My dog Frasier

Ending this year on a humorous note!Heres my dog frasier stealing his gifts on christmas day before he was allowed to open them!

The end of a decade

There have been questions about 2010 being the end or the start of a decade.I think I will go with it being the end of a decade mainly because its my blog and what I say goes !!
I do a review of my year around this time and as I look back I am happy with the way things went.Reached two goals.Ran a marathon and learnt how to drive.I have to say that the marathon was far easier than the learning how to drive goal!
I have been in great health and so has my husband and next year we are going to focus on being better.I gained weight training for the marathon and have manage to lose most of that weight this year.
Its a bit scary standing here looking out over a blank canvas -the new year but God is good and with me all the way so bring it on!

Christmas

I think I finally have a hold on Christmas this year!
Have most of my gifts wrapped and ready to go.Working on Christmas cards.Have my tree up
Finally!

The only reason I am able to do so is because my mom is here and I dont have much to do in terms of housework!

More politics

Is it me or is everyone just sick of the political ads on TV.I find that every person attacks their opponent rather than use the ad as a platform to say what they plan on doing.

Though it seems like empty promises flow when any promises are made.

GA seems to be having some very tight races.The governors race is  pretty tight.Our local congressman is pretty useless so I would love to see him go!But the Republican candidate is very new to politics so not sure if he is a good candidate!

Decisions decisions decisions!

Local Politics

Its been a while since I blogged and have forgotten how cathartic it is!
My latest gripe is the local politics.Our elections are coming up in July.
Two years ago,we had a bunch of crooks running the show.And yes,I literally mean that.The DA's husband was the county comissioner and their best friend was the sheriff.Together they ruined the county I live in.The DA had so many cases on backlog it was not even funny.The sherriff went around giving every single one of his friends a badge,fired all the white cops(they sued him for that),gang related crimes increased etc.They were all voted out of office,mostly in run offs and things had limped back to normalcy since then.Last heard the DA and her husband ran a law firm and the sherriff was sued for all the firings and lost.He declared bankruptcy and went to work as a car salesman.
Well,this time around they are all running for office.
Sad part is,if people dont go and vote these idiots will win

Anniversaries

This weekend hubby and I celebrate 8 years of wedded bliss.
We joke about it being 8 years of extreme torture!But the years have just flown by.

Most of you know we met online and got married 4 days after we first met.Most people thought it would not last but it has!
Sure we have our ups and downs but at the end of the day we can truly say that we are happy.
Hubby says our marriage succeeds because of my compromise!The truth is every marriage survives because of compromises made.
I dont really understand when he talks about Twin Cam and Brake pads and I'm sure he does not care what my mileage per week was or my running stats for last year was!
But I do care when the bike is working in perfect order so that I can ride on the back without any worries!
I've been blessed...

Where have I been?

It may be time to get serious about blogging again!
Though most of you are my friends on FB and probably know me too well by now!
I am seriously training for my marathon and its not been easy.If I dont finish a scheduled run,I get depressed.
My whole life is governed by the weather.
As in....will it rain on Friday...day of my long run...if it does ,then does that mean I get to do a treadmill workout which I do not look forward to!
Longing for the days when I ran only because I wanted to and not because I have to.
On that note,I have dropped 2 lbs since I started training so that tells you a lot about how much I eat!

Cant believe that the last time I posted was May 23rd!!!

When I got over mom going back home,I decided to visit home for a month and spend time with my grandma who was sick.I did not want to look back and have any regrets.

I had a great visit.Also got to spend some time with my new sister-in-law (well about a year and a half old).

But I'm back and dont plan on getting on a plane in a while!!!

Of Vidalia Onions and the like

Mom is leaving next week so I am trying hard to take her to do stuff that we were not able to do so far.
I will be in a deep depression so please pray for me.I am not sure if I remember how to clean etc!

We went to Vidalia last month and had a great time.We got to bring back tons(about 100 lbs each) of Vidalia onions(per person)
We went to an onion sorting/labelling place and was shown how all that was done and the farmer was kind enough to let us burrow thro his reject pile of onions.The grocery store had rejected his truck load of onions because the Texas onions were in the stores and the Vidalia onions were not yet needed.Not a thing wrong with the onions but he could not do anything with them and was going to throw it in the fields and plough it in.
Also visited the Onion festival there,was neat.My favorite part was the Tumi store that is open to the public at this time of year and I got a $495.00 bag for $40 bucks!

