Drumroll...

...for my baby's first roll!

At last, after so many many attempts, frustration, repeat attempts, tears, etc. etc. (all on her left side) she finally rolled over (on her right side) in her birthday suit!!

The Daffodil Principle

This came by e-mail from someone I know. It must've been forwarded and re-forwarded a million times. I don't even know if it's true. But, it's the first thing I read this morning and somehow it made me sit up and think a little! And the picture just made the muggy, cloudy, drizzly Bangalore morning a little brighter! So, here it is...

(For some reason, the fonts and colors seem to have a mind of their own and I'm not able to control them!! Please bear with the inconvenience!)

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead "I will come next Tuesday", I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.

"Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!"

My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.

"But first we're going to see the daffodils. It's just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this."

"Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around." "It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, " Daffodil Garden ." We got out of the car, each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight.

It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. There were five acres of flowers.

"Who did this?" I asked Carolyn. "Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house.

On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking", was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration.




That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time--often just one step at time--and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things.

"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.

She was right. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?"

Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting ....

Until your car or home is paid off
Until your kids leave the house
Until you finish school
Until you organize the garage
Until you clean off your desk
Until you lose 10 lbs.
Until you get married
Until you have kids
Until the kids go to school
Until you retire
Until summer, spring, winter, or fall;

There is no better time than right now to be happy.

Wishing you a beautiful, Daffodil day!

At random...

It's been very busy lately... Anything I do somehow seems to need more than 24 hours. And I hardly do anything! How is that? There's a household full of people to keep Joy fully occupied. (Sorry, it's actually the other way round! Anyways, point being, everyone is happily busy!) So I have all the time in the world to do what I want to do. And what did I do?

I watched Taare Zameen Par. In about 10 installments! And yes, with a pirated DVD! Hey, they probably make these for sleep-deprived, outing-deprived new moms like me, alright! So stop judging me! The movie itself was amazing. Now, I'm not one for crying at movies. However touching and moving they may be, the most they can do is sort of lubricate my dry eyes! (I hasten to add, I'm not heartless... this is just the way I react to movies. A movie IS after all, a movie!) And inspite of me being me, this one really had an effect. I was left totally speechless and this is one of the very few movies that actually sort of jerked me up. A teensy warning here... this may not be so good for new moms! There was many a scene (especially the ones where the mom replays videos of the boy during his infancy, his first day at school, etc.) where I found I was actually picturising myself and Joy in similar situations. *Shudder Shudder*

Then there was this project I had started during pregnancy and had to follow-up on. I started picking up the threads recently... and am still in that process! Not even close to finishing it! Guess I'm taking the client for granted!! (Note: Taking the client for GRANTED and not for a RIDE! It hasn't reached that stage yet!)

I've been spending considerable amount of time in front of the mirror... and I can't even start to recognize myself! There's flab everywhere, the newly acquired paunch seems here to stay and my entire body seems totally disproportionate! I still fit mostly only into my pregnancy clothes and I'm going about narrating my sob story to all and sundry! Finally I decided to something about it, now that the 3-month recovery period is over and was planning to enroll myself in the gym that's right next door. Wanted to start from Feb 1st but one thing led to another and then one of my friends frightened me a little about gymming so early post-surgery. So that plan was shown the door! Have started going for walks... remains to be seen how long before that too becomes history!

Joy has entered the "extreme playfulness" and also the "over-working the vocal chords" phase. Which has led her to almost forget that she has a stomach and that she needs to fill it up now and then! Never ever did I imagine the first 3 months that I will be faced with a situation like this! So now I'm having a pretty tough time trying to get her to nurse, and it's proving a lot more difficult and time-consuming than I'm comfortable with!

And of course, it's been a while since I updated my blog! I received comments from so many bloggers... and never paid back the courtesy of replying to them or visiting their blogs! The former is being worked on as I type and the latter I hope, will soon follow, Joy-permitting! (In the past few days I've written almost a million different posts. In my head! And didn't get a chance to get to the comp even!)

So that's whats been happening in the recent past... more posts to come I hope... until then... signing off!