Feb Summary:
First half of February has been structureless
- layoffs
- Ajey doing more cooking
- already eating out a lot
- not reading
- Z's nutrition and being home
- sleep schedule and periods
- gym visits.
We did cook at home, take care of Z, pushed some work, cleaned the home , visited gym a bit - yet it was kind of reeling in a random way - without clarity , consistency and connect.
Now there's a small vacation ending 20th. I'm using it as opp to reset and focus back : Separate post.
What I learnt from vacation was - the expansiveness and diversity of people and nature and the different ways the two interact, the resilience , fearlessness and mental abilities of birds , our own fears and limits, wonderful inspiring people with difficult choices.
Second half was travel, getting sick and a lot of eating out.
Feb started with sickness and end with sickness. It was hard to hear many peoples sad stories both personal as well as from the world. Earthquakes, children dying, parents dying, rage - the lack of respect for human life - the darkness. Death in Turkey. Entire families. Caregivers dying and care needers lost without care givers. The mystery of life and death. Of course there was life between all of this - in Zaya and Scooter's smiles and warmth, in views and food, in meeting people and sharing time. A lot of things we planned did not happen but I guess in comparison to what the world is going through we have much to be grateful for.
Feb would be great if
- sleep schedule
- D job
- gym schedule for AJ / swim / yoga
- drive
- AWS / tickets / TQ sigs / DSP sigs / cert and transition plan
- Read
- Z and S - health / Z intentional time
- look @ economy 1
- look @ economy 2
- Bay area trip
- learn about economy
- learn about investing
- cooking / cleaning
- 3 days me / 3 days Rat - gym, other 4 days for read / redtape.
other things:
accounts
food budget track
covers
CA costs / Aus costs / donated car
Red Tape
bay area
Z re medicals
Scooter insurance claim
Scooter stay
Book intermediate for march
car registration renewal
tax prep
cert plan
Rat passport
Rat dl
gym / outdoor
feb 1 Today - y6
feb 2 Tomorrow thu - dance cardio
feb 3 friday - swim clothes / Costco
feb 4 sat - swim / karate for AJ?
feb 5 sun - y6 restore
snowboarding
feb 6 mon - 6 - 6.45 - bootcamp and child care
feb 7 tue - work from office
feb 9 - 6-9 pm two bit circus
above cancelled due to covid
feb 5 - online yoga
feb 11 - sushi yogi / swim / z water discovery / Spicy green book
feb 12 - amma's birthday
feb 14 - V day
feb 17 - 20 - Bay area trip
Layoff Plan
With the number of layoffs happening, I was being cautiously optimistic about life. The team has so much I can learn from and contribute to. Life has so much I can enjoy doing. And it is entirely possible that I can be laid off at this point. I have decided ahead that I won't be sad for this just as much as I did not wonder why good things happened to me. Now, Yahoo has told there will be layoffs in the next few days and there will be more next quarter. All I have to think about is what's the next best thing to do.
- What's fundamentally important is food, exercise, peace and being positively occupied.
- We don't have big debts. We have to get really lean financially.
- I need a strategic plan to get back into the market.
- Immigration
- If nothing works out, I have to treat this as an opportunity to learn something big and use it as a launch pad.
Over this round of layoff , but not sure what's going to happen next. Got to take the cue and plan the next months:
- where?
- immigration? CA Process.
- Accelerate progress into multiple areas @ work.
- Write my work story.
- Got to prioritize prep. Short term. Long term.
- Payment Fraud. Ad Fraud. SQL. Python. AWS. Looker/tableau.
- data structures
- Read job descriptions
- Pause other things. Keep categories smaller:
Happiness
Going for beginner swim classes and doing pretty well with muscle memory that the teacher asked me what I was doing here.
A day of debugging well. Sharing summaries of articles with the team and people finding it useful.
Latin teacher's cardio dance routine with complex footwork and a very crisp attitude and body language.
A switch that was hiding in plain sight for a plug point we'd long assumed did not work.
Food, climate, roof, warmth, job, access to people and conveniences. Health and mental health.
Tamales, blueberries from farmers market. Del Rey community jazz band. Great Sunday start.
A good day at work in spite of Zaya being home because we shared responsibilities and maintained focus when we could. also got some good cooking and cleaning done in the weekend so we don't have that added stress.
Figuring things out the slow way but finding things can get better by doing so.
Sofa covers and dining table covers.
Chocolate ice cream.
