Half Moon Bay

We spent the afternoon yesterday at Half Moon Bay. It was a Saturday morning and we had had a slow start to the day. I remarked to my husband that I'd like to go to the beach and to Half Moon Bay in the afternoon, since our last few trips had been to Santa Cruz and I wanted a change. I envisioned us doing a walk along the trail that runs by the coast and spending a little time on the beach afterwards.

We did just that, and it turned out to be an amazing day. We decided to let our baby take his morning nap before heading out, and took the time to get packed and ready. We even had an early lunch at home so that we would not have tired, hungry kids when we reached there and were looking for a place to eat.  By the time we left our drive way, it was a quarter to one! No worries, we reached in good time in under an hour.

We walked from Dunes beach to Miramar beach along the paved trail. It was simply gorgeous. There were a lot of walkers and bikers on the trail. Our toddler had a blast running around in all directions and being free. Our daughter enjoyed riding her scooter and stopping at everything that caught her fancy. My husband and I took in the fresh ocean air and views and felt energized and uplifted by our walk.

We stopped by a tree that had very low branches that we could climb on and sit on. We also stopped to pick a few leaves and flowers along the way, a favorite pastime of my daughter's. When we reached Miramar beach, we were pleasantly surprised to see our favorite cafe had re-opened. We enjoyed coffee and coconut macaroons at Ebb Tide Cafe, basking in the sunshine with gorgeous views at the table outside that was right at the ocean front.

We walked back to our car after this and I fed and entertained our baby in the car while my daughter and husband did a short trip down to the beach for her to play in the sand. She built her customary sand castle and was satisfied with her sand play. She would have liked to have played in the sand longer, but we felt that with the weather it was perfect for us all to enjoy a walk. Spending hours on the beach running after a toddler and preventing him from eating sand just wears us all down and gets us tired and irritable. We decided to do something more manageable and that we'd all enjoy and need to make this a priority again.

I also enjoyed the drive because it was an occasion for my husband and I to talk while our kids slept on the way back home. He had remarked several times that it was a perfect day, and while I agreed wholeheartedly, there was a nagging feeling of anxiety at the back of my mind that was saying 'what could go wrong now?'. The day was so beautiful, in fact, that everything slowed down and I could almost see it playing out in slow motion. I was taking in the beauty of the place, the warm rays of the sun, and the crisp ocean air. The combination of the walk and a few sips of coffee had me feeling physically invigorated and mentally relaxed. But anxiety reared its ugly head again saying 'This is how we remember days when bad things happened right? We remember every second of them and they usually start out beautiful'. It was a relief the next morning, when I could actually mark this day as having been 'perfect'! I am also proud of myself for expressing the part about the anxiety out loud to my husband instead of internalizing it, and also for being able to observe my own feelings without getting sucked into them (which is what I try to do during meditation). While these were fleeting thoughts, I acknowledged them, verbalized them, and did not let them consume me. I still very much enjoyed myself, and I am proud of myself for it.

I love the song below, both the version by Ride and Robert Smith's version which was released to promote the 25th anniversary re-issue of Ride's album Nowhere.

While I didn't notice any vapour trails in particular, we did indeed have a deep blue sky that day.

Vapour Trail by Ride

First you look so strong,
Then you fade away.
The sun will blind my eyes;
I love you anyway.
Thirsty for your smile;
I watch you for a while.
You are a vapour trail
In a deep blue sky.

Is it just me?

The day after Christmas - I may be one of the few that actually enjoys this day. The pressure is off to make it a magical day for the kids and family. Gifts have been bought, exchanged, and so forth. The best part is that we still have a few days off, to spend as we like. I've heard of people having Christmas morning depression, and to feel incredibly down when it's all over. But I am the opposite. I actually like the return to normal while still being free to be in holiday mood, if that makes sense.

My plan has been to organize our home and make it a more inspiring place to be in. We often find ourselves stretched to the max by the pressures of our daily lives. I would like to simplify our lives and make our home more conducive to relaxation, inviting positive emotions and being an overall happy and cosy place to be in.

With my aversion to shopping and 'stuff', I almost always put off any home decor-related purchase and have ended up with a house that looks rather dull. However, I want to start by organizing my space and then see if I can add select items over time. Money is a concern at the moment, and both my husband and I like to wait until we can afford a decent quality purchase for the house. We will be marking a year in our home tomorrow, and the only new items we bought for the house have been an area rug and a much-needed mattress.

