"Back to Work, Back to Reality.........."

Well where did i leave off last? Oh, DC... My friend Esha and I did some sightseeing on thursday, i got to see the HOPE diamond at Natural History museum at the Smithsonian. Simply Magnificent! And saw some skeletons and art/space stuff but the Gems were the best of all :)
After that, we shopped at Pentagon City. It's a huge mall with a lot of expensive stores, BCBG was my favorite. Of course i couldn't afford anything from there. In the evening, Saji and I hung out in Georgetown. We hit some bar/lounge, Modern and Blue Gin.. My feet were killing me from all the walking on my Steve Madden shoes (My sense of fashion over function). So we had to make a stop at Aldo to get some flip flops. By the end of the night, i had a nice buzz.... Good times..
We left Washington on Friday evening. And ever since i got home, it's been work, work and more work.. House is a mess. We had some uninvited guests and needed some cleaning. Saji is back to doing lawn work again. And i'm back to Work unfortunately. I worked both saturday and sunday. I'm so tired already. Saji's siblings and cousins came over yesterday to sleep over. They are so great, they were helping saji with yard work and planting flowers. Unfortunately i couldn't spend a lot of time with them cuz i had to come back to work :) Once again i'm so grateful that i married into such a cohesive, loving family. They make up for what's missing in my family at times . Let's just say we don't tend to show our love for one another so openly (among extended family, my parents and brother are an exception). . It's the best way to put it.

Anywho, It's Memorial day so let's take a moment to remember the people who lost their lives to protect our liberty. We are planning on going over to my parents for dinner. I haven't seen them for over a week.. Miss them especially my "oh so adorable" brother :)
God Bless!!!!!!!!

Adventures in DC!!!!

We left NY sunday evening and arrived at Ronald Reagan International Airport in DC. I was surprised it only took a little more than an hour. It felt like it took us longer to get our rental car. Anyway we finally got a Malibu (Classic) with no GPS unfortunately. It would have made our lives easier to have GPS. Then again, our adventures wouldn't be as much fun if we didn't get lost :) We drove by the Pentagon, which was great. We got to our Hotel, TownePlace Suite in half an hour. It's a nice suite with a small kitchen, living room and two bedrooms. I'm so happy the room has high speed internet access. Without it, we would be really lost. At least we can get directions through internet and i've had the pleasure of writing it all down cuz we didn't bring a portable Printer. Oh well, Next time :) Anyway, we stayed in and watched my favorite shows: Desperate Housewives and Gray's Anatomy. It was the season finale so i didn't want to miss it. We ordered Chinese food for dinner from this random chinese place. I never tasted such dry spare ribs in my life. And it was so damn expensive. Let's jus say the dinner wasn't too yummy! So by monday morning, we were really hungry. I got up with saji and had a small breakfast at the Hotel. I went back to sleep after saji left for his Training. I got up by lunch time and since saji's training is only 15 minutes away. We went to Chili's and had a wonderful lunch. Finally some good food :)
When saji left, i did some researching of DC and made a list of places to visit. Unfortunately we wouldn't be able to see the US Capitol, or Washington Monument since we need to buy tickets in advance and it's only offered during day time. Since saji's training is until 5, we wouldn't get a chance to go on any tours. And i don't want to go by myself so.... it's a good thing i brought some books to keep myself occupied.
We decided to drive to DC to see the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. And we had the taste of Rush Hour traffic in DC for the firs time. For a 20 minute trip, it took us an hour to get to the Basilica. So we only had half an hour to spend in the Church but it was definitely worth it. I was sooooo blown away by the magnitude of the Basilica. What amazed me the most was the painitings on the walls and all the different shrines dedicated to the Holy Mother, represented from around the world. We got to see our beloved Vellankanni Mother's shrine. I've been to Vellankanni, in Tamil Nadu several times with my parents. My dad is a faithful believer of Mother Vellankanni and so am I. So it was a great experience for us to be there together. When i get back, i'll post some pictures from our trip.
After our visit to the Basilica, we had dinner at an Indian Restaurant called White Tiger in the Capitol area of DC. Finally some Indian food, i can't live without Indian food :)
Yesterday, as usual i spend most of the day in the hotel while saji was away. It's been raining a lot here. Just our luck! Yesterday evening we drove to my friend Esha's house in Maryland for dinner. The best part of our trip was getting a chance to spend some time with her. She is an amazing cook and we were so full by the time we left which was a little late. Then we got lost coming back to the hotel. We tried to follow the directions backwards but let's just say, we missed the exit to Falls Church. So we drove through DC and finally got on the right route. We always have a good time getting lost together.
Today we are planning on going to the National Zoo and checking out the Night life in DC. WE are going to go to this club called Modern in Georgetown. It should be fun. Unfortunatley it means we won't get to see the finale of American Idol. I was rooting for Vonzell but now it doesn't matter who wins.
Anyway that's all for now! Take care!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At Last.........

