Vacation, home - general vacillation

The last two days of vacation in India and I am back in that stage which I so hate - packing and saying goodbyes. We are all waiting to get back to our own home. Home for us is wherever four of us are together. So, though I'm not looking particularly forward to go to Belgium per se, I am longing  to get back to my own space. Remember, we've shifted Our stay has been good, better in fact than all previous times - this having had to to do with only 3 of us being here and husband back home. The way it's worked out is that I've interacted a whole lot with his side of the family without having routed conversations, decisions, intentions through him. So it's been lot easier and fun and built stronger bonds. The relief of not having to share my parents' place with one more person has been good too. Am I possessive, no, strictly practical:)

So what have I done this holiday? Did I do all that I wanted to, speak/meet/ with, read/eat all I wanted to? On a productivity level it is strictly 50:50. It's been one of those disjointed sort of trips, doing things in bits and pieces, lots of stuff but nothing specific. I did not plan anything, went with the flow, which gave me such a feeling of being out-of-control. Spoke to my friends who were happy and free to speak with  me, and have crossed a few off my list. Spent time with cousins and relatives. Tried to go to bookshops, but would recommend online sites to actual bookshops, specially if one has kids.

Shopping, what do I say, just that less is more. Whenever I've crawled out of my cave and entered one of those malls I've been dumbstruck by the array and choices and prices on offer. But picked out stuff that we need and am content, for now! A consistent issue has been going out with kids and getting nothing much done or going out without kids with someone minding them and the deadline imposed on return. Another was having someone accompany me and the sense of obligation. So, I scratched out my thoughtfully written out to-dos, to-buys and decided to just live in the moment. Shopping opens a can of worms for me, need to overcome that.

Plenty of little stuff. There was also the case of my brother's marriage but after a lot of back and forths it's been pushed to sometime end of the year. Was looking forward to it and also had thought I would've been a bit of help and support to my parents. But! I read the first of the Shiva trilogy and started the second one but did not go much further with it. Even tried to explore a part of Bangalore with a view to buy real estate, plan on hold indefinitely.Managed to contribute a teeny bit to the IMC site, here's what I wrote on vacations there.

Tried to be consistent with healthy eating at first and then happily abandoned it without much regrets. Indulged in a variety of foods and sweets:) After all, it is a vacation. Did two to three days of gym and workouts too. Decided I should be regular once on my own. Saw two movies in the theater - Bhaag, Milkha Bhaag (with kids) and The Conjuring (not scary at all). This was after 1.5 years.  Got back to my age-old embroidery project and made decent progress too. With so many other people around, children have had a pretty pampered break and we will have to pull up our socks on the discipline front. They missed their dad immensely too. So did I, though I thought I wouldn't and would appreciate the break (wry smile and shake of head).

And now as we end our stay here, filled with little moments, fun times, family times, I try to detach myself from my immediate surroundings and frenzy of emotions by taking recourse to what else, my old steadfast friend, my Blog. Will be back to regular programming from September, fingers crossed.