On This International Women’s Day Get Rid Of…..

International Women’s Day is all about celebrating our womanhood and our wonderful qualities, the progress we have made so far and our achievements. 

 It is great to celebrate a day that makes us feel great about ourselves, but do we really? We read all those wonderful articles, listen to motivational speeches and participate in women day celebrations. Does that really make you feel great? I myself have participated in these celebrations and then next day remember myself saying back to the grind! Back to the same old life!

There are many things we can do to make us feel great but the big one that comes to my mind is being unapologetic. When I say that I am looking at different things we end up doing or saying or feeling bad and apologise because we are women. From many wonderful gifts women have received there is one gift we really could have done away is, the gift of the guilt. 

Consider this. John is in the  pub celebrating a Friday evening with his friends and enjoying himself to the hilt. Shannon his wife calls him and lets him know their son Harry is feeling sick and is vomiting. John pacifies Shannon and tell her to calm down and give him medication and call him if things get worse. He continues with his evening and calls her back only on his way home to check on Harry. He comes home , checks on Harry and then sits down to watch his favourite TV show and tells Shannon, “I told you he will be fine”. 

Now replace John with Shannon in same situation. What would be her reactions? She may continue like John did enquiring about her son but she will make calls to check on him, she might lose interest in the evening and may head off home thinking she is the mother so she needs to be home with her son. She feels guilty celebrating a Friday evening while her son is feeling sick.  After all parenting is primarily a woman’s job. 

Her worry about her son is perfectly legit but why the guilt,  which we didn’t see in John in same situation. He assumes since Shannon is there Harry will be fine! 

This is just one situation but  there are many other situations where women end up feeling guilty. Women feel guilty for focussing on their career, having long working hours,  not having a career, travelling, eating heartily, not looking a certain way, not having the perfectly running house or kids not turning out to be super champions. 

Somewhere in the pursuit of  catching up with men and trying to have it all, we have taken too much on our plate. We do so many things that men can do but we haven’t really mastered their art of not feeling responsible for anything and everything that happens. 

Women need to start looking at thing less passionately for their on emotional well being. Always remember when you think “what will happen to my kids, my family ,my work if I am not there?” The answer is “ the show will go on! They will be fine! They will find a way to survive! They will find a replacement at work”  It is a harsh reality. You need to know this even if it doesn’t make you feel good and important. 

You are trying your best and most of the time things will be ok! So ladies take  responsibility but get rid of the guilt.

Happy International Women’s Day 

# SOCS March 6- Butter

This weeks Linda Hills Saturday prompt is butter. I love butter and I am on strict diet right now so need to limit my intake but writing about it is making me feel great.

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For most of the Indians butter is Amul Butter.  That is the taste of India and its yummmmm!

Butter is an integral part of Indian culinary experience and most of the time every household makes its own butter at home and we call it Makkhan.  We never call home made Makhan, butter.

When we buy butter its invariably Amul Butter. there are other brands but Amul is the king.

Amul butter is pure fatty gold with divine smell and taste. Indians are so used to Amul Butter that many eateries name their foods mentioning Amul Butter. Its common on streets to have menu items like Amul Pav Bhaji,  Amul Tawa Pulao. 

Amul butter’s taste has many fans and I am equally big fan of their ads.  Their ads mentioning the latest happening in India and world are huge hits. 

Amul Butter is the butter of India 

Day 30: Your Highs and Lows For The Month

The positive person in me is thinking of more highs than low which is great! Isn’t it? 

This is the last blog from the 30 Day Writing Challenge and writing this blog and completing the challenge has been a big high for the month gone by for sure.  I have tried many individual challenges but never completed any and this is the first time I am completing a challenge on my own. So this challenge is really special. 

For quite some time, I wanted my daughter to understand how to organise her studies, but she wasn’t giving me a chance but for her final exam she agreed. We have worked hard together and she is lot more confident. I am happy about that. For the next year, my aim is to empower her to create her own study process which she can follow all by herself. 

I celebrated my 22nd wedding anniversary with my loved ones but missed my dearest sister and her family in celebrations. 

In terms of lows the usual ones. 

I have joined a weight loss program. Though it has been just two weeks I was expecting magic to happen and it didn’t. I guess everybody has the same story.

Today morning I went to operate my bank locker. I have kept a page from my late father’s diary where he has mentioned few things about me. Thats the only belonging I have of my dad. It is precious for me and I am scared of losing it and have kept it in my bank locker. I was hoping to read it and see his handwriting. In fact I was getting all emotional in anticipation and the bank employee told me that my account has become dormant and will need a day to reactivate for me to operate. That was bummer. I felt  low at that moment. 

Before I sign off from this challenge, a big thank you to each and everyone for reading all the blogs. I will continue to write on other things and hope to have your support for it too! 

Day 29: What Are Your Goals For Next 30 days?

Writing this blog took me back to my corporate days where we did this goal setting exercise at the beginning of the year. The timing is also perfect. I have also used the same principle of not have more than 3 main goals and 3 sub goals in each of the category. Keep it simple and achievable.

Professional Development Goals:

• Complete 2 sections of my Udemy Counselling Certification class
• Submit my short story for the theme “ We are Phoenix” Contest 
• Redesign my blog 

Personal Goals

• Read two books 
• Exercise 5 days a week 
• Complete my pending bank work 

Fun Goals

• Cook two new healthy recipes 
• Meet my friends for coffee 
• Not to set any goals for April as it will be school holiday month 

Day 28: Post 5 Things That Make you Laugh Out Loud

I can laugh easily and I laugh heartily too. So it really doesn’t take much for me to roll with laughter but these 5 things definitely make me laugh again and again. 

1. OMJ : That is my daughter’s version of Oh My God. My niece is 8 years older than my daughter and is a big influence on her. This was like 7-8 years back.  My niece would often say “OMG” and somehow my doll picked it up.  In one of our conversations, she was frustrated and blurted out “OMJ” instead of OMG. The way she said was so innocent, funny and she was really trying to sound cool. The memory of that still makes me laugh. Sometimes we also end up saying “OMJ” to irritate her. 

2. Videos from friends reunion: 3 years back my college gang of girls met for a union at a friend’s house at Bangalore. We had a great time. We got high and we danced through the night.  I have recording of these videos and I watch them often when I feel the need of a laughter therapy. The videos are extremely hilarious. 

3. Chatur’s Speech from the movie  3 idiots – Whoever has seen this movie, know what I am talking about. It is an extremely funny scene and makes me laugh out loud every time I see that movie. 

4. Sansa my cat: I have a patio and have lots of plants there. There is one particular planter which is empty as of now and it has become kind of her den. she often sits in it enjoying the sun and fresh air. She is so territorial about it that every time I am tending to my plants, she is there watching over me. Its quite fun to fool her during that time.