One of the tub of onions that we went thro
The labelling machine
An onion field that has been picked...yes,Picked !
The sizer/sorterOne of the smaller onions

My garden is coming along great.My beanplants have flowers and so do the tomatoes.It may have needed more sunshine and is slow on fruitition part!
I put in cabbages too(from Vidalia,30 plants for 3 bucks).Also Cilantro,basil and oregano
The worst part is the bugs around them.Have to keep dusting it and then worry about all that pesticide!
Of course Frasier has done his utmost to stand in the middle of the vegetables and ponder.
In the front yard,the deer ate all the new growth on the apple trees and all my hosta and lilys.
Any takers for some venison?

Will be back after I get over my depression..............

Time flies

How fast does time fly when you are busy ?
I cant attest to the fact that I am busy as my facebook friends know I spend a lot of time there!
Maybe I can blame FB for a lack in posting!

I have been doing great.We extended moms tickets so she will be going back at the end of May.I think she is morbidly homesick now !
I am in running competitions with strangers on Nike+ challenges.Everybody thinks its funny!I am in an Indian Challenge which is most miles in 2009.Its for Indian runners from all over the world.I am competing with people who are not Indians(I suspect one is Canadian and the other is Dutch),cant do anything but kick their butts in competition

Easter was great.We ate out on the back porch since the weather was so pretty.Its amazing how this weather has not changed as it usually does.It goes into summer heat as soon as April hits but not this year.I have my little vegetable garden all planted and look forward to beans and cucumbers and two types of tomatoes.As long as my dog does not pee on the plants!

A crazy world

Has the world gone crazy or is it just me
Lately I have been looking around me and at the news wondering what on earth is happening?Its in everything and everywhere.
I wont even start with the political part as thats beyond crazy.
I sometimes feel like digging a hole and jumping into it and never coming out.
Surely its time for the end of the world ,right?

My race

I had a great time preparing and running my race.I can check off a half marathon of my to do before I turn 40 list !
Now that its done and behind me I plan on doing a marathon..maybe in November or March.Waiting for my body to recover and then I will start training for the next one.

My Church

My church has a new pastor and he has a differant way of working.I try to give him a chance and end up praying every Sunday morning that God will give me a sweet spirit and take away my judgemental one and help my mind not to stray away during the message.
I thought it was only me until I realised that a lot of older people felt the same way.And we all feel guilty about it so that means we are trying !
But its hard to concentrate when he talks.My husband does not attend church anymore just the Bible Study that follows which he enjoys.I know thats not right for us not to attend together and I love my church a lot.I would hate to change churches.But if my soul does not get a feeding than the rest of me withers and dies.Weight wise i would welcome that but not spiritually.
Selfishly I will pray for the pastor that his preaching will get to me.Or that my mind will not wander

On a differant topic,I will be away in sunny Florida for a few days.Floridians please keep the weather at 60 when I run my race and at 75 degrees when my husband and i ride the bike at Daytona Bike Week

The Oscars

I usually dont watch the Oscars on account of it being filled with pompous actors who love telling me who to vote for and who not to vote for.
This year I had to watch and I blame "Slumdog Millionaire"for it.
The movie was good,very realistic and made me grateful for my very sheltered upbringing!Hubby liked it so much he went back to watch the movies a few more times.
But anyway,back to the Oscars.I was very happy for cast and crew and all that they won.
An Indian movie won for best short documentary too.
So as my husband says"You are finally in fashion"!!!
The only moment I wished I was not watching was when Sean Penn started telling people his political opinions when he won.Which I think was to be expected.
Dont mix entertainment with politics,thats one of the reason most people dont watch stuff like the Oscars etc.Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican you dont want anyones political opinions shoved down your throat.

A dogs lunch

According to my mother,this is the face of evil.
She had bought some shellfish from a Farmers market.The Farmers Market is about 45 minutes away and so we hardly go there and when we do,we buy stuff that we normally dont buy.The shellfish was expensive so she just got three.Its the kind that is filled with meat.
She boiled it as soon as we got home and decided to add it to a gravy(Indian style)on Tuesday.
We are banned from cooking anything "fishy" inside the house so she cooks fishy stuff on the grill' s burner.
To show you the makeshift kitchen,I include this picture.
The key point I want to make is the dog sleeping on the chair which to an innocent eye would think,he is enjoying the company and the sun.But the experienced eye would note that the dog is paying close attention to whats being cooked.


Well,she came in to get some salt and was telling me how much meat was on the shell.We walked out together so she could show me and voila!it had vanished.there was just shell without any meat.
The dog had climbed on a chair to get to the table(the chair was really close to the table)and had eaten every last bit of it!
I was laughing so hard,I could have died.Mom was so pissed at the dog,she would not even look at at him!

