Mixed feelings about 2024

The year 2024 is ending. This was a rollercoaster year for us. There were many pluses, but also many minuses. Let’s unpack the year 2024 in Elfland.

The positives: The kids and I started the year with a bang. We travelled home from India, refreshed and raring to go. Rosie the dog turned 15 in May, which was a milestone that we were not expecting. We spent a few nights at the camp and did our usual things at Elf land. On a personal front, the most significant progress was that I got my stories “The flying boy” and “Animal diaries” edited. “The flying boy” is the only one that is nearing completion and will be self published this year. But that was not all. Tanya and I attempted NaNoWriMo with some good results. I am hoping to have more writings published from the work that came out of NaNoWriMo.

In terms of travel, the girls and I took a trip to Philadelphia. That was short. We couldn’t do more because of Rosie being too old. But the trip was very fun. I went back to India for two weeks in September which was nice too.

A huge change in our lives occurred when Tanya finished school. It was a whirlwind feeling. I didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad about it. After going through a range of emotions, I can say that this is a positive. Tanya took a gap year and will join Penn State to study biology next June. In the meantime, she has taken a seven month course at a local tech school named CPI to study solar tech. Oh ya, and the biggest thing. She got her driver’s license. That was quite an adventure. She is all grown up now, driving to CPI and back.

Leena has many friends at school and is very mature for her age. She is moving along, growing like a weed as usual. Next year I will write about this interesting girl of ours.

Summer was not my favorite. We stayed busy with the graduation and our houses. The street painting was the summer highlight. We also got two new chickens, Oreo and Paisley. Oreo is sweet. Paisley is a runner and won’t warm up to us. But ok, she has good survival instincts!

The negatives: Ok, I promise to keep the negative section smaller than the positive, although that will be tough. We lost three animals. Baby the chicken passed at the age of 8. It was kind of expected, but still sad. Then, finally in October, the dreaded moment came when Rosie got very sick and had to be put down. Though expected, it was painful. We were very used to seeing her pleasant grandma expression. She would no longer play, but she was still there. Her absence is felt by us. Kylo Ren, our other dog, feels it the most. He seems to be bummed out since she has been gone.

Finally, the nasty shock came in terms of Daisy the chicken’s death. Daisy was only 5 and we were not expecting her to die. But a hungry hawk had other plans and got her a couple of weeks ago. It was painful. She was already dead and apart when we found her. Hopefully she didn’t suffer.

The grand finale of negatives was over the last week when Kylo had bad diarrhea and we got scared that we would lose him. We took him to vet emergency. He responded to all the medicines and is back to normal now.

Yesterday Johan fell of a ladder while working on the camper and ended up with two broken ribs. We are super thankful that he is ok otherwise, but it was a very scary situation. He had to go to the emergency room.

Oopsie, looks like the negatives are as much as the positives. I am happy to say goodbye to 2024, and looking forward to our upcoming year 2025. We have big plans for the year, and hopefully will leave the negative energy behind.

All of us are happy and healthy, although Johan has some mending to do. Our family and friends are also doing well. So we have plenty to be thankful for.

Happy new year 2025!

Our Gingerbread houses were messy as ever

September in India and Elfland

September brought it’s share of excitement for me. Once the kids were in school, I took a two week trip to India. I had figured that it was a good time to take off while weather in State College was still ok.

Leaving State College without the girls turned out to be not the easiest thing. The idea of going so far away bore down on me as I drove in the middle of night to Washington DC to catch my flight. Putting my worries aside, I boarded the flight for an 18 hour trip to India via Doha (Qatar airways). Qatar airways was adequate with super short layovers, although this caused some stress on my way back since the flight from Hyderabad to Doha was delayed.

Sis, mom and dad picked me up at the Hyderabad airport. We went to mom’s place. Ganesh puja festival was going on in India. There were statues of Lord Ganesh everywhere. My parents’ apartment complex had one, with cultural events every evening.

