Pen and paper

I used to buy charts, spend hours and hours by drawing and colouring, produce greeting cards out of them and then gift loved ones for birthdays and new year.
Now I wish them by posting on FB or by ringing them up.

I used to get inland letters from dad, write down to my heart’s content and post them to my brother, friends and more.
Now I just drop a mail with whatever I want to say.

I used to wait for the postman to deliver letters for me or look at the mail box at college hostel earnestly each time I pass by with the prospect of receiving a letter from someone near.
Now I just check my Inbox periodically.

I used to write down my favourite quotes in diaries (the ones I wait with so much of enthusiasm to get every year from my father).
Now I just bookmark them or note them in a draft or a temp file

I used to track every little expense I make, make calculations of amounts to be split among friends, draw charts and graphs occassionally, calculate figures for the month etc, at the back of the diary.
Now I use a calculator in PC to make some quick calculations

I used to use slam books, diaries to have my friends share their feelings, likes and dislikes, birthday and contact details and all.
Now everything is done over a couple of emails and websites

The technology over time has definitely made jobs faster, easier, convenient and lot more but the joy of holding a pen and paper, the pleasure of jotting down, the job of treasuring them in stacks, the excitement of re-reading them is irreplacable!

Yippeeeee!

After spending countless hours and going totally totally crazy, here comes the 2048 🙂

Growing up

Date : 20th April, 2014

Action : Summer holidays have begun for A and she wanted to go to my parents’ place for a week as my SIL and niece have come there. And A staying away from me is not something which happens usually, the number of such occassions can be counted to a single digit number. So not wanting to disappoint her, we packed her bags and dropped her on Sunday. At that moment, I had predicted that either I would call her back or she would ask us to pick her up in a day or two.

Status : It is the 4th night tonight and neither have I called her to come back nor has she shown any signs of wanting to come back.

Inference : Signs that we are growing up as a mother and a daughter 🙂

Wierdness

All saturdays are holidays for the kids upto 4th class at A’s school. And this, though not the sole factor, was one of the reasons we chose this school as more holidays imply more happiness.

Last week, we were surprised when it was announced at school that saturdays are going to be half-day working days. We were shocked when we got to know that it was parents of students who had requested to take such decision. We were speechless when the reason they mentioned was that the children are being given more holidays.

I would totally understand if parents of high school students worry about too many holidays, but for primary children, I am clueless. I so so detest this change and find the parents very weird to ask for such thing or am I weird to feel so 😦

Fire aur safety ka gyaan

A fire and safety session was conducted at work place today and it looked quite informative. So here go some snippets :

# Fire – fuel + oxygen + heat
# Smoke and panic cause more damage than the fire itself
# 100 – police, 101 – fire, 102 – ambulance, 103 – traffic police are the emergency numbers and work from anywhere, even without a coin
# Buses are supposed to have fire extinguishers and have to be maintained properly, which doesn’t happen usually in India
# Volvo bus drivers are required to have a Volvo license, which is a separate type of license in itself
# Buses travelling for a distance more than 500 kms should have a co-driver, to be used in shifts
# Carrying a hammer while travelling in a bus is a safety measure
# Trains have got 4 normal exits + 4 emergency exits in a sleeper coach
# To stop the train in case of fire, and when pulling the chain doesn’t work out, reach out to people who can do that, the incharge of the pantry has got a walkie-talkie who can communicate to the driver, or in the absence of pantry, the person responsible for delivering food has got one, or the attendant of an AC coach has got one
# Refrigerator should not be present inside the kitchen, for the sparks that come out of it because of the compressor can cause a fire when there is a gas leak in cases of not turning it off after use
# In case of fire at home, evacuate people at home and immediately close the doors to cut the flow of oxygen to stop the fire
# If a pan is on fire in kitchen, do not panic and cover it with a lid to put it off
# Emergency doors do not have stoppers, to prevent the oxygen from getting in and expanding the fire
# Use stairs to get out of a building and always hold the railings to get down, so that fire brigde gets ample space to move up
# To rescue a person on fire, use a blanket, cover him from the back, roll him down and do not remove the blanket immediately as you will remove the skin by doing so. Just uncover the face to let the oxygen and use cool water in the time the ambulance comes
# When you are on fire, stop, drop down, close eyes and roll on the floor
# There are 4 kinds of fuel A, B, C, D representing solid, liquid, gas and metals that are combustible. Fire extinguishers display a label with these letters, specifying the kind of fires that can be extinguished with them
# PASS – pull out, aim the fire, squeeze and sweep – the way to use a fire extinguisher
# A pressure guage is present at the top with a needle and a green dot in between  two red dots, If the needle is pointing to the green dot, there’s sufficient pressure inside to be used, if its pointing to the red present on the left of the green, the pressure inside is high, so use it at a distance and if its pointing to the other red dot, the pressure is low and is of no use
# Fire extinguishers are of any use only within 3 minutes from the time fire has started, beyond that the fire becomes big to be handled by other means

