The way we are

So since my recent work trip, somehow the husbadoo and I have not been able to connect at all .Maybe a lot of it is in my head but the whole scenario was  bugging me and in turn made me bug the husbadoo with random statements about “connecting”. By this, I mainly mean spend quality alone time, catch up on what we missed in each other’s lives recently and during my trip, small incidents that happened at home and away and general  news and gossip and all that stuff.  We are one of those over – connected, joint at the hip couples most times and the husbadoo knows random details about most of my days like bathroom visits and snacks I ate and I know most things in his – the awesome free flavored tea he drinks at work, random anecdotes from work and so on. This is even more so since we have moved to this city and find ourselves friendless for the most part. So this kind of phase is very rare for us.

But somehow life over the last few weeks seemed to get in the way of this connection.  Poor little Bandar and her illnesses are not to be blamed really, but a lot of our together time is around her. I usually am an absolute sport about their special bond but felt pissed off more than once recently when she shunned me aside to play with her dad. So I spent time doing things in other parts of the apartment, away from them on the weekends when she rejected me the most. I was surprisingly hurt, when I usually am not by this behavior, and I turned this rejection and jealousy into anger at the husbadoo for not being supportive enough and reprimanding Bandar for her “pushing mommy away behavior”. He on the other hand, was pissed with me for being in other rooms away from them to start with. He also preferred to give in to Bandar’s random demands of him, rather than refuse or deny her, especially when she was sick and cranky. But I feel absolutely useless sitting on the couch and watching them play, and rather be doing chores elsewhere.  So there was further disconnect, and random tiffs with each other that we usually apologized for within the hour, but the missing together-time-that-we- needed  issue was not fixed. When Bandar slept, the husbadoo used the time in catching up on his sleep – as he was exhausted with all the single handed care that cranky, little  Bandar demanded of him.  During the first week or so back home, I was on the pacific time zone, so was unable to really fall asleep with them. Instead, I glowered at the husbadoo in the dark for having yet again lost opportunities to connect. I then spoilt my eye sight further by reading on my tablet in the dark. So you get the overall picture

Anyway, yesterday was a particularly depressing work day for me. Things happened, stuff was said and though I keep telling myself that it’s just a job and not something I need to lose my sanity over, I was overly upset. I called the husbadoo several times after said incidents and poured my troubled heart out. I got further depressing career related news later in the day as well and there were more calls to the husbadoo. I was filled with self doubt, embarrassment and a bunch of other emotions for most of the day. I picked up Bandar in the evening and decided to forget about work for a few hours that evening and play with her. Though it helped relax me, I still didn’t feel upto getting dinner on the table single handedly that day . So I then called the husbadoo again and asked if he could come home early and help out. He agreed at once and landed home earlier than usual. In the kitchen, as I was prepping our dinner pizzas, he gave me the warmest hug I have had in a very long time. I clung to him and did some more work lamenting. He helped put together a quick 2 minute game plan in my head and finally released me to get to his daughter.  The warm delicious pizza helped too, but the hug and his presence cheered me up considerably. He then got Bandar to sleep and came out to me in living room, where I was working. He urged me to come to bed with them and spent some time waiting for me to wrap up work. Sadly, I had too much to do, so he went off to bed around midnight and I followed two hours later and snuggled between them.

We might have to wait a few more days to catch up on the fun but important minute details of each other’s lives but maybe a lot of this disconnect is just in my head!

Another week goes by

This week has been never ending here. And it looks like though its Friday I have no respite. Why you ask?Because Bandar is sick  . AGAIN! She was cuddled to me at 6 am and I noticed her temperature seemed higher than usual. (Thank God for co sleeping at moments like this – not that we would do things differently if she was in her own bed, but atleast illness detection is faster this way and I hate the thought of leaving a sick baby alone). And indeed it was , a low grade fever for now but she’s at home. As its too late to arrange a nanny, we are both staying with her today.And as she sticks to the husbadoo, I find myself surplus in their little love fest, but it gives me time to do things like blog, I guess!

Poor little monkey. She’s now obviously refusing food and a little cranky. Hoping this doesn’t end up being another ear infection saga. We will have to see how this plays out.

We had plans this weekend to visit my cousin in NJ, but of course, we cancelled now. I prefer not to venture out when I have a fever and I am assuming the same holds good for my child. So we will be at home the whole time, hopefully nursing Bandar back to health miraculously by Monday.

