With Birthday come and gone without a trace, the allure of the new year has me pointedly looking into the future. Each year as this rolls around, I can’t help but go back and try to recollect the highs and lows from the year past.

January saw Obama take oath, Slumdog Millionaire rise up among Oscar hopefuls making a sweep and actor Nagesh pass away. It also introduced me to Sa. I feel guilty for not having written anything after the initial flush of excitement of being asked to write for them.

February saw me stuck on icy roads late at night and forever instilled in me a fear for driving when conditions are slick. My niece turned one, ICH closed its doors and I realized I missed K very much.

March saw my Winter term end, K was back from his big vacation and life went back to a well oiled routine.

April ushered in Tamil New Year and I finally got to meet the wonderful Suman. K and I enjoyed a nice concert by Zakir Hussain and ShivKumar Sharma, Musings saw its 500th post and Spring was finally here.

May began with a prized visit from Akay, Kavya won the Spelling Bee and ended with a project for my MBA where I had to tap my dear readers.

June saw me spent a few days with a new friend from school in the city. I enjoyed the time away from home and discovered a side to me that I loved. It also saw K and I celebrate seven years of being together. We signed up with a local CSA and alternate fridays saw us traipsing through wet fields to harvest our vegetables. June also saw us make a significant decision – a step towards growing our family through adoption.

July saw my cousin from Seattle visit us for a fun-filled week, a home in our subdivision burn down and a significant slowdown in my writing at Musings.

August saw a revival in my faith starting with Varalakshmi Nonbu, my favorite Italian restaurant close its doors and us become paper pregnant. We were finally ready for a baby to come find us. August also marked for me personally a time of great introspection and a re-ordering of my life as I knew it.

September saw us in India for a very hectic two weeks. K turned a whole year older and I completed one year of my MBA.

October saw me trade my locks for a super short look. It also allowed me to explore a whole new world I had hitherto not known existed. I am talking of the adoption blogs and the whole hidden universe out there. It made me reflect on our choices and helped me prepare for a reality that would be vastly different from the one I live in now. October also saw me find closure to some invisible demons that haunted me. Fall was already giving way to winter.

November was a time for reconnecting. Every weekend saw us catching up with friends or reaching out to people we had not heard from in a while. It was also a time for me personally to reinforce my belief in God.

December saw me happier than I have been in the recent few years. Perhaps it was a combination of the fact that one more term of my MBA was getting done or that exciting things were portended for the future. Perhaps it was the anticipation of my birthday. It was a mixture of a whole lot of things. This month saw me smiling more and feeling bubblier than ever. We got a Christmas tree after many, many years of wishing for one. Musings also came full circle and moved back to wordpress.com

In all, it has been a mixed bag – this year but the highs outweigh the lows and for that I am grateful.

Happy New Year everyone!!

Tis that time of the year when smiles linger, email inboxes are chockfull of colorful greetings and the smell of cookies wafts by you every time you pass the office kitchen. It is also that time of the year when I feel this incredible urge to look back on the year past and look forward to the year ahead. While I spend the next few days putting down in words what this year meant to me, I do want to get a head start and wish you all Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a very, very HAPPY New Year!!!

I know! It IS lame! But I figured in the age of copyright infringements why take a risk looking for pictures online. So, my attempt at capturing the festive times on the humble MS Paint. Have a lovely year ahead folks!

Having downloaded the WordPress app for the iPhone, i had to test it out of course.

So, if this works I could be blogging on the move.

This weekend, we were snowed in. I put the time to good use and moved back to wordpress.com from my hosted site. Why? Many reasons. $$ being one of them. Way too much on my mind to deal with upgrades and keeping up on everything a self hosted site needs. Ability to post from my iPhone if it were a wordpress.com blog etc.

I am however retaining my domain name. Whether you use lakshmusings.com or lakshmusings.wordpress.com you should get the same blog. This is still in flux and I found out that name server changes take upto a week to propagate. So, hopefully the new year will start out with all the kinks ironed out.

If you notice anything amiss, email me at lakshmusings[at]gmail[dot]com. I noticed I was getting comment subscription emails from August which I have not figured out yet.

So, if you don’t hear from me over the next few days, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Stay tuned for more changes.

Walking back from one of my restroom jaunts I was all smiles. Wait! Before your mind goes places, it has nothing to do with anything gross.

I ran into a colleague turned good friend (Shout out to SP here!) and we ended up chatting a good 15 minutes catching up on the minutiae of my life. As I gushed unreservedly on my feelings and everything else at work, home and life in general, I was struck by how easily the words flowed, how little I held back.

Walking back I could not help wondering if being in the restroom insulated us from the outside world and made it a place where women could be just women. Talk without hesitation, share without borders. I can’t imagine telling her the things I did standing in an aisle having people walk past us.

There is something about that place.

With every passing day, a little ticker on my phone marks a countdown. Till a couple of weeks it was to the end of term. Now it is to my birthday. Then it will be the new year. Or Pongal. The list goes one. I love these little time markers. It gives me purpose, like I am striding towards something tangible. A destination. Often in the absence of anything significant am counting down to, I default to the weekend.

