DIY for the reluctant soul

As the quarantine hit, my Instagram explore section finally moved past the wedding outfit and makeup, dogs and food suggestions, to ‘change your life’, dogs and food suggestions. Now, most of these gyaani influencers are busy imparting self-care wisdom to grow your vibe by cutting off negativity and signing up for Amazon Prime, or are describing ways to illuminate yourself from the within using $100 highlighters. Then there are some wanderlust-ful souls that keep posting and re-posting throwback travel pictures to remind people that they have travelled to 800 countries and 8000 cities. Flights may have been grounded, but their insistence on ‘must travel’ has not. Then there are all the cuties who have spent 4 hours whipping up instant coffee, throwing it down the sink, and then getting an order-pick from Stahbucks. Cough *me* cough. Dare we discount the fitness-lovers who post a picture of their Apple Watches and heart rates, only to send our heart rates in a tizzy as we munch on cheese baked cheetos guiltily. But the heart wants what it wants.

Basically, crux of the matter is that if you dont come out of this isolation with 12 trips booked to some obscure countries, 6 inches off your waistline, a bakery start-up, and a new PHD under your belt, then you may as well be eaten by the virus. Be productive or stop wasting space on earth. I started a number of projects positively when the quarantine began. And most of them failed, including the said positivity.

Well, if you don’t want to not-waste space on the planet, but have not been able to lift 5 lbs dumbell more than 3 times a month, or whip Dolgona into perfection, I may have some DIYs to save face when post-isolation, people ask you how you used the time for self-improvement. I don’t guarantee that you will be able to impress anyone with your projects, but they are good to kill time if Netflix isn’t cutting it anymore.

• DIY plants: Carry your pruners or just a scissor in your pockets and walk around the neighborhood. In my neighborhood, there are plenty of houses with plants on the curbside. Maybe ask first and free cuttings to root. If you are scared to ask, just don’t be shady and pray that you don’t show up as a post on the Nextdoor website. That brings us to…
• DIY planters: I was quite obsessed recently and everything I saw, I was turning into a planter in my head. Before I lost interest, I did convert a few broken mugs into pretty succulent pots. Now I am just using yogurt containers.
• DIY coffee: At the beginning of the shutdown, we were gungho about providing business to our local places. I live in a pretty hip area of San Diego and all our cool spots are walking-distance. So we would don our sunglasses and walk down to local cafes and pick up coffees. Then better sense prevailed before each hefty priced latte drained our own budget. Trader Joes has cold brew concentrate that I mix up with Ice, water and half & half. A splash of vanilla extract is great. A damn good iced latte at a fraction of the cost. Nothing will convince me to try Dolgona again. Nope.
• DIY haircut: Experiment on your boyfriend/husband/partner before you try on your hair. Boys’ hair grow easily and they don’t cry if it goes badly. They just wear a hat. Then when you feel ready, give yourself layers and save a few bucks.
• DIY househelp: Grab that sweeper, mop, vacuum and start cleaning your house yourself, filthy animals. Clean your dishes and implement the 24 hour rule for pots and pans and get to them each night. A clean sink helps you sleep better. Make a schedule for even post-covid and stick to it to make your house look like a home and less like a cave. Those who have househelps, you may find out that you are either saving a few hundreds by being able to handle things yourselves, or spending more when you realize that you have been grossly underpaying some good people who clean your sh*t for you!
• DIY workout: Get a foster doggo from a shelter and run behind them all day when they keep grabbing your sock. A great workout! Take them out, run with them, chase balls, play catch! Also use the said doggo and pick them up for hugs and weight-lifting. A child works too if you are into them.
• DIY babies: I do not encourage this one. You can indulge in the process, pretending to create one. But even if you want the final product, remember, that the end result is not guaranteed to be worth it. This is 2020, and I dont trust many good things to come out of this year anymore.
• DIY husband: This is hardwork, and I am still trying to perfect my version.

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Castles in the air

It’s a semi-rainy Thursday in here at work and I can see some sunlight poking out of impossibly fluffy clouds. My boss has left for the weekend and I am somewhat done with what I had to do but not completely done with the project. I want to finish it soon, but as of now, my brain refuses to deal with it. I can imagine a hundred other things that I could be doing right now if I had the liberty to flake at work.

