Hawaii- Part 1

Okay, before it gets too old, here is a brief update and pictures on the Hawaii trip. I can write because I have been good this week and did all the laundry. It took me 20 minutes to just put the laundry away. I paid for not doing it before leaving. I digress. Where was I? Oh, the trip.

We went to Maui and the Big Island. I definitely like Maui better. We stayed in a condo in Maui and the landscaping around it was so beautiful. We could see the ocean from our room and also there was the view of this beautiful garden and pond. The whole landscaping was like a Japanese garden. There were waterfalls, manicured lawns, lots and lots of flowers and shrubs, ponds and I will try and share some of the beautiful pictures from the 2317 we took.

View from outside our room



The middle one was our apartment I believe.



You can see the ocean in this


The pathway. You can see the steps to the dining room.



The dining room


I think there has already been an overload of pictures, I will post more later.

Did you really think I would finish it in one shot? I take two posts to post updates!

Back Again

I am back.

Hawaii was great..

Sun
White Sand Beaches
Tropical Rain forests
Impressive Volcanoes
Waterfalls

But being home feels SO GOOD.

On the to-do list for tonight after work

Laundry
Unpack suitcases
Laundry again
Download pictures

Be back again soon with pictures.

en route

We are still here at SLC Utah on the way to Maui. The flight has been delayed by 1.5 hrs so far. I have been up since 3.45 am and even sleep was bad yesterday. I dreamt that we woke up late and missed the flight. After that there was no hope of going back to sleep.

I am totally ready to go to sleep and we have a nearly 7 hr flight yet. R is sitting next to me and working on his laptop. I am posting from my PDA. I have three books to read and I am reading one of them now. We played quiz on the flight and I beat R. He was not very happy about that. Until seat 41D beat both of us. Another highlight of the day is that I ate the worst sandwich in the history of the universe. That is $13 I will not see again. Also I am surrounded by cute kids. There are two adorable twin boys behind me. When I saw one of them in his stroller I said "look at you, you are so cute" I am not sure why but he got so excited that he started laughing and flailing and nearly falling out of his seat. I didn't know I had that effect on kids.

I will stop for now as I might end up with some finger issues if I continue typing in this tiny keyboard. I will reply to emails when I get back.

Update-2

It is kind of silly trying to give you a part 2 for the update. But here is the thing. I have been struggling with severe back issues (still am) for the past month. It is more to the side than the back and it is worst when I sit down. I have a job where I sit down in front of the computer, so it has been torture. I walk around every 1 hour for 10 minutes, but by Thursday, I am usually ready to give up on life. Since the virus scare, I have not been paying bills or doing non-work things on work computer, so my time at home has been taken up with a lot of that tasks too. I am able to walk around and lie down without issues, but sitting down is a big NO-NO. The absolute worst place to sit is the couch at home. And coming from work, sitting down is the last thing I want to do. So that is another big reason why commenting has all but stopped. Can't comment at work, can't sit down at home.

If there is an upside to all this pain is that our garden has never looked better. I have no issues cleaning, cooking and manual labor like gardening. It is an interesting time in life. What can I say?

Hubby and I are going to Hawaii for 10 days. This is possibly going to be our last vacation for a while. I will catch up with you all when we get back. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to some time off. Hope you have a good weekend and a great week. I will be back with pictures and something else to share.

And to all those who asked about virus stuff on the computer, just make sure you have Norton or McAfee or something like that installed. Be very careful where you go. Hubby informs me that google applications should be fine. This includes blogger, gmail etc. The ones to be wary of are the independent websites. They might not have good security measures in place. And most importantly ALWAYS BACKUP DATA IN YOUR COMPUTER. So even if something happens at least not all will be lost.

An update

Oh dear interpeeps...I do not even know where to begin. I have not fallen off the face of the earth. It has been almost a month since I blogged. So much has been going on, I do not even know how to start. I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I haven't been commenting on any blogs at all. Maybe you didn't miss my "words of wisdom" (insert sarcasm). I will try and be okay with that. This is going to be long, but bear with me, I haven't talked to you all in a while.

Three Fridays ago I was working from home and by 4 pm, I was done with my work. No commute, better efficiency, earlier work getting done. Anyway, it was one of the most complex calculation and analysis I had done in my three year engineering career and I breathed a sigh of relief after sending it for editing. I figured I should celebrate by cooking something special. Not that the cooking was a celebration, but the eating is and I don't get to eat special stuff unless I cook it. I am not a huge fan of eating out and the things I want, you get in no restaurant in America. So I set out to make something called puttu and kadala. I have no translation for puttu, but kadala is chick peas curry. I wanted to do a quick check as to how to make the curry and I navigated to a website that I usually go to to get recipes for my cooking. It went to the website and then my laptop hung. My computer got infected. If you weren't paying attention, it was my WORK LAPTOP.