In a way, I am relieved that I am staying home this weekend. Work has been extremely hectic this week. I have another two crazy weeks of work and another work trip on the horizon. Phew! So it is nice to relax in the comfort of your own home for two days and not venture out into the Tundra . Seriously, brutally cold weather !

That said, I am going to be fairly busy this weekend –  I have a lot of work related reading and fun reading to do.Work reading I am doing in bits and pieces , but it needs to happen by Monday. Fun reading is for book club this coming week and I have just opened the book . As always ,if the genre is not one I gravitate towards, I am in a slump for the first 50 pages or so. That is the reason, I love book club again. Ever so often, I end up liking books that I never expected too. So I am hoping for lots of reading this weekend overall.

Exercise happened twice this week admist work stress and I have realized how to optimally position the tablet to read the sub titles and watch the show as I work out on my noisy, cheap, elliptical-from-the 60s. I won’t be returning this though because of the sheer pain involved in scheduling the return, dismantling this piece-of-crap and getting a refund. I will use it for a year maybe and sell it. On a related topic, my knee pain resurfaced- maybe because of the high tension I set the elliptical at and I bought an over the counter knee brace. Doesn’t help much but I am using it and working out at lower tensions than I am used to. Wonder if all this is because I bought an awful machine. I worked out last week in a high end machine at the hotel gym , during my work trip and I had no knee pain or anything. Perfectly blissful workout sans toddler worry or anything else.

There will be minimum cooking as I have some home made tasty pad thai leftovers from yesterday. That should last a day or so and we want to eat some roasted veggie sandwiches too, which will be fairly easy to put together. Actually, food has been fairly noteworthy for majority of this week. I made a quinoa salad , which the husbadoo used to love but shunned this time around for seconds. So of course, I stuffed myself with it and can I just say, I love the avocado, onion, tomato, cilantro combo. Its like guacamole in my mouth and who cares if there is this teeny tiny healthy grain with it. I do like quinoa as such, so this was a fun eat, atleast for me.  I would  be making this every week if avocados were not so damn expensive in the city and refuse to ripen for days in the winter.Sigh!  I had to put one on the radiator for two days and even then it got soft and ripe in patches only and not all around. So if someone can tell me how to get avocados to ripen quickly, I am all ears. Another reason we need to move to the South – cheap, good avocados!

On other new food finds here, I am addicted to this Rye cracker from Whole foods. I foolishly picked up a 2 pound jar of crunchy Whole Foods Peanut butter which was on sale and dug in to find it had to sugar. Of course, what else should I have expected from WF! So I have figured how to use this – spread on rye cracker, drizzle with honey and enjoy. Delicious! Green smoothies continue to be slurped every other day. Every day became too much as the husbadoo and Bandar have one tiny glass each and I am left with half a pitcher. There is only so much fiber one can drink, and I am left drinking the leftovers the next day too. Of course, I am not scrimping on any meals  though,The smoothie is a mere addition!

So that’s the latest in our world right now. Let me know what’s up with you all.

The weekend after

The few days after work travel for me are always lazy and relaxed. I don’t feel motivated to do much around the house or kitchen. Its almost like the longer I am away from my domestic duties, the longer I take to get back into normal functioning mode. This time the longish flights of 6 hours didn’t help either. I was lethargic , perpetually sleepy and tired this weekend.

I got back on Friday evening and was beyond excited to see the husbadoo and Bandar. The work days were long this last week and though a lot of the activities were stimulating and fun, for someone who typically works from home, it was a lot of human interaction! I used to enter the hotel room late at night after a good Vegas style dinner and used to be hit by the intense feeling of missing my little family . I typically readied myself for bed and switched on Frasier on Netflix (my all time favorite show) and just listened to it as I slept. I have watched every episode and every season numerous times now that I don’t even need to see the screen. After the first two days of work travel, you automatically start counting down the days and then hours that you will be back home. So I was more than just a little excited to see the Bandar and the husbadoo. I was almost shivering – not just with anticipation , mind you but with cold! You see, I had been more than a little foolish when I left the house on Monday. My bags were packed and I was ready. An email with an incorrect flight time drove me into a panicked frenzy and I ran out of the apartment  without my winter coat and accessories and the house key! Wonderful! I didn’t really need a coat in 70 degree sunshiny weather last week but I realized I was going to be arriving back home to NYC  on an extremely cold day of 7 F. So I wore four layers of shirts and blouses and hoped for the best. Not having the house keys also resulted me in waiting outside to be let in , so I was probably appaeared really happy to see my fam and get into the apartment!

