Never put all your eggs in one basket

Never put all your eggs in one basket or never plan ahead of time or always consider 'off-days' when you are planning ahead. These are some of the lessons I have learnt during the last 24 hours. Ask me why....

Well, all of you know that Diwali is just around the corner and for me (I am from Maharashtra) it begins on Thursday with 'Dhanatrayodashi'; which also means that my house has to be clean before that and my kitchen has to produce some sweets and namkeen goodies in time to welcome the 1st day of Diwali.

My plan was perfect: Call in the maid every day starting Monday i.e. today; start preparing the goodies or 'Diwali-faral' (faral loosely translates as snacks) today. and do 2 or 3 items every day so by Thursday I would have a good variety and stock of the 'faral'.

But no.......... things have not happened quite in the same order.

Yesterday we were making the fort for Aaditya to play. Those of you who are not aware of the 'Diwali and fort-connection' here is the background.

As children growing up in Pune, we the parents each had our share of building fortresses (killa), so this year we thought we could introduce the concept to our son. One the fortress is built we place clay statuettes of Shivaji, his army, some villagers etc and basically create a scene for children to enjoy.

So for this fortress we bought 5 Kg of soil, which was insufficient as we started working on the fortress, and we were too tired to go out and buy another bagful of soil. So we went down with a bag and spade and started digging !! and once Amol had done his share, I offered to show him the 'authentic' way of doing it. I bent over and dug out quite a lot, and as I was getting up....my back revolted and started aching like it had never done before...everrrrr...

So last evening and night had become nightmares for me and my poor back :(

Every movement was painful and with great discomfort, finally only some strong ointment helped ease the pain and I also gulped down a Panadol Activefast....

Today morning we rushed to the doctor who prescribed some pain killer and a muscle relaxant...since one dose has gone down into my system I am much better, but I have really learnt a lesson about taking care of my back and the biggest lesson is about exercising and including some stretching into it.