4:00 PM on a thursday

Out here in the UAE, the weekends are Fridays and Saturdays and we really can't wait till it gets 5 on a Thursday. N to be specific mind has thoughts but all in mingled-tangled state. Wat and how to spend the weekend and how to squeeze in the regular weekend errands ;) n cannot wait to stay for this last hour..Why is that it is the longest wait ??

No plans for tonight, we will have to wake up early (as early as 4:30 AM) to go SHJ.

End of Sem !!

Well, today at 1:30 PM there is a Satff Meeting the director has put together.
Had an early lunch ;) from Mc..hmm I'm not really sticking on to my new year resolutions !! This is wat happens when someone compliments me !! LoL anyways will get back after the meeting. I'm looking forward to some quiet time at work..The faculty and students will be away for 2 weeks and it is just going to be a few of us here. Wow!! !

b'DAY pOSTpOnED?

I get a call on 14th morning that B would be bringing home a junior from my college. Well we remodeled our plans a number of times...from ordering the food in, to buffet to À la carte in the end, it was Fish Biriyani at our humble abode :)

N the best was the Junior from College G got me a bouquet of flowers, yeah gave it to me right in front of my husband!! (as Benoie puts it ...) N B got a pack of chocolates, the gift box kind of. Needless to say, enough to enthrall the audiences abel n his Mumma :) (yea as B puts it it is easy to please me, err well not always :) I was happy that there was so noise at home celebrating my day ;) LoL..

The cake cutting was the best...It was again a tiff between me and Abel as to who would cut the cake. And as it stands, Abel cannot care less to think or differentiate between his and anyone else bday. So, I decided to share the cake cutting with Abel..(actually it z was plethoric moment to have the 3ft n his progenitor standing next to me...err who knows may be there were impenitently waiting to get a morsel!!) The cake was so yummy, soft n nice..with fresh cherry paste between the layers of choholate. I cut out portions for all of us and we all started to nibble on our share...

It was as if Abel go this idea from above, he walks to the cake and says, "enough everybody we will give aunty" (his nanny). (Yes he is a loving child) He takes the cake n walks 2 steps n the cake goes flying down with the the icing facing down and bottom facing up..the cake went "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!"

Or so to say poor cake !!!

Single on my B'day

Hmm I must have started working on this quite some days back but never got to work on it. I remember the loose lines tat crossed my mind and the sharp notes to make this post hit the jackpot..however, nothing worked. I wanted to scoop up the opportunity to point out to my confidante (yea like the www?? silly !!) that I was single on one of my best days, who cares really? Why do we(aka I) swonk(yea toil) so hard to get in to the right temperaments to type these posts look recherché? Do I? Well no, huh may be sometimes yes... !! Here I go off tangent again ;) errr !! me.

So, that night(13th) the way back home was exciting for weird reasons. I knew there were no flowers or even a single soul waiting for me to get back home to make my day. It was another drab day, my nanny knew that it was my b'day but didn't know what to do!! I was lost for ideas to make my own bday !! It was chilling cold or else would have taken Abel for a stroll to AD Mall n get him some goodies. Poor fellow the weather has its toll on children esp on him.

As I reached home, showed off Abel the cake Santhi Aunt n family sent..He was more interested in the cherries than the occasion all he wanted was to plunge in to the cake. I had to coax him, rather divert his attention with some Merci chocolates..

Abel wanted the cake to be cut "today"...
N B'day girl was didn't want to get remotely close to cutting till Benoie got home. In the end we came to an agreement that we will cut the cake when Dadda comes.Poor Abel !! Yeah Mommie me won again !!

Being alone, I thought I could use the time to see something nice to make me feel good. But it was again another rounds of ruckus between B'day gril and the li'l boy. All he wanted was nursery rhymes, Baby Faith and Hillsong Kids. my taste was "not good" aka "kollathilla" for him. In the end Hill songs won!! Trust me, we watched nothing but Abel's videos that night. It reminded me of the times as a kid, how we were to watch the choice of our parents. Now, when it comes to me..I am letting him watch his choice. how preposterous of me!!

We had a plain hushed dinner (yea with hush li'l baby at the back!!) on my b'day !! Just Abel n Me :) Benoie's return flight was from Bahrain and he stopped by Sam Achachahz. SO I get this call at 9 PM bo hooo..with a lot of people wishing me "happy bday" and asking for payasam!! Poor me didnt even have a payasam made home on my b'day. Benoie said he was going to attend PG Uncle and Lilly aunty's convention, Aren't some people always lucky? Yea, in Joel Osteen's words Benoie has so much of god's favor in his life. LoL.

