Giving thanks for the long and much needed break!

Its 4:36 AM and the Monday after the Thanksgiving Weekend. I am sitting here at the computer after saying goodbye to the friend who came to visit and to spend time with me, winding down. We had this grand plan of keeping things ultimately simple. No gift giving. No elaborate food preps. No major holiday plans...other than to rest, relax and rest in that exact order. And what a grand success that was!

Today, I am glad it is Monday because the Sunday and the Saturday and the Friday preceding it was filled with soul soothing stuff. A get-together with old friends, good, solid karaoke fun, lots of afternoon naps, and movies and Harry Potter mania satisfaction, and books and games with the boys, their laughter and constant chatter and even the constant tears ringing the air with feeling and gusto. All simple normal, family stuff shared in the company of a friend who is family in disguise.

I've needed this kind of normalcy for a long time now. Because for the longest ever stretch that I can remember, life has been on this crazy fast lane for me. Involved back to back in some project or another, all fulfilling in their own ways, yet, they took a lot out of me, in terms of energy and enthusiasm. And left me feeling very very wrung out. I sort of fell out of the loop of being a regular mom to the boys, and turned into this super stretched multi-tasker, careening this way and that in an effort to make everything balance and work, and each day run as functionally as possible. So while each day was functional, it was not filled with some of the quality stuff that marks the moments of life. I stopped to smell roses, I hardly read to the boys, we were always rushing off to one thing or another, and the strain just continued to mount. Even family back home started to tell the difference, as phone calls started to dwindle, and those regular updates of the boys through posts and pictures which they had been so used to, stopped coming in.

Which is why I was looking to this Thanksgiving weekend as a sort of lifeline. It would be the one short spell where the claims on my time would be limited to just the minimum things of tending to family. And that was it. And having my friend's presence here would soothe some of those frayed nerves, as I talked through some of my stress and just c*h*i*l*l*e*d out.

Right now, I feel like I am able to breathe again. Slow, deep, leisurely breaths....as the prospect of a lazy December of a dwindling year is just around the corner. My favorite time of the year, my favorite month of them all. Holiday lights, birthdays, anniversaries, winter break, carols on every station of the radio, white, serene snow, wind and warmth, lots of movies, coffee every morning, a release from all expectations past, a breather from all the hopes and tasks of the next year, lots of writing (oh yes!) and chocolate from time to time. :) Yes, in just another day, it shall be all about that.

I have lots more little little stories to share. I want to break all the silence and talk to my heart's content, and I hope you will too, to keep me company. I want to tell you all about R's birthday and all the stuff that Winkie has faced and braved in school and all the things that are changing in him, and how Thambi (we have to change this nick!) talks nineteen to the dozen with a bigger accent than his simpleton brother, and how the sole mission of each day is to get in his brother's face as much as possible. And I want to do this one little contest on the blog, with a prize and everything. All that is coming up soon....so if you're still out there, reading me, please break your silence too and say hi and let me know that you are there.