My hope was to get some stuff organized for parents so that they would be more comfortable there. I must say I was happy with all the things I was able to do towards that goal in the two weeks. It was a packed schedule with shopping for clothes for mom (and some for the girls to take back with me), buying appliances, managing their paperwork and even getting them to buy tickets to visit us in April next year. I was very pleased with how things went.

Once home, I was thrilled to see all the progress made at home. Leena’s room was finished and painted, which is quite an achievement, since you could see insulation when I had left home. Johan finished insulating, and he and Wayne did drywalling and painting. Amazing. Johan and the girls had also worked hard at cleaning up stuff in various parts of the house and the end result was great! Tanya has an arm band now in kickboxing which means she is ahead of me in class! She seems quite pleased about that!

I have been moving along since back home, trying to get the house organized and my first children’s book going. It should see the light of day next year. Excited about my progress!

Kylo Ren the dog: Hmph! Despite the fact that I am very smart, no one ever asks for my opinion. Did mom ask if I was okay with her leaving and travelling off to some far off place? No! Luckily for Leena I didn’t starve. But let me tell you, my care was less than premium, and I could definitely feel the lowered standards. Once mom was back, I let her know exactly what I thought of her disappearance. A few bites did the trick. With mom, it’s easy. All I have to do is to place my cold and wet nose anywhere on her bare skin. She shrieks and I immediately get the pleasure of exacting my revenge.

Lately I have been getting in trouble for no reason whatsoever. My family says I am too pushy with my snout. But all I do is show love, when it is absolutely necessary. Like the times when Tanya leaves me for two whole minutes. When she comes back, I feel that it is my duty to tell her how much I missed her. But when I try, she gets all mad. Not fair. I bet other dogs aren’t left alone for such long periods of time. Ohh, here comes the Queen bee, Grandma Rosie!

Rosie the dog: What?!! Grandma?! Don’t you forget that you are my husband. That would make you grandpa. Hehe. Actually that makes sense. I am still sassier than you even at the ripe age of 15. Grandpa!

While I have been a happy go lucky 15 year old, lately my family has developed a strange and annoying habit. They like to pick me up in the air. They pick up my entire body and hold me. This is because I have lost a lot of weight, so now they treat me like a stuffed toy or something. But after being suspended in air for a couple of minutes, I remind them that I am no stuffed bunny. I bare my teeth most menacingly and snap and bark viciously. They get alarmed and put me down. I like being down. In fact my favorite position these days is to be as far down as possible, sleeping 22 hours a day outside in the sun. The last two hours are spent eating and barking at random people to incite Kylo into barking.

Oreo the chicken: Hello Rosie. May I have the keyboard? Oh! She is asleep. My turn! Hello, dear readers. I am here to make my debut into the world of blogging. The older hens have been bragging about the wonderful blogs they have written, and the wonderful places that they have visited. Paisley and I turn green with envy, but thankfully, since a lot of our feathers are black in color, the envious green stays hidden. It won’t do to show envy. Our pecking order stats can take a hit!

Let me tell you the story of Paisley and I. We were born and raised in the Bald Eagle area. We are one year old. Although we lived out in the boonies and can be considered to have had an idyllic childhood, reality is far from imagination. We lived with a few other chickens and a couple of nasty roosters. Every day was war. As a result, we have some trust issues. Our owner got some new peeps. One day we heard her talking with her husband that they want to downsize our brood. The hubby looked appetized and we smelt danger! One fine day our owner caught Paisley and me and put us in a dog crate. “This is it”, I thought. We are soup! But life had other plans for us. Soon people came by and took us in plastic containers to a new backyard that had three other chickens. These people named us Paisley and Oreo and wisely kept us separated from those scary older birds. They would try to socialize us by getting us together in the yard. The older hens made several planned attacks on us. However, they were foiled by the humans who sprayed them with a water gun! I am happy to say that I am now well assimilated into the group and am also getting warm and comfortable with the humans. Paisley is a whole different story!

Paisley the chicken: I yell! Yes, that’s my specialty. I let out such a shriek that humans get temporarily disoriented and confused. While they are figuring out what just happened, I use all my evasive and maneuvering skills to get away from the humans.