• Food taster : This is the life you guys. Getting paid to go out, eat and review food has to be one of the best professions around. I refuse to pay heed to Debbie Downers who talk about health, fats, monotony and such bland stuff. I would love to do this if I get a chance. Order a bunch of food, taste a bit of everything, and down what you like best. You generally get to try a few courses and get served in the best possible way. After your meal, you get to skip the depressing part where you have to whip out your wallet. Eat, repeat, and bolt. And workout.

• Hair and makeup model : I am an odd person. I absolutely love it when someone is doing something to my hair. Even if they are barely braiding or even just touching my hair, it makes me all happy and tingly. Same goes for someone working on my skin. Aah, bliss. I understand that a lot of beauty and hair bloggers/vloggers need faces and heads to work on. Do think of your homegirl, will ya?

• Dog walker : Dogs. DOGS! Do I even need to explain how much I love the little, or big, furry, or hairy, buns of pure affection? As mommy has strictly asked me not to get one for the next few years, I have to be content with doggie-sitting my friends’ dogs which doesn’t happen often enough. I have looked into a walking service, but my visa won’t quite allow me to get another job even if it’s just paperwork and unpaid. I have looked at volunteering also, and so far things haven’t worked with respect to timings. Hopefully, soon. I look forward to walking puppers, requesting them to poop and then ensuring that they do know ‘Who’s a good boy!’

• Sand castle architect : The one place I look forward to most for the coming summer, is the beach. The warm sand, the blue water, golden sun-rays, useless sunscreen, I look forward to all of that! I think I would be really good at drawing up blueprints of castles and instructing my minions, err, groups of kids, to build them according to the plan. I can make really pretty castles and my mechanical engineering background gives me a good idea about material strength and malleability of sand. So, why not?

• Cocktail artist : I can mix up some basic alcohol and have a general idea of what goes together with what. I have been reading up a bit on mixology and I have a teensy crush on female bartenders. There is a certain badass attitude involved and it gives that extra flair to the profession. I think I can do it. Except the juggling skills, where I will be a disaster, thanks to my total lack of hand-eye coordination.

• Chocolate quality analyist : If there is heaven on earth, it’s not Kashmir, but the Ghirardelli or Lindt factory. Even if all that chocolate kills me, I will be at peace knowing that I passed on with a kick of endorphins. I will gladly accept half of my current paycheck, if it means trying out every piece of new chocolate to come out of those stores. I don’t even want to write anymore about it, because it makes me so misty-eyed and drooly.

I have good alternate career plans to look forward to. But as of now, back to calculating the correct blade exit angle and the velocity profile.

Eye-lash, sigh-lash

 I think I am losing my eye lashes.

I am using this supremely annoying mascara right now, by Benefit. It is not waterproof, but damn hard to remove. I have to use olive oil to wipe it off, but in the process, I am seeing like 3-4 lashes daily on my cotton pad.

I am not even sure if I can make a wish out of mascara-olive-oil-torn-lashes. I should perhaps stop using it.

I have a paranoia about losing my eye lashes. Not that they are super pretty or something. They are just there. Eyelashes. Existing. 😀

But it would be so weird if all of them fall out. Sometimes I scratch my eye and 3-4 lashes come off. It makes me so sad to see nice grown lashes fall off.

I love rubbing my eyes irrespective of them being itchy or not. It feels unimaginably good! But it is so scary that I have to remind myself to stop for I fear that all my eyelashes will fall off. I remember the xBF would rub his eyes really hard for like 10 min. It would look so harsh like he was scrubbing a harshly burnt pan or something. I would get terrified and scream at him to stop. But he just wouldn’t listen and would continue with his eye rubbing. Finally, I had to pry his hands away from his eyes. Each and every time!

I love how some girls have the perfect curled eyelashes. It is do-able with a curler, only if it did not look like a medieval torture device. The worst is, most boys I know have such long, lush, dark lashes. I mean, what is the point! They don’t even need it. I would gladly exchange.

Sighhh. I cant believe I wrote so many sentences on eyelashes. I feel stupid now. It proves how bored I am today. Just ignore this post.