New Orleans

We went to New Orleans to get on the cruise ship and I had to say how different it is from how the media projects it.
I somehow imagined gangs hanging around street corners waiting to mug people!
We went around the town to see the aftermath of Katrina.Our driver was a man in his 50' s retired from the AirForce and someone who called it as he saw it.
He did not blame FEMA and George Bush and we learnt some inside stories on the crooked mayor!
He told us some horror stories about the cops there and how they reacted at that time and thankfully he mentioned it on the way to the airport as it made my husband really mad.
My opinion is that its a nice town,a little expensive but filled with friendly people.
We had a whole day to spend there and my father-in-law gets a case of the wanderlust when he does not have anything to do so my mother-in-law arranged some swamp tours to keep us all busy.
It was pretty neat.Saw a lot of alligators hanging around the swamp like roaches and turtles everywhere.
Here are some pictures

Back with a tan

Well.....people with my coloring dont need a tan !

I had a great time on vacation.I usually dont like going on a Carnival cruise because it has too many teenagers and kids but suprisingly this time there were more older people on board.It may be the timing...kids are back in school,families with children would rather spend that money on other stuff than a cruise etc

Got hit with two back to back migraine attacks which I was not expecting!So I was not my usual chirpy self.I usually organise everyone into activities and things to do.
It was cool in Mexico about 68 degrees.I have been there when its blazing hot so I wont complain.hence no bikini pictures of me either.

I had actually taken my running shoes and ended up running 9 miles facing the endless span of water.The only problem was that the treadmill was below glass windows and the temps there were a 100 degrees !The rest of the gym was airconditioned but not the treadmill part!
I managed to gain 2 lbs on top of the 4lbs that I gained from a cruise in November which added to the 12 lbs that I was trying to lose so thats a total of 18 lbs !
Cant diet as I have a half marathon coming up but all that extra running should help!

My most favorite part was going to High Tea with the ladies.We had tea with pastries and little sandwiches while a lady played the piano.It was relaxing and I got to spend time with hubbys grandma,my mom and my mother-in-law.

I am not a gambler but those gambling machines just beckoned !I lost 5 bucks !!!
Father-in-law put in 50 cents and won $ 350 and grandma put in 25 cents and won $50.00

Heres some pictures
This is in Cozumel and what I assume is the most touristy part of the city!
This is a Mayan archealogical site in Progreso

What have I been upto?

Lots of celebrating this week.
I celebrated 3 years of being an American citizen on Saturday

Yesterday we had a dinner to celebrate my moms 58 birthday which is actually on February 8th and also to celebrate our wedding anniversary which is on February 7th and we celebrate 7 years of wedded bliss.

We are going on a family cruise next week and are easily embarrassed so we wanted to finish the festivities here instead of a few strangers on a ship singing to us!

To my new friends who don't know much about me.My husband and I met on Christian Cafe.com married after 6 months of talking and emailing.I was in India and he was in the US.The day we actually met was 4 days before our wedding!!!
My dad died a day after the wedding so that was a sad point in our lives
But here we are 7 years later and I still love my husband with a passion.He says that its not flaming(the passion) as it did the day we met but what does he expect?A few million loads of laundry and dirty dishes will definitely kill it!
I ' m just joking.I love my man and am so glad we met.We have our ups and we have our downs but as long as we are there for each other thro it all,nothing else matters

People enjoy us talking to each other as we are very sarcastic like George and Wheezie!!!

I bought my husband a dress watch for our anniversary and he was whining about it not being waterproof(because he is a barber).I failed to see why he would be cutting hair or washing hair in his dress clothes.His mother asked him if he was planning to scuba dive in his suit,to which he replied "No".Then he thought for a moment and said that James Bond scuba dives in his dress clothes and dress watch all the time.
I love my Daniel Craig and my husband but never the twain should meet !!!

President Bush

Have to ask as my husband cant remember:
Was the media circus like this for President Bush?
Did he also do 10 balls?
Did Cheney dance with his wife?

Tagged

Alphabet Meme

Got this meme from Suz
Here's the deal:
Leave a comment on this post and I will assign you a letter.
Write about ten things you love that begin with said letter.
Post the list on your blog.
When people comment on your list, you assign a letter, and the game continues.
I will only assign a letter if you request it, so don't hesitate to comment ...

I was given P- for poo

1)is for Pork-yes I love pork !Especially after McCain went on and on and on about Pork Barrell spending!I started craving it then!
2)is for Poo-I call my dog Poo and you all know how I love him!
3)is for pecans that people give me by the bushel full and that I have to crack and then I dont like it as much till i go to the grocery store and realise how much it costs

I give up...I cant find anything else that I love in P!Who knew it was this hard!
let me know if you want me to tag you