That said, I do get close to the humans. I am curious about them, but like to play it safe. I am slim and beautiful. I have been told that I have beautiful eyes (ahem). However, my slender build has placed me lowest in the pecking order. Sigh! If not for Oreo, I don’t know if I would ever get any food. Oreo is big. She almost looks like a turkey. Oh I am so glad she is my friend and protector!

February in Elf land

February started off with a mad hair extension craze. Leena went color crazy putting all sorts of extensions in her hair. In her usual zealous way, she took all the hair off her barbie and started re-hairing her. Regrettably, that project is currently on hold. I fear that it is going to need my input before the poor Barbie gets her mane back. While on the topic of incomplete projects, I would like to happily report that my Ganesha art work finally is complete after I stuck the cutout on a black background. This project stood in limbo for two years before I finally got it done. I guess there’s hope for Barbie after all! We did put up a bunch of art work made by the girls. Slowly but surely, we have been moving ahead.

Johan and Tanya made a dog cart for Rosie. Her back paws are now completely unfunctional. Picking her back up for a walk is a heavy task. It is also dangerous for her, since her paws flip while dangling. If the walker is not watching, her paws can end up scratched and bloody. Rosie loved her cart. It has been useful in giving her front end some much needed exercise. She even gave Kylo Ren a chase! It was back to the good ol’ times.

Other than that, it was another month, another car for Elf land. Johan bought a BYD electric car from Lehigh University. Johan, Rosie and I decided to go to pick it up leaving the (elated) kids behind with Kylo Ren. We left one evening and made a little trip out of it. We ate, slept, drove, slept some more and moved until we reached Bethlehem, PA. They had our favorite Waffle shop, so we got to enjoy some grits!

After breakfast, we checked out an electric BYD city bus that Johan was also bidding on. It was nice enough, although a lot of work to make into a camper. We then went to see the car. My friend Sushil lives there, so our plan was to meet up and for me to visit his office and lab while Johan did the paperwork. It went without a hitch. I had a fun time checking out Sushil’s lab. He is a professor at Lehigh Valley.

Once back, we left town as quickly as we could. The drive was uneventful. We came back around 4 pm. The BYD electric car is a nice addition with quite a long range by our standards.

Other than buying vehicles at regular intervals, Tanya has been spending some time behind the wheel learning how to drive. She is learning stick shift on our super cool Mercedes jeep and automatic on our (other super cool) electric car Solectria. In short, life has been chugging along.

Rosie the dog: Well my friends. I am okay with life chugging along, but why, oh why, would one take a 100 year old grandma dog on a road trip? I really don’t need that kind of chugging. But that’s precisely what happened the other day. Just because I looked somewhat eager to get into the van, my mommy and Papa decided to take me along for an overnight trip. I must say, I was pretty rattled, physically and emotionally. I literally trembled for many miles before a familiar smell calmed me down. When my people stepped out of the car, and came in with foody smells, my brain fog cleared and a smell made it’s way into the depths of my memory. That was the smell of sausage. Instantly, I could remember all the times we hit the road, and how my people would come back with meaty treats. Life was not so bad after that. I had a merry old time in the back of the van, howling to my heart’s content and getting all the meaty treats without having to share them with Kylo Ren. I still trembled, but it was more out of excitement than nervousness. Despite all the positives, I was happy when we got home. Home works well for a dog my age. Let’s hope my humans don’t plan anymore such adventures.

Kylo Ren the dog: I don’t have much to report about this month. But my life was not devoid of excitement. Tanya took me inside a store! We walked through the dog aisle and my eyes popped out! Here were rows of treats at my snout’s reach! Oh, if only I didn’t have the awful muzzle on, I could have eaten my bellyful. Unfortunately, it was not to be (sigh). One good thing was that I did get a pig ear on my way out by the generous store people. The bad thing is, I don’t like pig ears. I am a civilized dog and don’t appreciate such barbaric treats. I did eat it though. It wasn’t too bad (yum).