With the tidying up, I started with the dresser and hallway cabinet today. I hope to get to my closet and donate a few more clothes. My closet is mostly organized and already at a manageable state, with clothes I wear often and not many extra items. However, I think there's room to do a little more organizing. We just went through sorting our kids' clothes and giving away items to friends as well making up a box for donation. Today, we tackled the mountain of my husband's t-shirts that he's accumulated over the years, and got a huge box ready for donation. 

Another big item on my to-do list is to sort through and file my papers. It is a long-time problem of mine to let them pile up for months. I am well aware of the fact that taking care of the clutter will help with my state of mind. I know that some of these things block the energy flow in my home, which is why I'm looking forward to this opportunity to tidy up and organize. I really hope I can get our home to a state where we invite positive energy into it. 

I did manage to do my yoga this morning and felt quite energized by it. I lit my lamps and felt the peaceful vibrations that this ritual brings. I ventilated the entire home by opening windows, and tidied up the downstairs. I'm feeling semi-accomplished, and am hoping to get to the next stage in organizing.

This evening, we are hosting a family for dinner who is very dear to us and I am looking forward to it. We spoke to a dear friend over the phone today and he reminded us about how we need to put on the oxygen mask first, and then take care of our kids. He made us realize that our kids are just doing their jobs and doing them well - being curious, exuberant at times, pushing limits, and so on. It is up to us as parents to reign in negative behaviors and reinforce positive ones, and we need to be in a good place ourselves to be able to do this effectively.

While I think about room for improvement in all of these areas, I want to remember that we are already doing a phenomenal job in our daily lives and constantly learning and adapting along the way. I am grateful that we are able to do this, and thankful for our circumstances and for our perspectives. 

I've really been enjoying the song "Mad World" by Tears for Fears. It's one of their better songs, and while I find the lyrics depressing, its really the music that I enjoy. I suppose I can quote the main line from the song here:

And I find it kind of funny

I find it kind of sad

When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world
Mad world

Mad World - by Tears for Fears

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve has been nice so far. We had a leisurely morning, with breakfast and lounging in our PJs. We video chatted with family and wished them for Christmas. We went on a family walk to the nearby park and got caught in the rain, but quite enjoyed the outing. The afternoon was low-key as well.

My daughter has been asking to see 'baby Jesus' and my husband has taken her to Christmas Eve mass at a nearby church. He had been thinking about attending this mass but couldn't quite make up his mind, but they finally decided to go. I'm using the occasion to tidy the house a bit, catch up on bills and put away the last of the presents. Argh... that 45 minute window when baby sleeps, and we have to "Do all the things!'. I'm sure I won't even get started before it is time to wake him up.

However, I did go out of my comfort zone today and made a facebook post greeting friends and family for the holiday season (complete with family picture). I'm not sure why, but my anxiety gets triggered every time I put myself out there. But I suppose a calculated, cautious approach is what I am trying now. Hence the blog post, since writing keeps me grounded.

I'm going to write a few positive words now, with the hope that they seep through into my subconscious mind. Peace, calm, tranquility, togetherness, gratitude, acknowledgement, letting negativity roll off, inviting positive energy, believing, praying, forgiving, being humble, conscious deep breathing, rhythm and balance, warmth, comfort, knowledge, restfulness, relaxation, progress and carving my own path. These are all the thoughts and feelings I'd like to surround myself with this season.

Update: My daughter and husband enjoyed the Christmas Eve mass. It turned out to be a family mass, and the priest did a circle time for the children to tell them the story of the birth of Jesus, while holding up large pictures to show them. The children even were given goody bags containing candy and a little booklet about the story that they were told. Later in the evening, my daughter and I baked cookies for Santa. We tidied up the house a bit and enjoyed some music at home. We had dinner of mussels, homemade fries and chicken stew that my husband made. It was a day well spent.
Side note: The mussels were a result of a huge craving that my husband had, which took him to Costco on the 23rd evening (the horror!). He endured long lines and pushing through crazy shoppers to buy the mussels and then came home to painstakingly prep them for dinner, perfect his frying technique with the fries, and satisfy his desire to have the typical Belgian comfort food ready for dinner. We got to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Christmas morning was a hit with our kids, and they loved the little things we got them (books, and a small toy each). My husband and I have been meaning to go out for a special dinner to a local restaurant, and we got ourselves a gift card to go there. My husband says that this locks us in to actually go, so to speak, since otherwise life gets in the way and we never really have a night out. We then packed the kids up in the car and drove up to my sister's place. We had a relaxed afternoon, a delicious lunch prepared by her (we took a chicken dish) and were able to spent time together.