Well, helloooooooo!!! I know i haven't wrote a blog in a loooooooong time but i have been extremely busy as usual. At last, i'm at work and i'm finally caught up with my patients so i figure i'll fill you in on what's going on in my world. As i mentioned before, Me and saji are going away to Virginia this sunday. So i've been working a lot to make up my one week off. And i have had the same patient (with a heavy load) for the last 2 weeks. I finally had a break today. The few days i had off have been hectic as well. We have been doing yard work and gardening. Well, we are trying :) It's been a learning experience for both of us. I have to say though saji has been obsessed about the freakin lawn. At first, he was scared to touch the lawnboy, now he can't stop. It has taken over our lives.... okay, it's not that bad :) LOL!!
What else? As far as family, i don't think i'm giving them the attention they deserve. Although they are the most important priority in my life, i just feel that i'm not doing my best to preserve my relationships. But because they are family, they understand. Actually i call my parents everyday and i'm always on the phone with saji, especially since we don't see each other as much as we want. As far as in-laws, i'm terrible with keeping in touch, which is NOT something i'm proud of. I guess you can say, i'm still adjusting to having such a big addition to my family. Although it's not intentional, i forget to call them on a daily basis but i do talk to them atleast twice a week. Saji complains because i don't talk to his parents as much as i talk to mine. He is good about calling my peeps. Like i said, i feel guilty about it and it's not intentional but there is no excuse. So i need to start changing my routine a little. Ever since we got married, my so called "routine" has not been the same. It's been a lot of change and so far everything has worked out for the best. And for the better! I love his parents, as much as i love mine. They are two amazing individuals, who did an awesome job raising such a wonderful, thoughtful son. And i'm forever grateful to them. While i was working my three days in a row, my mom-n-law cooked and delivered meals to our house. I mean, my mom doesn't even do that. Of course, whenever i go home, she always packs something for us but she never come and deliver it to my house. I'm so lucky to have such great in-laws, so the least i can do is call them everyday, right?
Speaking of moms, my mom has been a little down lately. It was appachan's 3 year death anniversary last week. My mom is very close to her parents, since she is the youngest (they always have such a special realtionship with their parents). She never quite gotten over the loss of her father. So whenever the anniversary comes around, she gets really depressed. Well since i haven't been the best daughter, you see we don't even talk about our emotions in our family. It just explodes when it does.. Anyway, my mom has been keeping it all in, and she got into a little car accident last week while getting her car out of the parking lot at work. She is fine but the cars aren't. Let's just say, my dad isn't very happy these days.. He had just bought a new car prior to this accident and was hoping to sell the other one. Oh well, sometimes things don't work out the way we want but i'm just grateful nothing serious happened to Mom. We had a special memorial service for appachan last sunday at my Uncle's church. It was nice to be there together as a family. Although all the family weren't present, it was still special. There is so much about my family that i don't understand, or i have stopped trying to figure out. Let's just say, they are quite stubborn people who never learned to forgive one another. I'm talking about my mom's siblings who never learned to get a long with one another. I certainly hope that we don't do the same thing to our own siblings. I love my brother dearly and i hope we always have such special relationship. I hope we don't act like kids when we are adults.
You know what else i'm disappointed about? I haven't talked to my Ammachi and saji's grandparents since we got back from India. I have yet to call to see how they are doing. Man, do i have my priorities screwed up. I feel so selfish to be so focused on just the two of us and our jobs. I seriously have to work on improving my family ties with everyone.
I also lost in touch with a few of my friends as well. Although i have talked to two of my friends that i haven't talked to in a while recently. So i guess i'm doing better in that category. It's just so hard to balance everything in life that matters. Something gotta give, hopefully it's the right one.
I'm still contemplating on jobs and school. It's a blur right now. I'm having such a hard time deciding. I keep changing my mind and i'm driving saji NUTS with my indecisiveness. Aren't you glad i didn't do the same with you? HA! I followed my heart and i have to learn to do that again...........
Well, i need to get back to work. One more night and i'm off for a week baby! YIPPIE!! :)
by the way i just want to give my appreciation to those of you who takes the time to read my looooooong blogs. It's nice to know that you miss me, when i don't write. And just for the record, i just want to give a shout out to Jason from Florida. You have officially been mentioned AGAIN in my blog. Don't you feel so special now? LOL :)

