song of the road

Well.. Thank you all sooo much for all the kind comments. You did make me feel so much better. I really appreciate your love and warmth. In such a short time, I have started to depend on you.

The new guy is kind of okay. We chatted some yesterday. I think we would meet for dinner on Saturday. None of the weekdays are looking good. Let’s see how it goes. I feel like I am cheating on R. But I think even R would advise me to do this, which of course will make me feel more like not doing this. I agree that being water is the best possible course now. If I can like someone else, I guess I can move on. If I can’t, I am okay too. My mom too will settle down sooner or later. As we say in this part of the world - “no can go against their fate”. I know how that sounds, so we have this other saying too - “a deer will not enter the mouth of a sleeping lion”. I remember someone saying that for every proverb, there is a counter proverb, which is rather true.

Anyways, I am feeling nice and good this morning. I guess this is the aftermath of exercising. Made it to gym today. S messaged me 5 mins before 7, asking me to be there by 7. I made it there by 7:10 am and he said “did my sms wake you up?”. I said. “of course and then I teleported myself here”. the guy who works out with S just after me, has perversely started coming early everyday to bug me. S would often try to manage two diverse work outs together. Though I shouldn’t really complain, as I often get lots of extra time and attention from S.

I am stuck at 69.7 kg. Again can’t complain with the amount of work I am putting in. Need to do lot more cardio. Must get on it from tomorrow. and I need to brush my teeth the minute I finish my dinner. I have noticed that if I do that, I don’t feel like snacking later.

The eating this weekend is going to be bad. One would be that dinner with the new guy. and I need to plan something and take S for lunch one of these days too. S is so fussy about eating, I am yet to figure out where to take him. I don’t want to go to one of his regular jaunts and would rather go somewhere a little high end. But let’s see. Maybe next weekend. Apart from this, my team and I go out for lunch every friday. I need to think hard and do something to not sobatge my weight loss too badly.

 Well, that’s about it for today. Everyone have a great day towards meeting your goal. In fact having a goal in itself is such a fulfilling thing.

Feeling bit better today. Yesterday I slept on and off throughout the day. Generally I stay up far longer on off days and keep doing something or reading at least. I kept on falling asleep yesterday. I guess it is becoming like the start of a depression. Mom also got worried. Watched a few more episodes of M*A*S*H late last evening and that did make me smile.

Anyway, I am back to work today. Skipped gym today and slept still more. I have a slight headache from too much sleep, I think. Or it could be due to the lack of exercise. Need to get back in track soon. Thankfully things at work are not so bad and should be under control.

With my mom’s pushing and nagging, I did agree to chat a bit with a guy, who apparently is planning to get married soon. I didn’t dislike him too much. He earns way more than me and seems to be generally doing very well in life and quite a few of our ideas match too. I might meet him sometime tomorrow.

 On one hand, if this thing with the new guy works out - it would be a solution and a huge relief, for at least time being. and if i agree to marriage, i would definitely give it a whole hearted try too. meanwhile what about R? he is trying so hard to get his parents agree to our marriage. though we both know, it won’t work out most probably. and the worst thing is R doesn’t even want me to wait. he knows how much I want to have a kid and so he thinks I should move on if things don’t work out between us.

I am so completely confused. I want to to do the right thing. and hopefully find happiness for me and the folks I care for. and the poor guy who would marry me. then again these are early days. most probably this thing with the new guy would fuizzle out and I would be back in my comfy rut. and I need to stop thinking so much. I will go with the flow and let’s see what happens. If things go wrong, I will just have to pick me up and start fresh.

Food-wise yesterday was okay. I was so feeling so low, i did not feel like eating much. Hopefully I would be okay today as well. Must go back to gym tomorrow. the 3kg loss goal looks not so good now. Must get over all this and go for the weight loss.

I love you all. Have a great day!

Did not have a good weekend at all. My mom is now full time on the case of my marriage. She is now really messing up my peace. I know she means well but it can be hard to take at times. Let’s see how things work out. I am trying to hang on to my sanity.

Was not able to talk to R whole of yesterday. Could get in touch today. He is also going through his hell. His parents are reacting terribly. Anyway enough of all this.

