Sabbatical Round Up

I'm now well into two months on the sabbatical, and quickly losing track! But the last month has been busy, with quite a few firsts:

* The book launch of my first book :-) - it was a really fun event, more than anything else. I'll always remember it. I better, given that we forgot the videographer. My husband's iPhone to the rescue again.

* The first big birthday bash that I've ever thrown for my three kids - that deserves another post altogether. It was close on the heels of the book launch and since I'd never done anything like this before, it gave me more tension than the launch did. But it turned out great, great fun and the kids had a great time, especially Peanut. She is now five and the twins are two. Sigh.

* More time spent with my grandmother, which is always nice. Her spirits are up, despite the cancer and the ninety years. Could learn a helluva lot about the right attitude from this wonderful lady.

* A very, very nice Rakhi indeed - with both of my siblings in town, for a change! It just so happened that my brother was in town for that week, and we had a very nice time together - the importance of the family is really being driven home to me now while I'm all older and wiser in my thirties.The highlight of the day was that Pickle and Papad were accosted by all their cousins who tried to tie rakhis on them, which they couldn't understand the purpose of and therefore staunchly resisted with all their might - and it was complete madness. My brother's daughter Nikki is  probably the cutest kid I've ever seen, and trust me, this is a lot coming from a mother with three of her own. I wish she didn't live in England. It's hard not being able to watch her grown up. Oh well. My kids are almost as cute and there are rather a lot of them, so it makes up for it.

* Accomplishing of weight loss goals ha ha ha:  I finally weighed myself, and it's ...ta da...fifty six kilos! Yayyyy! This is a loss of about six kgs in the last two months. The Zumba goes strong, although classes have not been as regular as I'd like them to be of late. The dieting is pretty much off. There's only so much of the GM wonder soup that you can take for a lifetime. In Zumba class, my teacher remarked how he was once 78 kgs and is now 68 kgs thanks to the regular exercise. He looked around the room, saying 'We all know how difficult it is, right?' and then his gaze rested on me and he said 'Except for those of us who'll never know what it's like to have a weight problem.' I took great pleasure in telling him I was 84 kgs when nearing full term with the twins. You don't care about this, do you? Double -Sigh.

* I'm almost done with the first draft of my second book :) . This may sound like a superhuman feat, but most of it was written last year and I'm just recrafting it. About four more chapters to go and then I start the second draft to get it into a shape where I'm not ashamed to send it to someone to read. My wonderful sister has been instrumental in shaping this book, being the only soul alive I trusted enough to send the raw material to.

* Things picking up pretty nicely with Just Married, Please Excuse in the meantime. I'm hoping that a bunch of you read and review it on your blogs and on Flipkart. Go on, every little bit helps.

* I'm enjoying the extra time with the kids, although as you may have guessed, with everything else that's going on, it's not really all that much extra time. However, I've been dropping the twins to playschool every day for the last month and they're finally settling in now, so fingers crossed. My children are all now school-going. Excuse me while I sigh for the last time in this post.

So that's about it, or at least all that I can remember. Some exciting activities coming up next week. Will keep you guys posted. In the meantime, don't forget about participating in this giveaway - two winners already going to receive their copies of the book, there's still a chance for you to win!