The husbadoo whipped up a yummy pasta sauce to have with stuffed ravioli from Trader Joes and Friday night snuggles with the Bandar were especially sweet. Saturday morning, Bandar and I trotted off to a play date and after a few hours of fun, came back to another meal of pasta! Carbs galore this weekend, huh! An afternoon snooze later, I finally trudged downstairs to the grocery store to get something (other than pasta) for us and spent a pleasant 20 minutes shopping by myself. We had roasted vegetable sandwiches for dinner , courtesy the hubsadoo – Oh, please try the cilantro jalapeno hummus from Trader Joes if you haven’t. So delicious! We had a midnight picnic of sorts watching the match in our bedroom. Bandar slept off at midnight and I watched the Indian innings before giving into sleep. The husbadoo of course, watched the whole thing. Despite that he got up with Bandar the next day and entertained her while I was unable to shake off my lethargy and spent several hours reading my Liane Moriarty book  (She is really starting to grow on me as a writer – give her a shot) . Guess the husbadoo’s V day gift to me this weekend was picking up the slack of the abandoned household duties – 3 consecutive meals, Bandar care, house cleaning and so on. This was actually our tenth V day together and I can truly say I value this way more than the mixed CD he made me for our first one!

We stayed in from the freezing cold and had a relaxed day at home on Sunday. We skyped with our folks in India and had a leisurely morning. I made a paneer subji and a brown rice pulav (much to the husbadoo’s disgust) and I seemed to be almost back on track with domestic stuff.

Vegas

I am heading to Vegas next week  and I should ideally be packing , rather than writing this. Despite the sadness that I am not able to shake off about leaving Bandar and the husbadoo, I will be lying if I said I am not a little excited.

Vegas surprisingly holds a special place in my heart. Of all the unlikely places in the world! All my Vegas trips ( four in all) have been with the husbadoo. I even considered taking the husbadoo and Bandar with me on this trip, just to relive some of the past fun times we have had in this city , before Bandar, but somehow it didn’t seem worth it. I am going to be swamped with work event during the day and then the networking sessions in the evenings. And then Vegas is now not the ideal place I want to take Bandar too anyway. The passive smoking alone is reason enough. So this is mama’s first solo Vegas trip, People !

What made us go to Vegas four times in a span of 2 years – 2009 to 2011? Well, first there was our honeymoon trip. As I took all my vacation time,for the wedding, we only had the long weekends to travel around the US and on the July 4th long wekeend that year, we went Vegas.I guess your first trip after the wedding is the honeymoon , right? Even if it was almost two months later? We stayed at the MGM Grand and watched our first Cirque du soleil show – Kha. We walked all up and down the strip. Considering that nightlife held no charm for either of us, being “good” little kids who have never really gone to a club or even drank socially then, we surprise, surprise took to gambling on this trip.
Strolling through the casinos in the early morning, the dealers are only too happy to teach you the game.We played roulette and won a decent double digit amount on that trip. We started playing Black Jack too and enjoyed it.
We also got roped into the Timeshare  conversation by these sales guys prowling the casinos. We ended up getting a free hotel stay that has to be used in the next 2 years in return for our time in attending the timeshare presentation session.
So in 2010, we grabbed 4 other friends to go and use this free hotel stay at Excalibur. Probably this was the least fun trip of the lot for us. Our friends wanted to go out and enjoy the nightlife which we didn’t care for  and we preferred to spend our time and money playing in the casinos. Atleast we both liked the same thing, right!  We learnt Crapes on this trip which was so much fun . I love this game because the whole table almost plays together.And there is a lot of cheering. Again we won some meager two digit amount by the end of our trip, that maybe funded one good meal for us but we were happy. We also attended the boring timeshare presentation and clearly refused to buy the timeshare, but got a breakfast out of it. I remember the gambling not being very fun for one of our friends. He lost such a decent sum , but didn’t give up the entire trip. He even withdraw money at the airport to play the slots and to sew if lady luck would wave her charm. Sadly she didn’t on that trip. Anyway, he loved Vegas despite that and even took his wife on their honeymoon there in a few years. So gambling can get addictive, of course. Like in the case of our friend, who tried for three days to win something somewhere. Our simple strategy to not lose and awful lot is to decide on a preset amount, not withdraw a penny more, divide the money between us for each night we choose to gamble and try to stay by each other during the game.  Usually , the other person is able to get the player off the table when the said amount has been lost.
Our next two trips , were in 2011. We spent two days with the hsubadoo’s sister. I was on some emergency work project on this trip and  spent a large part of my day working from the hotel room. I remember watching the Will and Kate Royal wedding as I worked that night on TV! We stayed at  Monte Carlo this time and it was awful.We had to shift rooms two times to find one that didn’t have issues. I almost fell in love with the husbadoo again when he argued with the hotel guys to move us when we had bathroom flushing issues! Is it just me or do you not love your guy when he is fighting to get a fair deal?  Anyway, this trip was not noteworthy except that it looks like our Vegas luck had run out and we lost our preplanned gambling trip budget.

