Compliments..

I went shopping last weekend and bought couple of nice summer dresses. One of them was a black and white dress which when worn made me feel really feminine..err what I mean is I looked good when I tried the dress at the store. I wore the same to work today with a little different hairdo and accessories that matched the dress. I thought someone will compliment me for the effort I put in but the whole day no one said anything. I could see the reaction on some of the faces but not one soul uttered a word.

As I was getting ready to leave in the evening, a friend from another team stopped by. I had seen her earlier in the day on my way to the restroom and at that time she was getting back to her desk and was talking to someone on her cellphone. She said that she stopped by because she wanted to tell me how good I looked in my dress. She said that the dress, the hairdo and the accessories all make me look atleast 5 years younger. She then proceeded to ask where I got the dress and other such details. She also mentioned that she was glad to catch me before I left because if she gave the compliments the next day it wouldn't be the same. I haven't stopped smiling ever since.

To keep our identity...

I got this in my email this morning and loved it. There has been many posts by bloggers for Women's Day. When I read this, I felt that I should post this as my contribution. Just loved the second paragraph.

You Are A Masterpiece- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (The Art of Living)

"A plum once said, 'just because a banana lover came by, I converted myself into a banana. Unfortunately, his taste changed after a few months and so I became an orange. When he said I was bitter I became an apple, but he went in search of grapes. Yielding to the opinions of so many people, I have changed so many times that I no more know who I am. How I wish I had remained a plum and waited for a plum lover.'

Just because a group of people do not accept you as you are, there is no necessity for you to strip yourself off your originality.
You need to think Good of yourself, for the world takes you at your own estimate.
Never stoop down in order to gain recognition.
Never let go of your true self to win a relationship.
In the long run, you will regret that you traded your greatest Glory - your uniqueness, for momentary validation.
Even Gandhi was not accepted by many people.
The group that does not accept you as YOU is not Your world.

There is a world for each one of you, where you shall reign as king /queen by just being yourself. Find that world... In fact, that world will find You.

What water can do, gasoline cannot and what copper can, gold cannot. The fragility of the ant enables it to move and the rigidity of the tree enables it to stay rooted. Everything and everybody has been designed with a Proportion of uniqueness to serve a purpose that we can fulfil only by being our unique self. You as you alone can serve your purpose and I as I Alone can serve my purpose. You are here to be you... Just YOU.

There was a time in this world when a Krishna was required and he was sent;
A time when a Christ was required and he was sent;
A time when a Mahatma was Required and he was sent;
A time when a J.R.D.Tata was required and he was Sent.

There came a time when you were required on this planet and hence you were sent.
Let us be the best we can be.

In the history of the universe, there has been nobody like you and to
the infinity of time to come, there will be no one like you. Existence should have loved you so much that it broke the mould after making you, so that another of your kind will never get repeated.

You are original. You are rare. You are unique. You are a wonder. You are a masterpiece. .. Your Master's piece. Celebrate your Uniqueness."

You are you, your own self, don’t change for others, for this is NOT
even their world.

Am I Lucky?

Won an iPod shuffle today in a lucky draw. Well its was G who had registered his name for the event and it was his name that was called out. But who cares. He was not in the audience when his name was called out and I went to collect the prize. So its mine, what say?

Feel like getting a lottery ticket tomorrow. Maybe the luck will strike one more time?

I am glad I read Sue's blog...

We performed my FIL's first death anniversary couple of weeks back. I had to wear madisar for three days for the rituals. I kinda know how to wear it but did not want to ask my MIL for directions. I remembered Sue doing this post sometime back and promptly went and got a refresher course on how to wear a madisar. Followed it step by step and thanked her mentally everyday while wearing it. I was glad I was able to do this myself.

Thanks Sue.

Fun with homework

Sonu has started getting homework and for me its so advanced for first grade. One such homework is where he gets 15 words each week which he has to use in sentence. Getting him to understand the word and then use it appropriately in a sentence takes quite an effort. At times he uses two or more words within the same sentence Sometimes its hilarious the sentences he comes up with.

Some instances are

The word - worried, married. He makes up the following - 'I married a man who worried a lot'.