Went to gym today. My t.o.m. started yesterday. Was quite tired while working out. Still work out was quite well. I used weights while doing ab exercises - both for upper ab crunches and reverse curls. It was quite good. Did about 15 mins of cardio too. Not much progress made towards the 3 kg goal yet. Ate bad yesterday. Even now I was eating a bar of chocolate.

Had another argument with mom after I came back from gym. So called in sick today. Hopefully staying at home, I will be able to sort myself out and would feel better tomorrow. Just couldn’t bear the thought of driving all the way to work and staying there whole day. I need to get out of this depression soon. Or I will screw up work which will be terrible. Hopefully things will work out somehow.

well… that’s all for now. I might login later. Hope you all are having a better day in reaching your goals and generally living life!

I am having okay-ish sort of day so far. Missed gym. Generally I go to gym in the morning. But changed my massage appointment to an evening one today. Had to go to the post office and a couple more places with mom in the morning. Then I received a call from them telling that the masseur is not well and can’t make it today. So I dropped the plan of going at all. Not a good plan, I agree. Maybe I will try going tomorrow morning. That way I can at least get the steam bath which should help in losing some weight - maybe 5 gm.

Oh! That is S in the gym terrace yesterday. I carried my cell phone to the floor yesterday which I normally don’t do. So I clicked a couple of snaps of him. They didn’t come particularly well. Except that the resolution-wise they seem okay. I need to press the shutter lightly for a few seconds till it focuses and then click it. I discovered that yesterday at lunch. Meanwhile S looks very serious in the photo - almost like mafia. I need to catch him unaware or make him smile. He has a thousand watt beautiful smile.

S was just checking out the cell and he said - “wow your phone has 8 GB of internal memory - that’s cool”. And I was like - “oh! you understand about GB!”. He gave me an eyebrows raised look and said - “and what do you think of me?” I covered up by jumping to another topic but that was bad of me. I think we here tend to look down a bit on people who are more athletic than intellectual. It is so bad. Or maybe it was my defence mechanism of being a bit of a geek. or is it nerd? I used to be good (nothing very good - just moderately good) in my studies and very very very bad in all kind of sports. This is the first time I am doing somewhat okay in anything physical.

Planning again to cook tonight. I am planning to make a spicy dip which will be very low fat. So I can dip and eat a few home made thin crackers - again low fat but not whole wheat. I should make a fresh batch next week maybe - more spices and still less fat while making the dough. I would be able to experiment more once the oven gets going. Meanwhile I make these my way on a very very low flame. Also planning a curry with cottage cheese. The gravy would be mainly tomato, with onion and other spices. Will try to keep it mild and see how that goes.

Thinking of spicy food, reminded me of the visitors to our office this week. Scott is one of our high level managers, working out of Houston. He is an australian. He is youngish compared to our other managers and has become somewhat of a hit with us here. Poor guy doesn’t like spicy food at all. and at times the restaurants tend to make food spicy enough for many of us too. In fact many Indians do not like spicy food. Though what is non-spicy or bland to us, could still perhaps be very spicy to many non-Indians. I am addicted to spicy food. Anyway, going back to Scott, there were a couple more folks from Houston who likes Indian food and have been to Indian restaurants in Houston a few times. They fooled Scott in to trying a few spicier dishes which were not red in color. Anyway, I got him a bowl of rice pudding - sort of, not exactly rice pudding - and he became okay. This is his tenth visit here. He says he is slowly growing into Indian food. I think he is slowly learning the pitfalls. :) At least one good thing is that the places we go are very hygienic. I haven’t seen anyone falling sick so far.

That reminds me that I have been to two buffet lunches in last two days. That is bad news for my weight loss. I don’t know how I am going to control my eating. I am trying to figure out how to make low fat deliecious things. Lets see how good I can be. Meanwhile need to exercise more. But for that I should be far more regular. If I miss even one session, it takes me another to come back to the rhythm. I think I must try to make it to gym tomorrow.

Well, that is all for today, I think. I might login later to see how others are doing. Meanwhile my good vibes to all of you. Have a great day!

I have been struggling long to post a few pictures together here as thumbnails. Well, I give up.

