Ritvik's Writing

He is set free !

I had to think something dramatic for the Title of the post but the contents are not too drama baazi. The 12 year old went for a week-end tour to Chicago with his school buddies as part of a Travel Band. What fun !! They left at 12 pm on 4th March, drove in 2 large busses to Chicago , reached the John Hancock Tower at 8:30 pm, went in the 360 degree tilt to get a magnificient view of the city and then headed to the hotel by 9:30 for a full day schedule the next day. Sat morn they rose up early for breakfast and then had to head out to the Northwestern Unviersity for a workshop event, they then went for lunch at a Food Court and then went to the Blue Man Show. After the Blue Man Show they went to eat dinner at Gino's Pizza. Once back to the hotel all kids went out to the swimmin gpool and had loads of fun. The next day , they had to wake up early and get ready(dressed) for thier concert. After breakfast they all headed out to Chicago Fields Musuem for their 1 hr Open Concert. They did a marvellous job and I do have some pretty cool videos, once out they went to the Chicago Cubs. They then had lunch at a food court and boarded the bus to get back home. They reached school by 10pm and then back to home.

Never Have I Ever

Picked this from Visha's blog here This is my list of things that I did get done during this pandemic.
1) Sewed anything on a sewing machine. I was part of a PPE mission and volunteered to stitch masks. I was onboarded the Team, provided with a sewing m/c and lo and behold I was stitiching masks.
2) Made proper breakfast during week-days. It was always cereals and oats. But since mid-March once the kids were home we cooked proper breakfast for the entire year. My cereal and oats packets are lying in the pantry.
3) Eaten only home-made food for 6 months straight.
4) Got to drink wonderful tea made by my son. Credit goes to hubby for teaching him.
5) Stayed together as a family for 2.5 months straight with no other interactions.
6) Had to do home-schooling
7) Owned a home. Yes, we bought a new home in Summer of June 2020
8) Did Online Zoom classes for Fitness
9) Bought a bike fo rmyself and did a lot of biking
10) Started playing badminton in US
11) Taken time off from work to stay at home

Stay at Home Order Dinners

Nov 13th 2020 --A second wave of lockdown in MN so this time decided to call friends for dinner(1-2 family at a time)

Nov 26th Thu - 2 Non-Veg family Dinner Menu:- Chicken Tandoori(baked in oven) --Appetizer Lobster Fry --Appetizer Mutton Curry Prawns curry Chapati Rice Salad
Nov 28th Sat - 1 Veg Family Dinner Menu:- Gopi Fry --Appetizer Puri Panner Capsicum Sabji Pindi Chana Chole Rice

Dec 6th Sun - 1 Non -Veg Family Gobi Fry --Appetizer Salad Mutton Curry Chicken Curry Prawns Curry Chapati Rice Raitha

Dec 12th Sat - 2 veg Family Sev Chaat - Appetizer Gobi Fry --Appetizer Paneer Capsicum Curry Chana Masala Chapati Jeera Fried Rice
Dec 18th Fri - 2 Veg , 1 NV Family Gobi Fry --Appetizer Salad Pita Bread Mutton Curry Rajma Curry Sevai Veg Fried Rice Custard

Corona Updates --Week 4(Apr6-Apr10)

This week on wards Distance Learning was starting for us. Monday morning after my calls, made breakfast and woke up the kids by 10.
Once they were settled in, I sat with the little one to help her go through the videos and activities and with everything being New and all we really had a tough time. I had a shoulder and a backache with sitting with the little one watching videos and doing her activities and by 2, we were done with only 2, 4 more to go ...groan.
But over the days we have learnt and it is a much smoother process now.
The weather was not really great, so we ended up being at home most of the time except for one evening when we went to get some grocery.
The boy has his Piano lesson starting on Zoom and the little one already has her singing classes on Zoom.
She had a meeting with her teacher one of the days and she was pretty excited to talk to her.
The boy has his some friends on ipad and after his school work, he chats and plays games all the time.
For us it is pretty much the same routine in the evenings, workout, bath, cook dinner.
We did cook some gobi manchurian and had some panipuri over the week-end.

Corona Updates --Week 3(Mar30-Apr3)

The 3rd week into the Quarantine period. And this is Spring Week, so the kids were lazed out completely, they slept till 12, woke up, had breakfast, watched T.V, had lunch/snacks and generally had a great time.
Evening we got into a routine of doing family 9 rounds by 5ish. They also started live Zoom lessons which I joined the first 2 classes but then could not keep up to the time of 5pm and we wanted it on T.V , so as a family we did it at our own time.

We went to Riley park one day and since there was no one at the tennis courts we  whacked some tennis balls and generally got some fresh hour. One of the days we also went running around the block.

Chef Jr helped in Egg puff this week and also we played a lot of cards with the boy.
Did 10 mins meditation regularly
That was pretty much for this week, awaiting and dreading next week when Distance Learning will begin.

Corona Updates --Week 2(Mar23-Mar27)

Week 2: With the onset of the Week 2,I decided to things with kids a tad lightly. I decided to give then full access to TV/Ipad, so that they can do whatever they wanted till 5pm and I can do my work.
Ofcourse breakfast.lunch was  given on time :)

It was  a much more relaxful week. I woke up by 8:30 for my call and was done by 10.
The kids woke up after 10 - 10:30 and by that time I cooked breakfast.
Then they watched T.V whereas we went about doing our meetings/work etc.
Lunch was served between 2-3.
Work again till 5pm.
Then we all did our family 9 round workout for 30 mins which got us moving about.
2 days, the weather was really great and we drove to a park nearby which was practically empty and did some running around and playing with the ball.
Returned home to warm baths and tea and then it was nearly time to start cooking for dinner.
Night time watched T.V till way past our midnite.

Some of the things the boy helped in cooking..Matar Paneer/Tava Andha Sukha . Did not click any pics.
We also had panipuri one of the evenings.

I also started doing 10 min meditation from March onwards, it is with a group of friends who hold each other accountable. I am trying to make it a habit and get into a regular schedule