Christmas Blues

The season started off cheerfully as it always does. The dampner came last week when my mum suddenly became immobile with a terrible slip disc. One minute she was fine, prepping for christmas cake and all the festivities and her charity work. The next minute she woke up in the dead of night howling in pain. She’d been undergoing physio therapy for a spine ache caused by this slip disc and 6/14 sessions later was showing a 90% improvement in terms of mobility (walking) and was getting about with virtually no pain. The Dr even ruled out surgery since she showed so much progress and asked her to continue with the entire session of 14. Long story short – She coughed in her sleep at night and woke up with a shooting pain going down her spine and leg all the way to her toes. The orthopaedic surgeon treating my mum asked us to come back on the 27th with a decision on surgery. The only way to relieve her of the pain supposedly caused by this cartilege pressing against the nerve running down her spine.

My parents place reeks of non-christmas and the blues, and on Saturday I made sure it was otherwise. Up went the tree, the cake was in the oven baking and I know both my parents were happy. Mum even got out of bed and came out to see the house and went back to bed with a smile. It’s difficult seeing them alone now that my sis and I are not there at home with them anymore. We both visit multiple times a day. Surgery is a bit overwhelming, but if that needs to be done, I guess there’s no choice. Relatives and friends keep calling and recommending several native treatment options, but my dad and I are both sceptical. My mum on the other hand is gung-ho on the surgery to get it over and done with. We’re meeting a neuro-surgeon on Wednesday for a second opinion, but I doubt with the level this has come to, that his diagnosis would be any different. Christmas blues a plenty.

For H

Back in school, I had 2 very close friends in class. We were inseparable. We sat together,cut classes together, became prefects and captains together and over the years despite being in different countries and the infrequency of meeting up, still managed to be very much in touch. The last one is getting married today and I’m super excited! We threw her the mother of all hen nights last Friday and partied till daylight. I haven’t laughed so hard in years!!! I woke up the next day and my face and throat muscles actually ached For C to agree that the night was fun, it had to be, especially coz he met the entire gaggle of girls for the first time.

My white curtains at home have chocolate smidges on them as testimony! Congratulations H&S, so happy for you guys!

The season is in!

C and I decorated the house for Christmas last evening. 5 hours, 800 rice lights and a trip to Arpico later the place was done. Excuse the horrid quality of pics, sucky BB cam   Mum and I are baking next weekend!

 

 

 

My December

December 3rd

Put up the Christmas Tree with C. It’s a tradition in our family that the tree needs to come out early. I see no point in putting up the tree just a few days before Christmas. So little time to enjoy it.

December 4th

Go shopping for bannister decor. I have wooden bannisters at home, one along the staircase and the other in the TV room. I want to do cyprus and fairy lights with big red bows or stockings. Something festive coz it’ll look so pretty!

December 10th

Baking! I’m attempting the mother of all baking challenges. Christmas cake,and the judge is more critical than Matt,Gary and George in Masterchef! My mum! A cake making veteran who’s being making all kinds of cakes for as long as I can remember! I hope it passes the test!

Christmas on Wings The annual Sri Lankan Airlines carol service. Must try to catch it this time around.

December 11th

There’s no point in celebrating Christmas if you can’t make it a little better for someone who hasn’t got it as good as you do. At Sunday mass, we all pick a child (annonymous).to sponsor for Christmas. Church puts up a Christmas tree and decorates it with little colourful tags. Inside each tag is an annonymous child with gender and age mentioned, but with no name,address or any other info. At midnight mass on the 24th, everyone comes with their gift for the child they sponsored and hands it over to church. All the gifts with tags attached are then sent to those children on the 25th morning. It’s a small gesture but I like to think it brightens up a childs day. Last year C & I sponsored a 12 year old girl. It’s something my family does every christmas and we sponsor 3 kids every year.

December 17th &18th

Official Christmas shopping!!!! I can hear C groan as he reads this! :p not that shopping is strictly limited to this particular weekend ofcourse

December 23rd

Annual leave till the 2nd Jan 2012 Cause for celebration in itself!!

December 24th

Will be spent at my parents place. Mid night mass with the folks and C & I will crash there instead of going back home. Big family breakfast with my sis and hub joining in as well the next day.

December 25th – Christmas Day

Yay!! Breakfast with the family at my parents and then it’s back home to prepare for Christmas Dinner which will be at our place this time. C’s family, my parents, grandmum, Sister’s family and in-laws will all be coming over. I love big festive christmas do’s. I particularly love it when the extended family comes over as well. It’s the only time of the year when you pull all the stops and go all out and everyone has a good time and there’s good festive cheer in the air. After all this is over, our immediate bunch of friends meet up for a short while. This time around we’ll be late to attend but will make it nonetheless! Yes Delilah, you will get your polymate goodie box :p

December 26th

Will be spent moping that Christmas is over too soon. As it always is every year

December 31st

NYE barbeque with the gang and ever since 31st night 2009, 12midnight will always bring a twinkle to my eye for another special reason

That’s how my December is looking so far and I can’t wait! What are your plans?

Birthday Happenings

So C’s b’day came and went. I think I had more fun organizing it and throwing surprises at him over the period of a week or so than the b’day boy himself! However,every surprise backfired! in terms of timing that is :S Let me elaborate;

1). The b’day getaway – was planned 1 week before his b’day. The story was that it was our office annual trip and we had to head to Galle for 2 days with the families etc etc. The whole thing backfired when I realised that it was the Deepavali week and my caretaker was to go home a few days before. So I had to explain things to C and the cat was out of the bag. Sob.

