February 2019 Recap

February has been a mellow sort of month. There was a lot of work at office, and I was neck deep in work, lots of late night Slack conversations, calls, and meetings. I can already see that late nights are going to be the dominating theme of 2019. That said, although there’s a lot of work, it’s been going smoothly and that’s what matters, I guess.

I knew my excellent reading run of January could not last long, and it didn’t. February was a slow month. I got stuck in long, unwieldy books, and couldn’t really get much of a momentum going at all. Sometimes I wish I could just be ruthless and drop books when they aren’t working for me. But I keep at it until I get stuck in a reading rut, and then give up books altogether. Sigh!

What I finished:

• Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts – This was the unwieldy chunkster that took up so much of my time in February, without any payback for it. I kept plugging on hoping the book would get better, but sadly no.
• A Turn in the Road by Debbie Macomber – Another snore. Both these books were pressed upon me very enthusiastically by a friend. Now, I don’t know how to look her in the eye. She has offered me more books to read now. Eep!
• Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters – This was one of the positive reads of this month. I am realizing I really like Sarah Waters’ writing style, and I really loved this fun lesbian romp across Victorian England.
• A couple of Agatha Christie rereads – When I find myself getting bogged down in a book, I look to some light reads and rereads to get out of my funk. And Agatha Christie’s mysteries came to the rescue this time too. I read The Secret Adversary and The Mysterious Affair at Styles and enjoyed both books thoroughly.

I had better luck with watching shows on streaming channels. The same friend who recommended books also recommended I catch True Detective on Hotstar. I think I prefer her movie/series recommendations to her book recommendations 😀 .

I caught the first season this month, and I absolutely loved it. True there are some problems with it – a baggy middle section, the pathetic roles for women, and many others. Still, I loved it. The fantastic background music, acting, and cinematography played a huge part in my loving it so much, I think.

I started watching Wild China – a BBC documentary series on Netflix. I am planning to visit China sometime this year, and when I saw this program surface on my Netflix recommendations, I just had to watch. For a documentary (which I normally equate to snooze), this was a great watch, and has me really pumped to visit China. The sad thing is I now know that the one week I have scheduled for the trip is nowhere close to enough for such a beautiful and vast country.

I wanted to review Wild China on this blog, but I realized this blog has already said everything I wanted to say about the show, and so I am taking the lazy way out and just linking to it.

I also caught a couple of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime Video. Both Andhadhun and Tumbbad were on the best Bollywood movies list of 2018, and were both highly deserving of that mention. It also helps that both movies are edge of your seat, bite your nail kind of thrillers. If you are curious about or into Bollywood movies, these are the best kind.

This month was super-hectic and super-satisfying on the family front. There were fun familial gatherings and reunions. My mom visited us from Chennai, and we had a massive blow-out birthday party to usher in Snubnose’s teen years. What a blast!

The first major family affaire was our niece’s wedding. We had a blissful couple of days catching up with relatives, and enjoying her happiness. As aunt and uncle, K and I had to give away the bride, and partake in additional ceremonies.

Here are some candid shots of us from the ceremony.

The next major event was Snubnose turning 13. I took her and 10 of her closest friends to the mall for some bowling and arcade games. Piglet accompanied us and was the only boy among 10 chattering girls. Still, he had a great time, managing to hold his own at the bowling and video games – even winning a few!

No photos from the party – it was simply too chaotic having to keep an eye on so many excitable kids.

I feel so much happened this month, but I can’t seem to recall much right now. I know I cooked a lot, ate less (still successfully keeping to my healthy eating resolutions). There were a lot of social events, but not so many blog events.

Oh! There was one fun blog event, where I was invited by the folks from Balmain to come and have a hair makeover. At first, I was hesitant. With short hair, I didn’t really see much scope in a hair makeover. But they insisted and so I went.

It was a fun experience, even if I was a tad intimidated by all the fashion-y attitude around me. I now have an invite for another beauty event and I am all excited to go for that one too! The best part about these invites is that they don’t require a blog post. So, I get to go and have fun without the stress of figuring out how to write about the event.

So, that was my February. It was fun and eventful – a good work hard, play hard kind of month.

What was your February like?