Abel n I decided to stay late in case Dadda may surprise us with a late night arrival...Well so much so for my optimism , that my predicament be altered nothing happened.

We ran around the house playing hide and seek at odd hours than Abel voiced "ENUFF". He ran to the room with the bottle of milk aka his source of comfort !! N I was left staring on the walls...

I also walked in to the bed, snugged away abel ..and retired !!

The tale of 28 years young and 2 b'day cakes

I feel elated today with all the wishes, early morning calls, cakes, chocholates, e-cards, notes, scraps..and wall-to-wall messages on FaceBooK...

First of all, I thank God for keeping me alive to be able to feel elated LoL ....thanks for all these nice and lovely people out around me, who has invested their time, energy and money to bring an extra smile and a full heart today :) I'm glad that God created u guys and kept u special for me...:) This was one of my best b'days in the last few years... Thought this would be the worst bday as Benoie is not around. He is on a Business Trip (infact the first this year - 2009) and was to be back tonight but wont be as there is a meeting with some clients in the evening.....

To begin with, last night, atti gave a call ....n then followed a sequence of calls..Lol
Thanks to Gina, mom, dad, Abu chachan, Dolly ma, Ani Cha, Anu chech..and all the others who rang me up :) It really felt so nice to hear u all wish me :) feel so young yet so old...LoL

My poor Abel, all he knows is it is Mumma;s bday and there are some chocholates involved.
He wanted me to bring him some chocholates from work..coz usually I get him chocholates saying that some one gave me...and he thinks b'day chocholates comes from work..Anyways not to disappoint him, I am taking some chocholates with me.

I stepped to worka t 7:45...and at around 7:55, I had my buddies at work to wish..me :)
They showed me a personal message that they sent in the local news http://www.gnads4u.com/doc.html?_a=view&id=4903962

It really made me feel so great to see the newspaper message..thanks to Tariq, Suparna, Santhi and Azzam for putting it up. Then at around 10:00 ish, I was called by my dear friends again to cut my b'day cake. Wow it felt so nice to be treated with a cake :) LoL..

HJ, DB and the rest of us were there as I cut the cake...it was from Ceasar's n chocolate flavor :)
my dear husband forgot it was bday ....n he forgot to wish me...till some time..
I did not think he would...coz he is the one who usually reminds people..anyways, must have been busy. But before he left, as we were seeing him off...he gave me an assuring hug to let me know that he would be back for my bday. Lol, he forgot it this morning... :)

Anyways, we had a nice cake cutting session...n then some more mails from people.
One of my good old buddy sent me a mail after many months..
One of my best pals here...santhi..sent me a nice cake, the La brioche one that is my all time favourite...(hmm i will not be able to choose between miss j an La Brioche)

On the whole it was anice day at work...

At home there is no one waiting for me to have a nice day. lol Poor abel does not know the difference between today and any other day. I do not know if I should take them out (abel n my nanny ) perhaps not...coz wat if Benoie wants to take us all out tomorrow ..Had it been any other time I would have done it. This time of the year,it is not a great idea to celebrate my bday twice..
lol...I'm feeling so good today esp with the second cake waiting to be cut :)

Boney chacha's mumma dada

Last night, they came by 9:30 ....abel was so happy to see them at home. He loves to see people around, he loves company. What brightened him more is the gift that Boney Cahchan's parents got him :) they got him a nice car...he was so excited and wanted Achahcn to open it then and there....
We had to stop him so that he'd let us have dinner before it got cold... :) We had an arabic biriayani...for dinner but I found that they would have loved an indian version :) we like it coz it is less oily :)

N man if I have to key in wat all Abel talked it will never end :)

After dinner when they were about to leave, Abel was sayin g..."evidae pokuva" meaning where are u going?.."pokennda" saying dont go..His tone said how bad he felt that they were leaving. he said "u can sleep here", he also said "U got the car no, so please dont go"....

N before they left aunty gave a big box of Ferrero Roscher...and my Ebba was even more bright :) his face alit, it did not matter if they were going. He said "tomorrow I will take this to school'. I felt god that he didnt say that "I will have it all by my self :) " Lol

Feeling weird

Today, I feel weird...it makes me feel so bad after wat I saw at home. Wonder if she;d starve my child ?? And not give him anything !!