We did a trip again in a few months with my parents and sister and stayed at New York New York. I sent my parents off to a show and enjoyed getting some sister time with my little sister who was probably too young to even be in Vegas then. She must have been  16. But we just ate crepes at Paris and such like, totally harmless stuff. When my family went to Grand Canyon , the husbadoo and I  stayed and gambled again, and again lost.This last trip kind of made gambling lose its charm for me.I was also slightly older, 25 and  not 23 like on my honeymoon and actually valued hard earned money.We debated doing a  trip in 2012 for our baby moon but the passive smoking again put me off and we killed the idea. By then we had also lost the whole gambling bug, almost.

I still like the fake glitzy world of Vegas though- the grandeur of the hotels, the expensive but fun restaurants and other random things and people that you don’t get to see anywhere but here. I like walking on the strip for the people watching and never ever take the bus between hotels. Over our trips we had found places we absolutely love to eat at – this awesome veggie burger place at Paris, Asian fare at MGM , a nice Italian place in New York New York.

The husbadoo is such an integral part of my Vegas memories that I am going to be calling him a hundred times a day from there as I go through the motions next week.I enjoyed reminiscing about the Vegas trips and small , little vices of days yore! I doubt I will gamble at all next week but this was such a fun post to write for sure!

Have you been to Vegas? Did you like it? Any specific restaurant that you loved ?

Friday again!

End of the blogging marathon and I fell off the wagon here a little bit! Anyway, its Friday and it’s been a  hectic week of sorts. And I have a busier weekend ahead of me.

I am leaving on a full week business trip on Monday and have to get the house cleaned, laundry done, groceries have to bought, menus have to be planned and  food cooked for both Bandar and the husbadoo.. Plus I have to get a haircut, do my nails and wash, dry and pack my clothes! Phew! It seems like a lot but I typically enjoy doing all this and should be able to get through my list,  as long as I have  the husbadoo in a co-operative mood to watch Bandar while I do all this. I am honestly tired of the arguments which I expect while I am doing this. I can predict it exactly as we go through it each time – “Call a house cleaner, don’t do it yourself, don’t cook for me, just for the child, don’t worry about going to a cheaper and further away grocery store….blah blah blah”. Each of these I will counter and we will argue and waste time and energy and I will feel guilty about fighting before a trip. Eventually he dopes say that every bit of planning, pre work and organization I do before the tip helps him immensely as all he has energy to do each day is prep minimal food for Bandar  based on the simple chart I create , eat whatever is there fridge for himself and  go to bed with Bandar. Getting her off to school, getting her back home, caring and nurturing for her is a full time job. You have to squeeze your full time job into all this and  though both the husbadoo and I do it successfully every time the other one is travelling , there is no denying its really hard and exhausting. I wonder how single parents do this every single day.

On another note, I made some pretense of getting on the floor dot do some exercise twice this week for 15 minutes. It’s a start and I my abs didn’t hurt at all as I guess I didn’t work them at all. But alteast I spread a mat out and got on the floor! Bandar joined me too and she is such a riot to watch as she tries to imitate me . This is also an improvement from sitting on me when I am in plank pose like she used to a few months ago , so I really have no excuse now. We decided to also keep the elliptical. The lead warning is apparently something the manufacturer in California has to add by law but should be harmless and I have since then read quite a bit about it. So the elliptical has been  installed and it works, though a tad noisy and also shaky., I guess yet again I learn that you pay peanuts and get monkeys , my lesson from buying a cheap machine. That said I think it will get the job done. I got on for barely  25 minutes today and did 3 miles. For someone who typically used to do an hour of the elliptical everyday for years this is really pathetic but I guess I will have to slowly build upto it by adding 5 minutes each day.