Then I wonder what happens if there is nothing to count down to. Or look forward to? What if time becomes as abstract a concept as God? Perhaps that is what scares me most about aging. The endlessness of time. Perhaps that is another reason why I cannot seem to live in the moment. I am forever focused on what is ahead. Growing up it was a vague ‘future’ I was looking to. When ‘future’ became present, I marked with with ritual markers like marriage and home and baby. Now that is suspiciously looking like ‘past’, I can’t help wonder what the next marker will be?

Letting the brightly colored top spin away on top of our rather battered coffee table, it was a treat to watch my young niece. She watched it with fascination from afar. Sensing the top move towards her she instinctively moved away clinging to her mom, eyes always on it. Doing it over and over again I teased her by holding it up for inspection. Once in her hand she turned it over the intimidation lessening. By the end of the hour she was right next to me and K prodding it with a stick as it spun away merrily. It was an interesting experiment watching her fear transition to glee. One that reminded me of the little joys in life.

In other news my fifth term is done and I have three glorious weeks of no books, endless browsing and loafing around. Today K and I put up our first ever Christmas tree. Cutting open the box to see a tightly packed green mass, I went through the process meticulously reading the manual, setting up the base, spacing out the leaves and viewing the effect from afar to only come back and change it some more. It took K and I a good couple of hours and the end result was a deeply contented sigh. Plugging in the cord, the tree lit up more than just the room. It was my dream come true.

Walking in the door after a spot of shopping, I made a beeline for the living room. Sitting on the couch with my legs tucked in, I took in the sight I had savored in many, many books. Lights twinkling in the darkness, a delicious chill in the air and lightness in my mind. All that was missing were the gift boxes below the tree.

It’s funny how dreams have a way of coming true. When you least expect it.

You start your day fixated on a specific time. Watch the clock and the phone or email if waiting for an update. Something as important to you say as your sister meeting a potential suitor or your mom returning from a doctor appointment? As the time nears you feel an excitement that only your poor spine can tell. You think to yourself they must have met. Ten minutes go past and you wonder if they met. You calculate mentally a time you think they would have done talking. The next couple of hours go by in anxiety. Then confident in your calculation that she must be home, you stare at the phone waiting for it to ring. You check your email just in case. Another fifteen minutes later you are texting. “You home yet”?

No response. You call. Leave a voice message. Your mind goes a million directions wondering about alternate scenarios. Perhaps they were late. Perhaps they still are talking. Perhaps he did not show up. You get physically tired from all the waiting and conjecturing. Then practically at a point when you think you could care no longer, you get a text saying “We were supposed to meet Monday.”. “Monday?? But today IS Monday.” you reply. Nothing. No replies.

What do you make of it?

well! This example might be far fetched but you get the gist right. I went to bed yesterday so exhausted from all the anticipation and the waiting. And I realized, the whole stupid thing was in my mind. Things that matter so much to me is a blip in the other person’s radar. How I wish I could learn to be detached! Sigh!!

I know I have been lax with posting on here. It shows in the dwindling stats on my site stats and the fewer posts each month on my sitemap. More importantly I hear no end of it from Amma. I guess it is one of those phases in life when other things take priority. While I have nothing startling to say with this post other than that the past few weeks have been eventful.

I am nearing the end of the fifth term of my MBA. The final exam is Tuesday and I have been half-heartedly preparing for it. In other news, work has been busy enough to keep me sane and occupied outside class hours.

I love the Christmas season and this year K and I went out and bought our very own tiny tree. Four and a half feet  tall with prelit lights. we are yet to put it up. That will be this week after my exam is done. For years growing up on a diet of British authors and being a Xmas baby had me craving for my own tradition. I have imagined a twinkling tree with pretty gift wrapped boxes by its feet and a gentle snow falling outside. Looks like this will be a year of dreams being realized.

The snow part came true this weekend with us seeing our first snow fall for the season. All day Saturday the flakes fell slow, gentle and soft. I realized how much I have grown to feel part of this place as I cheered the advent of snow even though I hate the cold temperatures.

With exams getting over this week, I hope to be able to share more of my every day musings.

Have a lovely week ahead!

Waking up early knowing it is Friday, I smiled and reached out for my trusty iPhone. Saw the email from Poonam asking to spread the word about the annual Bloggies she hosts. Few hours later, I read her post and nominated a few of my posts feeling awkward as I did. Then it occurred to me that I should really be linking back here to her post and asking you for feedback.

So, here is the thing. Poonam is looking for nominations under a bunch of categories. If you are looking for ways to find out new bloggers and stumble into interesting posts, stop by and take a peek. If inclined, link up to your favorite posts this year either your own or from your favorite bloggers.

Personally, I did pick a few of mine that are my favorites but I’d be curious to see what you think are my best posts this year. If you have the time, please leave a comment. I’d love to know.

Happy Friday!