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Blogging challenges and a gratitude post

I began blogging last month with a gratitude post and that seemed like a lucky omen. September turned out much better than August for the blog as well as for me. So here I am beginning a new month with another gratitude post hoping October will be even better.

Going through my last month’s post I realised how much more at peace I am now than I was then. I’m in a much better space – happier and more relaxed. What’s interesting is that there hasn’t really been any major change to make things better. In fact, since we’re in the middle of the children’s exams, I expected stress levels to rise. That that hasn’t happened is a small miracle in itself and it reinforces my faith in my favourite quote, Happiness is an Inside Job – that happiness often, has little to do with the things around us.

I’m not much for self-indulgent, psychoanalytical posts so without boring you to death with details of my weird flip-flop mental state, let me just say that while I still haven’t achieved the zen state I aspire to, I am just happier and so very grateful for that.

The uplifting of my spirits might be in part due to the love showered on my blog this past month. I had way more visitors than I normally do thanks to the My Friend Alexa Challenge which I was a part of. The first few days of the challenge I felt a little self-conscious, like someone who knew her house wasn’t in as good shape as she would have liked it to be and was expecting a deluge of visitors.

I wished I had the time to put up better posts, smarter stories and more creative pictures on the blog. I wished I could have tinkered with the layout, made it neater, more inviting. However, once I realised that wasn’t likely to happen with my crazy schedule and decided to go ahead and write just like I always do, things fell into place.

I focussed on my original aim of bringing discipline to my blogging, which I did. I managed to write nine posts in the month which is almost two times what I normally do. So I did complete the challenge successfully. That felt good. And, this might make sense to my blogger friends only, my Alexa Rank fell from 2,244,955 to 1,126,045, a drop of over a million!

I read scores of blogs as part of the challenge and discovered some fantastic ones which I shall be going back to. Huge thanks to the Blogchatter team for their tireless efforts to see us all to the finish line.

Encouraged by this success I jumped right into another one – The Write tribe pro-Blogger challenge. All of October, I shall be joining over a hundred Write Tribers and blogging twice a week, again. Sending out a note of thanks to Shilpa who egged me on to do this, over-riding all of my apprehensions. I remain grateful for friends who always come to my rescue when a blogging slump seems around the corner.

And dear reader, as always, your presence here is much cherished. Wish me luck and do drop by every Monday and Friday for a fresh post. The twins have been keeping me busy with their shenanigans and I have lots to tell.

 

Linking up with the Write Tribe Problogger October 2017 Blogging Challenge #writebravely #writetribeproblogger

 

and also with Vidya’s Gratitude Circle

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Finally, A Reader!

The other day I saw H sneaking into the washroom with a book hidden rather clumsily behind his back.

And that dear friends, was the very first sign.

After years and years of cajoling, of telling delicious stories, of quoting wondrous quotes, of strewing books around the house, of talking teasers and stopping at the best bits and also of running a book club, we have a reader in the house.

Finally, H has graduated to being a true-blue reader.

There’s a little bit of my grandma in me that forbids the children from reading in the loo. I may not throw a fit any longer (The Husband, who had no such qualms and no such a grand mom apparently, cured me long ago) but I’d much rather the children don’t make it a habit. I have to mention here that I did get them The Diary of Amos Lee (where the protagonist writes his diary in the loo). See? I was that desperate to get them to read. So perhaps I was sending out mixed signals in the first place.

However, I digress.

There was more proof coming my way. Another day H threw a huge tantrum and refused to leave his book during dinner. Yes yes I know a lot of us read while eating but that’s another bit of my grandma who insisted we were dishonouring two gods if we did that – Annapurna, the goddess of food and Saraswati, the goddess  of learning, both of who deserved undivided attention, according to her.

I’m digressing again but my grandma did talk a lot of sense, I see that now.

Getting back to H, last week at his Open House in school, his art teacher complained he wasn’t focussing on his artwork because he was in a hurry to finish and get back to his book. Art is not his favourite subject and he got his book confiscated. Twice. I stifled a smile at that, since I had mine confiscated during embroidery class!

I shouldn’t have smiled because soon after I found him lost in a book right before his Hindi exam and that wasn’t funny at all. “I finished the Chamber of Secrets,” he told me excitedly, while I struggled to decide whether to take him to task or to high-five his outstretched palm.

I find him curled up in various corners of the house, he insists on reading out the ‘best’ bits to me (which, by the way, are often the most unsavoury ones) and laughs so hard while telling me the funny bits that I can barely make out what he’s saying. It’s delightful to watch this transformation even though his timing is not quite right. But then passions never come in half measures.

He’s managed to inspire N too. She was a late starter at reading and still struggles a bit, but is all enthused and is making her way through The Philosopher’s Stone, slowly but steadily. ‘Ma I met Hermione,’ she shouted out when she first found her between the pages.

For years they were stuck with Captain Underpants and Wimpy Kid and  Dork Diaries. I am relieved they are finally graduating to ‘real’ books.

So here’s a reminder – Don’t give up on your child, ever. No matter how stubborn they might seem or how resistant, the things we do and say are getting registered somewhere in their super busy brains. And one fine day they will throw us a surprise.

Do you have a reader at home? Did your love for reading ever get you into trouble?

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Thank you for not walking in my shoes

Come walk a mile in my shoes, see what I see, feel what I feel, live what I live, share with me my worries and my fears. Isn’t that what makes us human? The ability to be someone else for just a little while?

But then not everyone does that. Not everyone should do that. We need these people in our lives, the ones who refuse to walk in our shoes. Oh they may annoy us and frustrate us and make us really angry but we need them. I know I do. This post today is a Thank You to all my friends who refuse to walk in my shoes.