All in all, it was both a relaxed and a festive celebration - exactly what we were going for, and we are grateful for that.

It's the most 'wonderful' time of the year

Most of my blog posts seem to be about balance. This is what I am striving to achieve and have achieved already in several aspects of my life.

Well, if you're like me, you do not enjoy the holiday music blaring in all public spaces from Thanksgiving to New Year every year. 'It's the most wonderful time of the year' is one such holiday favorite. 

On one hand, we can embrace it all - the Christmas decorations, Santa Claus, baking cookies and cakes, setting up trees, playing all of the holiday music, shopping, gifting, eating a ton and spending long hours in shopping malls trying to find the perfect gift for a loved one, making the most of the end of year sales, enjoying the decorations and the whole experience. Some could even take the opportunity to plan big trips and travel during this time of the year. Disneyland, southern California (LA and San Diego), and Tahoe are the common ones in our neck of the woods. There are those that do their vacations to India/China or other home country. A few more head out to the Caribbean or Western Mexico. The options are plentiful and there is fun to be had by all.

There is the other side of it and this is more along the lines of where my anxiety leads me. Some of us are triggered by sensory experiences and for me, it is lights and smells that overwhelm me. The malls during the rest of the year are already an unpleasant experience for me. Going to them when they are brimming with crowds, bright lights, loud music blaring (and not the pleasant kind, might I add), the explosion of red, green and gold, and the nauseatingly sweet smell of treats being sold, just makes for a downright miserable experience. The flu season is at its peak, so that most wonderful time of year is actually the worst for me. It is also this period (winter) when my health anxiety is at its peak - I have had traumatic winters for the past four years which further triggers it. So it's no surprise that I find myself at a loss for how to deal with it all.

Now, I could just hide out in my own home and world, hibernate, and wish it would all go away while the health anxiety does not get triggered. But I have my family living with me. They deserve a slice of happiness during this season and so do I, in fact. We've been through a lot and have worked very hard at keeping ourselves afloat while painstakingly making the best choices for all of us every day. We have put in time, effort, money, and all of our wisdom and resilience to get each others' needs taken care of. So, at this time, we do all deserve some relaxation, peace and a way to enjoy one another and to be appreciative of everything we have and where we are in life.

So, there you go. A balance needing to be struck. I tackled the kids' experience by doing a lot of little things along the way over the past few weeks. They were all to my liking and I found myself actually enjoying it and having a bit of holiday spirit. Our encounter with Santa was not at a crowded mall where my germaphobic self would cringe and fret over it all. We didn't pay $$$ to get those photos of our kids on a stranger's lap. But, we were lucky to have our little neighborhood organize a holiday party at the community pool - an outdoor setting much to my happiness - and Santa was there to spend a morning with a handful of kids. They got to talk to him, have story time with him and ask him tons of questions. My toddler could run around in the grass and in the open and I wasn't worried about him touching germy surfaces as I would have been in a mall. The kids (my daughter and niece who spent the day with us) enjoyed cookie and ornament decorating, sipping hot chocolate, and a few other activities. We were so thrilled with this holiday party that I could just mark Christmas done with this one and be happy.

The next thing we did was to take my daughter to the Nutcracker ballet. She has been enthralled by it over the past year and this was her special holiday treat. We also did a neighborhood drive through and saw a ton of Christmas decorations. I did bake with my daughter - dairy free cookies (which turned out tasting a bit like dog biscuits but which she and I still enjoyed), and a delicious dairy free chocolate cake that we all enjoyed (substituted almond milk for regular milk, and Earth balance butter sticks for butter, added eggs as usual).