Times change…

There were times, not long back, when V

Was against buying Barbie or the likes
Was cautious in buying mostly only gender-neutral toys
Was not much interested in getting all the girly play-pretend stuff
Had even suggested near and dear to refrain from gifting such

Now are the times when V

Had himself extensively searched the shops to get a Barbie as her birthday gift
Had his cousins gift her dolls and their accessories
Keeps watching the little one play for hours and hours with these
Has himself proposed to get more such stuff on her completion of first class and this doll house comes home that way 🙂

I see quite a change in V in this aspect and looks like the little one has changed the perception / fears / anxieties / thinking of her dad 🙂

Times keep changing and I guess that’s the only thing that is constant 🙂

Crazy thoughts…

A thinks

# Covering herself with a blanket till the waist makes her a mermaid
# If A had been a boy and I were a girl and were in college, we would have got married
# About how I had become her mother, if I had asked her when she was small “Can I be your mother? ”

Your craziness makes me only love you more 🙂

1 2 3 4 and 5

Curious George got introduced to us, including A, as a soft toy, when she was less than an year old and she seemed to like it from the instant she saw it. She liked it so much that she played with it all day long, carried it wherever she went, cuddled it, bit it, fed it and it was always by her side when she slept. She even used to grope for it in the midst of her sleep, such was her attachment. The attachment grew more and more over a period of time and the soft toy had become a not-so-soft one. So we thought it would be better to get her a new one. So one day, when the little girl was fast asleep, in goes the old one and the new one joins her side.

And the saga continues till date, different members of the family at different times feel that its time for a new one, so the new ones keep coming in while the old ones keep going into hiding without A having any knowledge of it. It has been little more than 5 years since the first one made its entry at home and there have been 5 entries so far 🙂

Sometimes I wonder if the little girl is more crazy about the Curious George or the family is more crazy about the little girl 🙂

The friday that went by

Got us a new book to read from the library

Presented us with a refreshingly cool Minty Melon

Gave us an opportunity to savour Bombay Burger and Veg tacos

And was filled with some shopping fun!

When it was time to end the Friday on a high note, then came the unexpected turn. We came back home and while talking to family, we discovered that one of my ear-rings is missing. The fact that it is a golden one is one thing and the fact that it symbolises the start of my relationship with V is the other thing and the two were enough to make me panic. When all my spirits were about to go down, V found the front half of the ear-ring unexpectedly which relieved me to a great extent considering the fact it forms the major part of the item. For the remaining part, we crawled over the entire home with flash lights, walked down the balcony, scanned the cellar, car and what-not. But it was of no use and we gave up the search. We went to sleep but I had mixed feelings, not sure to be happy for not losing the entire thing and finding the big part, or for losing in the first place. The morning came and with the thoughts of the previous night running in the head, I placed the trash out of the home and when was about to wash my hands, something glittered and a wide smile formed on my face 🙂

All is well that ends well 🙂

Woes :(

Never did I think that something so close to heart could cause so much pain…
Never did I feel that something you resort to no longer eases the suffering…
Never did I imagine that you would enhance my woes rather reduce them 😦

This was what I felt yesterday night when I was reading all the pending blogs, when one picture I saw made me crave for some sweet that could melt in my mouth and I couldn’t lay my hands on any at that hour of the night, I thought reading some more blogs would take my mind far away, but the universe seemed to conspire against me and more and more appealing pictures came along my way only to make me more and more hungry 😦

I shut down everything and slept realizing that blogs are no exception in breaking your heart at times 😦