Thank you

A very dear friend of mine, well ours, had my worst fear happen to her on Sunday--she lost her dad. I feel so very sad for her and her family. After hearing of this awful news I put in my mind to be extra thankful for the people I have in my life.

I'm so grateful for all the people that I have "on my side."--I have so many. These people are scattered all over the US and world. I'm so thankful for the people that love me unconditionally. I'm grateful for people that support me, even in some of my not-so-smart decisions. I have so many "cheerleaders" out there--for that I can never say thank you enough. I'm thankful for people that know the right words to say (that may be over the phone, in a text, in an email, facebook, etc...) when I truly need to hear them. I'm thankful for people that can be honest with me--even if it's done in tough love. I'm thankful for the people in my life that can make me smile or laugh. I'm also beyond grateful for those people that I have in my life that will listen to me cry, whine, and complain.

I consider myself to be beyond lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life. Thank you all for what you have added to my life. I consider myself to be a "rich woman" because of you.

Lights

Yesterday we put up all our outdoor Christmas decorations. I know, I know. A bit early. But we don't have them lit, and won't until Sunday night when we get back from MINNESOTA!!! We wanted to do it this weekend...otherwise it would have to wait until the first weekend in Dec. We picked a chilly day to do it. But nothing compared to MN. We had issues with our snowman. Our first one didn't work after taking 1/2 hour to put it together. We hauled it back to Target, still put together, and picked up a different one. Thank goodness our second one worked.

The house lit up...

Abhay mid-decorating.

Last night we also went to the movie theater and saw the movie Twilight. I LOVED it. Something totally different. Abhay thought it was "just ok". haha!! Now I'm itchin' to read the book series.

As I mentioned before, we're headed to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. We'll be flying out of Indianapolis EARLY Thursday morning, and returning Sunday night. I'm so very excited to go back to Minnesota for the first time after moving. I'm looking forward to spending time with my family and seeing some friends.

I know the heart of life is good...

I was subbing in an art classroom today. Which means I had 5 different groups of students for an hour each. My very first class of the day was a group of 5th grade students. There was a boy in the class with some special needs, I could tell that right off the bat. I went through the activity and set them to work on a project. As they were working I noticed how wonderful another "macho" 5th grade boy was to this student with special needs. He was so sensitive, so sweet, so patient. As I was "watching" and over hearing what they were talking about a lump started to form in my throat. It was so wonderful to watch generosity and kindness acted out in front of my eyes. As I was taking a shower this evening the song "I know the heart of life is good" by John Mayer shuffled through on my iPod. It was the perfect song to hear after what I experienced today. Here's a bit of it:

...pain throws your heart to the ground
love turns the whole thing around
fear is a friend who's misunderstood
but i know the heart of life is good.

Another neat experience happened in the afternoon with a 3rd grade class. There was a little Indian boy in the class that I could CLEARLY tell had not lived in the US very long. I went up to him towards the end of the hour and asked. "How long have you been in the US?" He replied with, "3 weeks!" I then asked him "where did you live in India?" He replied with "Pune." I looked at him and said, "COOOOOL, that's where my husband went to college at!" (which Abhay did, that's where he got his undergrad degree at) I have never, ever, ever in my whole life seen a child smile so huge. He was so clearly THRILLED that I knew about Pune. Next I told him. "I've been to India. I been to Hyderabad. Do you know about Hyderabad? " He looked at me again with that huge grin and said, "Snow World is in Hyderabad!! I've been there."
I think I made his day, and he sorta made mine...

First snowfall...

It happened. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later...

It snowed yesterday!

We were sitting in the living room chillin' out late last evening after having our friend Suresh over for dinner. I kept hearing this sound. A weird sound that was creeping me out. It sounded like some animal was in our trash can. Abhay investigated all over the kitchen and found nothing. Then it occurred to us, like a light bulb turning on, "the snow is hitting the glass door!" We opened up the door and it was a beautiful sight. I always LOVE the first snowfall.




Of course, people here already have their winter gear out...hats, gloves, heavy coats. Abhay and I went to Wal-Mart, Menard's, and Target today wearing hooded sweatshirts. And felt quite comfortable. :)

Pacers Friday!

A few weeks ago Abhay and I were talking about professional sports. I didn't know this before, but he had NEVER been to a pro game. After hearing that I set out on the Internet to look for Indiana Pacers tickets for us. Two days later we were holding tickets in our hands...

We left after work and went straight to downtown Indianapolis. Like we always do, we parked in the Circle Center Mall. If you've been to Indy, you probably know about it. If not, it's this VERY cool, very hip, very nice mall smack in the middle of downtown Indianapolis. (I always feel under-dressed in this mall) You'd never know it's a mall from the outside...it just looks like a Nordstoms. It's a huge, whole block, 4 story mall. We went up to the 3rd floor and found something to eat and then walked 1.5 blocks to the Concesco Field House--home of the Pacers.

Our seats were pretty high up, certainly not the worst seats, but by no means the best. It didn't matter to us. We had a great time. I never expected we would have so much fun. The Pacers lost to the 76rs 94-92....but played a good game. The whole atmosphere of pro games is so much fun. The jumbo-tron, the lights, the cheering, the treats/vendors, the music. All that in itself makes the ticket price worth it. I'm pretty sure we will be checking out a few more games this season.

Go Pacers!

Tis' the season...

For influenza that is.

Yes folks, i'm one of the lucky ones that received the wonderful gift of influenza. Not the flu, influenza.

