A fun Saturday- Documenting A week in Life

Day 7:
Saturdays are always special around here... kids get fruit loops ( sugar loaded cereal) for breakfast and at night they get to sleep in Mamma-Daddy bed. Its a day for treats for them...

The tradition started as an incentive for being nice all week but now they take it as their birth right with no regards to behavior clues that we keep reminding them of.

Anyways, I snoozed the alarm twice and then shut if off and slept in, after breakfast and some cleaning up I left for my dance class. Like kids we also treat ourselves to special (loaded with sugar and calories) cereal on the weekends.

I drive about 35-40 miles each way to get to my dance class and today the wet weather did not make for a pretty drive but the dance class was intensive. Our annual school dance show is coming up in about a month so lots of extra practice and rigorous routines, I like it when I get a good workout at dance class...

After the class, we met at Peiwei for lunch where kids had chicken nuggets carried out from Arby's, I had Thai dynamite with Shrimp and DH had kung pao. The plan was to drive to the library straight away but we took care of some errands while kids took a little cat nap.

After the library visit, DH took the kids for a stroll along the river while I sat in the car and browsed through books. We came back and had tea with edamame seeds as snacks. DH and kids planned to grill for dinner so I decided to go for a run, today's tally: 3.9 miles, 35 minutes... I guess the route I took today had many slopes LOL!!!

DH is finally getting a hang of my need to document the days and so he shot a picture of my sweaty self as soon as I entered the house and of the wine for the evening while I was gone...

The evening was fun with more chit chats and some music, some discipline issues and then as kids retired in our bed, we both found our respective computers for company. And although DH brought me the camera from downstairs so I can complete the documentation, I am gonna wait till tomorrow to upload the pictures... Oops, its already tomorrow (an old joke between DH and I)

Anyways, one more day to go and then I put all this together in an album and see how did I do in collecting words, quotes and memorabilia for these seven days...

A lousy Mom Friday... Documenting a day in life

I don't know where to begin documenting my thursday, when did my day began at 2:00am when Divi puked for the first time at night or at 4:30am when we were finally settled enough to sleep or at 8:00am when I finally got out of the bed...

Anyways, last night I fed Divi while distracting her with random things and later when she puked at night I kind of blamed myself for her situation. But she such a spirited baby, she never fails to surprise me, especially when she is sick and everybody tends to be at their worst...

My day was very disoriented and I didn't get much accomplished at work, but I did celebrate two birthdays, Tom and I walked to a Kurdish restaurant for lunch and a belated birthday party and we were so engrossed in conversation that I forgot to take pictures of our food before we ate it...

Our server let me borrow the belly dancing belt and we posed for a picture


I walked back alone and on the way chatted with my SIL over phone...


Once back at work we celebrated Mary's golden B'day with a cake.

While trying to get through the tasks, I lost track of time and forgot that I promised Somu a play date with Shawn. I barely made it to the park...

But on the way back Somu wasn't as happy as I thought she would be she said, "why did you take me to a dirty place". Well they played with sand and water and so she knew she'd have to take a bath once we got home and she hates baths... just as much as Daddy.

So, to make it up we picked up Taco's from Chipotle for the girls and it was Divi's turn to get annoyed, she wanted chicken nuggets and not Taco's.

After bath and dinner for kids and tea and snack for adults we read a book and Mom had another lousy moment... I breezed through the first chapter fine but my eyes closed half way through the next one... I guess last night was catching up...

We ate cannoli that DH got for us

then, I recommended that we go for a drive and girls get to see Mamma's office from outside, I had to finish a few things from the afternoon, then on the way back a drive on the high bridge and loud hindi music in the car...

Back home, I had regained some energy so I tried the costume that I'll be wearing at the dance performance in May, it was custom ordered from India so I needed to make sure it fits right.

DH took some artsy shots

Girls got excited to get Bindis, Somu said, Mamma now everybody will know I am an Indian. I like that the girls are proud of their roots and don't see it as a hassle.

And we called it a night...

(Of course then my computer time began...)

Bright and Sunny... Documenting a day in life

22 Apr:
Another activity filled day with very little time to type out everything that I wanna say... but if a picture say a thousand words then I am covered for the day.

I decided to work from home, it was real convenient to get up from bed and be at work 10 minutes later... I missed not being in the meetings but there was work that needed some concentration so it worked out fine.

I didn't pray this morning like my usual mornings but it was good to be able to spend a little time with the kids.




Kids ready to go to school...


Sink needed some attention but not more than my document...

my weakness...

time to burn off the extra calories

happy with my workout... 2.9 miles in 34 minutes, just need to go .2 miles more for my 5K

Met with DH for lunch at Panera Bread, Mediterranean salad with salmon

An appointment with the principal of a prospective school for Saumya

A quick stop at the grocery store before picking up kids from school

I need a picture postcard and kids needed some fresh air so we took a stroll along St.Croix river while eating duet chocolate cookie...

I made idlis and saambhar for dinner...

And after cleaning up the kitchen I put the fresh flowers in the vase...

At the end of the day, I uploaded the pictures... took a few extra shots from photobooth and now calling it a day!!!

Good night...

