What we did in 2018

January

January was a quiet month. We got back from a lovely Christmas vacation at my parent’s place, where all we did was eat and relax. I made a bunch of new year resolutions – eating healthy, fitness etc. and broke them all before the month was over.

Snubnose had her exams and spent the month stressed out over her performances. She has a perfectionist mind-set, and gets worked up if she doesn’t meet her expectations. I am a bit of a perfectionist as well, and this month I realized I need to let up a bit on that. I need to make sure she remains calm and not add to her stress.

Apart from exams, I spent time easing into the New Year – new work responsibilities took some time getting used to.

I also did a lot of blogging building up a pipeline of blog posts for the next couple of months.

February

February was a quiet month as well. We did a lot of eating out, and I cooked a lot too. For some reason, I never shared the recipes on the blog. Maybe that’s because my food-related posts always perform poorly. My recipes (although enjoyed very much by friends and family) are not particularly unique either. This is also the month that Piglet learnt to cook alongside me helping me with prepping (peeling the garlic, shelling the peas), stirring the soup, and so much more.

One important thing that happened was that we finalized Piglet’s school admissions for the next academic year. This was a major source of stress. He needed to change schools for Grade 1 and Snubnose’s school was not an option for him. My perfectionist tendencies came to the fore where I quite possibly visited every school (even if it was miles away) to make sure we had the perfect school for Piglet. Eventually, it turned out that the first school we visited was the most viable option. Still I have a very useful (I think?) spreadsheet of all the schools in East Bangalore with a detailed list of pros and cons for each one. Maybe I could sell this on the internet? 😀

March

I spent most of March planning our mom and me trip to Egypt with Snubnose. Most of this month was devoted to scouring internet resources for places to see, stay, eat, and the cheapest flight tickets possible.

Snubnose spent a lot of this month working on her art work. It eventually turned out to be a superb piece, and is one of my all-time favorites by her ever.

I realized I have been very lax posting about personal stuff on the blog. Maybe it’s because so much of this goes into my Instagram, but I really want to share this masterpiece here as well.

I hope you like it.

April

April was the start of the summer holidays. I had also finished a major product release at work, and so it was a super-pleasant chilled out month.

Piglet finally got the hang of swimming, and once in the pool, it was a trial to get him out of it after classes.

It was such a pleasure to watch him in the pool!

May

The highlight of this month has to be Snubnose and my trip to Egypt. Piglet and K weren’t too interested (they instead opted to go to Chennai and visit my mom and feast on her home cooked food), and so it was just the two of us with friends. And we had such a blast.

Egypt was a dream, an education, and everything all at once.

It’s a shame that I still have to find the time to write out all the blog posts from that trip, but I mean to try, even if it is a year late.

June

June was another travel month for me. This time it was for work. I traveled to Noida with colleagues for a work trip, which extended to a weekend in Jaipur.

It wasn’t the best weather. Jaipur was hot, hot, hot. In 45 degrees centigrade, we bravely wore hats and checked out all there was to see. And there was plenty!

Jaipur is a beautiful city, but probably better enjoyed in Winter.

July

July, mine and K’s birthday month is usually very festive and fun. This year though, it was hard.

My 97 year old grandma who looked well on her way to reaching a century suddenly turned ill and died. She was quite literally the light of my life. She died early in July and honest to god I can’t even write this sentence without tears and a pain in my chest.

She lived a long, and action-filled life, traveling the world well into her eighties. She lived in London and when I was a kid, she was the epitome of glamor always in a swathe of some exotic foreign perfume, and armed with tons of presents from Marks and Spencers. I miss her so much it hurts!

At the time, I couldn’t really process the loss. I felt I had to stay strong for my mother who had totally broken down.

Also so much was happening on all fronts at the same time, I just didn’t feel like I had the luxury to grieve.

Our car had been giving us problems for most of the year, and we had to reluctantly look for a replacement. Most of this month was spent looking for new cars, models, talking rates, EMIs, and all that fun stuff. I really wasn’t in the mood for this at all.

Overall, this was the absolute worst month of the year!

August

August (and the next two months that followed) were extremely hard.

A new project at work took all my time and energy, along with a hefty dose of blood, sweat, and tears.

The only bright light at this time was Piglet easing into and shining at his new school.

He managed to impress all his teachers and principals, and confidently go on to become the class clown, and everyone’s favorite.

Another nice thing that happened was an invite for a blog trip to Ooty. It was a fun time getting together with other bloggers, and having a comped stay in a luxe hotel. That doesn’t happen to me often and I enjoyed every bit of that blogger moment.

September

September was nothing but slog, slog, slog. When it wasn’t toiling away at work, it was helping with the kids exams.

Thankfully all that work wasn’t in vain. I ended October knowing my office project was in good enough shape. And that both my kids did exceptionally well in their exams.

Piglet especially was a surprise. This was his very first exam ever, and he aced it with excellent marks in every subject.

I was so proud of the way these two did this month!

October

October was a lot of hard work, but a lot of play too.

I did some really fun things – such as learning to play golf (and realizing I was no good at it), dining with some cool new friends, and ending the month with a fun-filled Halloween party. This was the best month for fun in general!

November

Again November was exam month for Snubnose. She stayed in quiet glued to her books.

Piglet was restless and bored, so I gave him a suitcase and asked him to start packing it for our year-end trip to Sri Lanka.

The excitement began, and he turned our whole house topsy-turvy packing his little suitcase.

December

December started out a little alarming. At the last moment, we found out Piglet’s passport is expiring in April, and he cannot travel.

We made an urgent request to the Passport office, somehow got an appointment, and received a new passport within the week. Next it was time to apply for visas, do the foreign currency, packing, and then off for our year-end holiday.

Sri Lanka was a blast, and I will be posting more about it. Here’s one family photo of all the fun we had.