Y's Sabbatical: Mid-Term Review

While I'm usually very organized and have an excel file with lists of things to do on my Sabbatical, at this point I find myself in a rush and therefore this is more random than usual.

I am on a 6 month break of which I find that shockingly, 3 months are already up. Therefore, I'm just putting down a bunch of things which as I look back over the last 3 months stand out for me personally. Bear with me if you've heard some of these before. This is a compilation. Sort of like the 'Best of.' You know?

Okay, here goes:

1. Launched my first book 'Just Married, Please Excuse.' In case you're wondering, it's doing pretty well, although I'm still struggling with distribution in stores - it keeps running out of stock. Good thing, right? Except that it means it is NOT there in so many places. Sigh.

2. Sent off the draft for my second book to my Editor. I will find out this Thursday what she thought of it - she had liked the first ten chapters a lot, but the whole story is a whole different ball game. Fingers crossed. It was so much tougher to write this since it's Fiction, unlike JMPE.

3. Had the biggest party I've ever thrown for my kids - a sort of combined party for Pickle, Papad and Peanut, all of whom are July born kids. The fact that I haven't had the time to blog about it just goes to show how busy I've been despite being off work.

4. Done the Zumba Fitness thing - for almost 3 months now. I think I'm kind of hooked. Even toyed with the idea of doing some trainee-instructor-type-thing in the middle, but abandoned it for fear of taking on too much.

5. Spent a lot more time than ever before with my darling Grandmother, who has been diagnosed with cancer at the ripe old age of 90. Spending time with the family - with her and my three kids - has been a huge blessing.

6. Got my tax returns filed. *High five me, SOMEONE!* and generally am starting to get a bit more organized about the house thingies. It amazes me how much there is always to do - the RO needs repair, this geyser conked off, the cupboard is falling apart, that light doesn't work, the car needs servicing, the gas needs re-ordering (again) while the gas agency has decided to take a vacation from answering phones - it never ends. Amazing. Need to get a LOT more organized about this stuff. Suggestions, anyone?

7. Volunteered to - and actually delivered it - tell a story at my little daughter's KG class. That too on a topic which I had NO idea about - Eid! Got a bunch of printouts and it was chaos, but immense fun. Won't be doing it in a hurry, but Peanut was so immensely proud - spellbound, actually - I'm glad I did it.

8. Shared my experience with Buddhism for the first time in a Zadenkai ( Experience sharing meeting). Yes, I know it's a shocker, but I am a follower of Nichiren Buddhism. Doesn't show yet, does it? It's been over a year and a half now, and I love the philosophy, although I'm still a little ambivalent on some points - never been a very social type ( now, THAT you knew, right?) and I'm quite shy about being discussing this with people. But I have to say it's done great things for me so far.

So that's about it. I went briefly over my list and I saw stuff about wanting to learn guitar, read a lot more, and various other projects I had laid out for myself. No progress on those things so far, it's been crazy enough with the above things. But hey, we can't have everything, right? The idea of the sabbatical was also to just learn how to take it easy, just 'be', relax and enjoy myself - in the moment, you know?

*I start guitar classes tomorrow*