Going to the spicy green book and buying African clothes, earrings and a mini wallet - all popping colors and patterns. We also tried some new tacos which be were great.
A hard week passed and we survived it. Survived overworking with a baby, survived layoff, survived period. Swam and did yoga. Still have things to process mentally. Prayers for D's peace and quick progress. For the coming week my focus is getting back strength from the period, seeing Z's transition, cooking something different, closing off some cases and gaining clarity on next steps. Also some basic yoga and some gym for Rat and me. Oh packing for bay area.
Rat brought flowers and chocolates and took a mid day break so we walked to Melo Melo and had some coconut dessert. And the best way to my heart, amazing food cooked by Rat. Chicken made Chinese style.
Mango avocado milkshake.
The entire vacation
Life is clearly a consequence of many factors not in my control. Review at work went favorably because of being on the good side of randomness.
Shanti Bhavan's second school
The ability to take care and the certainty in life
D's overall realistic and emotionally adaptable mindset through a hard time. His optimistic pointer that what he learns at one place always finds a purpose at another place.
Dreams - funny and following a theme continuously for 2 days.
Food
Want to make : yogurt, paneer , mango based dessert at home. atta based stuff, rava based stuff, salads
Made
Idly and chutney
Broccoli
Black eyed peas
chicken curry
brussel sprouts experiment
Cauliflower
Keerai masiyal with purple mustard leaves - tasted like mum's
Salad
Rat made amazing rotis
chard keerai - got wastes
idly chutney
Rajma
impossible burger - Rat
impossible burger - Rat
Rat made amazing beans
Noodles - Rat
Beets - Rat
Mushroom - Rat
Chicken - Rat
Rasam and potato
Outside
Annapurna rasa vada, dosa, veg fried rice
Spicy green book
Southern spice
Melo melo coconut
Chocolates and dessert
Madurai idli kadai
RHCP
Jubi's chole
Chaat bavan - amritsari kulche and raita and all those things
chocolates
amtrak cakes and foods
tocaya tacos
Flowers and balloons
Amtrak
Scooter stay
airbnb
car
uber from union station to home
IMAX
computer history museum
Sad
Teething, sleeplessness. Conjunctivitis. COVID. Vaccines. All things that will make her stronger, eventually.
Me calling her dirty girl in a raised rough tone when she suddenly puts her hand on the trash bin or bothers scooter when he is sleeping.
the frustration of money leaking into places it is not respected.
cancelling classes due to sickness. cancelling class at y6 for other reasons.
not being able to cook or clean or even bathe or write down lists to process things because I'm using bounty after bounty cleaning Z,s nose and eyes every few minutes.
the anxiety of not being able to even have a good weekend when weekday is going to be even harder. so many things to get done this week.
Shame about what I call sad when Turkey is shocked and I saw a video of a mom trying to pay bills for her baby with HIE2.
people getting laid off - my boss was sad. I am still a greedy person just happy I did not lose my job but there's more to learn about being human.
This whole week was unstructured and I like structure. Working with Z. Thinking about the layoffs. D trying for a break. A weekend of period and just soaking in social media and Netflix because the body can't do much else. The good thing so far is Z recovered well, I have not been laid in off yet and have time to process next steps, D has some time and I'm quite confident he will find a way. 2 days of periods is gone.
Thoughts
The balance of imperfect ness. When you have a daughter you quickly realize how 'decent enough' gives you time for other things and more importantly, peace in your life. Everything does not have to be clean all the time. You dig into cycles and feelings like 'its about time' this gets care.
Thai poosam. Was supposed to be an important day. Of all the gods I find hard to believe in, Murugan is the least hard given he is native so I can look up to him as a native hero with powers. Thai poosam is a holiday in Malaysia and celebrated in Fiji and bali and many of the places where Tamil is spoken. So it's a fascinating cultural proof of a kingdom that lasted across countries. I was unaware this day happened and was eating chicken curry which is not protocol. As is with most things whether his birthday is now or in May is ambiguous. He is a warrior god. It's also a special full moon day.
My ease with sleeplessness, waking up at 3 and still able to go on with my day with focus and resolve
Sickness and the association we make with not doing normal or challenging things or not eating cold stuff. Sometimes if we test the validity of our narratives, things change. For example I went swimming with a sore throat and ear infection and it went great! also, ice cream.
extra time at work during a week of learning. Will plan extra time with Z to make things special for us.
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