Year 2013 - Retrospectives

It started with the shocking and irreplaceable loss of my mother-in-law, yes. 1st Jan 2013 was when we landed back to Toronto after her passing away. First, few months were quiet and was trying hard to bring my wife back to normalcy. It's been more than an year now - we were reminded harshly of the famous quote - "Take life as it comes".

My wife later turned back to serious volunteering and part time involvement in Unni maya's School's student care activities and also found herself a part-time permanent Job, which is a big step in our life. Since our early days of association, we had always thought she should be no more than an affectionate home maker, but this is amazing too, more than her active engagement in a professional activity, it helps with many other aspects which brought in most welcome and helpful changes to our lives.

This year, while my wife took up her first job, I took over to help Unni Maya with her studies and extra-curricular initiatives. I tried all my tricks but "carrot 'n stick" remains the best tactic so far, but she is nice kid with varied interests and sharp attitude. She continues to amaze me with her way of thinking, ability to correlate distant and distinct aspects, expressive gestures and helplessly knuckles down to my demands over homework and preparatory assignments on studies especially Maths.

Professional life was good, as always with the inherent challenges, multiple, simultaneous projects, increased visibility due to some strategic initiatives that leverage our products and services, kept us very busy. I managed to also get through ITIL Foundation and Certified Scrum Master certifications to my forte. I also took the time to attend 2 days of classroom training on "Power Messaging" - basically it's about how do you communicate better. From time to time, I was reminding my boss to allow me with a change of responsibility which is wider, vaster and bigger and always I've been given "optimistic nodes". 

Here's a Say/Do analysis at my YR 2013's resolutions. 

• Read atleast 5 books this year - Accomplished (see the image below)
• Practice regular book keeping - Partially accomplished
• Started with Visual Budget(tool) tracking; but not regularly. Now we have an enforced financial discipline. 
• No New clothes for me this year - Accomplished
• Daily calls to appa, be in touch with relatives regularly - Partially accomplished
• Almost everyday called appa; but failed to call other friends and relatives. 
• Fitness : weight not more than 75 kg - failed miserably
• Several reasons starting with my attitude. Father-in-law's visit brought out my wife's culinary best, she kept on buying coconuts and recipes were cholesterol-rich - I couldn't help but exhibit gluttony. I'm where I am and every year that comes by gives you another chance, doesn't it?
• I gave up also my Gym membership to keep my father-in-law engaged and never re-joined. It's a shame.

Later part of the year passed by swiftly. My father-in-law joined us for this summer here in Markham - his western obsession grew multi-fold experiencing the organized way of life and the clean and less-polluted set up here in Canada. My wife, charged up with her new found employment and short re-union with her Dad, re-emphasized that father-in-law was the unrivaled host of good fortune. 

Came August 19th, Sathi Achi, the angel dressed in bluish white and a cleanliness freak, was called into her heavenly abode - leaving her son(my dad) and daughter and a bunch of Aluva relatives in her spacious villa. 

My mom had a brief hospitalization to fix her Hernia problem which brought me into one of the most helpless situations in recent times. Being an emigrant, several thousand miles away puts you and pushes you to such awkward situations with time. My brother-in-law and Neela kutty came into help and took care of her more than I could have. Since the time, I know him, my brother-in-law remains helpful and seldom gives me a chance to reciprocate. 

We bought ourselves a brand new car earlier this year - the first ever "Cross-over" type vehicle that we bought :)

So what next? Ready with rolled-up sleeves.....