The one healthy change we made last month was making a green smoothie atleast 4 times a week. I usually heap in Kale or Spinach(I like to alternate), carrots, frozen fruit, Chia/Flax/Hemp , prunes/dates and this is crazy filling. As I have this around 6 pm in the evening, I usually feel too bloated for dinner. But when I skip dinenr, I feel ravenous at 11 pm after Bandar is in bed. I then go and rummage through my kitchen shelves and stuff my mouth with Bhakarwadi which I still have from my India visit. Thank God it is almost over now.

Talking about other Indian snacks, I have always loved puffed rice and always get a huge bag from the Indian store.. Nowadays , I sautee this with chilles, curry leaves, turmeric , salt and eat it by the bowlful with my tea. Carb heavy I know but its soooo good.

We are also majorly hooked on Kind Bars and the sugar content is not bad at all(4g). So this usually is perfect for the sweet afternoon bite that I crave as I work.The bars are slightly pricey but we buy them in bulk online, so its not terrible.

On other good things I ate this week, the husbadoo and I realized that we had not gone out for lunch sans Bandar for a while now. So we  went to our favorite Ramen shop here for lunch on Thursday. His work friends came too and it was pretty fun. We have gone with Bandar to this place once but it is seriously too cramped with a toddler , so I enjoyed the bar stool seating we usually avoid and the adult conversation. The ramen is oh-my-god-delicious.I crave this. It’s a pure veggie broth and such a hearty portion of noodles . It hits the spot on a cold freezing day and its so worth the carbs!

We have to be the worst parents in the world. Twice this week we sent Bandar to school after forgetting her antibiotics for her ear infection. We each  blame ourselves but that of course, doesn’t help matters. She just misses a dose as it’s too late in the day to give her two doses when she is back. As such , all three of us have hacking coughs and sore throats and compete cough with each other as we lie down for the night!Good times!

Regarding night time, I made my dentist very happy by agreeing to get a night guard after a year of him pushing me to. He is still unhappy that I don’t have a great smile and keeps telling me I should get invislign to appear more confident.How do I explain to this guy that I am totally happy not bearing my pearly whites when I smile? He’s a nice guy otherwise and always entertains me with his celebrity client stories ,maybe he’s just a typical NYC dentist who has to upsell the cosmetic side of his practice. I am just the wrong customer! Anyway, the night guard is a tad uncomfortable but should save some of the remaining enamel I have not already ground away in my dreams.

Bandar continues making the days worthwhile and fun. I am having  the hardest time preparing myself for my upcoming work trip mentally . This is because in December last year,  for the first time since my a maternity leave , I spent one month of 24×7 days with the Bandar. This makes this first trip of the year for me so hard somehow. I know she and the husbadoo do great when I am away, but I hope she misses me atleast a teeny weeny bit!

Lazy weekend notes

As predicted I went into some weird strike mode this weekend with relation to  most things domestic. As a result the husbadoo had no lunch box to take today, we have no prepped food for the week, Bandar took waffles and chips for lunch (a very unhealthy toddler lunch) and our house looks like a pig sty with clothes and toys all over. And I still don’t have the slightest inclination to fix any of this.

To start with,  work on Friday left me with some nagging concerns about something and it played on my mind all weekend. You know the feeling when you are worried about something that might be resolved only in a few days and how you go about your normal life but continue to have the nagging worry in the back of your mind?  I watched a ton of TV this weekend to escape this worrisome feeling to some extent.

The husbadoo returned late on Friday and announced he had  to work on Saturday too. For morning breakfast/ brunch I made poha , but somehow it was really dry and not tasty. Maybe because we both are sick and have bad throats now, but we hardly ate it. After some skyping with family, the husbadoo left for work. Bandar surprisingly took  a few minutes to realize he had left and she reacted with a few tears but her tiredness took over. She settled down and  took a long nap , while I watched some TV. I am finding it increasingly hard to sleep in the afternoons somehow, and there is no other calming time than that to watch TV. She got up at 6 pm and after a ton of imaginary games , some food and more skype time, she settled down to sleep at 10:30 pm. The husbadoo cam home past 11 pm to find us both asleep!

