Feel at Home

Before I get on with this post…I want to apologise for the language I used in my last post. The fact that I was angry & shattered is no excuse. I can't swear that I'll never do it again but definitely promise to exercise more restraint.

It’s been more than a year since I started blogging & you have to tell me if you find this post any different from the others. You see, this is the first time I’m writing a post from home. Yesterday was my last day at work.

And I’m not comfortable at all. The chair is not comfortable(I’ve borrowed a chair from the dining table coz the kids have rendered the chair at the computer table completely useless), the computer table is not wide enough like my office table & the worst of it is that I’m using the laptop after a long time. At office I had lovely, cushy executive chair, my all encompassing table & a proper huge computer with a very flexible mouse.

And the best part was, if I placed lots of box files haphazardly on my table, looked suitably stressed out & hit the keys on the computer hard, nobody dared to bother me. Here at home, every 2 minutes a head stealthily peeps over my shoulder, reads loudly what I write & flits out of my way before I get my hands on the busybody(yeah both the kids are at home recuperating from a bout of flu).

I had already told my maid 2 months earlier about my plans to quit. I didn’t see the need to keep her once I was going to stay at home. After all I had managed the house alone before also. Anyways, even when she was around I used to do most of the cooking? Why should I waste money when I can do it all by myself.

I gave her an extra month’s salary coz somewhere I felt vaguely guilty that I was depriving her of a roof over her head. My previous maid had cried buckets before she left(she went back to India) but this one went off quite happily leaving me to wonder whether I was an employer she was glad to get rid of.

Anyways after dinner & prayer I floated off to sleep happily…

This morning I crashed back to earth…

My first realization........nobody was going to clean up before or after me….there were no clean, peeled veggies chopped, waiting for me to just cook them & horrors of horrors I had to wash up after I finish the cooking. The dishes actually piled up in the sink if I just left them. After half an hour I went back & peeked….yep they were still there, looking messier than ever.

I started questioned things & routines which I always took for granted. Did we really need to eat 3 times a day? Once a day was good enough, even two times didn’t seem so bad. And couldn’t we all eat in the same plate…well the Arabs do it, why cant we???

I dropped a bowl of curry on my spotless kitchen floor & my fingers immediately did a complicated wriggle in the air…….after 20 secs I realized it was Ctrl Z.
Nope it didn’t work.

The kids were not very happy with me either. Well, cant blame them….my TV viewing was eating into their TV time. They had to eat all the GREEN vegetables on their plate & were forcibly made to take a nap after lunch which again cut into their play time.

By the end of the day they were trying to convince me ….."Mama, why dont you just go back to work??? You can come back every evening, you know"

I have taken around 5 hours to put up a post which used to take me just 45-60 minutes earlier. And, like in the office I've been multi-tasking here too...My fingers are flying over the keyboard, my ears are attuned to the news on TV, there's one kid in the loo yelling for my assistance & I can smell something burning in the kitchen.

Ok, have to rush...........

p.s: There's bad news............the kids have hols for 12 WHOLE days starting tomorrow.

p.p.s: But the good news is...............the Better Half is going on a business trip tomorrow.

The kids & me, we are going to live on junk..........

Nancy gets up & leaves the room humming "Maggi, Maggi, Maggi.........."