Not Your Average Recap

The last time I did a pictorial essay of this nature was in 2014. I had then talked about bathroom selfies I had taken, although they didn’t make me look like Kim Kardashian. But, more on that some other time. Earlier today, I wrote how the world coped with 2025 with memes. For the rest of my personal life, there’s so much to be grateful for and it was so much fun!

JANUARY

I went to my cousin’s house, and hung out with their family. As you can see from the pictures, we know who the boss of their house is. I had a pedicure and ate snacks that reminded me of my aunt and her love. My childhood friend cooked for me and I saw on news that I could hire a professional scratcher for an itch, but what about the one that I have to continue to doomscroll? Never mind, how else will I know that such things exist. Thanks to my kids I also found out that we have keto bread in the market now, the scams that food industry goes to keep us under their spell LOL

FEBRUARY

My son made a bouquet for Valentine and I thought it was for me. Since I spent monies on a pedicure in January and didn’t get a manicure, I asked my husband to paint my nails for free. I tried to create a vision board on getting skinny, getting the Nobel prize and build a house on water’s edge and become the best standup comic ever, I even attended a comedy skip to get inspired. I also want to create a human chain where we all help each other out and thrive. For Shivrathri, a night when you stay awake all night to pray to Shiva, a child next to me doodled him on my notebook.

MARCH

I went on a girls trip on a lake and farmland in Georgia and took pictures in sarees, because it seems like the thing with middle aged Indian woman these days. We played holi in one of the largest gatherings in Atlanta and it was sooo much fun. Some of us went to a vineyard, but brought Indian potluck food, because that seems to be the jam LOL. In other news, I attended a pooja and attended the International night at the high school.

APRIL

I biked 14 miles in one day in Martha’s vineyard and surprised myself, because I didn’t know that I was built like that. We toured Harvard university as much as we could. And somewhere up in the Cape Cod bay, in a cold isolated beach, off the pier, I met two little boys who were going to fish for crabs along the beach that day. Since Ghibli AI art had just come out and became a rage, I made a picture out of that and posted it as a review of the bike rental place and it went viral. Our Azaleas bloomed 3 years after planting them and they were gorgeous. At a local Atlanta restaurant, I saw one of Tollywood heroes inflatable balloon beckoning us to come eat. And I promptly thought to myself, “Hell no.”

MAY

I participated in a “Ahimsa” walk for creating awareness about non violence in a local park. A few of us cooked in a community kitchen for our temple. I was part of an event where we made 1000 baby statues of Lord Shiva from mud and prayed to it. As part of that, we had to use cow dung pellets for the bonfire. We bought a retro bike made in 1968 from a local collector and attended baby showers, barbeques and graduation parties. And my kids saw their grandmother after 2 years.

JUNE

I spent two days with a pet bird at my friend’s house (I feel like that’s the only t-shirt I have) and attended the Vodugu (a rite of passage for a teenage boy) ceremony in my family and ate Indian food at a local park for my friend’s birthday party. There we met a guy who had a pet goat and he asked us if we cared to pet it LOL. We attended our subdivision’s block party. Until I saw my son’s phone wallpaper, I didn’t know the super heroes didn’t have to go to the bathroom. And my sister photoshopped herself into my picture because my mom would have loved to see both of us in the same frame in the sarees she had bought us. Well, yeah, she’s obviously the cooler one 😉

More In Part II, Thank You! 

HERE

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The Indian American Life