With all the complex analysis on a CONFIDENTIAL project I was working on.

The name of the virus was infostealer.

I completely and totally freaked out.

To cut a long story and the tears and anxiety short, I called corporate, they started working on it, and now we seemed to have killed it. But I made a decision. I will only go to one non-work related website at work. And that is gmail. And I have been doing that since. So, while I am reading all your blogs (or the ones I get the entire post in reader), I do not click on over to your site to comment. Not because I think your site is bad. But a lot of you have a bunch of third party functionality enabled in your blogs and you could just be the innocent victim. Maybe it is all fine and I am overreacting. But I am erring on the side of caution here.

And now I find it difficult to write this paragraph. I am not intentionally targeting anyone, but I just wanted to share what my virus checker found. It found that the site Biblical womanhood had installed an adware on my laptop. It is not a site I read regularly. I must have gone there a while back. It just sucks that innocent people are the victims of this kind of malicious stuff. The adware must have come from some harmless thing she has running on the site. I just mentioned that so that people are aware.

This post has gone on long enough, maybe I will write some more soon in another post.

Till then, y'all be safe.

Quick Question

I haven't been here forever, but I wanted to pop in really quick to get an opinion from you all. I have a million things to share, but for now, here is my quick question.

Below is a picture of our Master bathroom. We have a mirror which runs the entire length of the counter top. It is one of the beveled edge mirrors.




Hopefully, the picture is clear. I want something like this I saw something slightly different at the store, but this is the closest I could see online.

What do you say?

Should I change or leave well enough alone?

Its going to be a list again

I am sorry dear friends, I have to write in a list again. If you do a search of the most oft-repeated word in my blog, it will be list. I am deeply sorry to all of you who are used to reading paragraphs.

1. I think eating raw mango and red chili powder (paprika) and salt is as close to perfection this side of heaven. If eating that is wrong, I don't want to be right. I could eat it non-stop and I did; all summer vacations from the ages of 7-14. My sister and I stole picked without permission from neighbours, my cousin and I raided her Dad's tree. I am just keeping it real here. It was like a disease. At the end of the day, we all suffered from stomach aches feasting on mangoes all day long. Oh, the stories I could tell!

2. It annoys the heck out of me that my husband can't go into a clinic here and have his cholesterol check done (he doesn't take medicines) without a prescription from a doctor. And then after it is done, he has to go to the doctor again so that he (the doc) can read off the chart which the nurse has highlighted for him. Why can't they change the system? Grrrrr

3. Hubby and I had a Countrywide credit card which by pure mistake we went over the limit. They charged us $39 and since it was a first time offense, DH called to ask if he could have it taken off. They said no. We were unhappy, but figured that is how it was. A day later, he was on the phone again for something else and was put on hold for 15 minutes. They had the automated message going on "It is our privilege to serve you, and please do let us know how we can serve you better." He mentioned to me (jokingly) that "Hmmm, I will tell you how to serve me better. Please waive the $39 fee." I told him if he actually does that, I will do something. For the sake of privacy, let me just say that I made him an offer he could not refuse. Hubs actually went ahead and said it and got the fee waived off. I was speechless.

4. DH was after me for a month to make an Indian delicacy called Paalappam. It is made with ground rice, coconut, milk, yeast, sugar and looks like a pancake. It needs a day of prep work and is not an easy dish to make. Finally, I did make it last Sunday and it was so fluffy and it tasted amazing. It was totally melt in the mouth and I ate 6. Please don't judge me. R also ate 6. All that effort, and I ended up with just 12 paalappams. We ate with vegetable stew.

5. Speaking of time consuming Indian food preparation, yesterday I made 4 dishes and it took 3 hours to cook. Honestly, sometimes I wish I did not like Indian food so much. That is the reason why I have to spend hours cooking. There are no shortcuts, no easy ways. Or maybe I am not aware of any. Everything is made from scratch. The expression "chained to the stove" must have come from there. If I were a traditional Indian stay-at-home wife, I would have had no time to get out of the kitchen. On the other hand, if I were a traditional Indian stay-at-home wife in India, the maid would be doing all the cooking. How I wish I had a maid to do all the cooking and cleaning. One day I dreamed I had one, and then I woke up and found it was just me. It was a good dream while it lasted.

6. Today was my boss's 70th birthday and he said some nice things to me like it was my birthday. He said I was a blessing to the company and I am a trustworthy and very capable person. (He said more, I am not writing all that down) I almost teared up. He said that if he gets to meet my parents, he wants to tell them that I am a good reflection of their upbringing. Words are so powerful, his just made my day.

7. I have been wearing skirts and dresses exclusively for the past month or so, and it feels great! Hubby likes it, I like it, it just feels comfortable! Not that I have anything against jeans - I was a jeans girl myself and hope to go back to it, but skirts rule my wardrobe for now.

Thats all for today.