I kept up my regular routines on other fronts. I worked a lot, and this actually helped me feel grounded as I learnt a new technology area. I tried to stay active with walks when possible. We finally bought ourselves an area rug for our living room, which I now put a sheet on and do my yoga on (I've only managed to a handful of times, but it has been great when I do). I have continued writing and working, and being satisfied with our daily routines of walks, trips to the park, cooking, keeping up with the house, unstructured playtime and reading with my kids. I've tried to practice daily gratitude logs, affirmations and acknowledge little milestones of progress. I try to read when I can, and even found the time to take an epsom salt relaxing bath a couple of times. We decided to keep things simple for our family this year, and not travel or make any grand plans whatsoever.

My husband grumbled through the process of buying a tree, setting it up (a live tree needing to be installed on a base) and blamed me for 'adding more things at the last minute'. But when it was done, he was thrilled with it and it definitely makes our home look very festive. He was reminiscing about Christmas at his grandma's growing up, and the smell of Christmas trees which were plentiful in the region. We put up lights only yesterday, but it was another enjoyable activity for my daughter. We also put up stockings for the first time at our fireplace. We are spending Christmas eve at home relaxed, Christmas day at my sister's (lunch) and the day after Christmas with another family, who are like family friends to us, at our place. I squeezed in a bit of shopping one afternoon in 3 hours (after doing a ton of online research to narrow things down) and hopefully have that bit taken care of.

This past weekend, I did a bit of carol singing with my daughter with YouTube on the TV. We were having fun and enjoying it together while my husband cooked dinner. Then my husband killed the spirit for us by chiming in, in a false soprano voice "Si---lent fa---rt" as we were singing Silent Night! Welp, a glass of wine and us singing his version of Vive le Vent after this (you can guess how this went) had us all in splits. :) That's sort of what the Christmas spirit is all about, no? 

Christmas is in the air

This week, we attended two holiday parties from work. While we spent the entire year without ever going out just the two of us, my husband and I had two such nights just this week.

The first was his company's holiday party that was held in Pier 29 in San Francisco. The invitation said "Cocktail attire is preferred but not required; come as you are!". I thought this was a very nice way of saying "Feel free to dress up if you like", and that is what I did. After spending the past few years in mom fog, I thought it would be nice to pretend for a night to be like an actual adult in the real world who goes out and does things!

December is always a hectic time, but I managed to squeeze in a trip to Macy's, find a cocktail dress that fit me and didn't break the bank, and bought a little purse to go with it. I fished out my stilletos and decided to brave the night in them. My husband pulled out his suit and tie, and of course, we spent some time with last minute ironing, looking for belts that fit and trying out coats to complete our ensemble. This was all fun, though. We started the drive up to the city blasting our favorite music in the car, and even enjoyed a heavy downpour as we cruised on highway 280. It was such fun!

The party itself was not really our style - think your typical dance music, dancers on stage, people on stilts, stunt performers, photo booths and such. But we had a blast! The food was quite good with different stations named after cities around the world catering to different cuisines. The best part was not dealing with work politics. My husband is new in this company and we could just be ourselves and enjoy the party. The people were surprisingly nice.

Fast forward to mid-week and it was time for my work holiday party. This was really more our style of a party, however my job is one I've been in for over a decade. My company also happens to be my husband's ex-company and where he spent a significant portion of his career (and is also where we met). So the mood was more like a social business gathering, a place to meet people and "talk shop". However, the venue was beautiful. It was at a winery in Los Gatos and it took us only 20 minutes to drive there. There was wine, tapas and desserts and some dancing. We got ready this time in 20 minutes flat - since we wore the same outfits as we did for the other party! We felt like pros at this holiday party thing. And I was rather proud of the fact that I spent a second night out in my stilletos.

Now, onto Christmas planning and shopping. The shopping part, I do not really like. But I probably should get it out of the way soon. And look forward to the next week of organizing and relaxing.