Bonding Experiences.....

Once again i haven't had a chance to sit down to write my blog until now. Now i'm trying to remember of anything interesting that happened last week and nothing really comes to mind. Basically, my life revolves around working nights, sleeping during day-time and trying to get back to the "normal"everyday routine when i have off. So far i'm managing allrite but i love to be working "normal" hours though. I don't think i really minded when i was single, but now that i'm married it's just not the same. There are times where i don't see saji for 2 days in a row except maybe on the road, driving in opposite directions. That's pretty sad, isn't it? I'm working on switching to day-shift, we shall see whether i get it or not.
Well i had this weekend off and unlike last weekend, we didn't have anything really planned. But it still ended up being busy. We went to my parents on friday night and had dinner there. My parents are looking to buy a new SUV. My dad's Corolla is getting old and rusty. It would have been still running good if it wasn't for me getting into an accident a few years back. Ever since then, it hasn't been the same. Although i love to help them out with a new car, this is just not the time. We just finished paying the ridiculous property tax. And we still have some home improvements to do. Buying and maintaining a house is definitely not easy. But it's also worth it. Speaking of home improvements, guess what we did this saturday in the rain? Saji got me up early (10:30)to go with him to buy a lawnmower. And i had to go with him cuz it's such an "important decision" to make and of course, it's such a "bonding experience." And for the most part it was :) We got the lawnmower and trimmer and some other gadgets saji insisted we need. While saji was putting away all the machinery, i was getting wet standing outside the nursery in the rain. It took him a while to figure out how to fold my car seats to fit everything in. LOL :) Anywho, we ended up buying some roses and dahlia plants for our garden. It's still sitting inside our house but on my next day off, we need to plant it before it dies. I'm looking forward to fixing up our garden. Although i'm not a big fan of digging in dirt, it'll be nice to watch it grow and bloom, and know that we helped make it happen.
After we dropped off all the garden supplies, we drove to saji's parents and had lunch there. Mom had made one of my favorite dishes, dosai and idili. Yum Yum:) After lunch, we stopped by saji's cousin Joby's house and saw our nephew Leo. He is getting so big, and looking so much more like his daddy. Oh, He makes me want to have one of my own. And then it's back to reality which is finishing school, etc. Besides we are too young to have a baby yet, i'm still waiting for my cousins who have been married for a few years now. I won't mention any names, of course :)
Well that's all for now, I have a busy few weeks ahead, starting with this week. I'm working a lot of days so i can get 5 days off to go with Saji to Virginia in the middle of may. I can't wait to go away for a few days. I just have to suffer until then......