February Gratitude-2025

“Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy” – Jacques Maritain

February has been a fabulous month, filled with a lot of activities, excitement of meeting my ex colleagues,  some of them meeting after a decade some who are on and off to the city.  Today as the month ends I want to be grateful for this shortest month of year, which just slipped by. There are so many things I want to be thankful for; but I will just high light as much as I can here to continue my gratitude journey in my life. 

So here goes my list:

Two of my colleagues from the previous organization were in the city; Satish came from the US and Annie came from UK. We were all happy for them; it’s been a long time and soon they started connecting with everyone and decided for a lunch meet and there we were celebrating one another’s lives, and our admin lead Merle was celebrating her  birthday which added to joy  to this occasion, so we had cut a cake, sang for her and posed for pictures with her. It was great to be with everyone as we had shared a bond working together for more than a decade in the organization and we were family, ready to gather, stay connected and kept it touch. I am grateful that we could be together and have some fun in the beginning of this month.

This month there was an industrial exhibition in the city; called the Numaish, which is a place wherein we can get to see a lot of shops, variety of it and all types of stall, food, eateries, fun toy train and plenty of shops which attracts women. I remember as a child my mother used to take us and we would just move around, eat an ice cream, some snacks, pick up small little earrings, bangles, and fancy purses and mom would pick up something for home like bed sheets, colorful artificial flowers, vases, table cloth and sometime utensils too.

I went along with Dorothy was happy to accompany, and Diana too wanted to join with her mom (my sister in-law Mary).– It was first time for Diana, she was excited and we sat in the toy train that took us around exhibition where we could get to see all the shops, the play area and covering the total area. Dorothy brought kulfi for me and chocolate ice cream for all of us, I loved the kulfi as it was very delicious and they enjoyed the chocolate ice-cream. We moved around some shops picked up small little things like fancy hair clips, some eateries like the  ragi pappads, and some fancy sling bags. As it was late we also had our dinner there and returned hope feeling glad for this outing.

I believe in lifelong learning and prefer to be  a student for life; hence enrolled myself last year for one year course in Nutrition and Health Education. As a part of this course there is small research paper which I am expected to submit. I am grateful for the two schools that permitted me to collect some data for my research from the high school students, in my local area. I am grateful for the students who filled in the needed information, which I am now following up to complete by March. 

I got my Certificates –Master’s in Philosophy with first class marks; a Certificate for completing my Diploma in YOGA. I am happy that I could complete this academically and upgrade my skills, as both the certification is important in my counseling practice. I am grateful for my professors, yoga gurus who have helped us with learning concepts and also gave practical lessons.

Philosophy has enabled me to deepen my own faith in the divine and also helped me understand other faiths, the philosophy behind their beliefs and practices. I am glad to be certified for Yoga as I am practicing it in my daily life.

I also teach my students and clients simple stretches (Micro Yoga) & breathing exercises – to deal with anxiety, concentration, study stress, anger management etc these learnings and skills gives me a holistic way of  dealing with the students/ clients.

This month our college mates celebrated Indra’s birthday as we could not meet her on that day –we went to a place where we could sit for a longer time and enjoy our meal as well as the company of one another. This meeting was important as she has retired from service and now exploring ways to keep herself occupied and as friends we wanted to appreciate her for all that she has accomplished in so many years as a Government officer.

I am grateful for the Galantine’s day celebrated at the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) Secunderabad. The purpose was to meet the other members, share our experiences – of the South East Region Conference held at Ooty. The programme committee organized games and fun and it was a time to bond and nurture sisterhood.  I am glad that I could join and meet the  other members have fun, clicked some pictures and enjoyed the snacks.

There were also small little surprises that just happen randomly; I had a student visiting me to thank me for some work I did – editing her thesis and she was so happy and grateful she came with a popular cream bread, called the Bunmuska. I was so happy that she suddenly stopped by with this delicious popular Bun muska from a well known Nilofur Café. She got one for Dorothy too as she wanted me to taste the whole bun. I am grateful for these moments …

This month I together with Dorothy were invited for a sleepover at a friend’s house – but since Dorothy is busy and working, we could not make it so we agreed for a lunch and then after lunch, we decided to visit the nearby theatre and watched a telugu comedy, it was a light humor, and on another occasion I went out with my friends to watch Chava – it was a a historic movie, and the cast was perfect and the dialogues meaningful.

But I could not watch comfortably as it had a lot of violence straight two and half hours.  Normally I never like to see too much of violence in the movies…. So I waited for the movie to end and was constantly distracted as I did not want to see violence on a bigger screen.  I thank God I had a friend so we could interact and keep ourselves busy interacting with each other.

This month I am saddened by the death of my bosses mother – she was 90 years old and  died peacefully after having a cup of tea and snacks, complained of breathlessness. I used to visit her on and off and she was such a noble, sensitive, calm and soft spoken person. I would always meet her when I visited my boss at her residence. Death is painful no matter what is the age of the person – and it’s a reminder that our lives too are temporary and it’s so important to live  life of gratitude..

This month ended with me visiting the Center for Advanced Faculty Training – Community Science – PJTSAU(Professor Jaishanker Telangana s Agricultural University) for a Guest Lecture on Counseling and Types of Counseling – for all the faculty, Assistant Professors from the country. I was filled with awe when I reached, 30kms from my residence and beautiful campus- huge with lots of trees and well maintained campus. It was great to interact with the enthusiastic participants and they had lot of queries, I enjoyed responding to them and at the end of the  session the positive feedback  made me  happy and I returned home with gratitude.

I am grateful that two months of 2025 has gone and the Lord has been kind and faithful in everything that has gone by in the past. I look forward for this month and believe that it will a great  month and the Lord who brought me this far shall continue to lead me and empower me to walk with faith, hope and gratitude.

Thanking you for reading my post J

Be Blessed & Be Happy !