Back in the Saddle Again (with a chicken-delivery app!)

Jet lag and stomach bug behind me, I feel like I can get back to normal. New normal, that is...with more apps, shorter nap time for my kids and much more dust than I remember from 6 months ago.

People often ask what my daily life is like. Well, today I had an extra-productive homemaker kind of day (again, calibrated to my new normal standards).

Today I: 
1) checked out a new crossfit gym. My weight in kgs always makes me happier than in pounds.
2) procured sausage, bacon and pork roast from the pork shop. Yes, they butcher it on a stump. Yes, we saw a "really cool beetle" (cockroach) outside the door. Yes, I had to walk behind my children single-file on a concrete plank spanning the 3-foot-deep gutter to get to the shop. But I take pride in the fact that they have refrigerators.
3) ordered (and was delivered!) chicken from a new app called "licious". No, I do not like the name. But the chicken came in a cooler! (and yes, this deserves exclamation).
4) washed a bushel's worth of fruit and veggies. Bleach + filtered water = no worms!
5) laundered 4 loads of clothes (although, my washing machine is tiny so it's like 1.5 loads in an American front-loader).
6) installed a new ceiling fan. Ok. I watched the electrician install it. But I cleaned the blades (oh. my. so much dust!) and responded to "Madam?" 13 times while home-schooling. "Yes, I see the fan is a little slower." "No, sweetie. Start from the dotted line and then make a loop." "So, the fan works now?" "Right. Good. No...wait a second. Your "b" is backwards."
7) hired a new house-helper. In this culture, you have a helper to mop, wash dishes and occasionally make chai for 20 people. It's incredibly...well, helpful. In broken English and Hindi, Saraswarthi and I embarked on a what could be a beautiful friendship!


Absent are the keeping-the-children-alive things, cooking wholesome meals and living to blog about it. But I am back to what normal life for me is here. See that (brought over in my suitcase) candle there? It's "home sweet home" scent. I'm feeling it, apps and all.

Jet Lag: Wake Me When It's Over

This is no joke.

For the fourth time, I have left my home-passport country and traveled the grueling 20-something hour flight to this foreign land. Brian always says the flight is going to be "bad or really bad." He's a realist.

This trip wasn't all that bad. Three kids slept an appropriate amount. Everyone's in-flight headphones worked. We had enough diapers, melatonin and snacks. Our lay-over in London put us at a gate next door to a comfy Starbucks! John picked us up for the airport, where we got ALL our bags and enjoyed weather cooler than Atlanta.

We got home Thursday morning, dusted off the forgotten toys, made everyone scrambled eggs and took a recovery 3-hour nap.

7 hours later...we woke up. Hey, no guilt in that. First day is survivor mode. Don't you know, "East is beast, west is best?" And we just traveled significantly east. We ate dinner (lunch?) and went to bed again at 8pm.

Let me not bore you with a detailed timeline of the continued-stubborn-wakefulness and irresistible slumber that plagued the five of us (seemingly at five completely different circadian rhythms) for the next week. Not that I could accurately recount it. But let me say it always involved someone "hung-y", someone singing to her stuffed animals, someone yelling "stop it!" and much ignorance of our doorbell.

On day 4, I went down with a welcome-back stomach bug. (I was wondering how I would lose my American comfort-food happy pounds.) I meekly sipped Gatorade and a battled the bug with a Z-pack. I awoke 24 hours later..... to Brian sleeping beside me and the house quiet. It was 3pm. Where are the kids? I hear a text on my phone and scroll past the many "How are you feeling now?"s to see "Tell Brian I can keep the kids longer. They are doing great!" from
Maggie. Well, (seriously!) praise the Lord! Because I don't think Brian could have actually awoke to get them unless he had a good 2-hour warning.

Spoiler alert: This post has no moral. I'm not doling out advice on jet lag recovery. Simply recounting the "beastliness" of it all. Today, day 8, we are doing almost normal. Ok, Brian took a nap and went to bed at 8:59 (almost made it to 9!). I'm doing great. At least that's what my 2-hour-ago espresso is telling me.