So far, our Christmas activities have been:
- Christmas with Santa at our local cabana club: cookie decorating, ornament and mug decorating, hot chocolate, meeting Santa and storytime with Santa
- Nutcracker ballet: husband took my daughter and our niece for a special matinee performance of the Nutcracker
- Frozen 2: the movie, a birthday treat for my daughter that I took her to at a nearby theater
- Christmas lights in the neighborhood: We went on a few drives to homes that had beautiful Christmas decorations and lights in the neighborhood (some of them complete with choreography and song selection, radio station to tune in to for music, and one even had a website to select songs on!)
- Holiday parties (husband and me)
- Setting up and decorating our Christmas tree
- Putting up a new stocking for our son (his first one)

We want to do the drive through of the Fantasy of Lights at Vasona park sometime during the next week. We have to plan our family meal for Christmas eve (just the four of us), and are wondering whether to make it a traditional Belgian meal this year, so that my husband can recreate Christmas from his childhood a bit for our kids. This is our first Christmas in our own home, and we are figuring out our traditions as a family. We will be meeting my sister and her family for lunch Christmas day. I think the week ahead seems to be fairly low key overall, and hopefully this brings us some peace and joy this holiday season.

Learning to life - and a sweet memory from my youth

I know the song is "Learning to fly". The latest lingo on forums is to transform nouns into verbs. As a result, I am learning to adult, learning to life, learning to parent, and... you get the gist.

This past week, anxiety reared its ugly head. Worry about my parents' health and the flu season sends me into a sinking-stomach spiraling feeling, and everything else feels less important. I suppose circumstances are still the same and we are grateful for that. But without significant improvements, there is also a cause for worry and anxiety. I have to figure out coping mechanisms because with December well on its way, I feel the dark clouds looming ahead and I am trying to keep them at bay.

I have to somehow get through the winter and early spring. My current goal is just to get through December. My husband and I had a talk and he suggested that we do a check in after the holidays regarding my anxiety. So all I need to do is to get through the holidays and I hope with the busyness of winding up at work, holiday parties, Christmas and time off work I am able to get through the next two weeks.

After that, we have the month of January to go. Jan and Feb are the heights of my anxiety. But my husband has reasoned with me that the days are already starting to get longer in those months and that spring is around the corner. I don't even know if I can rest easy once the weather is better but I suppose it seems like it might get easier.

There is tons to be grateful for and I am trying to focus on that. I gave myself a cheat day and ate dairy (daughter's birthday cake, husband's holiday party at work). While I enjoyed it, I didn't feel great after (mentally). So I'll go back to my dairy-free diet. It's hard to explain but on one hand I don't have concrete benefits from doing it. But on the other hand, I just feel better when I do it. So back to eliminating dairy it is.

I also need to do a purge and rearrangement of my home and I hope to get to that over the holidays. I am actually looking forward to cleaner and more organized spaces.

In the meantime, I am learning to life. How to continue to take care of our kids at the same level of commitment, but to find time to follow a meaningful career (and what would that be)? How to maintain an organized home and find time to follow my interests? How to go on regular evenings out with my husband and friends? Friends? How to make friends and be a support system to one another? How to focus on immediate family's needs and make happy memories while dealing with underlying anxiety? How to actually be, and find some peace and contentment? How to practice self care? How to nurture my family? To do or not to do social media? How to find a career path that I believe in? How to stop being resentful of colleagues and to stop letting career woes seep into other aspects of daily life? I have a lot of good practices in place, and I know the answer is to have a yoga/meditation practice to center myself, to keep writing, to practice gratitude and affirmations. To keep my goals in focus and work on small steps towards them. To keep adjusting and refining along the way and keep eyes and ears open for opportunities. To keep faith and update skill sets and to learn, learn and learn some more. Alright, I suppose I will do these for a start and see where it goes.

So I started out, on a dirty road. Started out, all alone.

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings...

-Tom Petty

Back when I was in undergrad and probably around 19 or so, there was a day I vividly remember. A few friends and I had gone to an area outside the city near our college which happened to be a garden attached to a convent. While wandering there, we got drenched in a heavy downpour. I went home that day in an auto. While in the auto, I took out my walkman (was it a discman?) and listened to Learning to Fly by Tom Petty on my earphones. I still remember that exhilarated feeling I had that day. And the green cotton kurta I was wearing - I used to look and feel amazing in it. What sweet sweet days those were... and going home to my grandparents and dog after was just the best.

The end of the decade

"The end of an era... ". If you’ve watched Friends, as a lot of us growing up in India in the 90s did, you are probably taken back to the episode where the term “the end of an era” was used when one of the roommates moved out so the other’s boyfriend could move in.