Wednesday busy-ness... Documenting a week in Life

Day 3: 21 April 2010
If yesterday was termed a BLAH day then this day certainly was a socializing kind of day...
Met lots of people and it was a fun day overall, I wrote down my thoughts on piece of paper but not taking the time to type them... lets blame it on lack of time. Although some days I am so thankful for the energy and hours God has given me cause it did seem like he slipped in a few extra ones just so that I can get through my to do list...
I am the sort of person who'd rather run late for some appointments than reach 15 minutes early on each one of them and then sit and relax and then crib about waste of time...

Anyways, here's my day in pictures:

An early morning view

DH, wakes up to make coffee :-)

A birthday get-together at work

My casual work attire today

Meeting friends to celebrate wedding announcements

Playing rough with friends

Yoga for kids

Snack time

Driving and my sunnies

An acrylic art class

Need that Sunshine baby... Documenting a week in Life

Day 2: 20 Apr 2010
Today was one of those days, a total contrast from yesterday when alarm rang and I thought why am I alive. I don't know if it happened in my dreams or lack there of but nothing made me happy... I kept my scheduled, talked to my mom-dad on the way to work and then it was a series of meetings. I thought to myself, how boring is my life, what do I record, the meeting minutes?
Anyways my friend who I have known for about a month said she has never seen me more tired... another blow on my face!
Then my agent called telling me we got a low ball offer on our house that we are trying to sell, another blow...
I was about to call sick and go home when my friend Simone (same as above) called me and left a message, she got done with her classes early and asked me to meet at the gym. BLAH... that was a last think I wanted...

so we decided to walk outside instead, a 3 mile walk on summit avenue. The sunshine did me good and Simone said, 'You needed that Sunshine, Baby'...
Went back to work and tackled a spreadsheet before leaving for home...


At home DH was working from home today and found a package at the door steps :) My shipment from GAP arrived... God was trying his best to cheer me up! Then after meeting the agent to tackle the low ball offer, I picked up kids from school.
Kids came home and finished there left over lunch from school and then had their favorite snack, yoghurt. While I ate spinach and hummus roll for my after noon snack. I talked to my SIL, Deepali before getting started with dinner.

After that Divi and I hung out, I checked my mails while Somu got to watch 'electric company' on PBS.


Today was a day when I changed into my sleeping clothes way before dinner. I was, I am tired...
Then there is always laundry that needed folding and dishes that needs to be put away.


For dinner I made parathas, sauteed potato in butter with cumin and thai chili and yellow dal... While kids read their book, Saumya read 'Jatak tales' comic book and Divya flipped through 'India, my land' book

We watched a bit of TV (NDTV good times) while eating dinner and then started the night time rituals which includes listening to muppets' Manamana...

Documenting a week in Life - getting ready

Last week while I was getting the supplies ready for this week's record of life, I was really inspired to create something. I quick put together these pages to satisfy the urge.

The collection of supplies for the 'A week in Life' project


A picture from back when Divya was a newborn, summer 2007


The last India travel of girls and I, back in 2008, pictures were taken at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

Day 1: Documenting A week in Life

Day 1: 19 Apr 2010,
I think I did good today... Despite being camera less for most of the day, I recorded things rather meticulously... All my pictures are in the computer just sharing a few. I did end up making seven envelopes, one for each day to collect words and receipts and other reminders of the day...

My lunch for the day


Flowers blooming outside the office building and my friend Simone


That's me in the restroom mirror


And kids when I picked them up from school

Documenting a week in Life (19th through 25th April 2010)

I am doing this project with Ali Edwards, documenting a week of my life starting today. Deepali, my SIL might join me in this project or atleast she'll keep tabs on me and promised to keep me motivated.

Why: Well, the main reason I want to do it is because despite my extremely busy schedule every time I look back, I think so what did I do so far? And even though capturing the seemingly mundane is not a measure of what I accomplished it does give me an insight into the things I tried to do. Besides, I need some inspiration to get back into scrapbooking and this is a project that I wanted to do for quite some time.

What: What do I wish to achieve? I wish to have a documented record of our life, activities, routines, interests and the other components of life that I might otherwise fail to notice. I plan to include some of these things in the final document: pictures of kids activities, the books they and I read, the art work they make, the dinner I cook, may be log my running sometime or the dance practice, the places I shop at and the restaurant I eat at. At the end of the week I wish to have pictures and notes put into categories for each day and the following week I will arrange them into a 12x12 pages. My plan is to have two white background pages and one pockets page with 4x4 pockets to fill with the memorabilia, pictures, words and quotes.
I plan to include these pages in my 2010 family year book and later if I ended up doing too many of these I might actually have a separate book for these projects.

I have printed out daily calendar pages from my outlook calendar at work and will populate them as I go.

When: It’s the toughest question to answer. I plan to record my day as I go and upload pictures at the end of each day. Also, my plan is to have a summary of the day kind of paragraph for each day that I’ll compile at the end of the day, right before my bedtime reading.



So with that plan in place I start today and a glitch as I started, I forgot to bring my camera today and I am faced with a choice, do I start tomorrow or just go with the flow… My decision… Go with the flow… I do have my cell phone to take pictures with and I’ll make sure to take more filler pictures in the rest of the week to populate today’s page.