It started with the shakes and fever Sunday evening. I kept those symptoms and then added extreme nausea to it. Kept all those and then added dizziness.

Yesterday morning Abhay URGED to me to go and see a doctor. I was actually feeling miserable enough so I agreed. I called and made an appointment to the free Emcon Health Center. That's right...free. That's one of the many benefits of Abhay's new job. It's not your normal "free clinic" they give great, state-of-the-art care. After checking me all out and hearing of my symptoms the doctor was convinced that I have the wonderful viral illness of influenza. As you probably already know there is no medicine to get rid of it. Just stuff to help with the symptoms. The doctor loaded me up with Phenergran (to help with nausea) and Meclizine (to help with the vertigo). While both prescriptions have helped the symptoms subside, they leave me feeling like I've had 2 too many beers and that I have not slept in a month. With that I have been sleeping a whole ton...16 hours a day. I think everything has helped. Today I'm feeling like I just might live. :)

I'm sad that I had to cancel 2 teaching jobs this week due to this crap. Of course, they were both with a teacher that had requested me to sub for her. Sick or not, it affects my reputation. But what is a person to do.

My hope at this point is that Abhay doesn't get it...

November 10, 2008

I cannot believe we're already 10 days into November?! Where has time gone. Seriously?!

We had a good busy weekend. Friday night Abhay and I did our normal Friday night date. This week is was dinner and a movie. We saw Role Models. We both enjoyed it, got a few good laughs, but will probably never watch it again. We both REALLY love the fact that I get done with work earlier and can beat the Friday night 6:15pm dinner rush.

Saturday we had a little house warming party at our house. We had a few friends come over. We had a potluck dinner of yummy food, played some games, and had some good chats/laughs. It was so fun to finally show off our house. Saturday night was the first time anyone has seen the house finished. It was fun to see peoples reactions. I think we did a pretty good job!

Sunday morning we met my dear friend Amber at a park downtown for a photo shoot...and we were the subjects. (Amber and I worked together at CCDC...she was my sanity there). She is an amazing, artsy photographer. I will make sure to post a couple of pics when she's done editing them. We already saw a preview of some of them, and I love them. It was actually pretty fun. I think we felt comfortable because it was someone we knew. But of course, we picked the coldest day of the season to do it. The past week the temps have been in the low 70's. Yesterday it was about 40. Oh well, I'm not meaning to complain...we could be in snow right now. The rest of Sunday was spent doing Sunday things--groceries, laundry, football for Abhay, reading and napping for me. :)

I ended up falling ill yesterday evening and have spent pretty much all day in bed. Out of 24 hours I slept 16. :) I'm on the mend now and looking forward to subbing in one of my favorite classrooms tomorrow afternoon.

--Mandy

Jobs

Thought I'd update you all on our jobs...

Abhay is loving his job and the people he works with. He has been non-stop busy at work...and has testing lined up for weeks on various cars. It's so awesome that he's so busy in the midst of how the US economy is these days. It's so nice to see him have job satisfaction.

I'm really enjoying substitute teaching. It was very slow going the first couple of weeks, but I'm happy to say I've worked everyday this week, and will work tomorrow. I miss not having personal connections with children I'm teaching, but all in all, it's been great. In the classroom is where I belong. I've made it to 8 of the 11 elementary schools in Columbus so far (and have gotten lost a time or two trying to find them). It's been a BIG adjustment for me to get up at 6am once again...but I'm loving arriving at home at 3:30pm!

Proud

Just thought I'd say...

I am EXTREMELY proud to be an American this morning.

--Mandy

Halloween

My Halloween day started out by waiting in line for 2, yes 2, hours at the Bartholomew County courthouse to early vote. It's so nice Indiana has that option. I already know Tuesday is gonna be a crazy day for me, so I decided to go and vote early and avoid lines at the poles. I cannot imagine what they are going to be like Tuesday. I was/am very proud to vote. I'm not going to get into who I voted for. I take voting very seriously, more so this year than ever. I feel like I am the voice for Abhay, who cannot vote, as well as many of our friends that are not citizens. I'm eager to see how this political race is going to turn out.

Halloween evening trick or treaters began showing up at our door at 5pm. And they came in DROVES! At 6:45 we were already out of candy and had to shut off our lights, lock the doors, and leave the house. We thought we were prepared enough with 2 HUGE Sam's Club bags of candy as well as 3 other "normal" size bags of fun size candies. We were proven wrong. We figure we gave out candy to 300 kids...at least. We knew our housing development has a lot of kids in it (which is a reason why we bought this house in the first place), but we never imagined we'd have THAT many kids come. We had a lot of fun passing out candy. We saw some VERY creative costumes. Our top three were:
1. A garbage can--the rolling kind cities provide
2. A whoppie cushion
3. Indiana Jones--complete with the fedora and a whip

Halloween brings back so many great memories for me as a child. Costumes in northern Minnesota always had to be creative...leaving room for snowsuits, hats, gloves, boots, etc. My parents didn't have a lot of money so going to the store and buying outfits was out of the question. But we always had cool costumes and had a blast.

I hit the Target clearance racks this morning and found loads of cool Halloween stuff for 50%. I know if I waited a couple more days it would be less, but selection wouldn't be as great as it was today. I can't wait to use it all next year.

We're enjoying a bit of a Indian summer here in Indiana right now. The past couple of days it's been in the low 70's. Right now Abhay is outside in the driveway washing the inside and outside of his Kia. Hopefully he'll move onto my car... Just another reason why we LOVE having our own house.