I was gearing up to tell you what the denizens of Karthi are up to in the fourth phase of the lockdown. Then I checked the date and it rang a bell. I went back to the list of posts and went to the very last page and found... Yes! It has been ten years since I started blogging!!!
Why am I excited? Because it is very seldom that I stick to something productive and good for me. As many of you know, I am the queen of procrastination hereabouts, but another dubious distinction that I own is that I have a very well-developed case of startitis - the sufferers of this syndrome have multiple started projects, almost all of which are incomplete or still in the starting stage.
But I must tell you that I am slowly coming out of that condition. Proof? This month, I completed one whole year of practicing Art of Living's Sudarshan Kriya without break. Today, I am on Day 390. Additionally, I have also been meditating daily for twenty minutes for 193 days. This year I completed two month-long daily-writing challenges, the second of which took slightly more than a month to complete 😊And guess what, I even painted the guest bedroom within a week with the help of my elder son!!!
This is what the room looked like after we took several heavy duty scrubbers to it. Two years ago, when our labrador was a puppy and we hadn't built a kennel for her, she used to stay in this room. The result was a brown band all around the room at puppy height, which no amount of normal cleaning could remove. Thankfully, this was a project that was planned before the lockdown and we had all the essentials ready when the world went into a standstill.
The helpfully labelled box on the right contained leftover supplies from my first painting adventure about which I have written here and here. And now the room looks like this:
It is now a soothing mauve and is crying out for new curtains, which I hope to provide it with sometime when the world has righted itself on its axis once again.
Meanwhile, back to my blog, I checked out the very first post of Not so Perfect Karthi written on the 20th of May, 2010. As I read it, I thought I would take you - all my readers - with me on a journey down memory lane. So here are a few posts that I liked and some that you liked (which I can see from the traffic, of course.)
Let me take you first to the post that garnered the most hits. I was in a very bad mood when I wrote this post, but as people took it up and started sharing their own experiences, I realized that I had written about a very important issue. Here it is: Thoughts of an Ordinary Malayali Woman
Geckos are still high on my list of enemies. Just five minutes ago, one startled me by making having a ruckus with its boyfriend and rushing from its hideaway to my floating shelf of books. The hussy!!! I have quite the mind to tell her off for the stains she leaves on my books - but I was the idiot in the first place to have merrily installed the floating shelves, so I think I will keep quiet. To know our history, you can read: 'ello 'ello Gecko Speaking
The description of a trip we took to Rameswaram and Dhanushkoti seems to be the favorite among my travel posts. Here are my personal favorites: Hampi, Lakshadweep, Gavi and Kallar and Meenmutty waterfall. The last one in that list shows how we used the first form of an app that we take so much for granted today - it is almost like opening a time capsule! Of course you can access all of them by clicking the Travel label.
Then there are the umpteen movie reviews that have always have had a fan following, and slightly less popular ones about books. The parenting posts gave me a fit of nostalgia, thinking of those simpler days when it was so much more easier dealing with the kids. Blessed Peace, Another Precious Year!, What does it take to make you happy? and Is this what parenting is all about? are a few of my favorites in this section.
Ah, I have been wallowing in all the memories evoked by reading all those posts while writing to you about them. It's almost midnight! The house is quiet, I can hear the rain-welcoming frogs croaking outside. No doubt several geckos are waiting to waylay me as I go to the bedroom. But I have to brave it unless I want to sleep in my not so comfortable writing chair. Goodbye for now! Hope I have given you something to enjoy!
And yes, a HUGE THANK YOU to all my readers for sticking with me for the past ten years! Couldn't have made it so far without you!😍💓