Benoie did not ask anything tis morning also, so I beocme the bad cop !! Wat to do? I dont loose my temper but this was the 2nd time that she lied to me. I also found that she went to the tailor shop near by and was talkin and chatting about him and his family. Well, it is not that she goes out that concerns me, what audacity they have to lie to us and act as though nothing even happened!!

Ah, sometimes i wonder if we are at their mercy, than opposed to the times when they felt they were at our mercy. She even hinted once that they can complain to authorities..gosh of waht?? We do not even mistreat them. What we ask them to do is not to leave work...when we are not at home. Do we step put from work just coz we dont have enough work on cue..?? No we don't!!
We stay back to see wat to organize or tidy up...I admit that they work for menial amount, but if they are honest we'd reward them more !!

Abel n mumma runs around the house every day....playing hide and seek .. :) we will have boney chahcna's mumma n dadda coming tonight. I went and got a few stuff for atti, god there are hardly anything but it weighs 3 kgs...worried if it will be too much...the worst part is there is hardly anything in it :)

abel's first day back !!

Abel had a long long holiday for almost a month, and it was his first day back to school..as usual was wailing and begging me that i dont go and that he also stays back at home..He was not even willing to change to his sports uniform, but we jsut had to. Benoie was adamant that we send him, so was our Mrs.A....

By 10:30 i thought i'd take a visit back home to see how things are. It was a very bad day, I happened to see that my nanny was out of the home, she was found talkin for more than 40 mins with a neighbour !! I'm not a person who'd want to snoop in to someone's privacy, but what irked me is that, she left the house without permission and was on the road talking for over 30 mins and lied to me that she'd gone out for to get some oranges..There were more than 2 kilos at home :( anyways, i almost had to loose my temper!!

Came back late, later than usual, didnt know how to start the conversation back with my maid. just asked her wat time abel;s bus would come the next day. We had to go otu for something that Benoie did not get time to talk to her.

Abel told me that he was not given rice that day...i checked to see the fridge and found that she had not cooked anything for Abel !!

First Day of work in the new year

A good beginning @ work..

The Server team had done some maitenance job last night and the server looks a lot healthy..and for a first day back and the first day of the new year, this looks great and in good shape. We are going to test the new version on our development server and if all goes well, will have to update the production server..But I'd rather wait till after 15th to do any sort of such updation..
It will not be easy to handle the errors during assessment week ;) esp new errors, this is not an ideal time to learn about new bugs if any :) so I'd rather wait !!

So far the day is good :)

another day out !!

We stayed home, went some to get provisions for the week to Al Wahda Mall...yes tat has become our weekly place to hang out at...i,e if we get the time to sit :) n relax ...Called a few people home but they could not make it :) Met some friends at the Mall :) Abel n mumma was having monday blues....

We had to go get my car as it was at my office...
I also decided to check the health of our Blackboard Vista servers and had to notify the Server admin team to do the maintenance...Abel wanted to come up to my desk, so Benoie brought him along...abel did not know wat to do..he asked for Suuparnaa aunty and David uncle...Lol poor kid.
He was like mumma tomorrow i am also coming to HCT !! I wish i could get him here, but yes one day was enough he did not let me use my own machine !!

2nd the Friday :)

Lol, it was a great feeling to go back to church again :)
The first Friday of the year, with the family, esp Benoie's folks :)

We had again some chocholates at church :) One family who could not make it for the watch night service on 31st had got them...Abel must have had more than 3 !!

We had lunch and left to Auh...on our way back home, we heard the news that there could be possible 3 days off..but instincts told me that I will not have since we have assessments going on at our school. We had to keep our Blackboard Vista Production ready for the tests :) On our way, we stopped by Jebel Ali, to get our all time favourite cafeteria :) n had a light dinner..abel opted to have only chips ...

New Year

We were late to wake up the first day of the year, and to top it up, it was a holiday!!! Abel did not even want to open his eyes, he was trying to snuggle me that I would not ask him to wake up. Poor thing but I could hear that the house was up and people were already preparing the meals for the day.

So, we walk out and saw Mrs. A fighting to keep her eyes open.
.She said she was not able to get proper sleep as it was not her usual bed and blanket. LoL.

By the time we all got ready for the breakfast it was 11 .........
We went to Qanat Al Qasba..Abel had lovey rides...on one mommy went along it was a mini version of the loop ride..and this guy says Mumma I will need a vehicle like tis for work !!
Man wat an imagination :)