I need to run now to help making lunch. We are going to have a simple dish made of rice and lentils - something what the British calls kedegree, I think. It’s my favorite. So gotta run.

 I think I will be back after lunch to post a little more. Meanwhile that is my brother in the photo above. It was taken last year, I think.

 Everyone have a great weekend!

End of another work day is almost here. And tomorrow the week ends. Lots and lots and lots of work on my plate. However so far things are getting done in a nice pace. Just need to approve a few more things and can be on my drive home. We had a few clients and our folks here over from Houston. Went out on lunch with them. It was good food and better conversation.

First of all, thank you all so so so much for so many comments. I just checked my personal email after a few weeks today and saw all your comments. You made my day!

So many things happened. I took a 5 day long break on the occasion of my brother’s visit. About 4 days were planned and I added 1 extra day. It was one long blissful weekend. I cooked loads of food and ate without any caution. I don’t know why – maybe because I was happy or maybe because I sort of cooked healthy stuff (no, I did not) or maybe because I had a quite bad cold again, I did not gain any weight!!!!!! Wish whole life could be like this! Well, this could also mean that my blood sugar is shooting up and causing the weight loss. However staying put for now. Let’s see what happens.

I watched the entire first season of ‘24’. It was so good. We sat glued in front of the tv. Though we agreed that kind of tension is more suitable for a whole season rather than 4 days.  Have some more DVDs of M*A*S*H and Seinfeld and 2^nd season Desperate Housewives lined up. Have some good time ahead. :) Brother took away rest of 24 DVDs. I hear that DH is very popular. But I think because I watch generally season DVDs at a stretch, I kind of find it a little too much.

So the vacation went like – either I cooked or I ate or I watched tv or I talked or I ate or I talked or I ate… yeah, get the picture.

Ruby, my company is gifting us a microwave each. That reminded me strongly of you.  They are giving us a model with grill but no convection. So I can’t bake much in that. I am trying to negotiate to pay and exchange it for a convection one. Indian cooking is more suitable to the open flame of a gas burner. I can’t make much cakes etc. Even though I am open to trying out recipes needing eggs, my mom would be lukewarm at best and R won’t touch it. I will try some with egg substitutes – I am sure they will be good rock substitutes.  Anyway I am looking forward greatly to trying out lots of bread recipes. Meanwhile let’s hope I can change mine for a convection one.

My bro made me (well, I was willing but was balking at the price) a proud owner of a Nokia N95 8GB cell phone. It had a 5 mega pixel camera and GPS and office. I am having fun.  But it’s too expensive. So I am all the time scared carrying it around. I used to forget my previous cell phone everywhere with the great confidence that any thief worth his salt would spend money to give it back to me.

R has gone home. He would be back after the thanksgiving weekend. He has already drawn flak from the relatives he visited so far on the marriage issue. It is such a stupid big deal here. Let’s see what his parents say. I don’t think there would be any surprise there.  I manage to be okay about it most of the time but I get really worried some times. I think that’s the reason, I am just not staying well. Anyway, I just have to deal with it. This issue is causing so many side issues that’s another issue.  My mom is freaking out with the idea of my bro getting married before me and my bro’s fiancée is not so keen on waiting. I wish I could just get married to someone (even for a short while) and solve all this. I know that won’t be any solution and I definitely do not want to get married to just anyone. But society (here like Monica, I should say – by society, I mean Mom), especially Indian society rules and expectations are crap.

Anyway forget that.

I missed gym for all 5 days and been back this Tuesday. S came back from Mysore on time and I wasn’t there. He said that is why he lingers on there, we don’t appreciate him here.  Have been very tired due to the chronic cold but overall workout was good. I did one new side twisting workout with S using a heavy soccer sized ball. The exercise gives me such an instant rush of well being. I lose it over the day. 

They have arranged a weight loss challenge thingy in gym. I signed up to lose 3 kgs from 16^th Nov to 31^st Dec.  I am feeling a bit gung ho about that. Let’s see how that goes. I have a good chance of failing with so many stressors coming up but then it may keep me floating. I am planning to give it a good try. I will have to try to eat well and do much more cardio.

