My life is so beautiful barring a few things I am pretty sure things can only go downhill from here. ;--( I am one of those people who worry about what is going to go wrong next when everything in life is picture perfect. I don't think that's something I can fix. When friends A and S visited us over thanksgiving, I was supposed to keep rice the morning we were to leave to Monterey. Something happened and the cooked was switched off before rice was cooked. I turned it on again and we were to leave in 30mins but somehow I was so nervous about how the rice would come out and was walking about the kitchen meddling with the whistle for sometime. A asked me why is this a big deal and I thought for a minute and said 'I guess it is in my genes to worry about little things that don't matter, I am like my dad, and I cannot change it'. We are all becoming our parents whether we like it or not.
So anyway, last year was a blast. I have a pattern in my life. Years that are multiples of 5 have been great!
1995 - School first in 10th! Admit into PSBB ( there was an exam and all even for kids in the same school), one of the good schools in Chennai.
A lot of struggles in school later..
2000- admit to US university with fellowship! Infosys in campus. Our lives were super settled.
With a lot of ups and downs in between..
2005- got married to my best friend. And got some four job offers. Life couldn't be better
After a lot of ups and down again..
2010- bought our home, ran a half marathon, had a great set of friends, and got pregnant!
2010 to 2015 has been around rediscovering myself, getting used to mommyhood and I have to say 2015 is a milestone when I am comfortable with my new role
2015-another of a blast of a year! Took my sabbatical, travelled to my hearts content, got my dream job! A number of my bucket list items are done!
So chronologically next year will be a downer, it will be tough to beat 2015.
I want to focus on myself, my health and my family this year. Career comes a close second. I have decided this year will be simple, not too many lofty goals, no groundbreaking results expected. If I really really think hard the only thing I would like to change about my life is my weight and my fitness. I am happy with everything else. PKD is there but it is certainly not under my control. My Mom's health is there, also not under my control. For these I will pray and I can only do that. I am still going back and forth about the Women Network, I am very close to dropping out, because I dont see the ROI for all the time and effort being put. Plus may be I should give way for the next gen of volunteers.
Lets review 2015 before we get to the resolutions of 2016.
January rolled in with my flying on the roads in Mia my Tesla.. 15K+ gas free miles so far!
February was also a high month, travel to Taiwan, weekends spent hiking
March was super busy planning for my sabbatical. ;--)
April I saw heaven, Mt Everest, I was reborn, we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversay at 10000ft elevation, survived an earthquake, my outlook towards life changed
May saw JSK and myself roaming around in most beautiful Germany and Austria, living inside fairytales!
June saw us obssessed with space and space objects.
By July work had caught up with me, I was neck deep, missing camping trip for work tch tch. But I saved dollars for the company which was another high
August breezed by quickly, although a bit restless, to do something solid, make an impact in the world.
September was again super busy at work, got my dream job!, preparing for Kenya trip, volunteer events. I was buried in work-volunteering-home.
October saw me in a continent I never stepped on before! Africa, the dark continent. October was all kinds of awesome with volunteering, meeting local Kenyans, visiting Maasai Mara, learning photography a little bit.
November was when the bomb shell of PKD was dropped on me. Life changing moment when your world is shaken. When you want to do everything you can to get a few more years in this materialistic world, for the people you love.
December started off with worrying again about my family, DH's family, hearing of all the death and destruction in the town I call my own.
2015 is an eye opening, life altering and most memorable year as far as I am concerned.
Resolutions for 2016
1) Conscious eating -
- no processed food
- home cooked food
- only vegetarian - this is going to be a tough one. I tried ordering tofu in Korean BBQ place, and tofu in PF Changs, didnt like it! Had guests for the weekend and only made vegetarian food.
- no caffeine, no chocolate - been a month already!
2) Drink more water
- 2 lit a day
3) Work out 4-5 times a week
- i dont like how my left legs feels after elliptical. I am doing some high interval training stuff to get my heart rate up.
- I need to get my tibial tendon checked out with a doc
- try to fit in 1-2 days of workout at office during lunch.
4) Read the Bible every night
- Somewhere along the way the habit disappeared. A small prayer and 10 verses from the Bible would be good.
5) Sleep by 10-11 wake up at 6.
- I function better if I get my 7-8 hours of sleep. It is healthy too.
6) Mantra at work is going to be no stress. If I feel I am getting stressed I plan to escalate to the boss. I strongly believe I can make progress in my career even while not taking too much stress and sort of leaving family hanging. I dont want that kind of career advancement. Not at the cost of health and family. This year I could feel my heart rate going up, and some other physical symptoms of stress. It is amazing how the symptoms have disappeared in the past month since I moved to my new role and am still learning.
7) Volunteer time, money, efforts to make the world a better place.
8) Also mantra for 2016 will be this, be it career or travel or future or inner passion, for life!
Goals for 2016
0) Lead a meaningful life helping those in need
1) Lose xxlbs
2) Get my ankle fixed
3) Establish myself in the new role, earn trust and respect
4) Hike over summer as family
5) One overseas trip with family in summer
6) Learn a new language, German most likely.
7) Write the Everest Base Camp book.
8) Stay vegetarian
9) Complete two courses in Coursera, most likely finance and product management related topics
10) JSK -
- Argh, move her to her own room! She was in there for a brief few months before my sabbatical.
- Put her in various classes - German, skiing, ice skating, soccer, art, carnatic music, bharatnatyam, piano... thats my wish list. :--P Only what she likes and takes to.
- work on her hand writing
- work on her eating. She eats on her own but takes and hour and a half to finish. Need to bring it down to 30minutes.
- teach her compassion, and giving.
Before I wrap up this rather long boring post, I have to evaluate my resolutions from last year too.
My post in December 2014 outlined some of my resolutions for 2015.
Rate 2015
- Conscious eating - too stressed or vacationing to think about food eaten - utter fail - 0%
- Work out - lot of miles covered in hikes, got strong in the first half of the year but slacked a lot after, back on it again -50%
- Dscipline and efficiency at work - Did not do mundane boring tasks. Even though I worked only 9 months this year technically, I feel like I have accomplished a lot of high impact work.- 65%
- Spend more time with dotter and DH - separate trips with them, lot of time recently, a couple of months were bad. - 65%
- Keep home organized - kitchen is great thanks to the remodeling, rest, so so - 40%
- Less time on the phone - Succeeded quite a bit. Got out of gossip groups, unnecessary talk. I do miss the comeraderie but that is more time for other things! Read quite a few books, which was not even in my resolutions list - 70%
- Volunteering - surpassed expectations with Kenya trip thrown in the mix I think - 100%
- Dotter - dotter is much better, growing well, being a typical 4 year old. Loves school, loves her friends, working on her tempers - 60%
Average - 56.25% Not bad :--P
Happy Holidays if you read through to the end!
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Well written! Inspires me to write in a similar way :)