2). The gift - again was supposed to be a surprise. Finally decided to get him a home theatre system coz he’d been pining for one for yonks. I go to Singer Mega, buy the gift, inspect sizeability to see if it can be smuggled into the house without him noticing, decide that it could be hidden under the guest room bed and go home with the box. I go home, lug the box inside only to find out that it infact could not be shoved under the bed :S I could have just locked the door or not said anything about it altogether – he’s a man afterall, I know the ladies reading this would probably be thinking. But, dear reader, my hub inspects the whole house daily as a security measure :S So I decided to take the bull by the horns and just tell C;

Me – “Here, don’t go into the guest bedroom okay, ur gift is inside”
C - “Can’t you hide it under the bed?”
Me – *wails* ” No it’s too taaaalllll….. oops”
C – *grins* “Tall? haha!!!! I know what you got me “

-_-

Anyhow it turns out he assumed I bought him a computer sound system and not the real deal so it was a half surprise atleast

3). The partaaay - A common practice with our closest cirlce of friends is to throw a memorable do for each others b’day. No one’s b’day is missed. Ever. It all starts with an email thread of party planning and C’s was a bbq coz he loves them. With 2 couples in the clique, the norm is for the spouse to take the lead and the others chip in with the planning etc. So the plans go all smooth and it’s a well planned typical backyard bbq which was to happen at our place. Now our backyard has no lawn. Not a problem. I go home a week and a half back and see our back and front gardens “Lawned” with C grinning ear to ear at the doorway. It was a surprise for me coz I had said I wanted to get the lawn done before Christmas. So lo and behold, a lawn was born. Now the problem? No stepping on the grass for a week and a half!!! and a week and a half was up exactly on the bbq day! No backyard = no bbq Top that with the torrential monsoons we’ve been having and the whole thing looked doomed. So I craftily (I use that word very optimistically here) had to get my info right and kept asking C things like;

Me -“ummmm I can’t wait to walk barefoot on the lawn!!”

C - “Darling,no walking on the lawn for 2 weeks!”

Me - “but when u say 2 weeks that means it’s ok to trample by *insert bbq date* noh?”

C – “Ah yeah, should be ok”
Me –  ”Is it ok to like keep heavy stuff on the grass?”
C – “What heavy stuff?? :S”
Me – “ummmm like tables and stuff?”
C -”Ah!!!!! ur planning something for me noh? “ Another -_- moment for me. So vut to do. I had to tell him

All in all it was fun and I think he had a good time. Some pics below

Low key on D-day. Dinner cooked by me

There was dessert too! Nigella's Instant Chocolate Mousse! A whole new post on that later!

I think 3 b'day cakes is a record! :s This is what the hotel had kept ready for us when we got there

and a Pagoda chocolate cake on his birthday itself, u can't have a b'day with no cake can u?

And the masterpiece! Another Nigella recipe. Black Lady. Sinful,sticky and delish! My decor skills need improvement though :S This was for the bbq day.

 

 

Happy Birthday

To the man who puts a smile on my face the first thing every morning and the last thing at night,

Happy Birthday Baby, you deserve the best of everything and more.

I Love You.

Dilemma

C’s B’day is on Wednesday and I still haven’t figured out a gift Other years I’d have things down to a T but this time around I’m drawing blanks. I need ideas and I need them soon! Suggestions pls?

 

Mish – Mash

The weekend was spent the way it usually should. Chilling and doing stuff at our pace and not borne out of obligation. Recent acquisitions over the weekend include clothes and 3 new cook books out of which I hope to convince C that I resemble his culinary goddess Nigella Seriously, some good recipes here. I love the Australian Women’s Weekly for their simple and easy to follow recipes.

Whoever who said marriage is a journey of discovery certainly wasn’t joking. We went to our regular church for Sunday mass and decided to register ourselves properly as a new family in the parish. Only to be told that we were supposed to register ourselves as parishioners at the church that is in the town that we reside in. Now I didn’t know this and switching churches after going to the same for nearly 2 decades plus is a bit weird. So we’ve decided to follow the formalities for long term reasons but keep going to our regular church for Sunday mass. Apparently priests belonging to a certain parish cannot even conduct religious activities such as blessing houses etc outside their particular geographic territory. Odd.

In other news, the facility to work from home is one of the many perks I love about my office.  I never really bothered with this before but it sure comes in handy when you’re under the weather or have meetings in an area which makes traveling to and from office an utter waste of time.  My boss was kind enough to point this out to me. I still prefer to actually get ready and go to work like I normally do, but today I’m doing the latter and it’s an interesting change.

On an unrelated note, Pizza Hut’s Chocolate Lava cake is just as divine straight out of the refrigerator as much as it is eaten warm and oozing.

Good week all

 

 

Corny Love 2

…and I walked in that night to this;

Dinner cooked by C, all laid out and ready to go! There was dessert too! Note the attempt at ambiance, a candle! <3 <3

Corny Love

C emailed me and said there will be a surprise waiting for me when I get home. This on a day when I told him that I’d be getting late due to… erm… salon commitments. Gah! I hate being in suspense!

Can’t wait! Literally!