I woke up on Sunday to find my elliptical inside the house. How did it get up the stairs, I wondered.The husbadoo had obviously carried it up and my heart melted to think he lifted 100 pounds odd up 5 floors for me! To his point , he could not have left it there blocking the tiny common lobby.My blood also boiled at the useless company I had ordered it from and I spent the next 30 minutes furiously fighting with them on the phone. I  only argued because I had called them after online ordering last week and had insisted on a doorstep delivery which they had promised.Oh another scary thing is the cardboard box mentions that the product contains lead which may be harmful…wash hands after handling!  WTF! Ellipticals have lead? It makes no sense and I then spent some time emailing the manufacturer about lead. Chances are I am returning this, hopefully it will be picked up at my door.

Anyway, I then pulled out our used-three-times-in-three-years-waffle maker and proceeded to make waffles for us all. Bandar had requested that she wanted to take waffles to school this week in her lunch box..In her words, ” Everyone will say what did you bring in your lunch box and then they will say – Oh wow , waffles!”  Apparently, lunch box envy starts young. So waffles it was though she later said they taste like chappathis because I had used whole wheat flour and unsweetened apple sauce, I guess.  Anyway, she dipped them in nutella and had a few bites.

The husbadoo then talked me into ordering two unhealthy desi subjis from an Indian restaurant and I complied, despite my normal kill-joy arguments of “Its so expensive ” or “I can make it better at home.They arrived and we hogged. Needless to say, they were delicious!

We realized that our friends had not confirmed the super – bowl invite after I told them Bandar was sick. Probably thought she was contagious or too sick to go. I did not feel comfortable enough calling and re inviting ourselves either. The husbadoo said I should do that, but I didn’t. I miss the level of comfort we had with our friends in Texas when we would just casually call and show up and hang out, sickish child and all.

So we got Bandar to finally sleep around 4 pm and then after her nap, we hurried out to buy groceries, before the snow storm began. We then called it a night after polishing off the remaining desi food. Somewhere between  all this we realized it was our 6 year engagement anniversary – the engagement we never even attended in India, the one our parents told us about a week before it actually was to happen! Made me less guilty about ordering in for no reason as I had initially thought. So that was our weekend.

Do you nap on weekends? If not, how do you spend your weekend afternoons?

Day 31: All done!

And its done! Phew!Like most bloggers who took this on,  I signed up for the blogging marathon mainly to get into some sort of rhythm with writing and to find some of my lost blogging mojo. I think I was able to do that for the most part.

The first half of the month, I actually had several blog post ideas and got fairly comfortable with the daily blogging. The later half , I did struggle a bit. Weekends deserve a mention of their own – OMG, they are awful for blogging. Somehow , those were the days when I felt blogging was a drag.If I ever do this again, I will have atleast 8-10 good drafts of some sort to get through the weekends. I felt I should plan for weekends during the week, but I just could not manage it this time.  During the later half of the month,  I also  felt my posts were becoming very mundane, about my boring, daily life. The last week for example was all about Bandar’s viral. Normally this would not be a thing I would even blog about, I might have skipped blogging the whole week if it were not the marathon.The surprising part though was I had comments from a few loyal readers even on the “boring” posts. I had sweet comments and emails about Bandar , which I totally didn’t expect. I felt part of some sort of community that was cheering me on from the stands and it made me feel recharged to blog again the next day! I even started enjoying sharing these small daily happenings from my life in this space to some extent , I usually don’t go into some of the details I go into here with even family on the phone and my little sister who recently started reading my blog mentioned to me that she actually had to find out about Bandar and my life through reading here.

The comments and community somehow also kept me accountable. I have signed up for fitness challenges before online , even put in some money for a common pool to lose weight and win cash. I have failed all those, mainly because I never logged into to record my stats, work outs , meals and other things and lost out on the whole community feeling behind the whole thing. Maybe this community gave me the kick in the pants I needed to stick to this simple daily blogging goal.I should really embrace the concept for other areas of my life.

It was such fun also opening my reader to find several new posts overnight and at the end of the day.  I think I am really going to miss that as we go into February. Hopefully everyone keeps up some of this new found momentum and we don’t have missing writers for several months on end , I am pointing all fingers at myself here!

Thanks so much for reading and following along! Needless to say, I will be doing no more weekend blogging for a while but will be in the space fairly often this year, if all goes well.