Hooked On

Have you hear of chalk board paper? That's my latest find and I can't wait to see how I can use it around the house. It's way better than dry erase paint, especially if your walls have texture on them like mine does. Wary of the chalk powder? Use a wet chalk ink that works like a marker.
The reason I started looking out for home organization blogs is not because I was looking for fun ideas to pep up the house but because I lost my son's home homework sheet twice in row. This probably goes down as the lowest point I have declared on the blogosphere. It's no where close to the real life low point. Back to the homework story. It was lying around the kitchen for the longest time and then made it's way to the study along with the ocean of bills and other papers, when I tried to clean up. Clean up pretty much means moving the papers piled on the kitchen island to the study room. Cleaning the study means running the papers through the shredder and dumping the rest I can't shred in an already overflowing basket. Well, that was the last I saw of his homework. I know I can always blame the folks who send me all these junk mails and bills but that's not stopping anytime soon.

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Eating Right

The key to success in anything is not how many times you fail or fall off the track, but what motivates you to get back on track. In the past, when I derailed, even if it was for a day or two, I would feel like I have gone past the point of no return and put on all the weight I lost. Mostly because I would binge and the pounds will be back in no time. This time around, even though I slacked off on the walks or working out every now and then, I kept my eating right habits intact.

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Mango Lassi

A friend and I were watching the movie Khoobsoorat, a Rekha and Rakesh Roshan starrer movie, on TV while the husbands were busy talking about their work and the kids immersed in their play, a modified hide and seek apparently. We could have chatted endlessly but choose to watch the movie instead. I really enjoyed the movie time, reminded me of the pre-DVR age, with a mono-channel on TV where you are pretty much struck to what is being telecast-ed. I seem to like Rekha now way better than I did during her hay days. May be it has to do something with the way she aged or simply because of the way she wears her  Kancheevarams.

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Stretch It Out

Butterfly Stretch
This post is dedicated to all my walking buddies who walked with me in the cold-cold weather and were sore after our Sunday afternoon walk. I won't lecture much on the what-to's and what-not-to's on stretching. Here are a few of my favorite stretches that I do after a long walk.
The above 2 are Hamstring stretches.The one on the left below is ankle over knee stretch. It's one of my favorite hip stretches. Square your hips up and knees bent at 90 degrees. Place the ankle over the knee and use the hands to hug the other thigh as in the picture. Gently bring the thighs closer to the body until you feel the stretch. The range of motion is not large here. The one in the bottom right is calf stretch. On this one, stand on the edge of the steps with the fore feet on the step and bring one heel down at a time.

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Total Recall

We watched the movie Total Recall, not the original movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger but a newer version. There were gaps in the story I simply did not understand. It could have been the 2nd glass of wine but from what I recall, it was not like I was slept through portions of the movie. Now, I want to go back and watch the original one for some closure. I am such a movie buff.
We did not have a sunny weekend as I had anticipated. I moved our group walk from Saturday to Sunday. Two, who did not read my FB posting showed up and we walked close to 8 miles. Sunday, the entire walking gang showed up with the exception one one and we covered another 7.7 miles.

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Happy Friday & Some Corners Of Our Home

I hope your Friday is going well. Pongal is right around the corner, for all you know it might pass off like another day except for may be a couple of FB pictures and wishes. The clouds are behind us and this weekend is going to be all sun and shine. I bought 16 daily passes to my workout class and you can be assured it will take me a while to use all those passes. My fitness instructor said I have lost a lot of weight, losing 10 pounds is actually not a lot for my frame. Another co-exerciser mentioned I have come a long way in terms of endurance. She is right and the only thing I changed was "Eat Right" and walk a bit. Needless to say I was on cloud 9.

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Bottomless Pit And Play-Doh

Play-doh was on a rock bottom sale during the holidays, obviously we bought a 24 or 36 pack pack for Rohan. It so happened Riya enjoyed it more than him. All through the Winter break she kept herself busy by making 'how-to' video tutorials on play-doh. She made some realistic looking burgers, mac and cheese, and other fast food menu items. She is the play-doh police of the house. She won't let other kids mix up the colors and will personally portion size it to them. This is a warning to any kid out there wanting to play with her play-doh.

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Spiky Ball

I had to sneak in a quick walk into my calendar today. First day after the holidays went as crazy as it could go. Needed my zen walk. I walked up to Rohan's school, picked him up and we walked our way back. Do you see the small ball like structure hanging on the tree? He calls them spiky balls.
He notices the way the ducks land as they glide into water, counts the number of pine cones on the way and if a bird ever chirps, he has to make sure he tracks where it's coming from. He does make me smell the roses, no, not just figuratively, actually too at times.

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Meal Plan

Do you cook everyday or cook once a week for the whole week? Cooking meals for a week simply does not work for me or us to be specific. Mostly it's because we change our minds all the time on what we want to eat. If I made beans, the family wants tindora. If I have rasam handy, then I am in the mood to eat some onion sambar and so on and so forth. It's even more complex with the portion size. We do not seem to be eating the same size meal everyday. How much we eat depends on what I make, how I make and what else we ate for lunch and snack that day. I know many for whom this works like magic. They cook once or twice a week and finish up the pre-determined portion size as planned. I know one who plays restaurant on Fridays where each one in the family gets to choose a different left overs from the 6 or 7 dishes made for the week. Well, it certainly does not work for us and I no longer try to fit in things that's not me or something that does not suit us. But I certainly understand the significance of planning meals and scheduling work outs for the week to ensure minimal deviations in binge eating and slacking off from my long walks.

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Social Long Walk

Moderation is something I neither learned growing up nor cultivated as an adult. Feast or Famine is more like my way of doing things. Either the house will be speckles or dirty laundry overflowing all over the closet, 3 course meals or eat-what's-there-in-fridge type dinners and the same with how I exercise. My husband walks a mile daily, does 10 sun salutations and does minimal weights. He tries to do this routine 5 times a week. My work outs are more along the feast or famine type situations. I will be lazying around the TV for hours together or do something like 100 sun salutations in one sitting. So when I wanted to walk, it had to be done in a big way too. Along with my New Year Email, was my invitation for my friends to join me in my long walks on Saturday and train with me for a Half Marathon. Honestly I did not think they were going to turn up, except for may be one, who is my usual walking buddy. Surprise, all came in and we had a really fun social walk and covered 6 miles. More updates on the half-marathon coming up soon.

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Walking ... Running

Grocery shopping tops my least favorite activities to do. It's a different ball game if it's a new store or even an open farmer's market. But the regular week-to-week grocery shopping in stores where I know aisle by aisle what's in store bores me. The refrigerator is empty so I forced myself to Costco and bought some veggies, fruits and loaded the cart with hummus. Another of my latest obsession is asparagus. Sauteed asparagus and cucumbers has been fulfilling our quota for veggies until my next trip to the Indian stores.

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Potato People

Until I logged in to work yesterday, I did not realize how exhausted I was. Thank goodness, I still hve 2 days vacation from last year. I decided to use it. I am off from work today and tomorrow. Hopefully I will be well rested and ready to take on the year.
Food Diary
Breakfast: A couple of boiled egg whites and coffee no sugar.

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The First 10 Pounds

Thanks to Facebook, whether you are in a party or simply hanging out, everybody wants to take a picture   and post it. On one of these pictures taken during a Diwali party, I looked exactly how I looked when I was 5 months pregnant with Rohan. Note: He's my second child. The tummy is way bigger for the 2nd than the first. It's one of those side poses that may come in handy when I do a before and after picture. For now, it's deeply hidden in my folder structure tucked away from every social media what so ever.

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