The words - cried, reason. The sentence - 'I cried for no reason' (he cried for something just before we sat down to do the homework and he put that in context here)

The word - amazing. The sentence he says 'Bald eagles have amazing eye sight.' I am thrilled with his sentence and ask him to write it down and he writes 'Bald eagles have amazing I-sight.' I start giggling. He is puzzled and asks he why I am giggling. I ask him to check the sentence he just wrote. He sees no mistake. I ask him the meaning of sentence. He says 'bald eagles can see all the way from top.' I ask him to check his sentence again. He says he has written it correctly. I ask him 'with what part of you body do you see?' He says 'Eyes' and then looks at his sentence again and realises his mistake and starts giggling too.

Will keep you updated on this.

Darr...

There is a tag going around where everyone is listing their fears. Something that happened this morning made to want to do this post. Here goes my list...

1. I am afraid of dogs. I admire them from a distance but do not have the courage to pet them. Living in US, thats a big no-no as almost everybody owns a dog and treats them as a family member. They are lovely creatures and are so loyal. But I am just scared of them. This morning I walked out of home to get into the car with Nattu when a huge dog came running towards us. I was getting into my seat and Nattu was going around the car to get to her door. In fact she was the one who saw the dog and froze. I saw through the window that the dog was coming towards her and asked her to come to me. She ran to my side of the car and got on my lap while I closed the door quickly behind us. There we were sitting in the driver seat with no room to move. I asked her to go to her seat from inside the car. She stepped on my work pants as she made her move, but I did not care. I looked around and could not see the dog anywhere. I did not want to back up the car lest I run over the dog. Then I will be in even more trouble. I finally did back up and saw that the owner of the dog was petting it at a distance. The owner had three more dogs with him and he was taking them for a walk. I was wondering why he did not have a leash on the big dog while the smaller ones were on one. I was laughing all the way to my work thinking of the two of us cramped in the driver seat to get away from the dog :-)

2. I am afraid of creepy movies. I cannot watch monsters, aliens, dracula movies. G loves to watch these sci-fi movies but I am scared to watch them and get nightmares even if I watch a couple of scenes.

3. I am afraid of hurting others feelings. There are so many times when I want to say something harsh, but keep quiet because I am afraid that what I say may hurt them. If it’s someone I really care about, I do make sure to get the point across when I am a little more calm and not angry or agitated. But some people take this as to me being meek and try to walk all over me.

4. I am afraid of my behavior around my kids. I sometimes yell or scream at the kids when things don't go the way I want. Then I analyze my behavior and repent for putting my kids through that situation. I can see the hurt in my son's eyes when I do this and feel so bad later when I am more sober. I am working on getting not too worked up when kids drive me crazy.

5. I am afraid of embarrassing myself in public. But I am getting over this slowly and teaching my kids too that it’s ok to get embarrassed and not everybody is perfect

Last week at school...

. . . Sonu had his kindergarten graduation. He was one of the two in his class to get 'outstanding student' award. His teacher praised him on his math skills. It was a pretty neat ceremony. Parents who came to attend it were taken to their kid's class. A powerpoint presentation of photos taken during the year was shown. All students were given some sort of certificate with a candy to highlight a positive quality in them... like 'Dove' candy bar given to a student who is always the peace maker when there are disagreements (read fights), 'Life Saver' given to a kid who always helps others etc. She even had an appropriate candy for the most troublesome boy..'gummy worms' for he can never sit in one place even for a short duration.

G was totally proud of Sonu's achievement and asked me to call my mom to share the news. He has seen how my mom openly shows appreciation when anyone excels in education. She is someone who feels truly happy for anyone doing well at anything. Even when I did not get good grades during my school days, she would be genuinely happy for my BF who always was one of the class toppers. She would never compare me with my BF but would always point out my lack of effort. I knew how happy she would be to know about her grandson's achievement. She was super excited and I could visualise the huge smile on her face. She wanted me to give Sonu a treat, like ice cream or candy or prepare his favorite food as a reward. Thats what we used to get as kids when on rare occasions we excelled in something :-)

I was also proud of Sonu's achievement and also guilty for expecting too much from him all the time. He is naturally intelligent but gets bored easily with mundane stuff. He needs to challenged to make him and keep him interested to finish anything...be it homework, or artwork or even games. But that boy is so interested in watching TV that no matter how much ever I try to keep him occupied with other activities, his priority always is TV. Well, his TV addiction warrants a seperate post in itself.

Congrats my boy.