The Elven turf to land my thoughts.

I'm thankful for: my family my wonderful husband and our lovely little ones, my parents our health one thing I've realized lately is so delicate and so precious our state in life where we have a choice of where we want to live and how we want to live our ability to be content with what we have the laughter in our lives though I sometimes lose sight of it during my crazy schedule our beautiful home though we're not going to be here for long . I'll cherish every moment we've lived here my work which gives me immense self-satisfaction and many more things. Ofcourse all these come only after m&ms' list of 'things that we're thankful for' i.e. food shelter clothing which we all should indeed be very grateful for. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Yep, it is that day of the year - FIRST SNOW. The flurries have just started and it looks lovely as always. The tree branches are slowly turning from brown to that delicate white and the grass is all covered with the powder. I think it's one of the most enchanting movies that nature plays for us every year. Maybe it's the pure whiteness of the snow or the novelty that it presents for a girl who grew up in 35 degree temperatures for the first 20 years of her life, but it never stops to amaze me. My heart jumps up and I feel like a little girl once again. I still remember my 'First' first snow in Iowa State: that morning I was busy working away at the Ames lab and was caught by surprise to see the flying white objects outside. Call me dumb, but I had to confirm that it actually was snow. I have no words to explain how I felt at that moment. I think I'll miss this when we move back home next year. But I'm sure there'll be other things to keep me busy.

Had a fun evening marked with fireworks and a yum feast. Hopefully next Diwali will be more fun with all our family around us.

Reading a post about toddlers' home-brewed language prompted me to do a post on blueM&M's vocabulary during his second year of life: "ma" = spoon or pen "na-na" = nighty-night, sleepy "thakathak" = computer Maybe it's because the keyboard makes that kind of a noise. "ayyayyo" = broken "aa khachak" = piercing with a fork "Goggulgo Goggulgo Goggulgo ..." = I want that The frequency of the word indicated how desperately he wanted the thing. To this day we haven't been able to figure out how he made up that word. It certainly has nothing to do with any language that I know of. . . . Unfortunately (or not) pinkM&M's language had developed very fast, so we don't have many funny memories, except for the one where she'd say 'M pussing me' for 'M pushing me'. But I could definitely do a post on her expressions.

We finally got our USC interview letter on Friday. DH and I have it scheduled for the same time on the 12th of Dec. So, that's one thing that can be checked off very soon. The house is still on the market with practiclaly no showings. If nothing works out in the next month or so, we might take it off the market and put it back on in March. DH and I talked over the weekend about plan B, incase the house doesn't get sold by May. Nothing to panick yet. My dad has been looking into some schools in Hyd and will be getting the applications in Nov-dec timeframe, so, he's on top of it. It's a luxury to offload some of our responsibility to others in the family. All this time, DH and I used to take care of every single thing in life, from schools to biils to vacations, what else could you do, right! Ofcourse it's a very fulfilling experience, but I think we'll enjoy taking help from the family when we move back. More later...