We are now in December 2019 and I realized that we are close to the end of this decade. Recently, my daughter had a tantrum, and when we were getting ready for bed, I asked her if she was done being upset for the day, and she replied that she was. I went on to ask if she was done for the week, the month, the year and the decade and she was quite amused when answering in the affirmative. I then realized that this signals the end of the decade of the two-thousand-tens/teens?

I don’t want to go back and reflect upon everything in this decade, but the significant ones were meeting my husband, getting married and having our two children, buying a house, making career advances and traveling the world. These are all those achievements we make on paper though, and many of our peers have been through the same ones. This is not to diminish them, but this is not really what I want to write about. There were also significant lows that went along with these highs. There are a few friends who feel that they have “nothing to show for” who probably didn’t meet some of their family goals. And that is painful and gut-wrenching feeling. For many of us who did do the above, we also went through painful and gut-wrenching times and may still be living some form of them.

What I would like to remember are some of the changes that might happen to everyone. For me, my taste in music definitely evolved. Growing up, I was mainly exposed to sixties music, eighties mainstream pop and classic rock. There was a bit of metal thrown in, and some techno to really grate your nerves. This was oh-so-boring and unimaginative. The vast majority of my friends listened to Bollywood music which I do not like. This past decade is when I started exploring my own tastes more, and realized that I like new wave, shoegaze, and a bit of post punk and dark wave. This decade was also when I ran my first half marathon (at the very beginning) and two kids and a year of bed rest later, I am now back to my activity level and weight that I was at, at the start of the decade. I am quite proud of this fact. My eating habits have also evolved – I eat a very unique diet that is a blend of Indian and European and American food, with some global influences (Asian and Mediterranean, and Mexican for example), but with a healthy twist. I have my migraines largely under control (they are not debilitating anymore) and a new problem of tinnitus which I also have reached a point of managing through flareups. I have been to French classes and improved on my language skills. I have also done a ton of traveling and travel planning and am definitely enriched from these experiences.

A significant step for me was that in the eyes of my family, I emerged as an independent person with my own identity. I also realized what type of a parent I am, and it is quite different from what I had envisioned. For instance, I had always pictured having a daughter but I am not that mom that goes looking for the cutest outfits and dresses her daughter up with matching bows. I do like to dress her for her birthday but most of the time, it's what is practical for all of us. Secondly, I did extended breastfeeding with my kids (delayed the introduction of dairy as much as possible) and have gone through great efforts to make this possible. I didn't realize how strongly I would feel about continuing to breastfeed once it was working for me, and not to stop just because my baby reached a milestone (not judging others that don't breastfeed, but at the same time taking the liberty to be proud of what I was able to do). I am always concerned about them eating healthy food and being strong. I am also trying to inspire confidence in them and am a good listener (trying to be better), rather than talk over them and force them to be in line. I think the term for it is attachment parenting. We cosleep as well, and haven't done any form of sleep training. We give them plenty of outdoor time and free play time, with no scheduled activities yet. We don't have hectic social lives and spend lots of time in active parenting and engaging with our kids. I thought I would be one of those parents that teaches their children how to behave and lays down the law. But I learnt that it is a two-way street and I learn more from them than I teach them. I follow 'how to talk to kids' books to try and do more of re-phrasing instructions in positive ways, than to punish. It is work in progress, but I am just trying to explain my parenting philosophies. So I don't quite view parenting as a "sacrifice". It is difficult but it is a choice we made, and we are so much more enriched from it.

My current stage in life is one in which I have a lot to be grateful for. However, for some reason, every day starts and ends with a feeling of resentment and disappointment. This is due to my career and being “left behind” (yes, I know we are all in charge of our own destiny, but that is a discussion for another time). I have to unravel this and process it and find my way out of it to greater job satisfaction and I don’t think I will be able to rest easy until then. There are the underlying health anxieties that also surface at the wrong times (it's never the right time though).

With that, I’ll conclude this post. I have a birthday party to plan and Christmas to think about and I am actually just waiting for our regular routine to resume. Since I mentioned the word December in the beginning of this post, the song “A long December” has been playing in my head. I don’t particularly like or dislike it but I don’t want to think about the next year as being better or anything. I am sort of living by the day and in the present. “And it’s one more day up in the canyons…” – The Counting Crows