On that note, let me finish my super-long jottings here. I will try to blog regularly again. I did log on a few times and read entries but somehow just couldn’t get myself to write anything. I was feeling low and numb and also happy. When my bro was here, I was happy but somehow unhappy too with R and mom in background. Then when he left, the loneliness struck hard. Now I am getting back to my groove or rut  again and settling down to habit.

I love you all so much. That’s the truth.

No gym today. No office today either. We are celebrating the state foundation day here. Weight yesterday was 69.6 kg. No fall but no gain either. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.

I had a big bowl of noodle soup with lots of pepper thrown into it. I have got a cold yet again. So felt like eating something hot every way. Have plans to eat good food through out the day. Will try to keep it healthy. Mom is planning to make stuffed paratha for lunch. Most probably R would be coming in the evening. Planning to make a couple of nice snacks. One would be a fluffy steamed spicy cake.. kind of :). Still thinking what would be the other one. Will make a curry for night to go with a bowl of fragrant rice. It is making me feel full of anticipation and excitement to plan the cooking. Cooking is one of my best stress-busters. Though nowadays 3FC is doing a great job too. Was planning to try making hummus too today, but forgot to soak the chickpeas yesterday night. So hummus this weekend.

Have not yet planned anything for the festival day when bro will be here. Need to start looking up recipes to plan something nice. This is one of my favorite festivals. Well.. almost the favorite. This is our version of brother’s day where we pray for the health, long life, happiness, prosperity kind of goodies for our brothers. And I am lucky enough to have a brother so totally worth it.

Gym was okay yesterday. I did about an hour of workout with S and then 30 mins of cardio. Because of the long break in regular exercising in between, it was a little bit harder. S taught me a new set of lunges where I kept on losing balance and almost toppled over a few times. In the end, managed to complete the set with S holding my hands and keeping me steady. With all the help I need at times, it’s difficult to make out often who’s working harder - the trainer or the trainee! Apart from quite a good amount of pain in all my muscles, it was good to work out again.

Have to schedule in my blood tests sometime this week or the next. Aiming for next Tuesday. Hope I get it done. Need to get mom with me too.

Our company used to be a branch office. Now that we have bought another company, the whole thing is being set up as a separate profit center. So we have all kinds of freaky closure and integration activities going on. Fortunately except for our country head and HR manager, no heads have rolled yet and mostly won’t. I guess I should feel sorry for them, but they are so far away from my world, I am unable to imagine what they are feeling. Anyway, hope they do well where they go. Coming back to my petty concerns, I need to wrap up and provide documentation for my taxes by next weekend. Very short notice indeed. I think this year again I will end up paying more tax than needed. Though it is partly my laziness/stupidity, I am going to write it off saying - heck, my country needs the money.

Sipping the hot tea my mom made while typing this. the tea is heaven for my sore throat and aching body. Hope the cold goes soon. and takes the teeth ache away with it too. Can’t see how I can schedule in the dentist appointment before middle of the month.

Oh! plenty drama happened on the appraisal front. Out of 3, 2 were moderately happy and 1 was very unhappy with my ratings. Yes, R was very very upset with the ratings I gave him. It became complicated. It’s like.. I rated him 4.5 out 5. My boss made me change it to 4, as apparently mid-year appraisals should be stricter. R got 5 last time. He was incredulous of the fall to 4. Meanwhile only yesterday I found out, his parents are giving him HELL (truly and fully) over his visit to discuss marriage with me. Let me write about that drama a lil later. So R was already tense and this rating made him flare up bad. He was not ready to listen to me at all. Did not let me hold the discussion also. Eventually things had to go to my boss. And will you believe it, he has agreed to bring up his ratings to 4.5 again? WTH? R is very good and very critical to the team success and I am not so angry any more. Though I was feverish with anger all of last two days. Looks like I am getting managed from both ends. Anyways, to be fair, my manager is a nice guy too and he is feeling embarrassed to override me. May be I should have been a little more assertive. Anyways lesson for next time. But I was very very angry with R for refusing to even discuss. It is completely okay for him to disagree with me but it killed me to have to tell my manager that my team members not only disagree with me, they refuse to discuss it with me. Very good manager I am!!! But still I think I am doing okay and maybe I need not take this so personally. I will do better next time and the team seems to be quite well. Not perfect but very good. Hell, I am not perfect.