Thank you dear friend for not walking in my shoes; for making light of my worries when I am down and out. You make me see that life could have been worse.

Thank you for laughing at me when I am afraid. It is the sunshine of that laughter that melts away the mist of my fear.

Thank you for not being ‘understanding’ and leaving me alone even when I beg you to, because you know your presence is what I need though I may not admit it, even to myself.

Thank you for not holding my hand, for not walking with me into that pit of self-pity, the one I dig for myself, for pulling me out with a no-nonsense tug.

Thank you for keeping your head when I am losing mine, for doing for me what you think best, because sometimes you know me better than me.

Thank you dear friend for thrusting at me a delightful pair of stilettos when all I would have were my worn old sneakers. At some point in our lives all we need is a different pair of shoes.

 

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda for the prompt ‘Walk a Mile in my Shoes’.

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Parents’ guide to basic vocabulary

Dear parents,

The other day I was at a programme put up by the children in school. By the end of it I found just three or four parents watching it with me. The rest had either walked out already or were milling around near the exit.

For some reason that got me all worked up. I thought it was rude and impertinent. This one is for the ‘walkouters’ – a basic vocabulary guide.

To begin with, there’s this word in the English Dictionary – ETIQUETTE. Here’s what it means, and I quote: the customary code of polite behaviour in society.

You understand that? Obviously not. Had you understood even the E of Etiquette you would have known that it is rude to get up and leave in the middle of a performance, however small, however informal, however inconsequential.

You might of course have urgent business to attend to, you’re an uber busy person I know, and you have the right to leave. However, in such a case you might want to sit at the back so you can leave UNOBTRUSIVELY – you do know what that means, right? Leave in a way that is not conspicuous. Got it?

So as I was saying, you might want to leave without disturbing the tiny handful who do know what etiquette is. It is only polite to show some CONSIDERATION, another word that’s strange to you I presume. It means kindness and thoughtful regard for others. You might like to exhibit some kindness towards this tiny lot by not stepping on their toes as you walk out gushing over the performance of the apple of your eye.

There does exist, of course, the possibility of sudden unforeseen and urgent business coming up. However, chances of such business cropping up right after your own child’s two bits are done is rather remote.

There’s another word that might interest you, called DECORUM. It means behaviour in keeping with good taste and propriety. You might want to understand that word because chances are the D word is among one of the things you hope your ward will learn at school. Well how about practicing it yourself first? Or is it, that once you’ve written out that fat fee cheque you think you are absolved of all responsibility of teaching anything at all to your child? Least of all by example?

He is watching you, and learning from you remember that. So, I suggest, when you set out from home bring along with you a bagfull of PATIENCE, that’s the capacity to accept or tolerate because, the thing is, when you are invited to watch a show at the children’s school, you are invited to watch the ENTIRE show – the complete show, you understand?

Oh we know you are busy people, the rest of us of course have nothing to do but if we sat through your child’s performance it is only fair, that you sit through that of ours, that’s called RECIPROCITY – the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit. (Oh and by the way let me clarify that one of my child wasn’t in the show at all while the other one was done way before the end.)

If you cannot spare that one hour how about letting your ward perform exclusively for you right at home? That way there’s no trouble for anyone. Brilliant idea, eh? I knew you’d agree.

Lastly, you do have the option to simply BEG OFF the occasion which means to gain permission to be excused from. Do that. Don’t come. So that the rest of us can enjoy the programme in its entirety.

Thank you,

A jobless watcher of school programmes and maker of unnecessary lists.

 

Although its parents I’ve spoken of, we stumble upon such people almost every day. So tell me which are the ones that get your blood boiling?

 

I am taking my Alexa Rank to the next level with #MyFriendAlexa and Blogchatter.

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Linking up with Mackenzie at Reflections from Me

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Life is a box of ‘Every Flavour Beans’

This is a Blogadda Wow Post.

You do know what they are, don’t you? The jelly beans Harry and his friends bought off the lunch trolley on the Hogwarts Express, the ones available in every conceivable flavour –  Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans – those are the ones I’m talking of.

“…. you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a bogey-flavoured one once,” Ron had told Harry.

Life’s a box of Every Flavoured Beans - A risk with every mouthful. Share on X

Each time you dip your hand into that striped little box you never know what you will draw.

Oh you can try and guess the flavour as you unwrap each one. However, you’ll find the wrappings are misleading. A rich golden one might enclose within it the darkest flavours while a simple unpretentious one might hold the very happiness your heart desires.

No matter how wise you get or how experienced, no matter how hard you try to pick and choose to get just the good ones, bad ones will find their way from your hand, to your mouth, into your life.

No one, not even the greatest magician, gets it right all the time. Remember how Dumbledore chanced upon a vomit flavoured one? So then what chance do mere muggles, stand?

However, does that mean you stop dipping into the box?

Not at all.

You try. And you try again, for these jelly beans are addictive, just as life. As did Dumbledore. He made a second attempt, remember? Only to end up with an ear-wax flavoured one! You’d think it would put him off for ever and yet I’m certain, when the box is passed around again, he’d be game for another try.

That’s just how it should be. You learn to enjoy the good ones and spit out the bad ones, as in life – you revel in the good days, tread carefully on the bad ones. No matter how Life treats you, you go on living, go on picking, go on sampling it, jelly bean by jelly bean, one experience after another, savouring each one, enjoying the unpredictability for that’s what makes it fun.

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This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda for the prompt ‘Life is a box of …’.

 

I am taking my Alexa Rank to the next level with #MyFriendAlexa and Blogchatter.

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