“Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness.”

It’s been years since I wrote a blogpost showing gratitude for the wonderful things in my life. Gratitude is something that I have practiced since my teenage years…

During the initial years of my blogging journey, I got connected with some great and veteran bloggers and one of them was Vidya Sury. She is one of the inspiring and positive women I have met online. I especially love her theme of the blog “collecting smiles” and her “gratitude circle blog hop”. I have written one or two posts for this blog hop before also but I can’t hyperlink those old posts because I lost content when my blog got crashed a few months back. 

Starting with a quick recap of the major happenings of November 2019

Elder one’s birthday

Last month we completed half a decade of parenting. My elder one turned 5 years old. And we celebrated her birthday at her nanu-nani’s place. My inlaws and sister also joined the celebration and my daughter was quite happy to see everyone around. We all reached at mom’s place one night before her birthday and I made sure that I inform everyone what she wanted for her birthday. I made a list of things which she had been telling me to buy for her for quite a while. I removed the ones from the list which were totally unreasonable. The reaction on her face after seeing all her gifts was exactly what I had imagined. On her 5th birthday, I just wanted her to feel special and loved by everyone. She is my first child and I can’t explain in words what she’s to me and for all of us.

Raising her has definitely been a crazy journey for me and hubby. Hubby made sure to give me a bite of cake with his hand and wished me happy ‘5 years of parenting’. We were blushing and felt a little old. Grateful to my family and loved ones for all the love.

Blogger’s meet

Last month, I got a chance to become a part of four meets for four amazing brands. I am grateful to my profession, some amazing people and super platforms like Momspresso who make all this possible. I get to work with brands and meet different people. During Alpenliebe Juzt Jelly meet-up, I met super-talented celebrity Chef Amrita Raichand. I was amazed to see how smoothly she managed kids, us moms and cooking during the session. She made some cool recipes during the meet-up. I will share that here soon. The second brand’s meet was for Havells. Here’s a quick snapshot of the event:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4_3sSMh6Z_/

The third meet was for ‘The Bump To Baby Co.’; it’s an amazing concept for moms-to-be. How I wish — this existed when I was expecting my babies. They are here to make an expectant mom’s journey easy and beautiful; taking care of the holistic development of an unborn child inside a mother.

If you are expecting and wish to know more about them then, just take a tour of their centre: http://www.bumptobabyco.com

The last and the fourth blogger’s meet which I attended was the launch of an international skincare brand in India: Paula’s Choice. There I got to meet the lady behind the brand — Paula Begoun is known as ‘The Cosmetics Cop’. Read on some of the biggest beauty myths which she busted during the launch event of Paula’s Choice skincare products in India.

Blog post on our couple bike trip

During the long Dussehra weekend in October, we materialized the idea of going on a bike trip. The kids were safely handed over to grandparents. This was our second trip on the bike; the first was a very short one-night trip from Chandigarh to Kasauli. That was totally an unplanned one and during that time the elder daughter was tucked between the two of us. This time we wanted to do it all alone sans kids and hubby wanted to travel through the villages of ‘Parvati Valley’. I am glad that finally, I wrote a blog post on it: My experience of visiting Parvati valley in Himachal Pradesh. 

I am grateful to my parents who have always been a rock-solid support for four of us.

Taking the negative energy out

It’s difficult to realize when is the right time to take out negative energy from your life. It can be in the form of emotions, negative people and clutter which you have created in your surroundings and so on. Though a person is quite aware of her surroundings and the emotions which he/she experiences. The most difficult is to realize the existence of negative people in your life, especially the chameleons kind of category; who you thought of your friend but in reality, they were your biggest enemy/ rival. The energy and peace they take out of your life can’t be given back. I am happy that I realized it and made myself away from such energies. I am now happy and grateful that I did it.

The soundest financial decision which I took in my money life

A few months back, I started taking personal finance very seriously and as I read and discussed more, I made a very good decision in my financial life. I understood its importance and thought of sharing my experience with my online tribe. So I wrote a blog post on it: ‘The best protection for you and your family: Term Insurance’. We all are educated a bunch of moms and women; still, most of us lack in managing our financial life. This is what I have realized lately and I am all geared up to take my personal finance knowledge to the next level.

You might also like reading: Financial Independence for Women – The Need of The Hour

That’s all the major happenings of November here. Do share yours.

I am linking this post to Vidya's Gratitude Circle blog hop.