Now R! The stupid idiot did not tell me about things happening at home. So I had no clue what was going on there. I was very irritated with him last few days and we hardly talked. Then he writes to me in the messenger yesterday “I cannot go on with you under these circumstances. I am upset. My parents are causing lots of trouble.” There has been lots of trouble from quite some time now because of his parents’ complete refusal of me and so I thought that was that. Over! It’s surprising how all the time I prepare myself that things won’t work out between us and I would be okay. But it made me feel sick yesterday. And would you believe it, he actually said “I cannot go on without you under these circumstances. I am upset. My parents are causing lots of trouble.” Because I was not talking much and he wanted us to be normal so he can talk and feel better. Either he typed “with” while meaning “without” or I read it wrong! So much pain for one piece of typo! Well, we talked till late yesterday. I did my part of yelling and he apologized. Astonishingly he even owned up that he is insecure and starts fighting easily because he had always lived with relatives from a very young age and felt that he must fend for himself all the time (even when people make innocent remarks or try to help him). 

So what I was trying to avoid owning up for quite some time, I had to face yesterday. I get along very well with R and we have a very good chemistry going on. We are different in many ways and he doesn’t share most of my interests, but we have fun when we hang out. So, if things don’t work out, I am in for a very long period of intense pain and depression. And there is a very good chance of things not working out still. On one hand, there is the fact that it will hurt R as much to lose me and I think he will be able to cope even less. So maybe he will work out something, everyone does when they are in pain themselves. I need to hang on to my sanity and be as supportive and as fun as I can, so to make his loss as great as possible. J God! I sound so manipulative. But still I think that’s the only sane option left. There is nothing else that I can do as there is no problem to solve at my end yet. If things work out, then my problems will start. J Well on the other hand, if things don’t work out, it will not help one bit that we work together. My work will suffer and that will make me more unhappy and even less confident. I will have to look for another job. It’s such an uphill task when you are low and lost. I think I will have to hang on here till I get past the first wave of grief. Meanwhile all I will have is S and my exercise routine. Maybe that and my books will save me. 

I feel so tired. I think I will take a nap now. 

Everyone have a great day! Be well!

Well… first the good news. I am 69.6 kgs today. yessssss!!!! It was so good to be out of 70s again soon. Now I need to stop screwing up and keep losing. I think it helped that I skipped evening snacks yesterday. I was not feeling hungry. I have brought two apples for today and hopefully will avoid snacking on junk today as well.

Even exercise wise I did better. I managed to do 30 mins of cross trainer, 15 mins of cycling and 30 mins of treadmill. It was better than other days. I sweated quite some.. maybe that’s why the loss. I did fewer squats and partially skipped the ab workouts. However will make up for that with S tomorrow. Hope I can keep the momentum and lose some more weight soon. I have lost about 11-12 pounds in last 6 months almost. Which is good but needs to bettered.

Apart from that nothing much. Had a fight with R yesterday! That guy can never answer a straight question or an honest suggestion simply. I guess it is not that great an idea that we work at the same place and me being his team lead. Well, let me hang on for a few more months. By then, the future of this thing should get settled for once and all. Aftre my initial flare-up I was quite professionally nice rest of the day. Today I would have to sit with him for his appraisal discussion. I know it won’t go very well! He has done very well and I have said so too in the comments but he won’t notice the nice things and just fight about the unimportant things. Anyway what has to be done. has to be done.

My appraisal went okay yesterday. No fire works! but no bad comments at all. Soem quite good ones too! Hopefully I would be able to show more impressive work by end of year. Else it will stay steady good work. Hopefully!

Well, that is all for today. Everyone have a great day!

Only a quick one now…

Went to gym today. Weight again 70.3 kg. Again need to work on getting back to 69. Somehow feeling it will happen soon. But I should not have gone back to 70s again.

Anyways, workout was light today. I was sniffling. S is not fully recovered yet. He is looking far too skinny. He apparently took some alternative medicine for a small skin problem he had. Something completely unnoticeable on his face. Then this alt. med. reacted so bad, it’s like almost his whole face has got burned. It still looks awful even though it is obvious that it has mended a lot. I think that intense pain caused the fever and then that stay in the farm house in the jungle. All bad things came together.

