! Mr.Nithin has his own innovative reasons to cry for in the morning - refusing diaper change or dress change.

Yesterday evening, when my job was done and I was graciously allowed to go home, even though others were still at work, I told myself how precious the few hours in the evening are to me. To be able to spend that time with the family was a boon. B had promised N a family dinner outing and we were too tired to even move. But we always try to keep our promises to the kids, so we changed the location of the outing to something closer home and made it.

It was a nice two hours at Carabba's Italian Grill. Kids were happy and I saw B relaxed. We both had to put in additional effort to not scream/yell at the kids. As always, our hearts pounded when Nithin would not sit down and try to mess things on the table, but I have learnt to 'enjoy' the moments with the tension in the background.

Today, finally I got some time to type this up. So how have you all been? I am in a great mood to go on a trip somewhere, but work keeps me from moving out of town on weekends. I love to sit next to B when we explore new roads, making guesses on where we would end up going that route and get excited when my guesses usually turn right. I think of those on-the-way places/rest areas where we stopped to buy coffee/fries. The looks of places different from what we usually see on our daily drives - I am longing for those now!

Next month..I will have to wait for June!

And those of you who can get out and take a drive far away, please do it. It will freshen you up, I am sure! Happy Weekend!