For those who have stumbled on my blog just today, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year wherein I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!
This week I had one new experience in my kitty plus one new tradition started. Thanksgiving is round the corner and I thought let me blend a little in the American culture too! To be frank, I just did not want the festive mood of Diwali to fade off and hence I thought let's continue with the festive mood with Thanksgiving now and then Christmas :)
I gave a speech on 'My Gratitude Tree' last week in one of the Advanced Toastmasters Club called Palm Beach Advanced Toastmasters. It was my first time that I was a guest speaker in some another club. The theme was Thanksgiving and there was a great spread of food available. I spoke about how a decision I made early this year has changed my entire perspective towards life! Inculcating gratitude in my life has been the greatest virtues in my life, undoubtedly the redifining moment of my life.
I mentioned how this year gratitude has helped me at all fronts - I am happy always, my health is great, my relationships are blooming and my career is flourishing. What else do I need in my life? All of it only because I decided to be thankful each single day and not just during Thanksgiving or Christmas.
The best part I liked about this club was that after my speech and the normal evaluation of my speech, the dias was opened for feedback from everyone in the audience. I got such thoughtful insights and some constructive feedback from the audience which has helped me to improve myself. What touched my heart was people saying they could connect with my story and were motivated enough now to include Gratitude in their life every single day from now on. I think I accomplished my goal of spreading gratitude that day!
The other tradition which we started this year was 'Friendsgiving'. So 3 of us - Gauri, Neha and me decided to have a Friendsgiving lunch together on Friday. The food spread consisted of hot fulkas, pointed gourd vegetable (potol in Bengali, parwal in Hindi), spicy Mutter Paneer (This was on Gauri's demand who eats too spicy food) and mix dal. All of this was prepared by Neha who was our host. The food was later followed by the dessert of gulab jabun!
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| The photo is not that great because we just wanted to dive into the good food! |
Neha is an awesome cook and this food spread was just delightful. It reminded us of our home and mom. The taste of the food still lingers on my tongue :)
After lunch we did a fun thing. We mentioned 2 things about each other which we adore the most. Here is the gist:
For Neha, it was unanimously called upon that she is very caring just like a mother. She will scold you like a mother, instruct you like a mother and even love you like a mother! The second thing mentioned was her talkative nature which livens up any social gathering. Another virtue which came up was that she is a smart woman, finding solutions to many problems. You give her any topic, she will contribute in an intelligent manner and not just superfluous participation.
When it came to Gauri, both of us said that she is a very diligent girl and she does everything with full dedication. Remember the faral spread she prepared this Diwali? The other thing is she is very energetic, oozing with vitality all throughout the day. And lastly, her friendly nature. She is almost everyone's friend in our Community. Her amiable nature makes her a good friend!
For me, they said what impresses them the most is my positive nature! They said speaking with me they get motivated and feel that life indeed is beautiful :) The second thing was that I am disciplined. I am not sure how it came up in the good things list though ;) I am not exactly disciplined but finicky about certain things to be a certain way! I can see my husband laughing loudly at this statement!! Ok, ok ... I am a little rigid and disciplined.
An eventful week! 5 more weeks to go, I still don't believe that I have come so far on this journey of 52 weeks of adventure!
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