DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR... STOP AND REST FOR A WHILE...

I bet most of you had a great Christmas. In our school times, we get a holiday season for Christmas. When I was doing my degree too, we had a 2 month vacation period covering November and December. But what about all the working people? (including me too). We have to work 24/7 and we can’t take our time off for what you call as a holiday season. But this time I was able to take 10 days off my work to stay home for Christmas. We were working endlessly from May, dedicating weekends and other holidays for work, plus working long hours. Everyone in our team took a break within November and December. My holidays started in mid December. Great!

Some people say, “Staying at home is boring!”. Well… Let me tell you the 1000 things you can do, staying at home, and you tell me whether it’s boring or not ok? Why don’t all you busy people take a break from your heavy schedule and do yourselves a favor? Stay at home.. rest a few days…relax… Let me tell you about the best thing about it. You go to sleep everyday without the thought that you have to get up the very next morning and you have to go to work! So… here I start the rest of it!

You can start the day by getting up in the early morning, watching the morning sky and listening to the choir of birds. Go out and smell the beauty of the morning and the sweet fragrance of the blossoming flowers. You can’t do this everyday guys, cz you get up late, struggling to go to work.

A good morning exercise will do well on you. The toughness in your lazy muscles definitely goes away. You will feel the difference, believe me.

A good home-spa experience is the next thing you need. A bath in the morning keeps your whole day fresh and happy. Since you’re in no hurry to rush to work, have a good bath. When you’re done, the smell of the shower gel in your body and the smell of shampoo in your hair will give you a wonderful feeling.

The morning tea and breakfast. You don’t have to gobble it up and run away. You can just relax and “actually” taste your breakfast.

I actually bought some movies to watch; most of them, new movies. I’m a movie addict; I should tell you. You can watch a movie a day. Keeps your spirit in good shape. Well.. I still have 17 more to watch.

What’s the last time you called your old school friends? This is the best chance to call them up coz you can’t call them up in the middle of your work and have a free chat. I did call my old friends, located lost ones, heard the latest gossip and renewed the friendship.

What has become of your old photo albums? Didn’t have a look for a long time? I went through all our family albums these days. How skinny I was in those days, with waist length long hair. How small my brother was then! The guy is growing taller and taller now! How chubby my sister was then, my god. Grandma has grown much older now. I saw a different grandma with black hair in our albums. All those trips! It’s good to remember all those things again. It’s quite a nice thing to do. The photos since you were a toddler till the day you bought a digital camera! (Because most of your photos taken from the digicam are in your computer, isn’t it guys?). I say, why don’t you scan theses old photos and keep them in your PC as well. Now, that’s a good idea, isn’t it?

Did you ever write a diary? Well… I have travel logs as well. This time, I took out all my diaries and read each one f them from start to end. It’s like reading a novel: a real life novel. School.. friends… trips… movies I watched… the new songs…. guys in tution classes…. cousins…weddings.. parties… outings.. campus life… ex-boyfriend… the breakup… tears… happy moments… my job… everything was there! Isn’t it great to turn back once in a while and give yourself a flashback of your life? When you get a chance like this.. please do it.

It’s the Christmas season. There’s a lot on TV! Christmas cartoons and Christmas movies!! There’s aplenty! I usually don’t watch TV. But this time I did. There was a kiddies movie everyday at 8 in the morning. So, if you’re watching it, you have to get up early, brush, have a bath and finish breakfast. You don’t get times like these everyday my friend.

You can surf the net freely, cz when you’re at work, you can’t waist time doing it. It’s a perfect time to download some good movies and songs. You can type a mail to a long lost friend, rather than sending him/her a forwarded mail. Life is about keeping the bonds with loved ones. Never hesitate a moment to call, sms, chat or e-mail a friend whenever you can.

I went through all my “collections” these days. The 1st thing was my old songbooks. (When I was a teenager of cause!) Songs with pictures of singers, with beautiful decorations. Cool! I guess you guys still have them with you. Never throw them away ok? Keep then as memories. The next thing was my “Birds” books. I used to collect feathers when I was schooling. A description of the bird, the feather and a picture of the bird was in each page. There were feathers of Ostriches and Emus in it. I read them all over again. My CD collection came next. It was a great jumble of songs, pictures and documents. I arranged them neatly in the PC. The other thing was my paper cutting collection. There were articles and pictures I have collected since I was very small. Various places in the world.. places to visit in Sri Lanka… movies… actors.. actresses… animals… scientific stuff.. expeditions… historical facts…etc.. I realized how Tom Cruise has grown old after seeing his pictures in the movies “A Few Good Men”… Gracious! How good he looked then!

You could have a great time going out with your friends and visiting them. When you’re at work. Even your weekdays are booked with other stuff. Go out for a lunch or a dinner when you have the chance. How about a pj party?

Listen to some good music… Feels good!

Girls, you can try out a few good dishes. It’s fun. Guess what! I’m going to make cheese stuffed baked macaroni with chicken tomorrow! I don’t usually cook at home, but I can manage. Tomorrow is the January 1st. So, definitely there will be a special dinner tomorrow night. I’m just thinking what else to make. Goodness! Now that I remembered it; there’s a tin of sweetened milk in the cupboard and we didn’t make caramel wedges for a long long time.

You can do well with an evening walk. The sun is almost down and the surrounding is also inviting, so.. why not take a walk around the neighborhood? This is the last week my sister is staying at home with us. She’ll have to go to the University again this January. So, we had a chance to walk around. As usual, the neighbor’s dog joined. He’s our trusted protector, good old Brown. We played a bit of badminton too. Good exercise, you know.

There’s always work around the house. So.. you can help. Guys? Yes… guys too. Guys are not from Mars, right? So you can help as well. There was this end-of-the-year-cleaning-campaign and I helped a lot. Don’t do it as a good deed ok? That’s something you should do. That’s right. A “must” thing. Anyways, one question out of the topic: My brother’s room is a total mess. The table to the bed! Are all guys the same? Just be honest and tell me OK?

When your parents come home, You’re at home to greet them and talk to them. In fact, you can have a family chat with everyone at home. Now, when I think of the time of work, all I do is coming home at the late hours of the day, having a bath and squeezing myself to my room.

The last hours of the day are the time I like best. Time to read! Yes. I’m a bookworm. I love to cuddle myself up in the bed and read a book till I feel sleepy. When the book is very interesting, I forget to feel sleepy too. I lost track of reading books when I became busy with my higher studies. I don’t have much time to read now too. But I manage to find time to read everyday. Right now, there are 8 more unread books on my table. I can’t fall asleep at night if I don’t read something! Yesterday, I finished reading Stephen King’s “The Stand”. It was a classic masterpiece. Ok… I’ll talk about Stephen King some other time. Let’s just stick to our topic.

Well guys, those were some of the things you can do during a holiday. Did I forget to mention trips? Hell! No… The thing is… during the last 1 and half months, I had the chance to roam a bit around the country.. ( Habarana, Anuradhapura, Galle and Kandy)… So… enough trips for the time being I guess. Today is 31st of December 2007. It’s 7.15 P.M. and I can already hear the sound of crackers outside. My mom is making “Kokis” now. I have t go and help her. I’m glad that I ended this year in a good way… spending some quality time at home peacefully and sharing my thoughts with you all. So…Happy New Year everybody!! Hope you enjoyed my writings!