Anyway, the good thing is he is back and hopefully will stay put for some time now. I need to exercise hard and lose a few pounds at once with one hard push. It was funny today in gym. With everybody asking S about his face. The poor guy was tired explaining the same thing over and over again. I pulled his leg about how popular he is and how all his sisters :) in the gym missed him.

Okay, that’s all for now. Will post later about how the day went.

A sunday here again. Makes me think more of tomorrow - the beginning of another work week. I have so much work pending on me, it gives me creepies. Maybe I will try to do at least one piece from home now.

Friday did not start well. I could not go to gym. I was feeling very sleepy and tired. Then I had a big bowl of noodle soup (of all things) for breakfast and started to read a smallish novel. So about 11 finished and ran to get ready for office. It is okay for us to get to office a little late, as we almost everyday stay late.

That was ethnic day at office. So mom and I got together and I wore a Sari. In one sense it was nice, because I was looking thinner than earlier and I felt good about that. But I was still feeling uneasy and uncomfortable. Anyway, just as I step in to office, there was this huge argument going on between two of my team members. I had to mediate and it made me more tired. Then we went for lunch. Had a dish of spicy rice with lentils, salad and spicy yoghurt on the side. It was good. Kept on fidgeting all the while. After we came back from lunch, started on my work. But by then I was too restless. Made a few unnecessary sarcy remarks. Talked to my manager and left for the day.

Was planning to work from home. But that didn’t materialize. Had long chats with mom that evening. That settled me down some. Also had a long chat with bro. He also is having a hard time in his new job. They are making him do something completely different from his line of work. He is doing very well in this new thing too and so they are not at all ready to move him back to his thing. But he is losing out on gaining experience for what he really wants to do. Looks like time for a new job for him. 

Had an ok dinner. Then watched ELR again. I think I had some crackers again. Can’t remember clearly now.

Saturday - I slept actually till 10:30 am. Then mom woke me as we had to go to the post office about some savings transfers that were made earlier and which had not yet processed. I didn’t feel like going but saw mom was already all ready to go. So I too got ready and took out the car. Finished a few more chores on the way back. Had a late brunch by 12. Very unhealthy brunch, I might add. Then slept once again till 3:30. Even then woke up only because R had got tickets for a movie.

R had lots of chores to run the whole day. I don’t know why he doesn’t ask his bro to do some. Well, it is between them and I really should not bother. He could make it to here only by 5 and the show was on from 6. There was quite a lot of traffic on the way and it took us long to park the car. I was feeling resentful all the way. Was critical of his relatives who again I feel are pile-ons (I am not nice), his roommate. Thankfully did not say too much, I think. I guess however much I am denying, his going home is tensing me up too. He also is very worried about it. But would not think or talk about it. which is rather the correct thing to do, I guess.

Anyway, the movie was good. Though got a little irritated of R’s predicting what’s gonna happen next. But it was ok and he was kinda sweet. We had two veggie rolls before going in for the movie. That is one more great thing about R is that he is a vegetarian too, far more strict about it than me. So if we get married, I won’t have to change my food habits yet again.

It was good for us to spend at least that much time together after quite some time. I was again feeling low on the way back, thinking what’s going to happen after his visit home. Anyway, why worry!! I would have to deal with it then and it won’t be my first time dealing with disappointments. It eats me at times, if there is anything that I should do which I am not doing! I don’t know. I don’t think there is anything I can do apart from being patient. Maybe I should be more supportive but the future of this is really scaring me. That is why I was spending less time with him, avoid thinking about him so I wont remember to be scared and wont yell at him for doing nothing (according to me). Anyway enough of that.

Yesterday dinner was again okay. Watched the last remaining DVD of ELR. Then started with M*A*S*H first season. That was sooooo good. :) Loved Alan Alda and all the rest of them. I need to go and buy more DVDs of it.

Now is Sunday morning. Planning to ctach up on some work from home. Cook a bit. Wash the car. Not eat too much junk. Let’s see how successful I would be. At least I am feeling rested. Hope S returns tomorrow. I must salvage my exercise routine.

Everyone have a great weekend and a greater week ahead.